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A zombie (
Haitian French Haitian French ( ; ) is the variety of French language, French spoken in Haiti. Haitian French is close to standard French. It should be distinguished from Haitian Creole, which is not Mutual intelligibility, mutually intelligible with French. ...
: ; ;
Kikongo Kongo or Kikongo is one of the Bantu languages spoken by the Kongo people living in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the Republic of the Congo, Gabon, and Angola. It is a tonal language. The vast majority of present-day speakers li ...
: ''zumbi'') is a
mythological Myth is a genre of folklore consisting primarily of narratives that play a fundamental role in a society. For scholars, this is very different from the vernacular usage of the term "myth" that refers to a belief that is not true. Instead, the ...
undead The undead are beings in mythology, legend, or fiction that are deceased but behave as if they were alive. A common example of an undead being is a cadaver, corpse reanimated by supernatural forces, by the application of either the deceased's o ...
corporeal Corporeal may refer to: *Matter (corporeal, or actual, physical substance or matter), generally considered to be a substance (often a particle) that has rest mass and (usually) also volume *Human body, Body, of or relating to the body *Corporeal ( ...
revenant In folklore, a revenant is a spirit or animated corpse that is believed to have been revived from death to haunt the living. The word ''revenant'' is derived from the Old French word (see also the related French verb ). Revenants are part o ...
created through the
reanimation Reanimation may refer to: * Reanimation (facial surgery) * Reanimation (science fiction), reanimation of the dead, as in Frankenstein * Reanimated collaboration, Reanimated collaborations, a type of collaborative Fan labor, fan-made animation proj ...
of a
corpse A cadaver, often known as a corpse, is a dead human body. Cadavers are used by medical students, physicians and other scientists to study anatomy, identify disease sites, determine causes of death, and provide tissue to repair a defect in a li ...
. In modern popular culture, zombies appear in
horror genre Horror is a genre of speculative fiction that is intended to disturb, frighten, or scare an audience. Horror is often divided into the sub-genres of psychological horror and supernatural horror. Literary historian J. A. Cuddon, in 1984, defin ...
works. The term comes from Haitian folklore, in which a ''zombie'' is a dead body reanimated through various methods, most commonly magical practices in religions like Vodou. Modern media depictions of the reanimation of the dead often do not involve magic but rather science fictional methods such as
fungi A fungus (: fungi , , , or ; or funguses) is any member of the group of eukaryotic organisms that includes microorganisms such as yeasts and mold (fungus), molds, as well as the more familiar mushrooms. These organisms are classified as one ...
,
radiation In physics, radiation is the emission or transmission of energy in the form of waves or particles through space or a material medium. This includes: * ''electromagnetic radiation'' consisting of photons, such as radio waves, microwaves, infr ...
,
gases Gas is a state of matter that has neither a fixed volume nor a fixed shape and is a compressible fluid. A ''pure gas'' is made up of individual atoms (e.g. a noble gas like neon) or molecules of either a single type of atom ( elements such ...
,
diseases A disease is a particular abnormal condition that adversely affects the structure or function of all or part of an organism and is not immediately due to any external injury. Diseases are often known to be medical conditions that are asso ...
,
plants Plants are the eukaryotes that form the kingdom Plantae; they are predominantly photosynthetic. This means that they obtain their energy from sunlight, using chloroplasts derived from endosymbiosis with cyanobacteria to produce sugars f ...
,
bacteria Bacteria (; : bacterium) are ubiquitous, mostly free-living organisms often consisting of one Cell (biology), biological cell. They constitute a large domain (biology), domain of Prokaryote, prokaryotic microorganisms. Typically a few micr ...
,
viruses A virus is a submicroscopic infectious agent that replicates only inside the living cells of an organism. Viruses infect all life forms, from animals and plants to microorganisms, including bacteria and archaea. Viruses are found in almo ...
, etc. Zombies are real-life individuals in Haiti who have undergone a religious punishment called zombification for committing crimes such as rape or land theft. They are drugged, buried alive, exhumed and then enslaved by secret societies in Haiti. This practice became the basis for the zombie myth of a resurrected corpse. The English word "zombie" was first recorded in 1819 in a history of Brazil by the poet
Robert Southey Robert Southey (; 12 August 1774 – 21 March 1843) was an English poet of the Romantic poetry, Romantic school, and Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom, Poet Laureate from 1813 until his death. Like the other Lake Poets, William Wordsworth an ...
, in the form of "zombi"."Zombie"
in
Oxford English Dictionary The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (''OED'') is the principal historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press (OUP), a University of Oxford publishing house. The dictionary, which published its first editio ...
Online , accessed 23 May 2014. The quotation cited is: "Zombi, the title whereby he hief of Brazilian nativeswas called, is the name for the Deity, in the Angolan tongue."
Dictionaries trace the word's origin to African languages, relating to words connected to gods, ghosts and souls. One of the first books to expose Western culture to the concept of the voodoo zombie was W. B. Seabrook's ''
The Magic Island ''The Magic Island'' is a book by American explorer and traveler William Seabrook. First published in 1929 by Harcourt, Brace & Company, ''The Magic Island'' is an account of Seabrook's experiences with Haitian Vodou in Haiti, and is considere ...
'' (1929), the account of a narrator who encounters voodoo cults in
Haiti Haiti, officially the Republic of Haiti, is a country on the island of Hispaniola in the Caribbean Sea, east of Cuba and Jamaica, and south of the Bahamas. It occupies the western three-eighths of the island, which it shares with the Dominican ...
and their resurrected thralls. A new version of the zombie, distinct from that described in Haitian folklore, emerged in popular culture during the latter half of the 20th century. This interpretation of the zombie, as an undead person that attacks and eats the flesh of living people, is drawn largely from George A. Romero's film ''
Night of the Living Dead ''Night of the Living Dead'' is a 1968 American Independent film, independent zombie horror film directed, photographed, and edited by George A. Romero, written by Romero and John A. Russo, John Russo, produced by Russell Streiner and Karl Har ...
'' (1968), which was partly inspired by
Richard Matheson Richard Burton Matheson (February 20, 1926 – June 23, 2013) was an American author and screenwriter, primarily in the fantasy, horror, and science fiction genres. He is best known as the author of '' I Am Legend'', a 1954 science ficti ...
's novel '' I Am Legend'' (1954).Deborah Christie, Sarah Juliet Lauro, ed. (2011)
Better Off Dead: The Evolution of the Zombie as Post-Human
Fordham University Press. p. 169. , 9780823234479.
The word ''zombie'' is not used in ''Night of the Living Dead'', but was applied later by fans. Following the release of such
zombie films A zombie film is a film genre. Zombies are fictional creatures usually portrayed as reanimated corpses or virally infected human beings. They are commonly portrayed as cannibalistic in nature. While zombie films generally fall into the horror g ...
as '' Dawn of the Dead'' (1978) and ''
The Return of the Living Dead ''The Return of the Living Dead'' is a 1985 American comedy horror film written and directed by Dan O'Bannon (in his directorial debut) from a story by Rudy Ricci, John Russo, and Russell Streiner, and starring Clu Gulager, James Karen, ...
'' (1985)—the latter of which introduced the concept of zombies that eat brains—as well as
Michael Jackson Michael Joseph Jackson (August 29, 1958 – June 25, 2009) was an American singer, songwriter, dancer, and philanthropist. Dubbed the "King of Pop", he is regarded as Cultural impact of Michael Jackson, one of the most culturally significan ...
's music video '' Thriller'' (1983), the genre waned for some years. The mid-1990s saw the introduction of ''
Resident Evil ''Resident Evil'', known as in Japan, is a Japanese horror game series and media franchise created by Capcom. It consists of survival horror, third-person shooter and first-person shooter games, with players typically surviving in environments ...
'' and ''
The House of the Dead ''The House of the Dead'' is a horror-themed light gun shooter video game franchise created by Sega in 1996. Originally released in arcades, it utilizes a light gun on the platform, but can be played with standard controllers on consoles and a ...
'', two break-out successes of video games featuring zombie enemies which would later go on to become highly influential and well-known. These games were initially followed by a wave of low-budget Asian zombie films such as the
zombie comedy Zombie comedy, often called zom com or zomedy, is a film genre that aims to blend zombie horror motifs with slapstick comedy as well as morbid humor. History The earliest roots of the genre can be found in Jean Yarbrough's '' King of the Zom ...
'' Bio Zombie'' (1998) and action film ''
Versus Versus (Latin, 'against') may refer to: Film and television * ''Versus'' (2000 film), a Japanese zombie film * ''Versus'' (2016 film), a Russian sports drama film * ''Versus'' (2019 film), a French thriller film * Versus (TV channel), form ...
'' (2000), and then a new wave of popular Western zombie films in the early 2000s, the ''
Resident Evil ''Resident Evil'', known as in Japan, is a Japanese horror game series and media franchise created by Capcom. It consists of survival horror, third-person shooter and first-person shooter games, with players typically surviving in environments ...
'' and ''House of the Dead'' films, the 2004 ''Dawn of the Dead'' remake, and the British zombie comedy ''
Shaun of the Dead ''Shaun of the Dead'' is a 2004 zombie comedy film directed by Edgar Wright and written by Wright and Simon Pegg. Pegg stars as Shaun, a downtrodden London salesman who is caught alongside his loved ones in a zombie apocalypse. It also star ...
'' (2004). The "
zombie apocalypse Zombie apocalypse is a subgenre of apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction in which society collapses due to overwhelming swarms of zombies. Usually, only a few individuals or small bands of human survivors are left living. There are many d ...
" concept, in which the civilized world is brought low by a global zombie infestation, has since become a staple of modern zombie media, seen in such media as ''The Walking Dead'' franchise. The late 2000s and 2010s saw the humanization and romanticization of the zombie archetype, with the zombies increasingly portrayed as friends and love interests for humans. Notable examples of the latter include movies '' Warm Bodies'' and ''
Zombies A zombie (Haitian French: ; ; Kikongo: ''zumbi'') is a mythological undead corporeal revenant created through the reanimation of a corpse. In modern popular culture, zombies appear in horror genre works. The term comes from Haitian folklore ...
'', novels ''
American Gods ''American Gods'' (2001) is a fantasy novel by British author Neil Gaiman. The novel is a blend of Americana (culture), Americana, fantasy, and various strands of ancient and modern mythology, all centering on the mysterious and taciturn Shad ...
'' by
Neil Gaiman Neil Richard MacKinnon Gaiman (; born Neil Richard Gaiman; 10 November 1960) is an English author of short fiction, novels, comic books, audio theatre, and screenplays. His works include the comic series ''The Sandman (comic book), The Sandma ...
, ''
Generation Dead ''Generation Dead'' is a young adult supernatural romance novel by Daniel Waters.Bone Song'' by
John Meaney John Meaney (born 1957 in London) is a British science fiction author. Biography Meaney grew up in London and Slough, England with his brother Colm (who is not the same as the Star Trek actor Colm Meaney). He has studied martial arts since chil ...
, animated movie ''
Corpse Bride ''Corpse Bride'' (also known as ''Tim Burton's Corpse Bride'') is a 2005 stop-motion-animated fantasy musical film, directed by Mike Johnson (in his directorial debut) and Tim Burton from a screenplay by John August, Caroline Thompson, and ...
'', TV series '' iZombie'' and ''
Santa Clarita Diet ''Santa Clarita Diet'' is an American comedy horror television series created by Victor Fresco for the streaming service Netflix, starring Drew Barrymore and Timothy Olyphant. Fresco serves as the showrunner, and is an executive producer alon ...
'', manga series '' Sankarea: Undying Love'', and the light novel ''
Is This a Zombie? , also known as for short, is a Japanese light novel series by Shinichi Kimura, with illustrations by Kobuichi and Muririn. Since January 2009, 19 volumes have been published by Fujimi Shobo under their Fujimi Fantasia Bunko imprint. There ...
'' In this context, zombies are often seen as stand-ins for discriminated groups struggling for equality, and the human–zombie romantic relationship is interpreted as a metaphor for sexual liberation and taboo breaking (given that zombies are subject to wild desires and free from social conventions).


