Zombie (fictional)

Zombies are fictional undead creatures regularly encountered in horror and fantasy themed works. They are typically depicted as mindless, reanimated corpses with a hunger for human flesh, and in some cases, human brains in particular. Although they share their name and some superficial similarities with the zombie from Haitian Vodun, their links to such folklore are unclear[1] and many consider George A. Romero's seminal film The Night of the Living Dead to be the progenitor of these creatures.[2] By 2011 the influence of zombies in popular consciousness had reached far enough that government agencies were using them to garner greater attention in public service messages.[3]

Contents

Evolution of the zombie archetype

The flesh-hungry undead, often in the form of ghouls and vampires, have been a fixture of world mythology dating at least since The Epic of Gilgamesh,[4] in which the goddess Ishtar promises:

I will knock down the Gates of the Netherworld,
I will smash the door posts, and leave the doors flat down,
and will let the dead go up to eat the living!
And the dead will outnumber the living![4]

Undead creatures appear in Norse mythology and include the draugr, which is a reanimated corpse that roams outside of its grave to attack, eat, and infect the living. A human that is killed by a draugr is destined to become a draugr, as evident in the Eyrbyggja Saga when a shepherd is killed by a draugr.[5]

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, while not a zombie novel proper, prefigures 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,[6] whose tales of vengeful dead also informed the evolution of the modern conception of vampires as well as zombies. Later notable 19th century stories about the avenging undead included Ambrose Bierce's "The Death of Halpin Frayser", and various Gothic Romanticism tales by Edgar Allan Poe. Though their works couldn't be properly considered zombie fiction, the supernatural tales of Bierce and Poe would prove influential on later undead-themed writers such as H. P. Lovecraft, by Lovecraft's own admission.[7]

One book to expose more recent western culture to the concept of the zombie was The Magic Island by W.B. Seabrook in 1929. Island is the sensationalized account of a narrator in Haiti who encounters voodoo cults and their resurrected thralls. Time claimed that the book "introduced 'zombi' into U.S. speech".[8]

In the 1920s and early 1930s, the American horror author H. P. Lovecraft wrote several novelettes that explored the undead theme from different angles. "Cool Air", "In the Vault", and "The Outsider" all deal with the undead, but the most definitive "zombie-type" story in Lovecraft's oeuvre was 1921's Herbert West–Reanimator, which "helped define zombies in popular culture".[9] This Frankenstein-inspired series featured Herbert West, a mad scientist 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.

In 1932, Victor Halperin directed White Zombie, a horror film starring Bela Lugosi. This film, capitalizing on the same voodoo zombie themes as Seabrook's book of three years prior, is often regarded as the first legitimate zombie film ever made.[10] 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,[11] with notable films including I Walked With a Zombie (1943) and the infamous Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959).

The 1936 film Things to Come, based on the novel by H. G. Wells, anticipates later zombie films with an apocalyptic scenario surrounding "the wandering sickness", a highly contagious viral plague that causes the infected to wander slowly and insensibly, very much like zombies, infecting others on contact.[12] Though this film's direct influence on later films isn't known, Things to Come is still compared favorably by some critics[13] to modern zombie movies.

Avenging zombies would feature prominently in the early 1950s EC Comics such as Tales from the Crypt, which George A. Romero would later claim as an influence.[14] The comics, including Tales, 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.[15]

The 1954 publication of I Am Legend, by author Richard Matheson, would further influence the zombie genre. It is the story of a future Los Angeles, overrun with undead bloodsucking beings. Notable as influential on the zombie genre is the portrayal of a worldwide apocalypse due to the infestation, in addition to the initial conception of vampirism as a disease (a scenario comparable to recent zombie media such as Resident Evil). The novel was a success, and would be adapted to film as The Last Man on Earth in 1964, as The Omega Man in 1971, and again in 2007 as I Am Legend.

Although classified as a vampire story and referred to as "the first modern vampire novel",[16] Legend had definitive impact on the zombie genre by way of George A. Romero. Romero was heavily influenced by the novel and its 1964 adaptation when writing the film Night of the Living Dead,[17] by his own admission.[14] Critics have also noted extensive similarities between Night and Last Man on Earth,[18] indicating further influence.

