io9
When you think zombies, you think weird magic. But really, a lot of the greatest zombies in movies, TV and books have resulted from pure science. Okay, maybe not "hard" science, but at least some kind of scientific process involving lab coats. We list the greatest zombies of science, below the fold.
Commenter OMG-Ponies proclaimed the other day that the only true zombies come from "voodoo or Jesus," not science. But as champions of a rational, scientific view, we disagree, of course. And here's the list to prove it:
Reanimator. A mad scientist, Herbert, invents a "re-agent" serum that brings the dead back to life in this H.P. Lovecraft adaptation. It starts with cats and devolves into zombie heads and rampaging corpses. Here's a gross and possibly disturbing zombie head scene:
World War Z by Max Brooks. A plague causes a zombie outbreak, which starts in China and spreads around the world. At first people think it's a type of rabies, but they soon realize it's an unstoppable pandemic that resurrects the newly dead.
Fido. This 2007 movie never really explains how the zombie plague happened, but it's definitely science fiction. The last survivors of humanity live in fenced-in bubbles of normality and turn zombies into their slaves using electrical collars. The collars neutralize the zombies' aggression and turn them docile and obedient. It's this weird paternalistic 1950s pastiche where your newly dead loved-ones become your mindless servants. There may be some social commentary buried in there.
28 Days Later and I Am Legend. Two movies with slightly different takes on the same premise: well-meaning scientists create a plague that turns people into monsters. They're not technically undead, but they growl, eat human flesh and rampage just like zombies. In 28 Days Later, their bite turns you into one of them, which is much more zombie-like. In both cases, it starts in the laboratory and ends with pale mutants biting you.
Night of the Living Dead. This one's a bit iffy. At one point, a scientist suggests that radiation from a returning Venus probe may be responsible for the zombie outbreaks. But director George Romero later disavowed this explanation.
Planet Terror. The better half of Grindhouse (sorry, Quentin) features a toxic gas called DC-2, aka Project Terror. A bioweapon deal gone wrong releases some of the fumes onto a sleepy town in Texas, and soon everybody is turning into horrendous zombies. A few people are immune, and you can delay the effects of the process by exposing yourself to the gas again.
Zombie Prom. A lovestruck teenager throws himself into a nuclear cooling tower, only to return as the Atomic Zombie. Reunited with his sweetheart, he wants to attend the high school prom, but principal Delilah Strict (RuPaul!) harbors anti-zombie prejudices. This musical short film is yet another 1950s pastiche, possibly harboring more social commentary. Here's the trailer:
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. The monster is a collection of dead body parts, and Victor Frankenstein zaps him to unlife using a modern science, including electricity and chemistry, mixed with old-school alchemy. Okay, so the monster doesn't go around turning others into zombies, and he's conscious and intelligent in the book. But he acts quite zombie-like in most of the movies, except Kenneth Branagh's. Call him a zombie outlier.
Resident Evil. In the movies, at least, the evil Umbrella Corp. creates viruses to use as biological weapons. The deadly T-virus is later turned into a cosmetic cream to restore your dead skin cells, which has the unfortunate side effect of turning tons of people into contagious zombies. And cosmetics company Olay recently started marketing a rejuvenating product that looks just like it.
Comments
Let's not forget about "Dead Alive". Peter Jackson gives us a masters veiw of what a zombie movie should be. Gore, Gore, and more Gore!
The zombies in the various Return of the Living Dead movies are created by some kind of military gas. In fact, I nominate the bioweapon gone awry as the leading brand of zombie creation plot devices.
Voodoo zombies are boring.
Though you do have to admit the trippy spiritualism of Cemetery Man is pretty cool too...
The rest of the "Living Dead" movies also ignore the Venus probe in favor of toxic gases.
Love Zombies!
@zeppelined: dang beat me to it...
I actually prefer the "no method" movies like Night to be honest. Was used perfectly in Shaun of the Dead...
Don't forget that the zombies in The Return of the Living Dead sequels were created by a gas called 2-4-5 Trioxin being released from a medical lab's storage area after the accident that caused the accident that the Night of the Living Dead was based on.
I got a bit excited when I read Zombie Pron, only to be let down when I found out that I misread Zombie Prom
In Romero's "The Crazies", the plague was caused by an accident with a biological weapon. The crazies weren't dead, if I remember correctly, just infected and therefore Crazy Like a Zombie.
WWZ has some interesting parts about people selling sham vaccines and cures for the virus.
Return of the Living Dead 3 is one of the finest zombie movies ever. [www.imdb.com]
Yes, there, I said it. I love that movie. And when I say it's a Good Movie, I say it in the way some people say American Beauty is a Good Movie.
Hm, Trioxin. So all it takes to make zombies is three oxygen molecules?
I enjoyed FIDO, which reminded me of PARENTS, somewhat.
28 DAYS/WEEKS LATER owes a lot to Romero's OTHER 1960s sci-fi/horror civil disaster flick, THE CRAZIES, where a bio-weapon accidentally turns a township near Pittsburgh into raving homicidal maniacs & incestous rapists. There was also a book from the 1970s called YELLOW FOG where a bio-weapon turns London into a city of raving nutters as well.
So, to recap: sci-fi zombies include the original Romero trilogy, Return of the Living Dead, Reanimator, 28 Days Later, Fido, and the utterly derivative Resident Evil & House of the Dead franchises.
Supernatural zombies include anything in a Fulci movie, White Zombie, The Evil Dead, Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things, Kung Fu Zombies, and I Walked With A Zombie. Arguments can be made whether Evil Dead & Demons involve zombies or humans possessed by demons.
The zombies in Dead Alive are anyone's guess.