Etymology

In Haitian folklore, a ''zombie'' (
Haitian French Haitian French ( ; ) is the variety of French language, French spoken in Haiti. Haitian French is close to standard French. It should be distinguished from Haitian Creole, which is not Mutual intelligibility, mutually intelligible with French. ...
: , ) is an animated corpse raised by magical means, such as
witchcraft Witchcraft is the use of Magic (supernatural), magic by a person called a witch. Traditionally, "witchcraft" means the use of magic to inflict supernatural harm or misfortune on others, and this remains the most common and widespread meanin ...
. The English word "zombie" is first recorded in 1819, in a history of Brazil by the poet
Robert Southey Robert Southey (; 12 August 1774 – 21 March 1843) was an English poet of the Romantic poetry, Romantic school, and Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom, Poet Laureate from 1813 until his death. Like the other Lake Poets, William Wordsworth an ...
, in the form of "zombi", actually referring to the Afro-Brazilian rebel leader named
Zumbi Zumbi ( – November 20, 1695), also known as Zumbi dos Palmares (), was a Brazilian quilombola leader and one of the pioneers of resistance to enslavement of Africans by the Portuguese in colonial Brazil. He was also the last of the kings of ...
and the etymology of his name in "nzambi". The ''
Oxford English Dictionary The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (''OED'') is the principal historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press (OUP), a University of Oxford publishing house. The dictionary, which published its first editio ...
'' gives the origin of the word as Central African and compares it to the
Kongo Kongo may refer to: Kongo culture *Kingdom of Kongo *Kongo cosmogram *Kongo language or Kikongo, one of the Bantu languages *Kongo languages *Kongo people *Kongo religion Places * Kongo, Ghana, a town in Ghana *Kongo Central, formerly Bas-Cong ...
words "" (god) and "" (fetish).Peter Laws, ''The Frighteners: Why We Love Monsters, Ghosts, Death & Gore'', Icon Books, 2018 Doris L Garraway, ''The Libertine Colony: Creolization in the Early French Caribbean'',
Duke University Press Duke University Press is an academic publisher and university press affiliated with Duke University. It was founded in 1921 by William T. Laprade as The Trinity College Press. (Duke University was initially called Trinity College). In 1926 ...
, 2005
A
Kimbundu Kimbundu, a Bantu language which has sometimes been called Mbundu or North Mbundu (to distinguish it from Umbundu, sometimes called South Mbundu), is the second-most-widely-spoken Bantu language in Angola. Its speakers are concentrated in the n ...
-to-Portuguese dictionary from 1903 defines the related word ' as soul, while a later Kimbundu–Portuguese dictionary defines it as being a "spirit that is supposed to wander the earth to torment the living". How the creatures in contemporary zombie films came to be called "zombies" is not fully clear. The film ''
Night of the Living Dead ''Night of the Living Dead'' is a 1968 American Independent film, independent zombie horror film directed, photographed, and edited by George A. Romero, written by Romero and John A. Russo, John Russo, produced by Russell Streiner and Karl Har ...
'' (1968) made no spoken reference to its undead antagonists as "zombies", describing them instead as "
ghoul In folklore, a ghoul (from , ') is a demon-like being or monstrous humanoid, often associated with graveyards and the consumption of human flesh. In the legends or tales in which they appear, a ghoul is far more ill-mannered and foul than go ...
s" (though ghouls, which derive from Arabic folklore, are demons, not undead). Although George A. Romero used the term "ghoul" in his original scripts, in later interviews he used the term "zombie". The word "zombie" is used exclusively by Romero in his script for his sequel '' Dawn of the Dead'' (1978), including once in dialog. According to Romero, film critics were influential in associating the term "zombie" to his creatures, and especially the French magazine . He eventually accepted this linkage, even though he remained convinced at the time that "zombies" corresponded to the undead slaves of Haitian voodoo as depicted in '' White Zombie'' with
Bela Lugosi Blaskó Béla Ferenc Dezső (; October 20, 1882 – August 16, 1956), better known by the stage name Bela Lugosi ( ; ), was a Hungarian–American actor. He was best remembered for portraying Count Dracula in the horror film classic Dracula (19 ...
.


Folk beliefs


Haiti

Zombies are featured widely in Haitian rural folklore as dead persons physically revived by the act of
necromancy Necromancy () is the practice of Magic (paranormal), magic involving communication with the Death, dead by Evocation, summoning their spirits as Ghost, apparitions or Vision (spirituality), visions for the purpose of divination; imparting the ...
of a ''
bokor A bokor (male) () or caplata (female) is a Vodou priest or priestess for hire in Haiti who is said to serve the loa, with both hands', practicing for both good and evil." Their practice includes the creation of zombies and of ''ouangas'' (tal ...
'', a sorcerer or witch. The ''bokor'' is opposed by the ''
houngan Oungan (also written as ''houngan'') is the term for a male priest in Haitian Vodou (a female priest is known as a ''mambo''). The term is derived from Gbe languages (Fon, Ewe, Adja, Phla, Gen, Maxi and Gun). The word hounnongan means chief p ...
'' (priest) and the ''
mambo Mambo most often refers to: *Mambo (music), a Cuban musical form *Mambo (dance), a dance corresponding to mambo music Mambo may also refer to: Music * Mambo section, a section in arrangements of some types of Afro-Caribbean music, particul ...
'' (priestess) of the formal voodoo religion. A zombie remains under the control of the ''bokor'' as a personal slave, having no will of its own. The Haitian tradition also includes an incorporeal type of zombie, the "zombie
astral Astral may refer to: Concepts of the non-physical * Astral body, a subtle body posited by many religious philosophers * Astral journey (or ''astral trip''), the same as having an ''out-of-body experience'' * Astral plane (AKA astral world), a p ...
", which is a part of the human
soul The soul is the purported Mind–body dualism, immaterial aspect or essence of a Outline of life forms, living being. It is typically believed to be Immortality, immortal and to exist apart from the material world. The three main theories that ...
. A ''bokor'' can capture a zombie astral to enhance his spiritual power. A zombie astral can also be sealed inside a specially decorated bottle by a ''bokor'' and sold to a client to bring luck, healing, or business success. It is believed that God eventually will reclaim the zombie's soul, so the zombie is a temporary spiritual entity. The two types of zombie reflect
soul dualism Soul dualism, also called dualistic pluralism or multiple souls, is a range of beliefs that a person has two or more kinds of souls. In many cases, one of the souls is associated with body functions ("body soul") and the other one can leave the bo ...
, a belief of
Bakongo religion The Kongo people (also , singular: or ''M'kongo; , , singular: '') are a Bantu ethnic group primarily defined as the speakers of Kikongo. Subgroups include the Beembe, Bwende, Vili, Sundi, Yombe, Dondo, Lari, and others. They have li ...
and
Haitian voodoo Haitian Vodou () is an African diasporic religion that developed in Haiti between the 16th and 19th centuries. It arose through a process of syncretism between several traditional religions of West and Central Africa and Roman Catholicism. The ...
. Each type of legendary zombie is therefore missing one half of its soul (the flesh or the spirit). The zombie belief has its roots in traditions brought to Haiti by enslaved Africans and their subsequent experiences in the New World. It was thought that the voodoo deity
Baron Samedi Baron Samedi (), also written Baron Samdi, Bawon Samedi or Bawon Sanmdi, is one of the lwa of Haitian Vodou. He is a lwa of the dead, along with Baron's numerous other incarnations Baron Cimetière, Baron La Croix and Baron Criminel. He i ...
would gather them from their grave to bring them to a heavenly afterlife in Africa ("
Guinea Guinea, officially the Republic of Guinea, is a coastal country in West Africa. It borders the Atlantic Ocean to the west, Guinea-Bissau to the northwest, Senegal to the north, Mali to the northeast, Côte d'Ivoire to the southeast, and Sier ...
"), unless they had offended him in some way, in which case they would be forever a slave after death, as a zombie. A zombie could also be saved by feeding them salt. English professor Amy Wilentz has written that the modern concept of zombies was strongly influenced by Haitian slavery. Slave drivers on the plantations, who were usually slaves themselves and sometimes voodoo priests, used the fear of zombification to discourage slaves from committing suicide. While most scholars have associated the Haitian zombie with African cultures, a connection has also been suggested to the island's indigenous
Taíno people The Taíno are the Indigenous peoples of the Caribbean, Indigenous peoples of the Greater Antilles and surrounding islands. At the time of European contact in the late 15th century, they were the principal inhabitants of most of what is now The ...
, partly based on an early account of native
shamanist Shamanism is a spiritual practice that involves a practitioner (shaman) interacting with the spirit world through altered states of consciousness, such as trance. The goal of this is usually to direct spirits or spiritual energies into ...
practices written by , a monk of the
Hieronymite The Hieronymites or Jeronimites, also formally known as the Order of Saint Jerome (; abbreviated OSH), is a Catholic cloistered religious order and a common name for several congregations of hermit monks living according to the Rule of Saint ...
religious order and companion of
Christopher Columbus Christopher Columbus (; between 25 August and 31 October 1451 – 20 May 1506) was an Italians, Italian explorer and navigator from the Republic of Genoa who completed Voyages of Christopher Columbus, four Spanish-based voyages across the At ...
. The Haitian zombie phenomenon first attracted widespread international attention during the
United States occupation of Haiti The United States occupation of Haiti began on July 28, 1915, when 330 United States Marine Corps, US Marines landed at Port-au-Prince, Republic of Haiti (1859–1957), Haiti, after the Citibank, National City Bank of New York convinced the ...
(1915–1934), when a number of case histories of purported "zombies" began to emerge. The first popular book covering the topic was
William Seabrook William Buehler Seabrook (February 22, 1884 – September 20, 1945) was an American occultist, explorer, world traveler, journalist and author, born in Westminster, Maryland. He began his career as a reporter and city editor of the ''Augusta Ch ...
's ''
The Magic Island ''The Magic Island'' is a book by American explorer and traveler William Seabrook. First published in 1929 by Harcourt, Brace & Company, ''The Magic Island'' is an account of Seabrook's experiences with Haitian Vodou in Haiti, and is considere ...
'' (1929). Seabrooke cited Article 246 of the Haitian
criminal code A criminal code or penal code is a document that compiles all, or a significant amount of, a particular jurisdiction's criminal law. Typically a criminal code will contain offences that are recognised in the jurisdiction, penalties that might ...
, which was passed in 1864, asserting that it was an official recognition of zombies. This passage was later used in promotional materials for the 1932 film ''White Zombie''. In 1937, while researching folklore in Haiti,
Zora Neale Hurston Zora Neale Hurston (January 7, 1891 – January 28, 1960) was an American writer, anthropologist, folklorist, and documentary filmmaker. She portrayed racial struggles in the early-20th-century American South and published research on Hoodoo ...
encountered the case of a woman who appeared in a village. A family claimed that she was Felicia Felix-Mentor, a relative, who had died and been buried in 1907 at the age of 29. The woman was examined by a doctor; X-rays indicated that she did not have a leg fracture that Felix-Mentor was known to have had. Hurston pursued rumors that affected persons were given a powerful
psychoactive drug A psychoactive drug, psychopharmaceutical, mind-altering drug, consciousness-altering drug, psychoactive substance, or psychotropic substance is a chemical substance that alters psychological functioning by modulating central nervous system acti ...
, but she was unable to locate individuals willing to offer much information. She wrote: "What is more, if science ever gets to the bottom of Vodou in Haiti and Africa, it will be found that some important medical secrets, still unknown to medical science, give it its power, rather than gestures of ceremony."


