In a decade full of remakes, moviegoers have seen many classic supernatural creatures evolve. Vampires now sparkle. Werewolves suddenly control their transformations.
Perhaps the latest popular evolution, however, is that of the zombie.
Zombies are a lot older than some might think, first appearing in film about 80 years ago, and maintaining a screen presence ever since.
Zombies are probably best defined as reanimated corpses. Most credit Victor Halperin’s 1932 film “White Zombie” as the first in film. In the movie, zombies were created and controlled by a voodoo master named Murder.
James Stone, an associate professor of cinematic arts who teaches international horror film, said an argument could be made that Mary Shelly’s “Frankenstein” was actually the first zombie.
“Although it’s not strictly a zombie story, it is about a series of reanimated corpses that are stitched together,” Stone said.
Stone said there is a really important distinction between early groups of zombie films and those of today. Because there was a great interest in voodoo, those early stories are about control and were typically filled with racial and gender anxieties.
George Romero’s “Night of the Living Dead” is probably more recognizable as the birth of zombies as fans know them. This was likely the start of zombies rising from the grave without being controlled by anyone.
“Instead of being a story about control, it’s now a story about plague,” Stone said. “This is now going to be a story about a plague of cannibals.”
Stone said he believed Romero’s franchise, which continued into the 2000s, has achieved success because Romero was always a very self-conscious social commentator. Stone said the films touch a nerve with people because they seem to be talking about our lives and the culture in which we live.
Even though there have been dozens of successful zombie movies over the following decades, the video-game-turned-film-franchise “Resident Evil” changed the landscape in 2002 by introducing them as humans infected with a virus.
This film seemed to spearhead the infected premise and the re-popularization of zombie horror films. Stone said there still is a connection to the older films, even back to “Frankenstein,” because it’s often science’s fault; and that’s what creates the so-called monsters or zombies.
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“Resident Evil” opened the door for other films such as “28 Days Later,” “I Am Legend,” “Quarantine” and “World War Z,” making the infected zombies much faster and stronger. Stone said one of the most potent images of “World War Z” was of all the zombies stacking on top of each other to scale a wall and breach a barrier.
“We’ve gone from a zombie cinema that’s about the ability to control, to a zombie cinema that’s about a complete inability to control,” he said.
Stone said he did notice that the slow, almost sleep-walking zombies returned in “Shaun of the Dead” and other more recent works. It and several other movies like “Zombieland” have capitalized on the comedic aspects of the zombie. He said while it focused on comedy, it did a good job of illustrating there’s not much separation between them and us.
“In a sense, the zombie is us,” he said. “The zombie has become a sympathetic character; we see ourselves in them.”
Stone said another important element in the recent versions of zombies is the distrust people feel of the mob. He said we are constantly being warned by the media about “scary” groups that we should be worried about and zombie pictures exploit those anxieties.
“Monsters in general, we shouldn’t try to distance ourselves from them,” Stone said. “Something that teaching horror movies has taught me is that we are the monsters.”
That theme is present in arguably the most popular current zombie franchise, AMC’s “The Walking Dead,” which began in 2010. The television series uses a premise of an infection causing a zombie apocalypse.
While the zombie idea isn’t new, the series also begs the question of who the real monsters are and highlights how quickly we might lose our humanity. Stone said it’s interesting to think how quickly we would devolve as a civilization when we think we are justified in our actions.
“How easy would it be for us to kill zombies who five minutes earlier were normal people,” Stone said. “It’s a very scary fantasy having carte blanche to be as destructive as you want, and that’s one of the most disturbing images, not the zombie.”
Stone said he believes the post-apocalyptic theme of zombie stories will continue at least for the foreseeable future.
“If we stay as apocalyptic-minded as we are and as culturally weary of difference, then I think there’s a place for the zombie for a long time,“ Stone said.
Robert Maler is a sports reporter for the Daily Lobo. He can be reached at culture@dailylobo.com or on Twitter @DailyLobo.