P.S. Sorry, Frankenstein's Monster ain't a zombie. To be a zombie you have to be composed 100% of one dead guy. Being made of numerous dead guys doesn't make you a zombie. It makes you a monster/creature.
Or the real-life zombies as portrayed in "Serpent and the Rainbow?" (Shellfish Toxin)
But, wait, thats real, not sci-fi.
@Someaudiguy you're confusing romero's series (night of living dead, dawn of the dead, day of the dead, land of the dead) with russo/o'bannon's return of the living dead series. which is understandable because russo co-created romero's night of the living dead and return references night a few times. the return series is based on a military gas. romero's "dead" series doesnt really speculate the cause except to theorize it was the probe and/or that "hell was full." but, who needs explanations when you've got zombies.
did anyone else think that the scene in AVP:R where they nuke the small town was reminiscent of o'bannon's return of the living dead. especially since they both found the humor in those situations. i mean, o'bannon helped create the alien franchise, so i felt it fitting.
@mrmaps:
Then there is the question of people reduced to zombie-like shells or breathing donor banks in medical thrillers like COMA or the living anatomical models in the ANATOMY series.
Who would have imagined there was such variety within the general "zombie" category?
Who wants to take a shot at categorizing ghouls, then?
ZOMBIES vs ROBOTS. A zombifying contagion is inadvertently brought to the present by mankind's time-travelling robots.
The original Return of the Living Dead never fails to un-nerve me. I honestly can't watch it more than once every couple of years, even though it holds a real fascination for me. It was the Fangoria pix of a half-zombie being interrogated that drew me in.
I generally go for Romero's slow-shuffling, inexorable horde as my zombie of choice. Why? Cause they act like dead people, only not so much with the immobility. And I love the idea that there might be an explanation, but the world goes to shit before it can be identified (though the bite transmission seems to point to a viral cause). Even the scientist in Day of the Dead has given up trying to find it.
Unless black magic or Easter is involved, it just ain't a zombie...
Max Brooks is pretty clear that REAL zombies are caused by the solanum virus and not voodoo. Come on, folks, read your literature!
@nerdgasm: And then there's Jesus of Nazareth - the original Zombie King
@munch420s: zombie pron exists
Go watch Night Watch with Ewan McGregor if you don't believe me.
Worst date movie ever.
@engtech: Zombie pr0n exists. I don't know (or want to know) the title of some zombie/reanimator porno playing at a dive bar in Brooklyn I went to a few times. It was bad, not titillating, and set on loop.
The Audiobook of World War Z is spectacular. Hearing Jurgen Prochnow talk about herding civilians to their doom and Henry Rollins as a bad-ass Zombie Mercenary is a thing of beauty.
@omg-ponies:
It's called "The Re-Penetrator" and it is neither sexy nor scary. It's just...messy.
[www.repenetrator.com]
you definitely have two sets of Zombie genres. The SciFi type (gas, toxin, radiation etc) usually, but not always created by a meglomaniac scientist or an 'evil' corporation that tends to reflect environment/political concerns, not the Zombies, the film. I don't think Zombies care about the environment. And then the 'Other' zombie flicks. The ones that involve spiritualism, devil worship and magic. The old Fantasy/SciFi divide.
What is bizarre, from an anthropological point of view, is that the Voodoo type Zombies are arguably a result of a society based on exploitation/oppression and religion/magic is used as a freeing force from the sociopolitical environment. Whilst the sci-fi Zombies are the result of private or corporate/State freedom gone CRAZY!
I'll go and die now in my pool of over intellectualizing vomit ;)
The same is true in the games as in the movies when it comes to Resi.
Knowing your zombies is crucial to your survival in the coming catastrophe. Your survival strategy should vary depending on what sort of zombie is threatening you. I've got a guide going and I'll have to update it for Zombie Prom and Fido.
Don't forget Night of the Comet! Although I'm not sure those count as zombies, though, since they can form sentences.
@Bellatrixie: And this is why I'm home schooling my kids. They don't need the quadratic formula; they need to know how to build a flamethrower.
@putch: No I'm not. There's Romero's "Dead" series (dawn,day, land, diary) then there are those other "Living Dead" series. I just couldn't remember Russo's name.
I was just bringing it up since Charlie mentioned in the article that the Venus probe is speculated as being the cause of the Zombies. Even though the "Living Dead" movies are sort of an unofficial alternate universe continuation of the "Dead" movies, even they ignore the probe in favor of toxic gas (Trioxin).
Is it me, or does toxic gas feel kinda lazy these days?
Please allow me to submit this argument for confirmation by this panel. Zombies, by popular and historical cinematic definition, are reanimated corpses or the un-dead for a concise definiton. Creatures in movies such as I am Legend or Resident Evil x, are instead mutants. Mutants being any living creature who has been changed by some force (viral, chemical, Nuclear , etc..) into a new form, but still living. While perhaps not a terribly important nuance, I think all you highly intelligent Horror fans would appreciate the clarification and would agree with my submitted thesis.
The canceled Babylon Fields pilot had some interesting zombies. More like promises of good zombies. But I guess we'll never know.
How about ironic zombies, like Shaun of the Dead? :D
@TOMMIGUN
I'm glad you made that point. 28 Days Later and I Am Legend had infected, but still living, humans. A zombie in my mind is a creature that was once a living, breathing human that died, and is now moving and preying on humans but has no operating human functions. Zombies don't breath, their blood doesn't circulate, and they don't digest the flesh they ingest.
Don't forget Futurama's Hanukkah Zombie, who finally makes an appearance in "Bender's Big Score." Gotta Love a Zombie with a TIE Fighter!
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