Zombie Research Society
There is no greater testimony to the modern zombie’s popularity than the spectacular overuse of the word in recent years. “Zombie” has been used to refer to so many different kinds of entities and social dynamics that it is now hard to rein it in with any specificity. By one expert’s account, for example, anyone who has died and been brought back to life is a zombie. This means that people who flat-line on the operating table before being revived are doomed to be zombies for the rest of their lives.
When thinking of the Modern Zombie originally seen in George Romero’s legendary 1968 film Night of the Living Dead, here is a list of top six not zombie movies of all time, based on how often they are mislabeled:
#6) PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN (2003)
A published zombie film critic cited Johnny Depp as starring in the top-grossing zombie movie of all time, 2003’s Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl. The film raked in more than $650 million worldwide and has spawned a number of highly profitable sequels. The only problem is that Pirates clearly isn’t a zombie movie, as any five-year-old who’s seen it can tell you. There is not a single creature in it that remotely approximates a zombie in any way, shape, or form.
#5) DEAD SNOW (2009)
Colonel Herzog and his undead Nazi troops behave much more like mummies than zombies in this Norwegian horror romp. They are preserved in ice, they just want their gold back, and they may not even be contagious. To clarify, mummies are not zombies because they are not relentlessly aggressive and they do not come to be through a biological infection. Once order is restored to the mummy’s world— meaning once you give it back its favorite ruby brooch or leave its sacred space—it will lie down again and wait for the next time someone disturbs its rest.
#4) 28 DAYS LATER (2002)
If you ask director Danny Boyle he will tell that you he’s never made a zombie movie. He doesn’t see the rage-filled humans he created in 28 Days Later as modern zombies. Zombie purists would agree with Boyle, arguing that a zombie that is still alive is not a zombie at all. Technically, they’re correct. The infected freaks of 28 Days Later can be killed by stopping their hearts, and once dead, they do not come back to life as conventional zombies. In this way, they are fundamentally different from George Romero’s original vision of the flesh eater raised from the grave to feast on the living.
#3) REANIMATOR (1985)
Reanimator of a version of Frankenstein movie, not a zombie movie. The dead brought back may be creepy and weird, but they have no contagion to spread. You don’t get bitten by Frankenstein and turn into Frankenstein. Secondly, the reanimated dead are not relentlessly aggressive. They are misunderstood, confused, even evil at times, but they have not become raving maniacs bent on attacking and killing every living human on the planet. Reanimator falls closely in line with the Frankenstein movie tradition.
#2) THE EVIL DEAD (1981)
In Sam Raimi’s 1981 romp, demons are accidentally awakened in the woods surrounding an isolated cabin. They set about tormenting the film’s lead, and picking off his friends one by one. Though human corpses do stand up, dance about, and attack the living, the demonic force behind their actions also causes trees and plants to come alive; turns slight young women into flying, bug-eyed maniacs with superhuman strength; and makes windows and doors swing about wildly as if the demon is possessing the entire building. When’s the last time you saw a real zombie do that?
#1) I AM LEGEND (2007)
In the 1950’s novel I Am Legend, Richard Matheson provided a biological explanation for vampires, and remnants of Matheson’s efforts can be seen in Will Smith’s 2007 blockbuster adaptation of the book. In fact, Legend’s filmmakers intentionally tried to cash in on the popularity of zombies by giving vampires some of their qualities. But make no mistake, it’s not a zombie movie. Like vampires of old, the creatures that infect Smith’s I Am Legend can leap over cars in a single bound. They magically climb on ceilings, they can scheme and strategize, and they sleep the days away in creepy clusters like bats. The plot pretends to hinge on a biological plague that can be cured someday, but repeated lapses in logic show a certain lack of respect for that premise.
What other movies should be included on this list?
