Zombies

"My need to feed on brains is weird, but how many people can say that satisfying their munchies could potentially help solve a murder case? This is my contribution to society. I'm just a fake, psychic zombie trying to do her part."

- Olivia Moore

Zombies are humans, animals or any part thereof who have died and have since been reanimated through any of several methods. They have been referred to as the Undead or the Walking Dead. Traditionally, when a human being dies and is resurrected as a zombie, they are no longer a sentient being and lack any semblance of a conscious mind. These creatures are typically driven by pure instinct or an innate primal desire such as hunger or the need to kill. Zombies are often susceptible to psychological suggestion and may be easily manipulated or controlled by those responsible for their reanimation. This is not always the case however, and many zombies have rebelled against their creator over the years.

Origins
The creation of a zombie may be conducted through a variety of ways. The earliest methods of zombie creation stem all the way back to ancient Egypt in the form of mummies. Egyptians who had earned the enmity of the Pharaoh or the gods would find themselves executed. Their bodies were wrapped in linen upon death and placed inside of a tomb. In place of the traditional Egyptian prayer ceremonies however, these mummies were instead cursed to return to life as a shambling monster with no other desire but to kill. It was common for Egyptian tomb builders to place a warning upon the sarcophagus, indicating to others what might happen should the tomb of the mummy be disturbed. While mummies may lie inert in their coffins for centuries, it was not uncommon for a thief or achaelogist to discover their remains and, ignoring the warnings, inadvertently bring the mummy back to life, usually at the cost of their own lives.

For the past several centuries, one of the more noted methods of zombie creation stems from the religious voodoo sects of the West Indies as well as some regions of the Southeastern United States. Many zombie creation rites originate from the island of Haiti. In the tenents of the Voodoo religion, a Voodoo priest, known as a Bokor, performs a ritual that brings the body of the recently deceased back to life. Like most zombies, this individual no longer has a will of their own and is submissive to the instruction of the Bokor.

in film
Zombies as film villains did not reach the same popularity as vampires or werewolves and they usually took the form of mummies or some variation of the Frankenstein Monster.

One of the earliest representations of zombies in horror films is the 1932 movie White Zombie starring Bela Lugosi. Lugosi played a character named Murder Legendre who owned a sugar mill run by a zombie labor force. At the behest of a colleague named Charles Beaumont, he produced a serum that could turn the living into zombies. Beaumont intended to use Legendre's serum on a woman he desired named Madeleine Short.

Although White Zombie is considered a respected staple in horror film history, it did little to boost the popularity of zombies in modern culture. 1943 helped to provide more zombie exposure in the RKO Productions feature I Walked With a Zombie. By the 1950s, zombies were seldom used for anything other than b-movie fodder such as the critically-panned Ed Wood movie Plan 9 from Outer Space.

It wasn't until 1968 that a director named George Romero created a franchise that would forever change the face of zombie culture in cinema -- Night of the Living Dead. Romero's zombies were not the product of voodoo practitioners, but rather, were the result of some contagion. These shambling monstrosities sought out human victims, consumed parts of their flesh thus transmitting the virus, transforming their victims into zombies. Romero's mythology established that a zombie could only be killed through severe trauma to the head. This method has since become the de facto means of execution against zombie in nearly every medium from this point onward. Romero's Night of the Living Dead spawned several sequels and remakes including Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead, Land of the Dead, Diary of the Dead and Survival of the Dead. The first three films have all received the remake treatment.

As Romero's franchise grew in popularity, other film makers borrowed a page from Romero's play book and produced their own crop of zombie-related horror films such as the Return of the Living Dead franchise, The Dead Hate the Living, Shaun of the Dead, Dance of the Dead and so on.