Night of the Living Dead, a taboo-breaking and genre-defining classic, would prove to be more influential on the concept of zombies than any literary or cinematic work before it.[19]

George A. Romero and the modern zombie film

The modern conception of the zombie owes itself almost entirely to George A. Romero's 1968 film Night of the Living Dead.[20][21] In his films, Romero "bred the zombie with the vampire, and what he got was the hybrid vigour of a ghoulish plague monster".[22] This entailed an apocalyptic vision of monsters that have come to be known as Romero zombies.

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times 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:

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.[23]

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".[24] Night was the first of six films in the Living Dead series.

Innately tied with the conception of the modern zombie is the "zombie apocalypse", the breakdown of society as a result of zombie infestation, portrayed in countless zombie-related media post-Night.[25] Scholar Kim Paffrenroth notes that "more than any other monster, zombies are fully and literally apocalyptic ... they signal the end of the world as we have known it."[25]

Night made no reference to the creatures as "zombies". In the film, they are referred as "ghouls" on the TV news reports. However, the word zombie is used continually by Romero in his 1978 script for Dawn of the Dead,[26] including once in dialog. This "retroactively fits (the creatures) with an invisible Haitian/African prehistory, formally introducing the zombie as a new archetype".[27]

Dawn of the Dead was released under this title just months before the release of Lucio Fulci's Zombi II (1979). Fulci's gory epic was filmed at the same time as Romero's Dawn, despite the popular belief that it was made in order to cash in on the success of Dawn. The only reference to Dawn was the title change to Zombi II (Dawn generally went by Zombi or Zombie in other countries.)[28]

The early 1980s was notable for the introduction of zombies into Chinese and other Asian films, often martial arts/horror crossover films, that featured zombies as thralls animated by magic for purposes of battle.[29] Though the idea never had large enough appeal to become a sub-genre, zombies are still used as martial-arts villains in some films today.[30]

1981's Hell of the Living Dead was the first film to reference a mutagenic gas as a source of zombie contagion, later echoed by Trioxin in Dan O'Bannon's 1985 film, Return of the Living Dead. RotLD took a more comedic approach than Romero's films; Return was the first film to feature zombies which hungered specifically for brains instead of all human flesh (this included the vocalization of "Brains!" as a part of zombie vocabulary), and is the source of the now-familiar cliché of brain-devouring zombies seen elsewhere.

The mid-1980s produced few zombie films of note. Perhaps the most notable entry, the Evil Dead series, while highly influential are not technically zombie films but films about demonic possession, despite the presence of the undead. 1985's Re-Animator, loosely based on the Lovecraft story, stood out in the genre, achieving nearly unanimous critical acclaim,[31] and becoming a modest success, nearly outstripping 1985's Day of the Dead for box office returns. Lovecraft's prescient depiction is notable here; the zombies in the film are consistent with other zombie films of the period, and it may escape the viewer that they are nearly unchanged from the 1921 story.

Also in 1988, the Romero zombies were featured in Waxwork, where the protagonists are drawn to the world of Night of the Living Dead.

After the mid-1980s, the subgenre was mostly relegated to the underground. Notable entries include director Peter Jackson's ultra-gory film Braindead (1992) (released as Dead Alive in the U.S.), Bob Balaban'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 (1994) (released as Cemetery Man in the U.S.). Several years later, zombies experienced a renaissance in low-budget Asian cinema, with a sudden spate of dissimilar entries including Bio Zombie (1998), Wild Zero (1999), Junk (1999), Versus (2000) and Stacy (2001).

In Disney's 1993 film Hocus Pocus, a "good zombie", Billy Butcherson played by Doug Jones, was introduced, giving yet a new kind of zombie in an intelligent, gentle, kind, and heroic being.[32]

The turn of the millennium coincided with a decade of box office successes in which the zombie sub-genre experienced a resurgence: the Resident Evil movies (2002, 2004, 2007, 2010); the Dawn of the Dead remake (2004), the British films 28 Days Later and 28 Weeks Later (2002, 2007)[33][34] and the comedy/homage Shaun of the Dead (2004). The new interest allowed Romero to create the fourth entry in his zombie series: Land of the Dead, released in the summer of 2005. Romero has recently returned to the beginning of the series with the films Diary of the Dead (2008) and Survival of the Dead (2010).