The zombie taxonomy can’t have rigid criteria like the dinosaur or proboscidean taxonomy in science and palaeontology. Zombies are imaginarious beings who have a multiple incarnations across the time and societies, taking apart the voodoo incarnation, who were called as Xidachane. One example are the japanese undead yokais who acts like the Romero creatures, others are much in common with the paradigm of the friendly zombie (I’m talking abouth the nuppepo). The same thing occurs in the budish tradition with the rakshasas, the pretas, and the hinduism with the brhamaparush and the bhuta-vetala, the chinese hopping corpse, the scandinavian undeads who stalks people in day and night. Including the original vampire myths like the strigoii, the alp, the vrykolakas, and the albanian sampiro have much in common with the modern zombie image than the tortured Dracula. The tulpas and golems have the same patterns with the archetype of the artificial zombie created by mad doctors. And the japanese onryo looks and acts like a vengefull zombie, because that ghosts carries with them infectious diseases, and are physical, nothing to relate with the astral concep of the occidental ghost. And the two mayor represents of the vodoo zombies (the nzambi and jumbee) are astral entities with supernatural powers. In adition to the living zombie, that type have two variants, one is the person who suffer a viral transformation into a predator with werewolf patterns, the other type is a corpse who was revived by a doctor and slowly adquireds all the function systems in their body, being Herbert West creatures the first of that trope. So, we need think abouth that after go to critize a clasiffy. And frankenstein not was the first artificial zombie, the tupilaq is a monster created by a chaman using parts of dead people and animals as an slave with the goal of attack their rivals, the same thing occurs with the whitralnahue form Argentina and Chile, an undead abomination created by a kalku with the purpose to protect their house from the bulglars.
Both versions of The Crazies, Dog House, The Grapes of Death, Impulse, Warning Sign, The Children (of Ravensback), Day of the Animals (Leslie Nielson going mano-a-pawo with a grizzly); there’s eight for starters. Really, think about any film involving some sort of mechanism that unleashes the ID and you have a relative of the 28 Days Later series.
Interesting that Romero has actually contributed in two forms of “zombie” cinema, spawning one (with NOTLD) and adding to the metaphor of the infected horde (The Crazies).
And the most extreme zombie fanatics only uses the term for the voodoo zombie, saying that romerian creatures aren’t zombies.
1, Dawn of the dead, the original one
2. Evil Dead 3 Army of Darkness
3. Return of the living Dead (tarman)
4. 28 days later
5. Zombieland
Dawn of the Dead is a zombie movie, and so is Return of the Living Dead.
So by your definition, the infected in Zombieland are also not zombies as they are living people infected by a mad cow disease-like infection that causes swelling of the brain, mindless rage and a severe case of the munchies!
Agreed! We use three variations of zombies for general discussion:
1) Voodoo Zombie
2) Modern Zombie – Romero, undead
3) Living Zombie – infected living people from 28 Days Later and Zombieland
the 4th pirates of the caribbean movie. black beards crew are said to be zombies, but they are not. (unless they are the vodo zombie type, which isn’t a real zombie either)
The zombie taxonomy can’t have rigid criteria like the dinosaur or proboscidean taxonomy in science and palaeontology. Zombies are imaginarious beings who have a multiple incarnations across the time and societies, taking apart the voodoo incarnation, who were called as Xidachane. One example are the japanese undead yokais who acts like the Romero creatures, others are much in common with the paradigm of the friendly zombie (I’m talking abouth the nuppepo). The same thing occurs in the budish tradition with the rakshasas, the pretas, and the hinduism with the brhamaparush and the bhuta-vetala, the chinese hopping corpse, the scandinavian undeads who stalks people in day and night. Including the original vampire myths like the strigoii, the alp, the vrykolakas, and the albanian sampiro have much in common with the modern zombie image than the tortured Dracula. The tulpas and golems have the same patterns with the archetype of the artificial zombie created by mad doctors. And the japanese onryo looks and acts like a vengefull zombie, because that ghosts carries with them infectious diseases, and are physical, nothing to relate with the astral concep of the occidental ghost. And the two mayor represents of the vodoo zombies (the nzambi and jumbee) are astral entities with supernatural powers. In adition to the living zombie, that type have two variants, one is the person who suffer a viral transformation into a predator with werewolf patterns, the other type is a corpse who was revived by a doctor and slowly adquireds all the function systems in their body, being Herbert West creatures the first of that trope. So, we need think abouth that after go to critize a clasiffy. And frankenstein not was the first artificial zombie, the tupilaq is a monster created by a chaman using parts of dead people and animals as an slave with the goal of attack their rivals, the same thing occurs with the whitralnahue form Argentina and Chile, an undead abomination created by a kalku with the purpose to protect their house from the bulglars.