Kongo

A Central African origin for the Haitian zombie has been postulated based on two etymologies in the
Kongo language Kongo or Kikongo is one of the Bantu languages spoken by the Kongo people living in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the Republic of the Congo, Gabon, and Angola. It is a tonal language. The vast majority of present-day speakers live ...
, ''nzambi'' ("god") and ''zumbi'' ("fetish"). This root helps form the names of several deities, including the Kongo creator deity Nzambi Mpungu and the Louisiana serpent deity Li Grand Zombi (a local version of the Haitian
Damballa Damballa, also spelled Damballah, Dambala, Dambalah, among other variations (), is one of the most important of all loa, spirits in West African Vodun, Haitian Voodoo and other African diaspora religious traditions such as Obeah. He is traditi ...
), but it is in fact a generic word for a divine spirit. The common African conception of beings under these names is more similar to the incorporeal "zombie astral", as in the Kongo
Nkisi or (plural varies: , , , or ) are spirits or an object that a spirit inhabits. It is frequently applied to a variety of objects used throughout the Congo Basin in Central Africa, especially in the Territory of Cabinda that are believed to co ...
spirits. A related, but also often incorporeal, undead being is the
jumbee A jumbee or jumbie, also known as mendo or chongo in Colombia and Venezuela, is a type of mythological spirit or demon in the folklore of some Caribbean countries. "Jumbee" can be a generic name given to all malevolent entities. There are numerou ...
of the
English-speaking Caribbean The Commonwealth Caribbean refers to a group of English-speaking sovereign states in the Caribbean, including both island states and mainland countries in the Americas, that are members of the Commonwealth of Nations and were once part of the ...
, considered to be of the same etymology; in the
French West Indies The French West Indies or French Antilles (, ; ) are the parts of France located in the Antilles islands of the Caribbean: * The two overseas departments of: ** Guadeloupe, including the islands of Basse-Terre, Grande-Terre, Les Saintes, Ma ...
also, local "zombies" are recognized, but these are of a more general spirit nature.


South Africa

The idea of physical zombie-like creatures is present in some South African cultures, where they are called ''xidachane'' in
Sotho Sotho may refer to: *Sotho people (or ''Basotho''), an African ethnic group principally resident in South Africa, Lesotho and southern Botswana *Sotho language (''Sesotho'' or ''Southern Sotho''), a Bantu language spoken in southern Africa, an offi ...
/
Tsonga Tsonga may refer to: * Tsonga language, a Bantu language spoken in southern Africa * Tsonga people, a large group of people living mainly in southern Mozambique and South Africa. * Jo-Wilfried Tsonga Jo-Wilfried Tsonga (; born 17 April 1985) ...
and ''maduxwane'' in
Venda Venda ( ), officially the Republic of Venda (; ), was a Bantustan in northern South Africa. It was fairly close to the South African border with Zimbabwe to the north, while, to the south and east, it shared a long border with another black hom ...
. In some communities, it is believed that a dead person can be zombified by a small child. It is said that the spell can be broken by a powerful enough sangoma. It is also believed in some areas of South Africa that
witch Witchcraft is the use of magic by a person called a witch. Traditionally, "witchcraft" means the use of magic to inflict supernatural harm or misfortune on others, and this remains the most common and widespread meaning. According to ''Enc ...
es can zombify a person by killing and possessing the victim's body to force it into slave labor. After rail lines were built to transport migrant workers, stories emerged about "witch trains". These trains appeared ordinary, but were staffed by zombified workers controlled by a witch. The trains would abduct a person boarding at night, and the person would then either be zombified or beaten and thrown from the train a distance away from the original location.


Origin hypotheses


Chemical

Several decades after Hurston's work, Wade Davis, a Harvard
ethnobotanist Ethnobotany is an interdisciplinary field at the interface of natural and social sciences that studies the relationships between humans and plants. It focuses on traditional knowledge of how plants are used, managed, and perceived in human societi ...
, presented a pharmacological case for zombies in a 1983 article in the ''
Journal of Ethnopharmacology The ''Journal of Ethnopharmacology'' is a peer-reviewed medical journal covering the traditional medicinal use of plants and other substances. It is the official journal of the International Society for Ethnopharmacology. The journal is included ...
'', and later in two popular books: '' The Serpent and the Rainbow'' (1985) and ''Passage of Darkness: The Ethnobiology of the Haitian Zombie'' (1988). Davis traveled to Haiti in 1982 and, as a result of his investigations, claimed that a living person can be turned into a zombie by two special powders being introduced into the bloodstream (usually through a wound). The first, ("powder strike"), includes
tetrodotoxin Tetrodotoxin (TTX) is a potent neurotoxin. Its name derives from Tetraodontiformes, an Order (biology), order that includes Tetraodontidae, pufferfish, porcupinefish, ocean sunfish, and triggerfish; several of these species carry the toxin. Alt ...
(TTX), a powerful and frequently fatal
neurotoxin Neurotoxins are toxins that are destructive to nervous tissue, nerve tissue (causing neurotoxicity). Neurotoxins are an extensive class of exogenous chemical neurological insult (medical), insultsSpencer 2000 that can adversely affect function ...
found in the flesh of the
pufferfish Tetraodontidae is a family of marine and freshwater fish in the order Tetraodontiformes. The family includes many familiar species variously called pufferfish, puffers, balloonfish, blowfish, blowers, blowies, bubblefish, globefish, swellfis ...
(family Tetraodontidae). The second powder consists of deliriant drugs such as
datura ''Datura'' is a genus of nine species of highly poisonous, Vespertine (biology), vespertine-flowering plants belonging to the nightshade family (Solanaceae). They are commonly known as thornapples or jimsonweeds, but are also known as devil's t ...
. Together these powders were said to induce a deathlike state, in which the will of the victim would be entirely subjected to that of the bokor. Davis also popularized the story of Clairvius Narcisse, who was claimed to have succumbed to this practice. The most ethically questioned and least scientifically explored ingredient of the powders is part of a recently buried child's brain. The process described by Davis was an initial state of deathlike
suspended animation Suspended animation is the slowing or stopping of biological function so that physiological capabilities are preserved. States of suspended animation are common in micro-organisms and some plant tissue, such as seeds. Many animals, including l ...
, followed by re-awakening – typically ''after'' being buried – into a psychotic state. The psychosis induced by the drug and
psychological trauma Psychological trauma (also known as mental trauma, psychiatric trauma, emotional damage, or psychotrauma) is an emotional response caused by severe distressing events, such as Major trauma, bodily injury, Sexual assault, sexual violence, or ot ...
was
hypothesis A hypothesis (: hypotheses) is a proposed explanation for a phenomenon. A scientific hypothesis must be based on observations and make a testable and reproducible prediction about reality, in a process beginning with an educated guess o ...
ed by Davis to reinforce culturally learned beliefs and to cause the individual to reconstruct their identity as that of a zombie, since they "knew" that they were dead and had no other role to play in the Haitian society. Societal reinforcement of the belief was hypothesized by Davis to confirm for the zombie individual the zombie state, and such individuals were known to hang around in graveyards, exhibiting attitudes of low affect. Davis's claim has been criticized, particularly the suggestion that Haitian witch doctors can keep "zombies" in a state of pharmacologically induced trance for many years. Symptoms of TTX poisoning range from numbness and nausea to paralysis – particularly of the muscles of the diaphragm – unconsciousness, and death, but do not include a stiffened gait or a deathlike trance. According to psychologist
Terence Hines Terence Michael Hines (born 22 March 1951) is an American academic and researcher. He is a professor of psychology at Pace University, New York, and adjunct professor of neurology at the New York Medical College; he is also a science writer. Hi ...
, the scientific community dismisses tetrodotoxin as the cause of this state, and Davis' assessment of the nature of the reports of Haitian zombies is viewed as overly credulous.


Social

Scottish psychiatrist R. D. Laing highlighted the link between social and cultural expectations and compulsion, in the context of
schizophrenia Schizophrenia () is a mental disorder characterized variously by hallucinations (typically, Auditory hallucination#Schizophrenia, hearing voices), delusions, thought disorder, disorganized thinking and behavior, and Reduced affect display, f ...
and other mental illness, suggesting that schizogenesis may account for some of the psychological aspects of zombification. Particularly, this suggests cases where schizophrenia manifests a state of
catatonia Catatonia is a complex syndrome most commonly seen in people with underlying mood disorders, such as major depressive disorder, or psychotic disorders, such as schizophrenia. People with catatonia exhibit abnormal movement and behaviors, wh ...
. Roland Littlewood, professor of anthropology and psychiatry, published a study supporting a social explanation of the zombie phenomenon in the medical journal ''
The Lancet ''The Lancet'' is a weekly peer-reviewed general medical journal, founded in England in 1823. It is one of the world's highest-impact academic journals and also one of the oldest medical journals still in publication. The journal publishes ...
'' in 1997. The social explanation sees observed cases of people identified as zombies as a
culture-bound syndrome In medicine and medical anthropology, a culture-bound syndrome, culture-specific syndrome, or folk illness is a combination of psychiatric and somatic symptoms that are considered to be a recognizable disease only within a specific society or c ...
, with a particular cultural form of adoption practiced in Haiti that unites the homeless and mentally ill with grieving families who see them as their "returned" lost loved ones, as Littlewood summarizes his findings in an article in ''
Times Higher Education ''Times Higher Education'' (''THE''), formerly ''The Times Higher Education Supplement'' (''The THES''), is a British magazine reporting specifically on news and issues related to higher education. Ownership TPG Capital acquired TSL Education ...
'':