The depiction of zombies as biologically infected people has become increasingly popular, likely due to the 28 Days Later and Resident Evil series. 2006's Slither featured zombies infected with alien parasites, and 2007's Planet Terror featured a zombie outbreak caused by a biological weapon. The comedy films Zombie Strippers, Zombieland and Fido have also taken this approach.

Zombies in recent popular culture have considerably increased their locomotion, as exampled in recent movies like 28 Days Later (and its sequel, 28 Weeks Later), the Dawn of the Dead remake, House of the Dead,[35] Zombieland and the video game Left 4 Dead. In contrast, zombies have historically been portrayed as slow.

As part of this resurgence, there have been numerous direct-to-video (or DVD) zombie movies made by low-budget filmmakers using digital video. A proliferation of 'documentary-style' zombie films has resulted, including The Zombie Diaries, American Zombie and Colin, each taking distinct approaches to the undead phenomenon.

Zombie apocalypse

The zombie apocalypse is a particular scenario of apocalyptic fiction that customarily has a science fiction/horror rationale. 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 "zombie plague/virus" swamps normal military and law enforcement organizations, leading to the panicked collapse of civilian society until only isolated pockets of survivors remain, scavenging for food and supplies in a world reduced to a pre-industrial hostile wilderness.

The literary subtext of a zombie apocalypse is usually that civilization is inherently fragile in the face of truly unprecedented threats and that most individuals cannot be relied upon to support the greater good if the personal cost becomes too high.[36] The narrative of a zombie apocalypse carries strong connections to the turbulent social landscape of the United States in the 1960s when the originator of this genre, the film Night of the Living Dead, was first created.[37][38] Many also feel that zombies allow people to deal with their own anxiety about the end of the world.[39] In fact the breakdown of society as a result of zombie infestation has been portrayed in countless zombie-related media since Night of the Living Dead.[25] 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."[25]

Due to a large number of thematic films and video games, the idea of a zombie apocalypse has entered the mainstream and there have been efforts by many fans to prepare for the hypothetical future zombie apocalypse. Efforts include creating weapons [40] and selling posters to inform people on how to survive a zombie outbreak.[41]

In print and literature

Though zombies have appeared in many books prior to and after Night of the Living Dead, it wouldn't be until 1990 that zombie fiction emerged as a distinct literary subgenre, with the publication of Book of the Dead in 1990 and its follow-up Still Dead: Book of the Dead 2 in 1992, both edited by horror authors John Skipp and Craig Spector. Featuring Romero-inspired stories from the likes of Stephen King and other famous names, the Book of the Dead compilations are regarded as influential in the horror genre and perhaps the first true "zombie literature".

Recent zombie fiction of note includes Brian Keene's 2005 novel The Rising, followed by its sequel City of the Dead, which deal with a worldwide apocalypse of intelligent zombies, caused by demonic possession. Though the story took many liberties with the zombie concept, The Rising proved itself to be a success in the subgenre, even winning the 2005 Bram Stoker award.[42]

Famed horror novelist Stephen King has mined the zombie theme, first with 1990's "Home Delivery", written for the aforementioned Book of the Dead compilation and detailing a small town's attempt to defend itself from a classic zombie outbreak. In 2006 King published Cell, which concerns a struggling young artist on a trek from Boston to Maine in hopes of saving his family from a possible worldwide zombie outbreak, created by "The Pulse", a global electromagnetic phenomenon that turns the world's cellular phone users into bloodthirsty, zombie-like maniacs. Cell was a number-one bestseller upon its release[43]

Aside from Cell, the most well-known current work of zombie fiction is 2006's World War Z by Max Brooks, which was an immediate hit upon its release and a New York Times bestseller.[44] Brooks had previously authored the cult hit The Zombie Survival Guide, an exhaustively researched, zombie-themed parody of pop-fiction survival guides published in 2003.[45] 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.

