as reanimated corpses
that mindlessly eat the flesh of the living, the walking dead have fascinated us
for more than a century. As Jamie Russell writes in his excellent study of
zombie cinema, "Book of the Dead," the zombie represents, perhaps more vividly
than any other horror creation, the fear of death, and more specifically what
happens to our bodies and souls after we die. If we become a zombie, we lose the
latter, while the former becomes a shambling, decaying, fetid corruption of the
human form, driven by unspeakable primal instincts.
Zombies have found their way onto the screen since the Depression, although
early classics such as "White Zombie" (1932) and the supremely eerie "I Walked With
a Zombie" (1943) played on racial prejudices and the white world's ignorance
about Afro-Caribbean culture. It wasn't until George A. Romero's revolutionary
"Night of the Living Dead" in 1968 that the zombie's voodoo
roots were cast aside in favor of the living dead as metaphor; starting with
that landmark film, the zombie came to symbolize everything from social unrest
to scientific failure to greedy consumer culture.
The genre has had its ups and downs in the 41 years since "Night" came on the
scene, but now zombies are more popular than ever. Romero is on his sixth "Dead"
movie, the "Resident Evil" series is chugging along, and indie
titles pop up all the time. Meanwhile, Max Brooks' harrowing novel "World War Z"
and the satirical "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies" were both best sellers. The
new movie "Zombieland" takes the mythology into the realm of all-out
comedy, although, hopefully, with the genre's trademark gore and ghoulish action
intact. Starting with Romero's benchmark, here are some of the greatest moments
in modern zombie history for you to feast upon.
('Dawn of the Day'/Universal Pictures)
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