There's nothing wrong with a little comedy in your horror. |
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Good eve-a-ning, boils and ghouls, I am here this week to talk to you about my favorite cinematic monster, the zombie. What they are, what they aren't, and the place they hold so dear to my heart. See, I even write undead poetry. In fact, not only did my uncle and namesake write a book on the films of George A Romero, called The Zombies That Ate Pittsburgh, but I was actually conceived in the backseat of a car, at a drive-in playing NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD. So, you see, I was pretty much born to love the dead.
The first thing you need to know is the difference between an "actual" zombie and a cinematic zombie. The concept of the zombie stems from the Haitian religion of Voodoo. The theory goes that you first drug the victim, ostensibly someone who has wronged you or a loved one, with a special zombification powder, which paralyzes to the point that even a trained medical professional would call time of death. Then, after you are buried, quite alive and awake the whole time, aware of sensations but unable to say boo to a ghost about it, the perpetrator of your doom digs you up and convinces you that he has killed and subsequently resurrected you. This is naturally easy for one who has been interred and exhumed to believe. The victim is then told that his soul has been captured in a jar, and he must do his master's bidding.
The first film to attempt capturing this concept on celluloid was Victor Halperin's WHITE ZOMBIE (1932). It is also the first horror film to not have a literary heritage. As in, it wasn't based on a play or book, though it does cite an actual ordinance in Haiti decrying the burying of the living for zombism purposes as attempted murder. Anyway, the film is quite creepy and effective, mostly due to Bela's Lugosi's frightening eyebrows. The zombism on display is accurate in the dosing with drugs part, but then portrays Lugosi as having pseudo-mystical powers over his subjects. The zombies shamble about quite creepily, a young lady's virtue is brought into question, and there is even some homoerotic tension on display. What's not to love? Halperin also made REVOLT OF THE ZOMBIES, which I have on DVD but have yet to watch.
Another film to go a similar route is Wes Craven's THE SERPENT AND THE RAINBOW (1987). Loosely based on the Wade Davis book of the same name, purported to be a true account, the first half of the film is quite fascinating. Bill Pullman's character is asked to travel to Haiti to get to the bottom of the zombification powder, and bring some home for future pharmaceutical use. He does, and is immediately swept up in some sketchy Voodoo circles. He discovers that the powder consists largely of Tetrodotoxin, the same poison that makes pufferfish so deadly. All of his poking around gets him on the shitlist of the local secret police, which adds political intrigue to the already eerie zombie images. Unfortunately, in the second half the film gets away from a portrait of "actual" zombies, and 
They are going to eat you. And not in the good way. |
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devolves into generic horror fare, actually quite resembling the end of Craven's own masterpiece, A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET.
Now we must discuss the cinematic zombie, which is really closer to a ghoul. I am talking about a reanimated corpse hungry for the flesh of the living. The seminal cinematic zombie film is, of course, Romero's NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD (though he never used the term zombie). In that film, the trigger event for the reanimation was the Earth passing through the tail of a comet which emitted some weird radiation on us, but that is only anecdotal; the film works just fine without explanation. Because it is really a survivalist flick. A bunch of disparate people thrown together in an old house, fending off the undead for the meager spoils of their own lives. They aren't trying to save the day, or the town, or anything other than their own skins. And as if the film was not ground-breaking enough, Romero cast the lead role with a black man. Did he do this for controversy, to make a racial statement? Of course not. He simply hired who he thought was the best man for the job.
Over the next four decades, Romero produced three more Dead films, DAWN OF THE DEAD, DAY OF THE DEAD, AND LAND OF THE DEAD. While retaining the signature slow-poke nature of the titular creatures, each film evolved them as any character, living or dead, should be. They went from a shambling horde of flesh-eating geeks to something resembling intelligent, a class unto themselves. This is where his films are brilliant. They each make a statement: DAWN on commercialism, DAY on both the military and the essentially odious human nature, and finally a working class, pro-proletariat film with LAND. DAWN is most horror fans' favorite, while LAND being the least. I personally consider DAWN at the bottom of the pile, while DAY is my favorite.
The RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD franchise no doubt steps all over the dick of Romero's films, but they do it with love and black humor, and are wonderful films. Well, er, at least parts 1 and 3. The other ones can go poop in a hat. Part 1 is also the film that kicked off the whole eating brains thing.
Special note should be made of the DAWN remake. Many fans were put off by the quickness of the undead. They felt some line had been crossed, that zombies MUST shamble. I find this to be utter hogwash. If every zombie filmed towed the same line, why would we need more than one?
To make this point, I must point out films like SHATTER DEAD and THE VIDEO DEAD. The former begins when the hermaphroditic Angel of Death falls in love with a mortal woman, and simply stops doing its job. So when you die, well, nothing much really changes. You don't crave flesh, or lumber around drooling and moaning. Your blood just sort of pools, and you try to stay as fresh as possible as long as possible. While the film's detractors point out it's ultra-low budget and lack of visible acting talent, I choose to instead see 
Of course I own this game. Don't be stupid. |
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writer/director Scooter Mcrae's attempt to put a twist on the sub-genre: what if zombies could walk and talk, just like you and me? How would we treat them? How would they treat us? Plus, the gunfuck scene is worth its weight in gold.
The latter film, THE VIDEO DEAD, is another b-grade cheapie, though certainly in a lower class then SHATTER DEAD. It seems to accidentally add fresh life to the zombie film. Pun definitely intended. In it, a teenager is seduced by an apparition that comes to him from an evil television set, and zombies from a film actually issue forth from the screen. The thing is, they don't exactly know they're dead. The way to deal with them is to treat them like they are normal, and that is how they will act. But don't let them see a mirror! They will be genuinely disappointed that they are dead, and be accordingly violent.
I must stress at this point that cinematic zombies are reanimated corpses. They do not necessarily have to desire the flesh of the living, or have the clichéd contagious nature that most films portray. To that end, let's have a quiz:
28 DAYS LATER: Zombie film or not?
Answer: Absolutely not. The films concerns a virus that removes inhibition entirely, and ramps aggression to the nth level. So while the violence and behavior of the infected are quire zombie-like, they are actually living people.
ED AND HIS DEAD MOTHER: Zombie film or not?
Answer: Absolutely. Ed's mother is brought back from the dead and kept animated through the use of mysterious magic cockroaches. She may not fit the classic model, but she was dead, and then wasn't, so she fits the bill. This 1993 film is also a must for Steve Buscemi completists.
THE EVIL DEAD: Zombie film or not?
Answer: Absolutely not. This one really rankles me. The creatures in this film are possessed by evil spirits. They are not reanimated corpses. Yes, Scotty does become possessed after his demise, but I must stress that he is not a reanimated corpse at that time. He is a puppet for the evil spirit. Big difference.
RE-ANIMATOR: Zombie film or not?
Answer: Debatable. I say yes. Technically speaking, the subjects of the deliciously amoral Dr. West's experiments are corpses, and after injecting them with his luminol-filled syringe, they take on life once again. They are certainly enraged and violent, even if they are not concerned at all with the eating of flesh.
In closing, I hope that this little trip down the undead lane has proved informative for you, and that maybe you'll start to see our room-temperature brethren in a new light. They are the only movie monsters that cannot be romanticized. They don't much care for Anne Rice's ruffled collars, they wouldn't be caught dead in a Kenneth Brannagh flick, and they make no statement on the inner beast inside us all, full moon or not. They rot, they stink, and they want to eat your brains.
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| Agent Provocateur |
Every other Sunday
Eating the flesh of lesser film geeks since '72.
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| Zombie Boy |
Zombie Boy is not a Hollywood insider, just a movie
geek with a big mouth and a strong desire to spew
opinions. His column will concentrate on the things he
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