David Wellington's trilogy of zombie novels began in 2004 with Monster Island, followed by two sequels, Monster Nation and Monster Planet. The Monster Trilogy reveals the flesh-eating urge of the zombie is caused by a desire for life force, a golden energy that is found in living organisms. When pushed, Wellington's zombies will even consume plant matter. The reader is informed of this golden energy via the accounts of Liches, individuals who have voluntarily or involuntarily managed to maintain the flow of oxygen to the brain during death and emerge 'zombified' yet intelligent.

Jonathan Maberry's Zombie CSU: The Forensics of the Living Dead, released in August 2008, interviewed over 250 experts in forensics, medicine, science, law enforcement, the military and similar disciplines to discuss how the real world would react, research and respond to zombies. Maberry has also created a new series, the first being Rot and Ruin, a continuation of a short story he wrote in the anthology The New Dead. Rot and Ruin is succeeded by Dust and Decay.

In the fantasy trilogy His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman, a zombie is described as a human who has been artificially separated from his soul (which, in the alternate world of the novels, takes the form of a visible animal-shaped companion called dæmon) by means of a process called intercision. When the intercision is performed on an adult, the victim is prived of many human characteristics, most notably his free will. Some African tribes traditionally use this process in order to create slaves that will work day and night without ever running away or complaining, and with no fear of death or injury. The novels' main villain, Marisa Coulter, also uses intercision to create apathic and obedient servants, bodyguards and soldiers.

J. K. Rowling includes zombies, known as Inferi, in the sixth book of her Harry Potter series. The Inferi are dead humans who are re-animated by Dark Magic.

By 2009, zombies became all the rage in literature:

In the world of traditional horror, nothing is more popular right now than zombies.... The living dead are here to stay.
—Katy Hershbereger, St. Martin's Press[45]

The 2009 mashup novel Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Seth Grahame-Smith combines the full text of Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen with a story about a zombie epidemic within the novel's British Regency period setting.[45] Other pastiches of classic works include Canadian Coscom Entertainment's adaptations of War of the Worlds, Huckleberry Finn, The Wizard of Oz, Dracula, Robin Hood mythos and Alice in Wonderland, now all with added zombie content.

Other zombie appearances have been cataloged in dozens of novels,[46] comics, and webcomics. Like vampires and other famous archetypal creatures, the zombie archetype has spread so far and wide that it is impossible to provide a definitive list of resources, though certain websites keep note of zombie references in detail.

In comics

The fictional Disney cartoon character Bombie the Zombie, created by Carl Barks, first appeared in the Voodoo Hoodoo strip in 1949. Bombie had been reanimated by an African voodoo sorcerer, and was sent on a mission to poison Scrooge McDuck. Later on Don Rosa reused the character in his own McDuck stories.

Robert Kirkman, an admirer of Romero, has contributed to the recent popularity of the genre in comics, first by launching his self-published comic book The Walking Dead, then by writing Marvel Zombies in 2006. In response to its competitor's popular series, DC Comics' Geoff Johns introduced a revenant-staffed Black Lantern Corps, consisting of the maliciously animated corpses of fallen DC metahumans during its current Blackest Night story arc.

DC Comics continued producing zombie comics on their digital imprint Zuda Comics. The Black Cherry Bombshells takes place in a world of all where all the men have turned into zombies and women gangs fight with them and each other.

In 1973, Marvel Comics launched a black and white magazine series entitled Tales of the Zombie featuring the adventures of Simon William Garth aka the Zombie. After the series ended in 1975, the character was resurrected in 1993 and has appeared a few times in Spider-Man-related comic book series.

The Amazing Joy Buzzards from Image Comics presents Hollywood Zombies who have been zombified by the villain Hypno who are attacking the band.

The manga and anime series Highschool of the Dead, which was released in 2006 for manga and anime in July 2010. The series follows a group of high school students who were caught in a middle of a pandemic attack throughout Japan and around the world. The survivors are now currently trying to live through the pandemic attack, wandering throughout Japan to find refuge.

In television

One of the most famous zombie-themed television appearances was 1983's Thriller, a Michael Jackson music video featuring choreographed zombies dancing with the singer. Many pop culture media have paid tribute to this scene alone, including zombie films such as Return of the Living Dead 2.

