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A zombie is an undead person in the Afro-Caribbean spiritual belief system of Vodoun (otherwise known as Voo-Doo in America). These folkloric zombies are humans who have had their "Ti Bon Ange" or soul stolen by supernatural means and shamanic medicine, and are forced to work for their "zombie master" as uncomplaining slaves on isolated plantations. Other more macabre versions of zombies have become a staple of modern horror fiction, where they usually engage in human cannibalism. Zombies in vodou According to the tenets of Vodoun, a dead person can be revived by a bokor or black magician. Zombies remain under the control of the bokor since they have no will of their own. "Zombi" is also another name of the voodoo snake god Damballah Wedo, of Niger-Congo origin; it is akin to the Kongo word nzambi, which means "god." In 1937, while researching folklore in Haiti, Zora Neale Hurston encountered the case of Felicia Felix-Mentor, who had died and been buried in 1907 at the age of 29. Villagers believed they saw Felicia wandering the streets in a daze thirty years after her death, as well as claiming the same with several other people. Hurston pursued rumours that the affected persons were given powerful drugs, 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." Several decades later, Wade Davis, a Canadian ethnobotanist, presented a pharmacological case for zombies in two books - The Serpent and the Rainbow (1985) and Passage of Darkness: The Ethnobiology of the Haitian Zombie (1988). Davis travelled 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 entered into the blood stream (usually via a wound). The first, coup de poudre (French: 'powder strike'), induced a 'death-like' state because of tetrodotoxin (TTX), its key ingredient. Tetrodotoxin is the same lethal toxin found in the Japanese delicacy fugu, or pufferfish. At near-lethal doses (LD50 of 1mg), it can leave a person in a state of near-death for several days, while the person continues to be conscious. The second powder, dissociative hallucinogens like datura, put the person in a zombie-like state where they seem to have no will of their own. Davis also popularized the story of Clairvius Narcisse, who was claimed to have succumbed to this practice. There remains considerable skepticism about Davis's claims, and opinions remain divided as to the veracity of his work, although there is wide recognition among the Haitian people of the existence of the "zombi drug". The voudo religion being somewhat secretive in its practices and codes, it can be very difficult for a foreign scientist to validate or invalidate such claims, so it could very well be left to the popular knowledge. Others have discussed the contribution of the victim's own belief-system, possibly leading to compliance with the attacker's will, causing quasi-hysterical amnesia, catatonia, or other psychological disorders, which are later misinterpreted as a return from the dead. Scottish psychiatrist R. D. Laing further highlighted the link between social and cultural expectations and compulsion, in the context of schizophrenia and other mental illness, suggesting that schizogenesis may account for some of the psychological aspects of zombification. Zombies in folklore In the Middle Ages, it was commonly believed that the souls of the dead could return to earth and haunt the living. The belief in revenants (someone who has returned from the dead) are well documented by contemporary European writers of the time. According to the Encyclopedia of Things that Never Were, particularly in France during the Middle Ages, the revenant rises from the dead usually to avenge some crime committed against the entity, most likely a murder. The revenant usually took on the form of an emaciated corpse or skeletal human figure, and wandered around graveyards at night. The "draugr" of medieval Norse mythology were also believed to be the corpses of warriors returned from the dead to attack the living. The zombie appears in several other cultures worldwide, including China, Japan, the Pacific, India, and the Native Americans. The Epic of Gilgamesh of ancient Sumeria includes a mention of zombies. Ishtar, in the fury of vengeance says: Father give me the Bull of Heaven, So he can kill Gilgamesh in his dwelling. If you do not give me the Bull of Heaven, I will knock down the Gates of the Netherworld, I will smash the doorposts, and leave the doors flat down, and will let the dead go up to eat the living! And the dead will outnumber the living! translated by Maureen Gallery Kovacs Zombies in literature and fiction The first book to expose modern western culture to the concept of the zombie was The Magic Island by W.B. Seabrook in 1929. Zombies are regularly encountered in horror- and fantasy-themed fiction, films, television shows, video games, Halloween parties, and role-playing games. They are typically depicted as mindless, shambling, decaying corpses with a hunger for human flesh, and in some cases, human brains in particular(this is also sometimes used as a joke, where the brain-eating zombies would ignore certain individuals, claiming they have no brain). Prior to the mid-1950s, zombies were usually presented as mindless thralls controlled like puppets by mystical masters. Sometimes the zombies were reanimated corpses, and sometimes living humans, but never malevolent by their own will. There was sometimes a