Another zombie-related franchise that grew out of the new millennium was the Resident Evil series of films. Inspired by a series of popular video games developed by Capcom, the franchise has, to date, produced three full-length feature films, one computer animated direct-to-DVD film as well as a series of comic books and novels based on the video games. The films feature actress Milla Jovovich in the role of Alice, a former employee of the evil Umbrella Corporation who now fights against hordes of zombies produced by Umbrella's T-Virus. All of the films to date have been written by Paul W.S. Anderson, who also directed the first Resident Evil film.

in television
In October of 2010, AMC began airing the first live-action drama series centered exclusively around zombies - The Walking Dead. The series adapts the popular Image Comics comic book series of the same name, written by Robert Kirkman and illustrated by Tony Moore and Charlie Adlard. The series follows former Sheriff's deputy Rick Grimes as he awakens from a coma only to discover that the world has been overrun by zombies. Making his way to Atlanta, Georgia, he reunites with his wife and son and becomes a member of a camp of survivors, all of whom are struggling to avoid becoming the next meal for the flesh-craving corpses that have infected the city. As is typical of most Romero-inspired ghouls, the undead featured in the series are never referred to as zombies. They are only ever identified as either "walkers" or "geeks".

The CW Network television series iZombie focuses on the misadventures of a young medical intern named Olivia "Liv" Moore, who is infected by a zombie named Blaine DeBeers at a boat party that ends up becoming a zombie feeding frenzy. Liv dies and is reborn as a zombie, but maintains her personality and intellect, though she suffers a ravishing need to consume human brains. Fortunately for her, her job at the Seattle Medical Examiner's office affords her ample opportunity to sample the local, and recently deceased, cuisine. Unless Liv consumes at least one human brain per month, she will degenerate into the classic shambling monster zombie. One notable aspect that sets iZombie zombies apart from other zombies is that whenever Liv eats a brain, she temporarily gains insight into the life of the deceased; even to the point of picking up some of their skills, mannerisms, memories and personality quirks. This effect wears off on its own, but ceases upon the consumption of another brain, at which point, the entire process starts all over again.

Zombies were one of dozens of supernatural entities featured in the ABC Gothic soap opera Dark Shadows. In a storyline commonly referred to as the 1897 flashback, one of the main characters, Quentin Collins, is murdered by his wife Jenny and resurrected as a zombie through Gypsy magic. Zombies also appear in a later storyline where two characters witnessed future portents of the year 1994 (the episodes were shot during the early 1970s, making the year 1994 the distant future). In this flash-forward storyline, an evil warlock named Judah Zachary summoned a horde of the undead to destroy the Collins family ancestral home, Collinwood.

in comics
Like most monsters, zombies have always been a part of popular culture, and they are certainly no stranger to the comic book medium. Throughout the 1950s and 60s, zombies were commonly used as a plot device or the "monster du jour" for anthology titles such as Vault of Evil and Tales from the Crypt.

In the 1970s, zombie culture enjoyed an upward thrust in popularity, particularly when Marvel Comics began publication of a magazine entitled Tales of the Zombie. Tales of the Zombie was published by Marvel Comics and Curtis Publications from 1973 to 1975. The series starred Simon Garth, a plantation owner who had the misfortune of falling under a voodoo curse, which transformed him into a zombie. Simon Garth has been affectionately referred to as the "Marvel Zombie", a name which had also been used to describe Marvel Comics fans during the 1970s. In the 2000s, the term took on an entirely different meaning as Marvel literally introduced a Marvel Zombies franchise, albeit with no connection to Simon Garth. Tales of the Zombie also included stories featuring occult super-hero Brother Voodoo as well as Voodoo's nemesis, Black Talon. The series ran for ten issues and included a double-sized 1975 Annual edition.

Zombie Humor
Zombie films have also attempted to blend horror with humor. This likely stems back to George Romero's work as well, since Romero liked to interject subtle satire and social commentary into his works. Sam Raimi's Evil Dead franchise posited a humorous twist by introducing an over-the-top working class hero named Ash Williams who endures unending torment in his efforts to survive a plague of demons and zombies. The Return of the Living Dead franchise further displayed elements of humor by featuring two bumbling incompetents as their protagonists. This method was used to even greater effect in the 2004 UK film Shaun of the Dead. The 2009 film Zombieland partnered Jesse Eisenberg with Woody Harrelson as two sarcastic, yet capable zombie hunters.