Romero-styled zombie outbreaks are often featured in animated shows, such as in the Halloween episodes of The Simpsons, South Park, and Invader Zim. In the far east, zombies also often appear in anime, such as Samurai Champloo, Highschool Of the Dead, Tokyo Majin Gakuen Kenpucho, Yu-Gi-Oh! GX(Duel Ghouls), YuYu Hakusho,[47][48][49] Zombie-Loan and many others both within and beyond the horror genre.

In 2008, journalist/writer Charlie Brooker created Dead Set, a television miniseries wholly centered around the zombie apocalypse. The satire/horror storyline follows fictional Big Brother contestants and studio employees, trapped within the Big Brother house as wild, savage zombies rampage outside.

On October 28, 2010 NBC aired the 6th episode of the TV series Community titled Epidemiology, which had a zombie theme.

In 2010, AMC premiered The Walking Dead, the first US television program about zombies.

In the 2010 beginning of Transformers Prime, Megatron brings to life an army of reanimated transformers called Terrorcons. These robots are often considered zombies both in fandom and with-in the show it's self.

In August 2011, MTV premiered Death Valley, spoof horror series about the Undead Task Force that capture the monsters, including zombies, that infest San Fernando Valley.

On September 14, 2011 Spike TV aired the third season finale of Deadliest Warrior in which the two combatants were zombies versus vampires.

In gaming

Zombies are a popular theme for video games, particularly of but not limited to the first-person shooter and role-playing genre. Some important titles in this area include the Resident Evil series, Half Life series (1 and 2), S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series, Dead Rising, House of the Dead and Left 4 Dead.[36] PopCap Games Plants vs. Zombies - a humorous tower defense game - was an 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, with an estimated 30,680 visits per day.[50] Some games even allow the gamer to play as a zombie. In the game Stubbs the Zombie in "Rebel Without a Pulse", zombies are impervious to most attacks, except trauma to the head (which would instantly "kill" the zombie). The game Left 4 Dead and its sequel Left 4 Dead 2 pit two teams against each other, one team consists of humans attempting to make it to a safe room while the other team consists of "specialized" zombies attempting to stop them. Early platforms to feature zombie games included the Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis, which featured a game entitled Zombies Ate My Neighbors that was produced in 1993.

Outside of video games, zombies frequently appear in trading card games such as Magic: The Gathering, as well as in role-playing games such as Dungeons & Dragons and tabletop wargames such as Warhammer Fantasy and 40K. The RPG All Flesh Must Be Eaten is premised upon a zombie outbreak and features rules for zombie campaigns in many historical settings.

The award-winning Zombies!!! series of board games by Twilight Creations features players attempting to escape from a zombie-infested city. Cheapass Games has released five other zombie-themed games, including Give Me the Brain, The Great Brain Robbery, and Lord of the Fries, which takes place at Friedey's, a fast-food restaurant staffed by minimum wage zombies. Last Night on Earth is a boardgame covering many stereotypes of the zombie movie genre.

The game, Humans vs. Zombies, is a popular zombie-themed live-action game played on many college campuses. The game starts with one "Zombie" and a group of "Humans." The ultimate goal of the game is for either all Humans to be turned into Zombies, or for the humans to survive a set amount of time. Humans defend themselves using socks or dart guns, stunning the Zombie players; Zombies are unarmed and must tag a Human in order to turn him or her into a Zombie. Safe zones are established so that players can eat and sleep in safety.[51]

In music

Zombies and horror have become so popular that many songs and bands have been based on these flesh-eating ghouls; most notably, the musician Rob Zombie has incorporated zombie aesthetics and references into virtually all of his work, while Brain Drill has dealt with the theme in five of their songs to date. Zombie references crop up in every genre from pop to death metal and some subgenres such as horror punk mine the zombie aesthetic extensively. Horror punk has also been linked with the subgenres of deathrock and psychobilly. The success of these genres has been mainly underground, although psychobilly has reached some mainstream popularity.