Modern archetype evolution

Pulliam and Fonseca (2014) and Walz (2006) trace the zombie lineage back to ancient
Mesopotamia Mesopotamia is a historical region of West Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the Fertile Crescent. Today, Mesopotamia is known as present-day Iraq and forms the eastern geographic boundary of ...
. In the ''Descent of Ishtar'', the goddess
Ishtar Inanna is the List of Mesopotamian deities, ancient Mesopotamian goddess of war, love, and fertility. She is also associated with political power, divine law, sensuality, and procreation. Originally worshipped in Sumer, she was known by the Akk ...
threatens: She repeats this same threat in a slightly modified form in the ''
Epic of Gilgamesh The ''Epic of Gilgamesh'' () is an epic poetry, epic from ancient Mesopotamia. The literary history of Gilgamesh begins with five Sumerian language, Sumerian poems about Gilgamesh (formerly read as Sumerian "Bilgames"), king of Uruk, some of ...
''. One of the first books to expose Western culture to the concept of the voodoo zombie was ''
The Magic Island ''The Magic Island'' is a book by American explorer and traveler William Seabrook. First published in 1929 by Harcourt, Brace & Company, ''The Magic Island'' is an account of Seabrook's experiences with Haitian Vodou in Haiti, and is considere ...
'' (1929) by W. B. Seabrook. This is the sensationalized account of a narrator who encounters
voodoo Voodoo may refer to: Religions * West African Vodún, a religion practiced by Gbe-speaking ethnic groups * African diaspora religions, a list of related religions sometimes called Vodou/Voodoo ** Candomblé Jejé, also known as Brazilian Vodu ...
cults in
Haiti Haiti, officially the Republic of Haiti, is a country on the island of Hispaniola in the Caribbean Sea, east of Cuba and Jamaica, and south of the Bahamas. It occupies the western three-eighths of the island, which it shares with the Dominican ...
and their resurrected thralls. ''Time'' commented that the book "introduced 'zombi' into U.S. speech". Zombies have a complex literary heritage, with antecedents ranging from
Richard Matheson Richard Burton Matheson (February 20, 1926 – June 23, 2013) was an American author and screenwriter, primarily in the fantasy, horror, and science fiction genres. He is best known as the author of '' I Am Legend'', a 1954 science ficti ...
and
H. P. Lovecraft Howard Phillips Lovecraft (, ; August 20, 1890 – March 15, 1937) was an American writer of Weird fiction, weird, Science fiction, science, fantasy, and horror fiction. He is best known for his creation of the Cthulhu Mythos. Born in Provi ...
to
Mary Shelley Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley ( , ; ; 30 August 1797 – 1 February 1851) was an English novelist who wrote the Gothic novel ''Frankenstein, Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus'' (1818), which is considered an History of science fiction# ...
's ''
Frankenstein ''Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus'' is an 1818 Gothic novel written by English author Mary Shelley. ''Frankenstein'' tells the story of Victor Frankenstein, a young scientist who creates a Sapience, sapient Frankenstein's monster, crea ...
'' drawing on European folklore of the undead.
Victor Halperin Victor Hugo Halperin (August 24, 1895, Chicago, Illinois – May 17, 1983, Bentonville, Arkansas) was an American stage actor, stage director, film director, film producer, producer, and writer. The majority of his works involved romance film, rom ...
directed '' White Zombie'' (1932), a horror film starring
Bela Lugosi Blaskó Béla Ferenc Dezső (; October 20, 1882 – August 16, 1956), better known by the stage name Bela Lugosi ( ; ), was a Hungarian–American actor. He was best remembered for portraying Count Dracula in the horror film classic Dracula (19 ...
. Here zombies are depicted as mindless, unthinking henchmen under the spell of an evil magician. Zombies, often still using this voodoo-inspired rationale, were initially uncommon in cinema, but their appearances continued sporadically through the 1930s to the 1960s, with films including ''
I Walked with a Zombie ''I Walked with a Zombie'' is a 1943 American horror film directed by Jacques Tourneur and produced by Val Lewton for RKO Pictures. It stars James Ellison, Frances Dee, and Tom Conway, and follows a Canadian nurse who travels to care for th ...
'' (1943) and ''
Plan 9 from Outer Space ''Plan 9 from Outer Space'' is a 1957 American Independent film, independent science fiction film, science fiction-horror film produced, written, directed, and edited by Ed Wood. The film was shot in black-and-white in November 1956 and had ...
'' (1959). ''
Frankenstein ''Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus'' is an 1818 Gothic novel written by English author Mary Shelley. ''Frankenstein'' tells the story of Victor Frankenstein, a young scientist who creates a Sapience, sapient Frankenstein's monster, crea ...
'' by
Mary Shelley Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley ( , ; ; 30 August 1797 – 1 February 1851) was an English novelist who wrote the Gothic novel ''Frankenstein, Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus'' (1818), which is considered an History of science fiction# ...
, while not a zombie novel ''per se'', foreshadows many 20th century ideas about zombies in that the resurrection of the dead is portrayed as a scientific process rather than a mystical one and that the resurrected dead are degraded and more violent than their living selves. ''Frankenstein'', published in 1818, has its roots in European folklore, whose tales of the vengeful dead also informed the evolution of the modern conception of the
vampire A vampire is a mythical creature that subsists by feeding on the Vitalism, vital essence (generally in the form of blood) of the living. In European folklore, vampires are undead, undead humanoid creatures that often visited loved ones and c ...
. Later notable 19th century stories about the avenging undead included
Ambrose Bierce Ambrose Gwinnett Bierce (June 24, 1842 – ) was an American short story writer, journalist, poet, and American Civil War veteran. His book '' The Devil's Dictionary'' was named one of "The 100 Greatest Masterpieces of American Literature" by the ...
's "
The Death of Halpin Frayser "The Death of Halpin Frayser" is a Gothic ghost story by Ambrose Bierce. It was first published in the San Francisco periodical ''The Wave'' on December 19, 1891 before appearing in the 1893 collection '' Can Such Things Be?'' Plot summary ...
" and various
Gothic Romanticism Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, a Germanic people **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Gothic alphabet, an alphabet used to write the Gothic language ** Gothic ( ...
tales by
Edgar Allan Poe Edgar Allan Poe (; January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American writer, poet, editor, and literary critic who is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales involving mystery and the macabre. He is widely re ...
. Though their works could not be properly considered zombie fiction, the supernatural tales of Bierce and Poe would prove influential on later writers such as
H. P. Lovecraft Howard Phillips Lovecraft (, ; August 20, 1890 – March 15, 1937) was an American writer of Weird fiction, weird, Science fiction, science, fantasy, and horror fiction. He is best known for his creation of the Cthulhu Mythos. Born in Provi ...
, by Lovecraft's own admission. In the 1920s and early 1930s, Lovecraft wrote several novellae that explored the undead theme. " Cool Air", "
In the Vault "In the Vault" is a short story by American horror fiction writer H. P. Lovecraft, written on September 18, 1925, and first published in the November 1925 issue of the amateur press journal '' Tryout''. Plot George Birch, an undertaker for the ...
" and " The Outsider" all deal with the undead, but Lovecraft's "
Herbert West–Reanimator "Herbert West–Reanimator" is a horror fiction, horror short story by American literature, American writer H. P. Lovecraft. It was written between October 1921 and June 1922. It was first serialized in February through July 1922 in the amateur ...
" (1921) "helped define zombies in popular culture". This series of short stories featured
Herbert West Herbert may refer to: People * Herbert (musician), a pseudonym of Matthew Herbert * Herbert (given name) * Herbert (surname) Places Antarctica * Herbert Mountains, Coats Land * Herbert Sound, Graham Land Australia * Herbert, Northern Terri ...
, a
mad scientist The mad scientist (also mad doctor or mad professor) is a stock character of a scientist who is perceived as "mad, bad and dangerous to know" or "insanity, insane" owing to a combination of unusual or unsettling personality traits and the unabas ...
, who attempts to revive human corpses, with mixed results. Notably, the resurrected dead are uncontrollable, mostly mute, primitive and extremely violent; though they are not referred to as zombies, their portrayal was prescient, anticipating the modern conception of zombies by several decades.
Edgar Rice Burroughs Edgar Rice Burroughs (September 1, 1875 – March 19, 1950) was an American writer, best known for his prolific output in the adventure, science fiction, and fantasy genres. Best known for creating the characters Tarzan (who appeared in ...
similarly depicted animated corpses in the second book of his
Venus series The Venus series (or Amtor series) is a science fantasy series consisting of four novels and one novelette written by American author Edgar Rice Burroughs. Most of the stories were first serialized in '' Argosy'', an American pulp magazine. It i ...
, again without using the terms "zombie" or "undead".Avenging zombies would feature prominently in the early 1950s
EC Comics E.C. Publications, Inc., (doing business as EC Comics) is an American comic book publisher. It specialized in horror fiction, crime fiction, satire, military fiction, dark fantasy, and science fiction from the 1940s through the mid-1950s, nota ...
, which George A. Romero would later claim as an influence. The comics, including ''
Tales from the Crypt Tales from the Crypt may refer to: * ''Tales from the Crypt'' (album), by American rapper C-Bo * ''Tales from the Crypt'' (comics), published by EC Comics during the 1950s ** ''Tales from the Crypt'' (film), a 1972 Amicus film starring Ralph Ric ...
'', ''The Vault of Horror'' and ''Weird Science'', featured avenging undead in the Gothic tradition quite regularly, including adaptations of Lovecraft's stories, which included "In the Vault", "Cool Air" and "Herbert West–Reanimator".
Richard Matheson Richard Burton Matheson (February 20, 1926 – June 23, 2013) was an American author and screenwriter, primarily in the fantasy, horror, and science fiction genres. He is best known as the author of '' I Am Legend'', a 1954 science ficti ...
's 1954 novel '' I Am Legend'', although classified as a vampire story, had a great impact on the zombie genre by way of George A. Romero. The novel and its 1964 film adaptation, '' The Last Man on Earth'', which concern a lone human survivor waging war against a world of vampires, would by Romero's own admission greatly influence his 1968 low-budget film ''
Night of the Living Dead ''Night of the Living Dead'' is a 1968 American Independent film, independent zombie horror film directed, photographed, and edited by George A. Romero, written by Romero and John A. Russo, John Russo, produced by Russell Streiner and Karl Har ...
'', a work that was more influential on the concept of zombies than any literary or cinematic work before it.Biodrowski, Steve
"''Night of the Living Dead'': The classic film that launched the modern zombie genre"
The monsters in the film and its sequels, such as '' Dawn of the Dead'' (1978) and ''
Day of the Dead The Day of the Dead () is a holiday traditionally celebrated on November 1 and 2, though other days, such as October 31 or November 6, may be included depending on the locality. The multi-day holiday involves family and friends gathering to pa ...
'' (1985), as well as the many
zombie film A zombie film is a film genre. Zombies are fictional creatures usually portrayed as reanimated corpses or virally infected human beings. They are commonly portrayed as cannibalistic in nature. While zombie films generally fall into the horror ...
s it inspired, such as ''
The Return of the Living Dead ''The Return of the Living Dead'' is a 1985 American comedy horror film written and directed by Dan O'Bannon (in his directorial debut) from a story by Rudy Ricci, John Russo, and Russell Streiner, and starring Clu Gulager, James Karen, ...
'' (1985) and ''
Zombi 2 ''Zombi 2'' is a 1979 English-language Italian zombie film directed by Lucio Fulci. It was adapted from an original screenplay by Dardano Sacchetti to serve as a sequel to George A. Romero's '' Dawn of the Dead'' (1978), which was released ...
'' (1979), are usually hungry for human flesh, although ''Return of the Living Dead'' introduced the popular concept of zombies eating human brains. There has been an evolution in the zombie archetype from supernatural to scientific themes. ''I Am Legend'' and ''Night of the Living Dead'' began the shift away from Haitian dark magic, though did not give scientific explanations for zombie origins. A more decisive shift towards scientific themes came with the ''
Resident Evil ''Resident Evil'', known as in Japan, is a Japanese horror game series and media franchise created by Capcom. It consists of survival horror, third-person shooter and first-person shooter games, with players typically surviving in environments ...
'' video game series in the late 1990s, which gave more realistic scientific explanations for zombie origins while drawing on modern science and technology, such as biological weaponry,
genetic manipulation Genetic engineering, also called genetic modification or genetic manipulation, is the modification and manipulation of an organism's genes using technology. It is a set of technologies used to change the genetic makeup of cells, including th ...
, and
parasitic Parasitism is a close relationship between species, where one organism, the parasite, lives (at least some of the time) on or inside another organism, the host, causing it some harm, and is adapted structurally to this way of life. The ent ...
symbiosis Symbiosis (Ancient Greek : living with, companionship < : together; and ''bíōsis'': living) is any type of a close and long-term biological interaction, between two organisms of different species. The two organisms, termed symbionts, can fo ...
. This became the standard approach for explaining zombie origins in popular fiction that followed ''Resident Evil''. There has also been shift towards an action approach, which has led to another evolution of the zombie archietype, the "fast zombie" or running zombie. In contrast to Romero's classic slow zombies, "fast zombies" can run, are more aggressive and are often more intelligent. This type of zombie has origins in 1990s
Japanese horror Japanese horror, also known as J-horror, is horror fiction derived from popular culture in Japan, generally noted for its unique thematic and conventional treatment of the horror genre differing from the traditional Western representation of horr ...
video games. In 1996,
Capcom is a Japanese video game company. It has created a number of critically acclaimed and List of best-selling video game franchises, multi-million-selling game franchises, with its most commercially successful being ''Resident Evil'', ''Monster ...
's
survival horror Survival horror is a Video game genre, subgenre of horror games. Although combat can be part of the gameplay, the player is made to feel less in control than in typical action games through limited ammunition or weapons, health, speed, and visio ...
video game ''
Resident Evil ''Resident Evil'', known as in Japan, is a Japanese horror game series and media franchise created by Capcom. It consists of survival horror, third-person shooter and first-person shooter games, with players typically surviving in environments ...
'' featured zombie dogs that run towards the player. Later the same year,
Sega is a Japanese video game company and subsidiary of Sega Sammy Holdings headquartered in Tokyo. It produces several List of best-selling video game franchises, multi-million-selling game franchises for arcade game, arcades and video game cons ...
's
arcade Arcade most often refers to: * Arcade game, a coin-operated video, pinball, electro-mechanical, redemption, etc., game ** Arcade video game, a coin-operated video game ** Arcade cabinet, housing which holds an arcade video game's hardware ** Arcad ...
shooter ''
The House of the Dead ''The House of the Dead'' is a horror-themed light gun shooter video game franchise created by Sega in 1996. Originally released in arcades, it utilizes a light gun on the platform, but can be played with standard controllers on consoles and a ...
'' introduced running human zombies, who run towards the player and can also jump and swim. The running human zombies introduced in ''
The House of the Dead ''The House of the Dead'' is a horror-themed light gun shooter video game franchise created by Sega in 1996. Originally released in arcades, it utilizes a light gun on the platform, but can be played with standard controllers on consoles and a ...
'' video games became the basis for the "fast zombies" that became popular in zombie films during the early 21st century, starting with ''
28 Days Later ''28 Days Later'' (sometimes stylised with ellipsis as ''28 Days Later...'') is a 2002 post-apocalyptic horror film directed by Danny Boyle and written by Alex Garland. It stars Cillian Murphy as a bicycle courier who awakens from a coma to d ...
'' (2002), the ''
Resident Evil ''Resident Evil'', known as in Japan, is a Japanese horror game series and media franchise created by Capcom. It consists of survival horror, third-person shooter and first-person shooter games, with players typically surviving in environments ...
'' and '' House of the Dead'' films and the 2004 ''Dawn of the Dead'' remake. These films also adopted an action approach to the zombie concept, which was also influenced by the ''Resident Evil'' and ''House of the Dead'' video games.


