GREETINGS, FELLOW AFICIONADOS

of the grotesque. Step into the haunting corridors of the cinematic realm, where the ghoulish figures that have captured our imaginations for generations, dance with shadows as they project into popular culture. Prepare to defend yourself as we unearth what composes, or perhaps, decomposes these relentless fiends, the zombies. The decaying, yet formidable reanimated corpses that have broken through the silver screen for almost a century since the release of “White Zombie” in 1932. While zombies and their closest relatives may have had much earlier beginnings that date back to biblical times when Ezekiel, Isaiah, and many other writers told various stories of the dead coming back to life, it wasn’t until 1968 when George A. Romero created “The Night of the Living Dead” where the phenomenon of zombie fandom began to take hold.

Inspired by the 1954 novel “I am Legend” by Richard Matheson, Romero’s cult classic portrayed these ungodly creatures as a slow lumbering collection of bones and flesh that will stop at nothing to terrorize the Pennsylvania farmhouse, where the main characters take refuge. Their expired bodies still seek sustenance from those who are among the living by feeding on their juicy flesh. This morbid affliction is contagious, as Karen mutates into a zombie herself, in this groundbreaking apocalyptic motion picture. The plot explains that these monsters may have been the result of the dead coming in contact with radiation, a theme that seems to inspire many of our end of times narratives. Romero’s version of a zombie has surely traumatized our entire world as the controversial film infected our nightmares and has transformed into our most common depiction.

Before zombies were popularized there were stories of the undead like Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein,” that while technically not a zombie, still possess all the qualities of their sluggish brethren. Experimentation has often led to the creation of these horrible leviathans where an ambitious scientist attempts to bring someone back from the afterlife or in the case of Frankenstein, attempts to create life by taking pieces of the dead and combining them together to make a superior species. While our flat-topped friend may not have the insatiable hunger to feed on the living, many of his characteristics match our modern view of a zombie and has certainly inspired other scientific atrocities in cinema and while some may debate the difference between a living dead and zombie genres, I wouldn’t recommend that you ask the undead how they identify. They probably wouldn’t give you any more than a grunt or a growl.

Related to the scientific category, are the films that imagine a world where humanity contracts a virus that takes over the body and turns them into a super-powered threat to the earth. These parasitic entities are commonly hive minded and communicate with each other through ESP, as they take arms against all that is pure in an all out war of survival of the fittest. These types of monstrosities tend to break out of their sloth-like compatriots tendencies, as they possess different abilities as they adapt to their environment in an attempt to be the superior race. We can find these types of zombies in video game-inspired movies like “Resident Evil” and “The Last of Us”. Whether it be a fungus or a viral agent, it makes little difference when all your neighbors start seeing you as a 3-corpse meal.

The origin of the term Zombie may be from a Haitian myth, where voodoo practitioners used deadly neurotoxins in small doses to induce zombielike ailments and cause paralysis or a coma. Movies like–Wes Craven’s “The Serpent and the Rainbow” in 1988–have used this real world example to haunt audiences by bringing zombies one step closer to home as they learn about the history of this dark recollection of zombiepowder prescribers. These types of brutes are often puppets controlled by their creators who have taken hold of their souls before they are passed into their final resting place. The threat of these cursed entities lies with their undying need to appease their masters, making them impossible to stop without breaking the hex that could free their spirit. These zombies differ from our modern interpretation of the classic zombie, because of their ability to perform non-mundane tasks and often possess the intelligence of their puppeteer.

No matter how we define them, they creep closer to our subconscious, frightening us with their horrifying tales of perversion. Don’t bother hiding, because much like their haunting tendencies, their popularity seems to find us wherever we are. The zombie contagion has spread and cultish followers have formed a frightening number of diehard hordes. Zombies aren’t going away anytime soon and they may even come knocking down your door. Dear reader, my advice to the living is to cherish your every moment because someday soon we may be surrounded without escape from this ever-growing corporal corruption.