The zombie also appears in protest songs, symbolizing mindless adherence to authority, particularly in law enforcement and the armed forces. Well-known examples include Fela Kuti's 1976 single Zombie, and The Cranberries' 1994 single Zombie.

Producers have acquired the rights to Michael Jackson's Thriller for a proposed Broadway musical, "complete with dancing undead."[45]

London based band Brontosaurus Chorus created a zombie themed music video for their song 'Louisiana' in October 2009.

The song "Re: Your Brains" by Jonathan Coulton is a song from the perspective of an office employee turned zombie. It can be found in the Easter-egg-style jukeboxes in the game Left 4 Dead 2.

American Underground rapper Aesop Rock used a Zombie theme for his single "Coffee". The video features Zombies much like that of Night of the Living Dead With Aesop Rock himself becoming a Zombie in the process

Bedfordshire based outfit Undead Pandemic have also themed their music under the self-styled genre 'zombie-themed deathcore horror metal' - basing their debut release 'The Rising' on traditional Romero style zombies and other undead themes.

American metalcore band The Devil Wears Prada base the lyrics on their Zombie EP documenting a zombie apocalypse.

The video for Don Henley's 2000 single "Everything is Different Now" from the album "Inside Job" featured what looked to be the aftermath of a zombie apocalypse.

Send More Paramedics were a horror film-influenced crossover thrash band from Leeds in the north of England. The band played in the 1980s crossover style, what they described as "Zombiecore...a fusion of 80s thrash and modern hardcore punk", with lyrics about zombies and cannibalism, and were heavily influenced by zombie movies.

In 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 September 8, 2006 at Art Moving Projects, a gallery in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Others have included “Zombie Loop” and “Zombie Portraits”.[52]

Artist Karim Charredib has dedicated his work to the zombie figure. In 2007, he made a video installation at villa Savoye called "Them !!!" where zombies walked in the villa like tourists.[53] He has also made a serie of collages, inserting zombies in the background of famous movies, like North By Northwest, 2001, Gone With The Wind or Casablanca.[54]

Consumables

Many companies from around the world have also put strong focus on creating products geared towards the 'zombie' culture. This list includes Kittiwat Unarrom, an artist in Thailand, that bakes/glazes breads to look like human body parts;[55] a company in California , Harcos Labs, that sells bagged Zombie Blood and Zombie Jerky in specimen style pouches;[56] and an array of small companies creating novelty products such as Zombie Mints (which taste like "rotting brains"), Screaming Zombie Energy Drink, and Gummy Brains. These items have been incorporated into cosplay during zombie walks around the world. The ammunition manufacturer Hornady recently announced a line of ammunition dubbed "Zombie Max" purportedly for use on zombies. The ammunition features a green ballistic tip and stylized packaging.[57]

Social activism

Some zombie fans continue the George A. Romero tradition of using zombies as a social commentary. Organized zombie walks, which are primarily promoted through word of mouth, are regularly staged in some countries. Usually they are arranged as a sort of surrealist performance art, but they are occasionally put on as part of a unique political protest.[58][59][60][61][62]

See also

References

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  2. ^ Deborah Christie, Sarah Juliet Lauro, ed (2011). Better Off Dead: The Evolution of the Zombie as Post-Human. Fordham Univ Press. p. 169. ISBN 0823234479, 9780823234479. http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=0oZIlm84F2oC&pg=PA57&lpg=PA57&dq=romero+zombie+ghouls&source=bl&ots=OqDhPx6I3m&sig=fBKmtkH_PBGVm7rpADZ0bwR3_lI&hl=en&ei=SpuITqGXF8TI0QWFk4XlDw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5&ved=0CDsQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=romero%20&f=false. 
  3. ^ http://rlbrody.com/2011/05/24/getting-the-internet-the-cdc-and-the-zombie-apocalypse/
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  5. ^ http://www.vikinganswerlady.com/ghosts.shtml
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  7. ^ H. P. Lovecraft, Supernatural Horror in Literature (1927, 1933–1935) http://gaslight.mtroyal.ca/superhor.htm
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  15. ^ "H. P. Lovecraft in the comics"
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  29. ^ Wu long tian shi zhao ji gui at the Internet Movie Database
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