Depictions in popular culture


Film and television

Films featuring zombies have been a part of cinema since the 1930s. '' White Zombie'' (directed by
Victor Halperin Victor Hugo Halperin (August 24, 1895, Chicago, Illinois – May 17, 1983, Bentonville, Arkansas) was an American stage actor, stage director, film director, film producer, producer, and writer. The majority of his works involved romance film, rom ...
in 1932) and ''
I Walked with a Zombie ''I Walked with a Zombie'' is a 1943 American horror film directed by Jacques Tourneur and produced by Val Lewton for RKO Pictures. It stars James Ellison, Frances Dee, and Tom Conway, and follows a Canadian nurse who travels to care for th ...
'' (directed by
Jacques Tourneur Jacques Tourneur (; ; November 12, 1904 – December 19, 1977) was a French-American filmmaker, active during the Golden Age of Hollywood. He was known as an auteur of stylish and atmospheric genre films, many of them for RKO Pictures, including ...
; 1943) were early serious examples, and
Bob Hope Leslie Townes "Bob" Hope (May 29, 1903 – July 27, 2003) was an American comedian, actor, entertainer and producer with a career that spanned nearly 80 years and achievements in vaudeville, network radio, television, and USO Tours. He appeared ...
's
The Ghost Breakers ''The Ghost Breakers'' is a 1940 American mystery/ horror comedy film directed by George Marshall and starring Bob Hope and Paulette Goddard. It was adapted by screenwriter Walter DeLeon as the third film version of the 1909 play '' The Ghost Br ...
(directed by
George Marshall George Catlett Marshall Jr. (31 December 1880 – 16 October 1959) was an American army officer and statesman. He rose through the United States Army to become Chief of Staff of the United States Army, Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army under pres ...
in 1940) being an early comedic take on the zombie genre. With George A. Romero's ''
Night of the Living Dead ''Night of the Living Dead'' is a 1968 American Independent film, independent zombie horror film directed, photographed, and edited by George A. Romero, written by Romero and John A. Russo, John Russo, produced by Russell Streiner and Karl Har ...
'' (1968), the zombie
trope Trope or tropes may refer to: Arts and entertainment * Trope (cinema), a cinematic convention for conveying a concept * Trope (literature), a figure of speech or common literary device * Trope (music), any of a variety of different things in medi ...
began to be increasingly linked to consumerism and consumer culture. Today, zombie films are released with such regularity (at least 50 films were released in 2014 alone) that they constitute a separate subgenre of horror film. Voodoo-related zombie themes have also appeared in espionage or adventure-themed works outside the horror genre. For example, the original ''
Jonny Quest ''Jonny Quest'' is a science fiction–adventure media franchise created by Doug Wildey for Hanna-Barbera. It follows the character Jonny Quest, a young boy who joins his scientist father on various extraordinary adventures. The franchise sta ...
'' series (1964) and the
James Bond The ''James Bond'' franchise focuses on James Bond (literary character), the titular character, a fictional Secret Intelligence Service, British Secret Service agent created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels ...
novel '' Live and Let Die'' as well as its
film adaptation A film adaptation transfers the details or story of an existing source text, such as a novel, into a feature film. This transfer can involve adapting most details of the source text closely, including characters or plot points, or the original sou ...
both feature Caribbean villains who falsely claim the voodoo power of zombification to keep others in fear of them. Romero's modern zombie archetype in ''Night of the Living Dead'' was influenced by several earlier zombie-themed films, including ''White Zombie'', ''
Revolt of the Zombies ''Revolt of the Zombies'' is a 1936 American horror film directed by Victor Halperin, produced by Edward Halperin, and starring Dean Jagger and Dorothy Stone. One of the earliest zombie films, it was initially conceived as a loose sequel to the ...
'' (1936) and ''
The Plague of the Zombies ''The Plague of the Zombies'' is a 1966 British horror film directed by John Gilling and starring André Morell, John Carson, Jacqueline Pearce, Brook Williams, and Michael Ripper. Plot In a Cornish village in August 1860, the inhabitants ...
'' (1966). Romero was also inspired by
Richard Matheson Richard Burton Matheson (February 20, 1926 – June 23, 2013) was an American author and screenwriter, primarily in the fantasy, horror, and science fiction genres. He is best known as the author of '' I Am Legend'', a 1954 science ficti ...
's novel '' I Am Legend'' (1954), along with its film adaptation, '' The Last Man on Earth'' (1964).


George A. Romero (1968–1985)

The modern conception of the zombie owes itself almost entirely to George A. Romero's 1968 film ''
Night of the Living Dead ''Night of the Living Dead'' is a 1968 American Independent film, independent zombie horror film directed, photographed, and edited by George A. Romero, written by Romero and John A. Russo, John Russo, produced by Russell Streiner and Karl Har ...
''. In his films, Romero "bred the zombie with the vampire, and what he got was the hybrid vigour of a ghoulish plague monster". This entailed an apocalyptic vision of monsters that have come to be known as Romero zombies.
Roger Ebert Roger Joseph Ebert ( ; June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American Film criticism, film critic, film historian, journalist, essayist, screenwriter and author. He wrote for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' from 1967 until his death in 2013. Eber ...
of the ''
Chicago Sun-Times The ''Chicago Sun-Times'' is a daily nonprofit newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Since 2022, it is the flagship paper of Chicago Public Media, and has long held the second largest circulation among Chicago newspaper ...
'' chided theater owners and parents who allowed children access to the film. "I don't think the younger kids really knew what hit them", complained Ebert, "They were used to going to movies, sure, and they'd seen some horror movies before, sure, but this was something else." According to Ebert, the film affected the audience immediately:Roger Ebert
review of ''Night of the Living Dead''
Chicago ''Sun-Times'', 5 January 1969; last accessed 8 July 2014.
The kids in the audience were stunned. There was almost complete silence. The movie had stopped being delightfully scary about halfway through, and had become unexpectedly terrifying. There was a little girl across the aisle from me, maybe nine years old, who was sitting very still in her seat and crying.
Romero's reinvention of zombies is notable in terms of its thematics; he used zombies not just for their own sake, but as a vehicle "to criticize real-world social ills—such as government ineptitude, bioengineering, slavery, greed and exploitation—while indulging our post-apocalyptic fantasies". ''Night'' was the first of six films in Romero's ''Living Dead'' series. Its first sequel, '' Dawn of the Dead'', was released in 1978.
Lucio Fulci Lucio Fulci (; 17 June 1927 – 13 March 1996) was an Italian film director, screenwriter, and actor. Although he worked in a wide array of genres through a career spanning nearly five decades, including Commedia all'italiana, comedies and spagh ...
's ''
Zombi 2 ''Zombi 2'' is a 1979 English-language Italian zombie film directed by Lucio Fulci. It was adapted from an original screenplay by Dardano Sacchetti to serve as a sequel to George A. Romero's '' Dawn of the Dead'' (1978), which was released ...
'' was released just months after ''Dawn of the Dead'' as an ersatz sequel (''Dawn of the Dead'' was released in several other countries as ''Zombi'' or ''Zombie''). ''Dawn of the Dead'' was the most commercially successful zombie film for decades, up until the zombie revival of the 2000s. The 1981 film ''
Hell of the Living Dead ''Hell of the Living Dead'' () is a 1980 horror film directed by Bruno Mattei. The film is set in a laboratory in Papua New Guinea that releases a dangerous chemical, turning the technicians and locals into zombies. A French news reporter ( Margi ...
'' referenced a mutagenic gas as a source of zombie contagion: an idea also used in
Dan O'Bannon Daniel Thomas O'Bannon (September 30, 1946 – December 17, 2009) was an American film screenwriter, film director, director and visual effects supervisor, most closely associated with the science fiction and Horror fiction, horror genres. O'B ...
's 1985 film '' Return of the Living Dead''. ''Return of the Living Dead'' featured zombies that hungered specifically for human brains.


Relative Western decline (1985–1995)

Zombie films in the 1980s and 1990s were not as commercially successful as ''Dawn of the Dead'' in the late 1970s. The mid-1980s produced few zombie films of note. Perhaps the most notable entry, the ''
Evil Dead ''Evil Dead'' is an American horror franchise created by Sam Raimi consisting of five feature films and a television series. The series follows various characters as they battle demonic forces unleashed by an ancient book called the ''Necrono ...
'' trilogy, while highly influential, are not technically zombie films, but films about
demonic possession Spirit Possession is an altered state of consciousness and associated behaviors which are purportedly caused by the control of a human body and its functions by Supernatural#Spirit, spirits, ghosts, demons, angels, or Deity, gods. The concept ...
, despite the presence of the undead. 1985's ''
Re-Animator ''Re-Animator'' (also known as ''H. P. Lovecraft's Re-Animator'') is a 1985 American comedy horror film loosely based on the 1922 H. P. Lovecraft serial novelette " Herbert West–Reanimator". Directed by Stuart Gordon and produced by Brian Y ...
'', loosely based on the Lovecraft story, stood out in the genre, achieving nearly unanimous critical acclaim and becoming a modest success, nearly outstripping Romero's ''
Day of the Dead The Day of the Dead () is a holiday traditionally celebrated on November 1 and 2, though other days, such as October 31 or November 6, may be included depending on the locality. The multi-day holiday involves family and friends gathering to pa ...
'' for box office returns. After the mid-1980s, the subgenre was mostly relegated to the underground. Notable entries include director
Peter Jackson Sir Peter Robert Jackson (born 31 October 1961) is a New Zealand filmmaker. He is best known as the director, writer, and producer of the ''Lord of the Rings'' trilogy (2001–2003) and the ''Hobbit'' trilogy (2012–2014), both of which ar ...
's ultra-gory film ''
Braindead ''BrainDead'' is an American political satire science fiction comedy-drama television series created by Robert and Michelle King. The series stars Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Laurel Healy, a documentary film-maker who takes a job working for h ...
'' (1992) (released as ''Dead Alive'' in the U.S.),
Bob Balaban Robert Elmer Balaban (born August 16, 1945) is an American actor, director, producer and writer. Aside from his acting career, Balaban has directed three feature films, in addition to numerous television episodes and films, and was one of the pro ...
's comic 1993 film '' My Boyfriend's Back'', where a self-aware high-school boy returns to profess his love for a girl and his love for human flesh, and Michele Soavi's ''
Dellamorte Dellamore ''Cemetery Man'' () is a 1994 horror film directed by Michele Soavi and starring Rupert Everett, François Hadji-Lazaro and Anna Falchi. It was produced by Tilde Corsi, Gianni Romoli and Soavi and based on the novel ''Dellamorte Dellamore'' b ...
'' (1994) (released as ''Cemetery Man'' in the U.S.).


