Contents[Hide]

Zombies

EXTERIOR (NIGHT):

A young MAN and WOMAN holding hands, walking to their car. The parking lot is full of shadows and mostly empty. There's a faint raspy breath coming from behind a nearby car. As the couple approach their car a FIGURE emerges from the shadow and ambles toward them. As the man puts the key in the car door he hears a twig snap. He turns around and sees a gore drenched ZOMBIE, arms outstretched towards him. The woman screams as the zombie attacks the man.

The undead. The living dead. Zeds (if you're British). Whatever you call them, zombies have been terrifying us with their lust for bodies and brains since time immemorial. Plus, they make a really easy Halloween costume (c'mon, we've all gotten lazy at some point in our lives and just ripped up a t-shirt, dribbled on some fake blood and called it a night). 

The Coffins They Crawled Out From

Though a fixture in early mythology, it wasn't until the 1920s and 1930s that a cultural fascination and exploration of Haitian and voodoo culture uncovered stories of ghoulish reincarnation. Here are some of the essential books and movies you need to get up to speed (even though you can probably outrun them just by speed walking).

Words

A tragic tale of misplaced love and science gone mad, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein  was the original undead monster.

Though most famous for poems like "The Raven" and "Annabell Lee," Poe  is the undisputed master of gothic horror  and unsettling atmospheres.

H.P. Lovecraft  was a prolific author with a deep interest in science, philosophy and the nature of man. This short story ties it all together.

A 1936 adaption of this H.G. Wells  short story saw people turn into zombies through the spread of a highly contagious viral epidemic (hi 28 days Later !).

Will Smith ,Vincent Price  and Charlton Heston  have all starred in adaptations of Richard Matheson 's post-apocalyptic tale of the last man on Earth.


Images

Did Rob Zombie  appropriate the name "White Zombie " for his 90s metal group? Yup. Is Bela Lagosi  half as scary as Rob Zombie himself? Not even close.

'Night of the Living Dead ' is the granddaddy of all zombie films. George A. Romero  made them less of a joke and more of a threat with realistic makeup and lots of gore

This is the 1971 Charlton Heston  centric  film adapation of Matheson's "I Am Legend ." Vincent Price  starred in the 1964 version .

Made in 1943, I Walked with a Zombie  features helpless zombies controlled by a suspicious magician dabbling in voodoo.

Hammer Horror's Plague of Zombies  was the first film to portray zombies as walking corpses covered in rotting, peeling flesh. What a milestone.


Modern Day Zombies

This 2002 film  decimates London's population with a contagious virus that turns ordinary people into super-fast, bloodthirsty zombies.

Max Brook's 2006 novel  novel gathers interviews and eyewitness accounts to serve as a social critique and chronicle of humanity's attempts to survive a zombie apocalypse.

This cinematic videogame  puts you front and center as one of four survivors of a devastating global epidemic. A sequel  was released earlier this year.

 Related Guides

 External Links

▼ Advertisement ▼