strong sexual component in the depiction of these mindless beings. The American horror author H. P. Lovecraft wrote several stories that explored the zombie or undead theme from different angles. His short story "Cool Air" centers around an undead doctor who must live in a refrigerated apartment to keep his body from decomposing. He also wrote a series of tales about Herbert West, a "re-animator" who attempts to revive human corpses with mixed results. And in "The Thing on the Doorstep" a friend of the narrator suffers a gruesome fate when his mind is transported against his will into a semi-rotted dead body. The depiction of zombies in mass media changed with the 1954 publication of I Am Legend by author Richard Matheson. It is the story of a future Los Angeles, overrun with undead bloodsucking beings. One man is the sole survivor of a pandemic caused by a bacterium that infects humans and causes vampirism. He must fight to survive nightly attacks by the creatures on his fortified home, as well as gather supplies, and hunt them during the daylight, and deal with being alone in the world. Although ostensibly a vampire story, it had enormous impact on the zombie genre when it influenced the film maker George A. Romero in his making of the first modern take on zombies, the film Night of the Living Dead. The film The Last Man on Earth (1964) starring Vincent Price is also based on Matheson's story, as is the 1971 Charlton Heston film The Omega Man, though less faithfully. Many works of fiction feature zombies who spread their affliction from one to another, in a disease-like fashion. More often than not, the condition is spread through means of a bite or scratch, and the victim will most likely die and mutate soon after. In others instances the condition is simply acquired after death of any kind. A common plot in zombie fiction is an outbreak of the zombie plague growing out of control, resulting in an apocalyptic scenario. The story then focuses around a small group of survivors attempting to either stop the plague, or merely survive and escape the destruction. In typical horror fashion, zombie fiction rarely has a happy ending, generally ending in a dark or ambiguous manner. Popular causes of zombie outbreaks in fiction include radiation or toxic chemicals acting on the brains of the dead, evil magic or voodoo, aliens, nanotechnology, the use of drugs, viral infection, and telepathic control. In pop fiction, zombies can generally be disabled by destroying the brain, or removing the head from the body. In a few cases the entire body of the zombie must be destroyed, generally by burning, as individual body parts continue to move after being severed from the body. In the Xanth series by Piers Anthony the zombies are re-animated by a magical talent held by Jonathan the Zombie Master. He can re-animate any deceased creature, human or otherwise, and have it under his personal control. Even when he commits suicide, he himself returns to life as a member of the undead. The zombies of Xanth can continually fall apart without losing any mass. However in the Xanth series if a zombie is able to find love and be loved by a living person they are able to return to a near-living state. Though they are technically still a zombie, they no longer appear decaying or rotted. In the Dune series of novels by Frank Herbert, the Gholas are essentially clones grown in tanks from genetic material retrieved from the cells of a deceased subject. (Note the similarity to the word "ghoul".) The distinction between gholas and clones is that the ghola retains many personality characteristics of the dead person, and this can be unsettling to others. In the period of Dune, gholas are merely physical copies, but at the end of Dune Messiah, the ghola of Duncan Idaho recovers the memories of the original, essentially becoming a reincarnation of Idaho. The character of Reginald Shoe in Terry Pratchett's Discworld books becomes a zombie by refusing to stay dead after being shot and killed. He later forms a support group for other undead, claiming they are merely "differently alive". Several other Discworld zombies, including Mr. Slant, work as unsympathetic lawyers. This is one of the few areas of fiction where zombies retain all memory and cognitive function. In contemporary horror fiction, Leisure Books has published Brian Keene's debut novel The Rising and its sequel City Of The Dead, which deal with a worldwide apocalypse of intelligent zombies, apparently caused by demonic possession. Walter Greatshell's novels Xombies and Xombie Rama are semi-horror satires (proclaimed by the author) about a plague that turns women into the undead. In the book, The Zombie Survival Guide, author Max Brooks shows the difference between voodoo zombies and hollywood zombies and explains the virus he calls the solanum virus and its symptoms. It also goes on to explain ways to survive in his four different stages of zombie out-breaks. The levels range from a handful confined locally to complete world domination. His follow-up book, World War Z, documents the aftermath of a world-wide zombie outbreak. While it doesn't feature zombies outright, the webcomic Megatokyo does include much paranoia of a zombie outbreak, mostly felt by the character Largo. His contempt for zombies and other such monsters (despite mistaking ravers for zombies) has led to use of the catchphrase, "I loathe the undead", a sentimentality used by gamers