Early Asian films (1985–1995)

In 1980s
Hong Kong cinema The cinema of Hong Kong ( zh, t=香港電影) is one of the three major threads in the history of Chinese-language cinema, alongside the cinema of China and the cinema of Taiwan. As a former Crown colony, Hong Kong had a greater degree of ar ...
, the Chinese
jiangshi A jiāngshī (), also known as a Chinese hopping vampire, is a type of undead creature or reanimated corpse in Chinese folklore, Chinese legends and folklore. Due to the influence of Hong Kong cinema, it is typically depicted in modern popular ...
, a zombie-like creature dating back to
Qing dynasty The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing, was a Manchu-led Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China and an early modern empire in East Asia. The last imperial dynasty in Chinese history, the Qing dynasty was preceded by the ...
era
jiangshi fiction Jiangshi fiction, or goeng-si fiction in Cantonese, is a literary and cinematic genre of horror based on the jiangshi of Chinese folklore, a reanimated corpse controlled by Taoist priests that resembles the zombies and vampires of Western fiction. ...
of the 18th and 19th centuries, were featured in a wave of jiangshi films, popularised by ''
Mr. Vampire ''Mr. Vampire'' (Chinese: 殭屍先生) is a 1985 Hong Kong comedy horror film directed by Ricky Lau and produced by Sammo Hung. The film's box office success led to the creation of a ''Mr. Vampire'' franchise, with the release of four sequels ...
'' (1985). Hong Kong jiangshi films were popular in the Far East from the mid-1980s to the early 1990s. Prior to the 1990s, there were not many
Japanese film The , also known domestically as , has a history that spans more than 100 years. Japan has one of the oldest and largest film industries in the world; as of 2022, it was the fourth largest by number of feature films produced, producing 634 fi ...
s related to what may be considered in the West as a zombie film. Early films such as '' The Discarnates'' (1988) feature little gore and no cannibalism, but it is about the dead returning to life looking for love rather than a story of apocalyptic destruction. One of the earliest Japanese zombie films with considerable gore and violence was '' Battle Girl: The Living Dead in Tokyo Bay'' (1991).


Far East revival (1996–2001)

According to
Kim Newman Kim James Newman (born 31 July 1959) is an English journalist, film critic, and fiction writer. He is interested in film history and horror fiction – both of which he attributes to seeing Tod Browning's ''Dracula'' at the age of eleven & ...
in the book '' Nightmare Movies'' (2011), the "zombie revival began in the Far East" during the late 1990s, largely inspired by two Japanese zombie games released in 1996:
Capcom is a Japanese video game company. It has created a number of critically acclaimed and List of best-selling video game franchises, multi-million-selling game franchises, with its most commercially successful being ''Resident Evil'', ''Monster ...
's ''
Resident Evil ''Resident Evil'', known as in Japan, is a Japanese horror game series and media franchise created by Capcom. It consists of survival horror, third-person shooter and first-person shooter games, with players typically surviving in environments ...
'', which started the ''Resident Evil'' video game series that went on to sell 24 million copies worldwide by 2006, and
Sega is a Japanese video game company and subsidiary of Sega Sammy Holdings headquartered in Tokyo. It produces several List of best-selling video game franchises, multi-million-selling game franchises for arcade game, arcades and video game cons ...
's arcade shooter '' House of the Dead''. The success of these two 1996 zombie games inspired a wave of Asian zombie films. From the late 1990s, zombies experienced a renaissance in low-budget
Asian cinema Asian cinema refers to the film industries and films produced in the continent of Asia. However, in countries like the United States, it is often used to refer only to the cinema of East Asia, Southeast Asia and South Asia. West Asian cinema is ...
, with a sudden spate of dissimilar entries, including '' Bio Zombie'' (1998), ''
Wild Zero ''Wild Zero'' is a 1999 Japanese comedy horror film directed by Tetsuro Takeuchi. It stars Masashi Endō as Ace, a fan of the Japanese rock power trio Guitar Wolf (who star as themselves). After assisting the group, the band's eponymous vocalist ...
'' (1999), '' Junk'' (1999), ''
Versus Versus (Latin, 'against') may refer to: Film and television * ''Versus'' (2000 film), a Japanese zombie film * ''Versus'' (2016 film), a Russian sports drama film * ''Versus'' (2019 film), a French thriller film * Versus (TV channel), form ...
'' (2000) and '' Stacy'' (2001). Most Japanese zombie films emerged in the wake of ''Resident Evil'', such as ''
Versus Versus (Latin, 'against') may refer to: Film and television * ''Versus'' (2000 film), a Japanese zombie film * ''Versus'' (2016 film), a Russian sports drama film * ''Versus'' (2019 film), a French thriller film * Versus (TV channel), form ...
'', ''
Wild Zero ''Wild Zero'' is a 1999 Japanese comedy horror film directed by Tetsuro Takeuchi. It stars Masashi Endō as Ace, a fan of the Japanese rock power trio Guitar Wolf (who star as themselves). After assisting the group, the band's eponymous vocalist ...
'', and '' Junk'', all from 2000. The zombie films released after ''Resident Evil'' behaved similarly to the zombie films of the 1970s, except that they were influenced by zombie video games, which inspired them to dwell more on the action compared to the older Romero films.


Global film revival (2001–2008)

The zombie revival, which began in the Far East, eventually went global, following the worldwide success of the Japanese zombie games ''
Resident Evil ''Resident Evil'', known as in Japan, is a Japanese horror game series and media franchise created by Capcom. It consists of survival horror, third-person shooter and first-person shooter games, with players typically surviving in environments ...
'' and ''
The House of the Dead ''The House of the Dead'' is a horror-themed light gun shooter video game franchise created by Sega in 1996. Originally released in arcades, it utilizes a light gun on the platform, but can be played with standard controllers on consoles and a ...
''. ''Resident Evil'' in particular sparked a revival of the zombie genre in popular culture, leading to a renewed global interest in zombie films during the early 2000s. In addition to being adapted into the ''
Resident Evil ''Resident Evil'', known as in Japan, is a Japanese horror game series and media franchise created by Capcom. It consists of survival horror, third-person shooter and first-person shooter games, with players typically surviving in environments ...
'' and '' House of the Dead'' films from 2002 onwards, the original video games themselves also inspired zombie films such as ''
28 Days Later ''28 Days Later'' (sometimes stylised with ellipsis as ''28 Days Later...'') is a 2002 post-apocalyptic horror film directed by Danny Boyle and written by Alex Garland. It stars Cillian Murphy as a bicycle courier who awakens from a coma to d ...
'' (2002) and ''
Shaun of the Dead ''Shaun of the Dead'' is a 2004 zombie comedy film directed by Edgar Wright and written by Wright and Simon Pegg. Pegg stars as Shaun, a downtrodden London salesman who is caught alongside his loved ones in a zombie apocalypse. It also star ...
'' (2004). This led to the revival of zombie films in global popular culture. The turn of the millennium coincided with a decade of box office successes in which the zombie subgenre experienced a resurgence: the ''Resident Evil'' movies (2002–2016), the British films ''28 Days Later'' and ''
28 Weeks Later ''28 Weeks Later'' is a 2007 post-apocalyptic horror film directed by Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, who co-wrote the screenplay with Rowan Joffé, Enrique López Lavigne and Jesus Olmo. It serves as a standalone sequel to '' 28 Days Later'' (20 ...
'' (2007), the ''Dawn of the Dead'' remake (2004), and the comedies ''Shaun of the Dead'' and '' Dance of the Dead'' (2008). The new interest allowed Romero to create the fourth entry in his zombie series: ''
Land of the Dead ''Land of the Dead'' (also known as ''George A. Romero's Land of the Dead'') is a 2005 post-apocalyptic horror film written and directed by George A. Romero; the fourth of Romero's six '' Living Dead'' movies, it is preceded by ''Night of the L ...
'', released in the summer of 2005. Romero returned to the series with the films ''
Diary of the Dead ''Diary of the Dead'' (promoted as ''George A. Romero's Diary of the Dead'') is a 2007 found footage horror film written and directed by George A. Romero. Although independently produced, it was distributed theatrically by The Weinstein Compa ...
'' (2008) and ''
Survival of the Dead Survival or survivorship, the act of surviving, is the propensity of something to continue existing, particularly when this is done despite conditions that might kill or destroy it. The concept can be applied to humans and other living things ...
'' (2010). Generally, the zombies in these shows are the slow, lumbering and unintelligent kind, first made popular in ''Night of the Living Dead''. The ''Resident Evil'' films, ''28 Days Later'' and the ''Dawn of the Dead'' remake all set box office records for the zombie genre, reaching levels of commercial success not seen since the original ''Dawn of the Dead'' in 1978. Motion pictures created in the 2000s, like ''28 Days Later'', the ''House of the Dead'' and ''Resident Evil'' films, and the ''Dawn of the Dead'' remake, have featured zombies that are more agile, vicious, intelligent, and stronger than the traditional zombie. These new type of zombies, the fast zombie or running zombie, have origins in video games, with ''Resident Evil''s running zombie dogs and especially ''The House of the Dead'' game's running human zombies.


Spillover to television (2008–2015)

The success of ''Shaun of the Dead'' led to more successful zombie comedies during the late 2000s to early 2010s, such as ''
Zombieland ''Zombieland'' is a 2009 American post-apocalyptic zombie comedy film directed by Ruben Fleischer in his directorial debut and written by Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick. It stars Woody Harrelson, Jesse Eisenberg, Emma Stone, Abigail Breslin, ...
'' (2009) and ''
Cockneys vs Zombies ''Cockneys vs Zombies'' is a 2012 British zombie action comedy film directed by Matthias Hoene and written by James Moran and Lucas Roche. The plot centres on a group of Cockneys who arm themselves to rescue their grandfather and his friends from ...
'' (2012). By 2011, the ''Resident Evil'' film adaptations had also become the highest-grossing film series based on video games, after they grossed more than worldwide. In 2013, the
AMC AMC may refer to: Film and television * AMC Theatres, an American movie theater chain * AMC Networks, an American entertainment company ** AMC (TV channel) ** AMC+, streaming service ** AMC Networks International, an entertainment company *** ...
series '' The Walking Dead'' had the highest audience ratings in the United States for any show on broadcast or cable with an average of 5.6 million viewers in the 18- to 49-year-old demographic. The film ''
World War Z ''World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War'' is a 2006 zombie apocalyptic horror novel written by American author Max Brooks. The novel is broken into eight chapters: “Warnings”, “Blame”, “The Great Panic”, “Turning the Tid ...
'' became the highest-grossing zombie film, and one of the highest-grossing films of 2013. At the same time, starting from the mid-2000s, a new type of zombie film has been growing in popularity: the one in which zombies are portrayed as humanlike in appearance and behavior, retaining the personality traits they had in life, and becoming friends or even romantic partners for humans rather than a threat to humanity. Notable examples of human–zombie romance include the stop-motion animated movie ''
Corpse Bride ''Corpse Bride'' (also known as ''Tim Burton's Corpse Bride'') is a 2005 stop-motion-animated fantasy musical film, directed by Mike Johnson (in his directorial debut) and Tim Burton from a screenplay by John August, Caroline Thompson, and ...
'', live-action movies '' Warm Bodies'', '' Camille'', '' Life After Beth'', ''
Burying the Ex ''Burying the Ex'' is a 2014 American zombie comedy film directed by Joe Dante and written by Alan Trezza, starring Anton Yelchin, Ashley Greene, Alexandra Daddario and Oliver Cooper. It screened out of competition at the 71st Venice Internatio ...
'', and '' Nina Forever'', and TV series ''
Pushing Daisies ''Pushing Daisies'' is an American comedy-drama television series created by Bryan Fuller that aired on ABC from October 3, 2007, to June 13, 2009. The series stars Lee Pace as Ned, a pie-maker with the ability to bring dead things back to lif ...
'' and ''Babylon Fields''. According to zombie scholar Scott Rogers, "what we are seeing in ''Pushing Daisies'', ''Warm Bodies'', and ''iZombie'' is in many ways the same transformation f the zombiesthat we have witnessed with vampires since the 1931 ''
Dracula ''Dracula'' is an 1897 Gothic fiction, Gothic horror fiction, horror novel by Irish author Bram Stoker. The narrative is Epistolary novel, related through letters, diary entries, and newspaper articles. It has no single protagonist and opens ...
'' represented Dracula as essentially human—a significant departure from the monstrous representation in the 1922 film ''
Nosferatu ''Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror'' () is a 1922 silent film, silent German Expressionism (cinema), German Expressionist vampire film directed by F. W. Murnau from a screenplay by Henrik Galeen. It stars Max Schreck as Count Orlok, a vampire who ...
''". Rogers also notes the accompanying visual transformation of the living dead: while the "traditional" zombies are marked by noticeable disfigurement and decomposition, the "romantic" zombies show little or no such traits.