My fave non zombie type movie is Invasion of the Body Snatchers, particularly the 1978 version. Those in the film seem under a trance and zombie like but clearly are not zombies, but it is a very creepy movie you can’t take your eyes off.
The zombie taxonomy can’t have rigid criteria like the dinosaur or proboscidean taxonomy in science and palaeontology. Zombies are imaginarious beings who have a multiple incarnations across the time and societies, taking apart the voodoo incarnation, who were called as Xidachane. One example are the japanese undead yokais who acts like the Romero creatures, others are much in common with the paradigm of the friendly zombie (I’m talking abouth the nuppepo). The same thing occurs in the budish tradition with the rakshasas, the pretas, and the hinduism with the brhamaparush and the bhuta-vetala, the chinese hopping corpse, the scandinavian undeads who stalks people in day and night. Including the original vampire myths like the strigoii, the alp, the vrykolakas, and the albanian sampiro have much in common with the modern zombie image than the tortured Dracula. The tulpas and golems have the same patterns with the archetype of the artificial zombie created by mad doctors. And the japanese onryo looks and acts like a vengefull zombie, because that ghosts carries with them infectious diseases, and are physical, nothing to relate with the astral concep of the occidental ghost. And the two mayor represents of the vodoo zombies (the nzambi and jumbee) are astral entities with supernatural powers. In adition to the living zombie, that type have two variants, one is the person who suffer a viral transformation into a predator with werewolf patterns, the other type is a corpse who was revived by a doctor and slowly adquireds all the function systems in their body, being Herbert West creatures the first of that trope. So, we need think abouth that after go to critize a clasiffy. And frankenstein not was the first artificial zombie, the tupilaq is a monster created by a chaman using parts of dead people and animals as an slave with the goal of attack their rivals, the same thing occurs with the whitralnahue form Argentina and Chile, an undead abomination created by a kalku with the purpose to protect their house from the bulglars.
Planet terror – the Sickos
Universal Soldier – the Unisols
The zombie taxonomy can’t have rigid criteria like the dinosaur or proboscidean taxonomy in science and palaeontology. Zombies are imaginarious beings who have a multiple incarnations across the time and societies, taking apart the voodoo incarnation, who were called as Xidachane. One example are the japanese undead yokais who acts like the Romero creatures, others are much in common with the paradigm of the friendly zombie (I’m talking abouth the nuppepo). The same thing occurs in the budish tradition with the rakshasas, the pretas, and the hinduism with the brhamaparush and the bhuta-vetala, the chinese hopping corpse, the scandinavian undeads who stalks people in day and night. Including the original vampire myths like the strigoii, the alp, the vrykolakas, and the albanian sampiro have much in common with the modern zombie image than the tortured Dracula. The tulpas and golems have the same patterns with the archetype of the artificial zombie created by mad doctors. And the japanese onryo looks and acts like a vengefull zombie, because that ghosts carries with them infectious diseases, and are physical, nothing to relate with the astral concep of the occidental ghost. And the two mayor represents of the vodoo zombies (the nzambi and jumbee) are astral entities with supernatural powers. In adition to the living zombie, that type have two variants, one is the person who suffer a viral transformation into a predator with werewolf patterns, the other type is a corpse who was revived by a doctor and slowly adquireds all the function systems in their body, being Herbert West creatures the first of that trope. So, we need think abouth that after go to critize a clasiffy. And frankenstein not was the first artificial zombie, the tupilaq is a monster created by a chaman using parts of dead people and animals as an slave with the goal of attack their rivals, the same thing occurs with the whitralnahue form Argentina and Chile, an undead abomination created by a kalku with the purpose to protect their house from the bulglars. The word zombie is a contradiction.