and readers of the comic. Zombie is the title of Michael Slade's fifth book in the Special X series of crime novels, it is also known as Evil Eye. In the dystopian novel NOIR by K. W. Jeter, anyone who dies in debt is reanimated as a zombie, forced to keep working until they have paid off their debts. British author David Moody has published a series, Autumn, based on a zombie apocalypse. In Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, the beings known as "inferi" are like zombies. They are controlled by a powerful wizard and are more like puppets than reanimated dead with rudimentary cravings. In Land of the Dead, by Sunderland writer P. D. Han, a collection of short stories based on real life events – violence, drugs, sex, desecration, and other anti-social behaviour from an increasing minority of mindless morons – or Zombies – and all witnessed within the boundaries of a local cemetery – was published late 2005. Referring to the tagline "When there's no more room in hell, the dead will walk the earth" from the 1978 movie Dawn of the Dead, author P. D. Han explains how he feels it relates in today's world – working from the premise that there's a dangerous group of social outcasts who wander seemingly lost in their own little world, uncaring and unremorseful of what they do. The book also includes quotes from actors appearing in George A. Romero's Land of the Dead and past zombie classics including Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead and Night of the Living Dead. In comic books, Marvel Comics published one of the first ongoing series about a zombie, Zombie. Their zombie returned in Max comics' Zombie. The Walking Dead series by Robert Kirkman is an attempt at an ongoing story set in a zombie infested world, following the same group of characters as they attempt to survive. Marvel later hired Kirkman to pen Marvel Zombies, an alternate reality story where its heroes and villains are all zombies. IDW Publishing produced a zombie series, as did Boom! Studios an anthology. Dark Horse Comics' ZombieWorld series features various stories of the undead, told by various artists. In the comic series The Goon by Eric Powell the prominent villain is a necromancer who constantly rejuvenates his undead army by employing lepers to rob the graves of the town cemetery. In the Tokyopop comic The Abandoned by Ross Campbell, everyone aged 23 and older turns into zombies, forcing teens to fend for themselves against undead grown-ups. The webcomic Penny Arcade recently featured a storyline in which several of the strips recurring characters are trapped in a zombie-infested mall to celebrate the release of the game Dead Rising. Zombies in film Although the depiction of zombies in film has recently become much more varied, they were originally presented in White Zombie (Victor Halperin, 1932) as mindless, unthinking henchmen under the spell of an evil magician/overlord. This depiction continued through the 1930s until they started to move around more of their own accord, as in I Walked with a Zombie (Jacques Tourneur, 1943). There was often a strong sexual component in the depiction of zombies of this era. In 1968, George A. Romero's Night of the Living Dead premiered. Critics initially reacted negatively to its depiction of cannibalism and gore and the movie's pessimistic tone, but the film soon developed a strong following and is now considered a modern classic. Although cannibalism in horror was nothing new at the time, the movie standardised the depiction of zombies eating human flesh, and created new rules still in use in films, such as a severe head injury being the only way to kill a zombie. Zombies being shown staggering around slowly, moaning and in various states of decomposition, can also be traced back to Romero's films. The 1978 sequel, Dawn of the Dead, can be regarded as the precursor to the modern zombie movie subgenre. The third entry in the series was Day of the Dead (1985), followed two decades later by the fourth, Land of the Dead (2005). The original movie made no reference to the creatures as "zombies," but rather as "ghouls", although the word was used once in the sequel. It is quite likely that the term "zombie" was coined in reference to the trance-like stupor of the creatures, not their cannibalistic tendencies. By 2005, the term was accepted by Romero, with the Land of the Dead character Kaufman (Dennis Hopper) exorting "Zombies, man. They creep me out." * Internationally, Dawn of the Dead was released under the name Zombi, just months before Lucio Fulci's Zombi II (1979), which was in fact 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. In America, Dan O'Bannon's 1985 movie, Return of the Living Dead, took a more comedic approach to distinguish his movie from George Romero's; it had the zombies hunger specifically for brains instead of all human flesh. 