Return to decline (2015–present)

In the late 2010s, zombie films began declining in popularity, with art horror, elevated horror films gradually taking their place, such as ''The Witch (2015 film), The Witch'' (2015), ''Get Out'' (2017), ''A Quiet Place (film), A Quiet Place'' (2018) and ''Hereditary (film), Hereditary'' (2018). An exception is the low-budget Japanese zombie comedy ''One Cut of the Dead'' (2017), which became a sleeper hit in Japan, and it made box office history by earning over a thousand times its budget. ''One Cut of the Dead'' also received worldwide acclaim, with Rotten Tomatoes stating that it "reanimates the moribund zombie genre with a refreshing blend of formal daring and clever satire". The "romantic zombie" angle still remains popular, however: the late 2010s and early 2020s saw the release of the TV series ''American Gods (TV series), American Gods'', ''iZombie (TV series), iZombie'', and ''
Santa Clarita Diet ''Santa Clarita Diet'' is an American comedy horror television series created by Victor Fresco for the streaming service Netflix, starring Drew Barrymore and Timothy Olyphant. Fresco serves as the showrunner, and is an executive producer alon ...
'', as well as the 2018 Disney Channel Original Movie ''
Zombies A zombie (Haitian French: ; ; Kikongo: ''zumbi'') is a mythological undead corporeal revenant created through the reanimation of a corpse. In modern popular culture, zombies appear in horror genre works. The term comes from Haitian folklore ...
'' and sequels ''Zombies 2'' (2020) and ''Zombies 3'' (2022).


Apocalypse

Intimately tied to the concept of the modern zombie is that of the "zombie apocalypse": the breakdown of society as a result of an initial zombie outbreak that spreads quickly. This archetype has emerged as a prolific subgenre of Apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction, apocalyptic fiction and has been portrayed in many zombie-related media after ''Night of the Living Dead''. In a zombie apocalypse, a widespread (usually global) rise of zombies hostile to human life engages in a general assault on civilization. Victims of zombies may become zombies themselves. This causes the outbreak to become an exponentially growing crisis: the spreading phenomenon swamps normal military and law-enforcement organizations, leading to the panicked collapse of civilized society until only isolated pockets of survivors remain, scavenging for food and supplies in a world reduced to a pre-industrial hostile wilderness. Possible causes for zombie behavior in a modern population can be attributed to viruses, bacteria or other phenomena that reduce the mental capacity of humans, causing them to behave in a very primitive and destructive fashion.


Subtext

The usual subtext of the zombie apocalypse is that civilization is inherently vulnerable to the unexpected, and that most individuals, if desperate enough, cannot be relied on to comply with the author's ethos. The narrative of a zombie apocalypse carries strong connections to the turbulent social landscape of the United States in the 1960s, when ''Night of the Living Dead'' provided an indirect commentary on the dangers of conformity, a theme also explored in the novel ''The Body Snatchers'' (1954) and associated film ''Invasion of the Body Snatchers'' (1956). Many also feel that zombies allow people to deal with their own anxieties about the end of the world. One scholar concluded that "more than any other monster, zombies are fully and literally apocalyptic ... they signal the end of the world as we have known it". While zombie apocalypse scenarios are secular, they follow a religious pattern based on Christian ideas of an end-times war and messiah. Simon Pegg, who starred in and co-wrote the 2004 zombie comedy film ''
Shaun of the Dead ''Shaun of the Dead'' is a 2004 zombie comedy film directed by Edgar Wright and written by Wright and Simon Pegg. Pegg stars as Shaun, a downtrodden London salesman who is caught alongside his loved ones in a zombie apocalypse. It also star ...
'', wrote that zombies were the "most potent metaphorical monster". According to Pegg, whereas
vampire A vampire is a mythical creature that subsists by feeding on the Vitalism, vital essence (generally in the form of blood) of the living. In European folklore, vampires are undead, undead humanoid creatures that often visited loved ones and c ...
s represent sex, zombies represent death: "Slow and steady in their approach, weak, clumsy, often absurd, the zombie relentlessly closes in, unstoppable, intractable." He expressed his dislike for the trend for fast zombies, and argued that they should be slow and inept; just as a healthy diet and exercise can delay death, zombies are easy to avoid, but not forever. He also argued that this was essential for making them "oddly sympathetic... to create tragic anti-heroes... to be pitied, empathised with, even rooted for. The moment they appear angry or petulant, the second they emit furious velociraptor screeches (as opposed to the correct mournful moans of longing), they cease to possess any ambiguity. They are simply mean."


Story elements

# Initial contacts with zombies are extremely dangerous and traumatic, causing shock, panic, disbelief and possibly denial, hampering survivors' ability to deal with hostile encounters. # The response of authorities to the threat is slower than its rate of growth, giving the zombie plague time to expand beyond containment. This results in the collapse of the given society. Zombies take full control, while small groups of the living must fight for their survival. The stories usually follow a single group of survivors, caught up in the sudden rush of the crisis. The narrative generally progresses from the onset of the zombie plague, then initial attempts to seek the aid of authorities, the failure of those authorities, through to the sudden catastrophic collapse of all large-scale organization and the characters' subsequent attempts to survive on their own. Such stories are often squarely focused on the way their characters react to such an extreme catastrophe, and how their personalities are changed by the stress, often acting on more primal motivations (fear, self-preservation) than they would display in normal life.


Literature

In the 1990s, zombie fiction emerged as a distinct literary subgenre, with the publication of ''Book of the Dead (anthology), Book of the Dead'' (1990) and its follow-up ''Still Dead: Book of the Dead 2'' (1992), both edited by horror authors John Skipp and Craig Spector. Featuring Romero-inspired stories from the likes of Stephen King, the ''Book of the Dead'' compilations are regarded as influential in the horror genre and perhaps the first true "zombie literature". Horror novelist Stephen King has written about zombies, including his short story "Home Delivery (short story), Home Delivery" (1990) and his novel ''Cell (novel), Cell'' (2006), concerning a struggling young artist on a trek from Boston to Maine in hopes of saving his family from a possible worldwide outbreak of zombie-like maniacs. Max Brooks's novel ''World War Z'' (2006) became a New York Times bestseller. Brooks had previously authored ''The Zombie Survival Guide'' (2003), a zombie-themed parody of pop-fiction survival guides.Craig Wilson, "Zombies lurch into popular culture via books, plays, more", ''USA Today'', 9 April 2009, p. 1D (1st page of Life section, above the fold), found a
Zombies lurch into popular culture article at USA Today
Retrieved 13 April 2009.
Brooks has said that zombies are so popular because "Other monsters may threaten individual humans, but the living dead threaten the entire human race...Zombies are slate wipers." Seth Grahame-Smith's mashup novel ''Pride and Prejudice and Zombies'' (2009) combines the full text of Jane Austen's ''Pride and Prejudice'' (1813) with a story about a zombie epidemic within the novel's British Regency period setting. In 2009, Katy Hershbereger of St. Martin's Press stated: "In the world of traditional horror, nothing is more popular right now than zombies...The living dead are here to stay." 2000s and 2010s were marked by a decidedly new type of zombie novel, in which zombies retain their humanity and become friends or even romantic partners for humans; critics largely attribute this trend to the influence of Stephenie Meyer's vampire series ''Twilight (novel series), Twilight''. One of the most prominent examples is ''
Generation Dead ''Generation Dead'' is a young adult supernatural romance novel by Daniel Waters. Other novels of this period involving human–zombie romantic relationships include '' Bone Song'' by
John Meaney John Meaney (born 1957 in London) is a British science fiction author. Biography Meaney grew up in London and Slough, England with his brother Colm (who is not the same as the Star Trek actor Colm Meaney). He has studied martial arts since chil ...
, ''
American Gods ''American Gods'' (2001) is a fantasy novel by British author Neil Gaiman. The novel is a blend of Americana (culture), Americana, fantasy, and various strands of ancient and modern mythology, all centering on the mysterious and taciturn Shad ...
'' by
Neil Gaiman Neil Richard MacKinnon Gaiman (; born Neil Richard Gaiman; 10 November 1960) is an English author of short fiction, novels, comic books, audio theatre, and screenplays. His works include the comic series ''The Sandman (comic book), The Sandma ...
, ''Midnight Tides'' by Steven Erikson, and Amy Plum's ''Die for Me'' series; much earlier examples, dating back to the 1980s, are ''Dragon on a Pedestal'' by Piers Anthony and ''Conan the Defiant'' by Steve Perry.


Anime and manga

There has been a growth in the number of zombie manga in the first decade of the 21st century, and in a list of "10 Great Zombie Manga", Anime News Network's Jason Thompson placed ''I Am a Hero'' at number 1, considering it "probably the greatest zombie manga ever". In second place was ''Living Corpse'', and in third was ''Biomega (manga), Biomega'', which he called "the greatest science-fiction virus zombie manga ever". During the late 2000s and early 2010s, there were several manga and anime series that humanized zombies by presenting them as protagonists or love interests, such as '' Sankarea: Undying Love'' and ''
Is This a Zombie? , also known as for short, is a Japanese light novel series by Shinichi Kimura, with illustrations by Kobuichi and Muririn. Since January 2009, 19 volumes have been published by Fujimi Shobo under their Fujimi Fantasia Bunko imprint. There ...
'' (both debuted in 2009). ''Z: Zed, Z ~Zed~'' was adapted into a live action film in 2014.


Video and performance art

Artist Jillian McDonald has made several works of video art involving zombies and exhibited them in her 2006 show "Horror Make-Up", which debuted on 8 September 2006 at Art Moving Projects, a gallery in, Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Artist Karim Charredib has dedicated his work to the zombie figure. In 2007, he made a video installation at Villa Savoye called "Them !!!", wherein zombies walked in the villa like tourists.