1981's Night of the Zombies was the first film to reference a mutagenic gas as a source of zombie contagion, later echoed by Trioxin in Return of the Living Dead. After the mid-1980s, the subgenre was mostly relegated to the underground. Although director Peter Jackson made a notable entry with the ultra-gory Braindead (1992) (released as Dead Alive in the US), Bob Balan's comic 1993 film My Boyfriend's Back where a very 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 US), it was not until the next decade's box office successes (the Resident Evil movies (2002, 2004), 28 Days Later (2002) (a film with similarities to zombie films, and which could be regarded as one, depending on how loosely you define the term 'zombie'), the ''Dawn of the Dead'' remake (2004), and the homage/parody Shaun of the Dead (2004) that the zombie subgenre experienced a resurgence. The new interest allowed Romero to create the fourth entry in his zombie series. In some of these recent films the zombies differ from previous versions. They retain the speed and agility that they had in life, have collective intelligence, or in the case of 28 Days Later are still living humans, and not actually zombies in the more limited sense. In 2006 filmmaker Dean Lachiusa made a cinematic sampling of the 1968 Night of the Living Dead called "Neo-Cine." Although critically acclaimed, this redux-version is a source of debate among film purists. Another zomedy is Canadian film Fido. Around the turn of this century, there have been numerous direct-to-video (or DVD) zombie movies made by extremely low-budget filmmakers using digital video. These can usually be found for sale online from the distributors themselves, rented in video rental stores or released internationally in such places as Thailand. Zombies in television Numerous storylines of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel featured zombies in various guises. Some resembled the voodoo model, while others craved human flesh, and had various degrees of autonomy. Other zombie storylines appeared on The X-Files and Charmed. Michael Jackson's Thriller is a 1983 music video directed by John Landis. One of the most popular music videos of all time, is a horror film parody featuring choreographed zombies performing with Jackson. During the video, Jackson transforms into both a zombie and a werewolf. In the South Park episode "Pinkeye", zombies overrun the town. In the episode, Chef is turned into a zombie based on the zombie played by Michael Jackson in the Thriller video. Professional wrestler Tim Arson wrestled as "The Zombie" on the debut of ECW's program on Sci-Fi Channel, losing to Sandman. The popular animated cartoon The Simpsons contains occasional references to zombies, most notably the Treehouse of Horror episodes. Futurama, created by Matt Groening of The Simpsons fame, also references zombies, specifically "Zombie Jesus"("Sweet Zombie Jesus, it's huge!") and "Hanukka Zombie", though they are never seen on screen. Zombies in gaming Zombies are common foes in horror-themed computer and video games, as well as being a primary element in games such as Resident Evil, and Dead Rising. They are also a prominent occurance in Half-Life and Half-Life 2. A popular modification to Counter-Strike and combines both teams in an effort to repel the attacks of zombies, controlled by randomly selected gamers, and to avoid becoming a zombie themselves. However, there are a few games in which players control a zombie character such as in Stubbs the Zombie, Gungrave, and various MMORPG's including World of Warcraft. Outside of video games, zombies also frequently appear in fantasy-themed trading card games like Magic: The Gathering, as well as in traditional fantasy role-playing games such as Dungeons & Dragons. The RPG All Flesh Must Be Eaten is premised upon a zombie outbreak and features rules for zombie campaigns in many historical settings. In Table-top wargames(fantasy or not) zombies are frequently seen as cannon fodder for the undead race(such as the Vampire Counts of Warhammer Fantasy and the plague Zombies of Warhammer 40K) Zombie is Monster in My Pocket The award-winning Zombies!!! series of boardgames see players attempting to escape from a zombie-infested city. Cheapass Games Give Me the Brain is a card game set in a fast food restaurant staffed by minimum-wage zombies. Urban Dead, a popular online MMORPG, allows players to explore the fictional city of Malton as either a zombie or a trapped citizen, gaining skills and experience points. Zombies on the Internet and in animation More recently, through Macromedia Flash, several online animated shorts have covered the zombie genre. Rob Denbleyker's stick figure animation 'Joe Zombie' follows a story with similar aspects to Resident Evil, whereby a laboratory conducting scientific experiments creates various super-soldiers, one of which is killed and returns as a zombie to seek his revenge. Another animated series is James Farr's 'Xombie'. Set in a post-apocalyptic world, it attempts to separate itself from other zombie stories by exploring what would happen if a zombie were to retain its consciousness post-mortem. A live action webserial about zombies and humans coexisting titled 'Dead End Days' ran on the Internet between October 2003 and November 2004. Zombies in Social Activism Some Zombie Fans continue the George Romero tradition of using Zombies as a social commentary. Organized zombie themed flash mobs or Zombie Walks, which are primarily promoted through word of mouth, are regularly staged all over the world. Usually they are arranged to cause confusion as a sort of surrealist performance art but they are occationally put on as part of a unique political protest. Other organizations like the Zombie Squad use the Zombie horror genre as a way to promote disaster prepardness and encourage horror fans to get involved in their community through volunteering or hosting zombie themed charity fundraisers. | |||||||
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