Games

Zombies are a common undead creature type fantasy role playing games. In ''Dungeons & Dragons'', zombies are one of the basic
undead The undead are beings in mythology, legend, or fiction that are deceased but behave as if they were alive. A common example of an undead being is a cadaver, corpse reanimated by supernatural forces, by the application of either the deceased's o ...
creature types, based on the zombie from folklore as well as more contemporary entertainment. Zombies are generally portrayed as supernatural creations, with variations such as the Ju-ju, Sea Zombie, and Zombie Lord. The ''Advanced Dungeons & Dragons'' 2nd edition game, however, also incorporated a creature called the yellow musk creeper, a Parthenocissus, creeping plant that drains the intelligence of its victims, possibly turning them into "zombies" under the plant's control. Ben Woodard found this to be an expression of the "seemingly endless morphology of fungal creep and toxicological capacity" within the game. In video games, the release of two 1996 horror games
Capcom is a Japanese video game company. It has created a number of critically acclaimed and List of best-selling video game franchises, multi-million-selling game franchises, with its most commercially successful being ''Resident Evil'', ''Monster ...
's ''
Resident Evil ''Resident Evil'', known as in Japan, is a Japanese horror game series and media franchise created by Capcom. It consists of survival horror, third-person shooter and first-person shooter games, with players typically surviving in environments ...
'' and
Sega is a Japanese video game company and subsidiary of Sega Sammy Holdings headquartered in Tokyo. It produces several List of best-selling video game franchises, multi-million-selling game franchises for arcade game, arcades and video game cons ...
's ''
The House of the Dead ''The House of the Dead'' is a horror-themed light gun shooter video game franchise created by Sega in 1996. Originally released in arcades, it utilizes a light gun on the platform, but can be played with standard controllers on consoles and a ...
'' sparked an international craze for zombie games. In 2013, George A. Romero said that it was the video games ''Resident Evil'' and ''House of the Dead'' "more than anything else" that popularised zombies in early 21st century popular culture. The modern fast-running zombies have origins in these games, with ''Resident Evil''s running zombie dogs and especially ''House of the Dead''s running human zombies, which later became a staple of modern zombie films. Zombies went on to become a popular theme for video games, particularly in the
survival horror Survival horror is a Video game genre, subgenre of horror games. Although combat can be part of the gameplay, the player is made to feel less in control than in typical action games through limited ammunition or weapons, health, speed, and visio ...
, Stealth game, stealth, first-person shooter and role-playing video game, role-playing game genres. Important horror fiction media franchises in this area include ''
Resident Evil ''Resident Evil'', known as in Japan, is a Japanese horror game series and media franchise created by Capcom. It consists of survival horror, third-person shooter and first-person shooter games, with players typically surviving in environments ...
'', ''
The House of the Dead ''The House of the Dead'' is a horror-themed light gun shooter video game franchise created by Sega in 1996. Originally released in arcades, it utilizes a light gun on the platform, but can be played with standard controllers on consoles and a ...
'', ''Silent Hill'', ''Dead Rising'', ''Dead Island'', ''Left 4 Dead'', ''Dying Light'', ''State of Decay (video game), State of Decay'', ''The Last of Us'' and the Zombies game modes from the ''Call of Duty'' title series. A series of games has also been released based on the widely popular TV show ''The Walking Dead (video game series), The Walking Dead'', first aired in 2010. ''World of Warcraft'', first released in 2004, is an early example of a video game in which an individual zombie-like creature could be chosen as a player character (a previous game in the same series, ''Warcraft III'', allowed a player control over an undead army). PopCap Games' ''Plants vs. Zombies'', a humorous tower defense game, was an Indie game development, indie hit in 2009, featuring in several best-of lists at the end of that year. The massively multiplayer online role-playing game ''Urban Dead'', a free grid-based browser game where zombies and survivors fight for control of a ruined city, is one of the most popular games of its type. ''DayZ (mod), DayZ'', a zombie-based
survival horror Survival horror is a Video game genre, subgenre of horror games. Although combat can be part of the gameplay, the player is made to feel less in control than in typical action games through limited ammunition or weapons, health, speed, and visio ...
Mod (video gaming), mod for ''ARMA 2'', was responsible for over 300,000 unit sales of its parent game within two months of its release. Over a year later, the developers of the mod created a DayZ (video game), standalone version of the same game, which was in early access on Steam (service), Steam, and so far has sold 3 million copies since its release in December 2013. Romero would later opine that he believes that much of the 21st century obsessions with zombies can be traced more towards video games than films, noting that it was not until the 2009 film ''
Zombieland ''Zombieland'' is a 2009 American post-apocalyptic zombie comedy film directed by Ruben Fleischer in his directorial debut and written by Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick. It stars Woody Harrelson, Jesse Eisenberg, Emma Stone, Abigail Breslin, ...
'' that a zombie film was able to gross more than 100 million dollars. Outside of video games, zombies frequently appear in Collectible card game, trading card games, such as ''Magic: The Gathering'' or ''Yu-Gi-Oh! Trading Card Game'' (which even has a Zombie-Type for its "monsters"), as well as in role-playing games, such as ''Zombie (Dungeons & Dragons), Dungeons & Dragons'', tabletop games such as ''Zombies!!!'' and ''Dead of Winter: A Cross Roads Game'', and tabletop wargames, such as ''Warhammer Fantasy Battle, Warhammer Fantasy'' and ''Warhammer 40,000, 40K''. The game ''Humans vs. Zombies'' is a zombie-themed live-action game played on college campuses. Writing for ''Scientific American'', Kyle Hill praised the 2013 game ''The Last of Us'' for its plausibility, basing its zombification process on a fictional strain of the parasitic ''Cordyceps'' fungus, a real-world genus whose members control the behavior of their arthropod hosts in "zombielike" ways to reproduce. Despite the plausibility of this mechanism (also explored in the novel ''The Girl with All the Gifts'' and The Girl with All the Gifts (film), the film of the same name), to date there have been no documented cases of Zoonosis, humans infected by ''Cordyceps''. Zombie video games have remained popular in the late 2010s, as seen with the commercial success of the Resident Evil 2 (2019 video game), ''Resident Evil 2'' remake and ''Days Gone'' in 2019. This enduring popularity may be attributed, in part, to the fact that zombie enemies are not expected to exhibit significant levels of intelligence, making them relatively straightforward to program. However, less pragmatic advantages, such as those related to storytelling and representation, are increasingly important.


American government

On 18 May 2011, the United States' Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) published a graphic novel entitled ''Preparedness 101: Zombie Apocalypse'', providing tips to survive a zombie invasion as a "fun new way of teaching the importance of emergency preparedness". The CDC used the metaphor of a zombie apocalypse to illustrate the value of laying in water, food, medical supplies, and other necessities in preparation for any and all potential disasters, be they hurricanes, earthquakes, tornadoes, floods, or hordes of zombies. In 2011, the U.S. Department of Defense drafted CONOP 8888, CONPLAN 8888, a training exercise detailing a strategy to defend against a zombie attack.


Music

Michael Jackson Michael Joseph Jackson (August 29, 1958 – June 25, 2009) was an American singer, songwriter, dancer, and philanthropist. Dubbed the "King of Pop", he is regarded as Cultural impact of Michael Jackson, one of the most culturally significan ...
's music video '' Thriller'' (1983), in which he dances with a troupe of zombies, has been preserved as a cultural treasure by the Library of Congress' National Film Registry. Many instances of pop culture media have paid tribute to this video, including a gathering of 14,000 university students dressed as zombies in Mexico City, and 1,500 prisoners in orange jumpsuits recreating the zombie dance in Thriller (viral video), a viral video. The Brooklyn hip hop trio Flatbush Zombies incorporate many tropes from zombie fiction and play on the theme of a zombie apocalypse in their music. They portray themselves as "living dead", describing their use of psychedelics such as Lysergic acid diethylamide, LSD and psilocybin mushrooms as having caused them to experience ego death and rebirth.


Social activism

The zombie also appears as a metaphor in protest songs, symbolizing mindless adherence to authority, particularly that of law enforcement and the armed forces. Well-known examples include Fela Kuti's 1976 album ''Zombie (album), Zombie'' and the Cranberries' 1994 single "Zombie (The Cranberries song), Zombie". Organized zombie walks have been staged, either as performance art or as part of protests that parody political extremism or apathy. A variation of the zombie walk is the zombie run. Here participants do a 5 km run wearing a belt with several flag "lives". If the chasing zombies capture all of the flags, the runner becomes "infected". If he or she reaches the finish line, which may involve wide detours ahead of the zombies, then the participant is a "survivor". In either case, an appropriate participation medal is awarded.


Theoretical academic studies

Researchers have used theoretical zombie infections to test epidemiology modeling. One study found that all humans end up turned or dead. This is because the main epidemiological risk of zombies, besides the difficulties of neutralizing them, is that their population just keeps increasing; generations of humans merely "surviving" still have a tendency to feed zombie populations, resulting in gross outnumbering. The researchers explain that their methods of modelling may be applicable to the spread of political views or diseases with dormant infection. Adam Chodorow of the Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law at Arizona State University investigated the Estate tax, estate and income tax implications of a zombie apocalypse under Internal Revenue Code, United States federal and state tax codes. Neuroscientists Bradley Voytek and Timothy Verstynen have built a side career in extrapolating how ideas in neuroscience would theoretically apply to zombie brains. Their work has been featured in ''Forbes'', ''New York Magazine'', and other publications.


See also

* Nazi zombies#Films, List of zombie Nazi films * List of zombie short films and undead-related projects * ''Ophiocordyceps unilateralis'', a fungus that creates so-called "zombie ants" or, more generally, behavior-altering parasites * "Philosophical zombie", a person without a consciousness, used in philosophical thought experiments * Skeleton (undead) * Smartphone zombie, Smombie (a combination of "smartphone" and "zombie") * Clairvius Narcisse *Zuvembie


References

Notes Bibliography * Further reading * * Black, J. Anderson (2000) ''The Dead Walk'' Noir Publishing, Hereford, Herefordshire, * Curran, Bob (2006) ''Encyclopedia of the Undead: A field guide to creatures that cannot rest in peace'' New Page Books, Franklin Lakes, New Jersey, * Flint, David (2008) ''Zombie Holocaust: How the living dead devoured pop culture'' Plexus, London, * Forget, Thomas (2007) ''Introducing Zombies'' Rosen Publishing, New York, ; (juvenile) * Graves, Zachary (2010) ''Zombies: The complete guide to the world of the living dead'' Sphere, London, * Hurston, Zora Neale (2009) ''Tell My Horse: Voodoo and Life in Haiti and Jamaica'', Harper Perennial. * (Copy at Webster University) * McIntosh, Shawn and Marc Leverette, Leverette, Marc (editors) (2008) ''Zombie Culture: Autopsies of the Living Dead'' Scarecrow Press, Lanham, Maryland, . * Moreman, Christopher M., and Cory James Rushton (editors) (2011) ''Zombies Are Us: Essays on the Humanity of the Walking Dead''. McFarland. . * Shaka McGlotten, and Jones, Steve (editors) (2014) ''Zombies and Sexuality: Essays on Desire and the Living Dead''. McFarland. . * Bishop, Kyle William (2015) ''How Zombies Conquered Popular Culture: The Multifarious Walking Dead in the 21st Century''. McFarland. . * Szanter, Ashley, and Richards, Jessica K. (editors) (2017) ''Romancing the Zombie: Essays on the Undead as Significant "Other"''. McFarland. . * Russell, Jamie (2005) ''Book of the dead: the complete history of zombie cinema'' FAB, Godalming, England, * Waller, Gregory A. (2010) ''Living and the undead: slaying vampires, exterminating zombies'' University of Illinois Press, Urbana, Indiana, {{DEFAULTSORT:Zombie (fictional) 1810s neologisms African mythology Bantu religion Caribbean legendary creatures Corporeal undead Culture-bound syndromes Fictional cannibals Fictional diseases and disorders Fictional monsters Fictional zombies, * Culture of Haiti Haitian Vodou Horror fiction Literary characters introduced in 1929 Stock characters Topics in culture Zombies in popular culture, * Zombies, Body horror Haitian mythology