The Evolution of the Hollywood Zombie

Since its inception as a staple of Hollywood horror, the zombie has gone through so many incarnations in commercial films that it may be one of the most versatile movie monsters ever conceived. The modern zombie has developed via several different co-evolving threads, making it somewhat unique as an iconic monster.

Unlike vampire or werewolf myths, which tend to adhere to a common underlying structure, the creation of zombies is usually represented in one of three different ways: first, the zombies may be created through the traditional magic of the Haitian religion known as Voudoun, commonly known among English speakers as “Voodoo.” Creation by way of religious magic typically involves references to Voodoo; however, there are also instances in which the magic has a pagan or Judeo-Christian origin, as in the film Tombs of the Blind Dead, where the undead have their origins in a corrupt branch of the Knights Templar. White Zombie is the classic example of a film that focuses on the Haitian method of zombie creation, and presents its audience with zombies that are not merely meant to terrorize (as the undead in Tombs of the Blind Dead are meant to), but are also used as replaceable, docile working drones that are kept under the direction of their creator: Bela Lugosi’s Legendre, who uses these zombies to work in his sugar mill. Because the film was made during the early years of the Great Depression, it is no great struggle to read a subtextual fear of worker exploitation and mistreatment into the usage of zombies as expendable employees who do not require food or breaks or payment, presumably; particularly chilling is a scene in which one zombie falls into one of the mills, yet none of the other zombies cease working even to remove the body. As Rhodes writes, “the zombies are represented in a more complex manner than as mere slaves; White Zombie portrays them as laborers in a capitalist regime.… They are numb to their own hardships and to the hardships of others that they witness” (45). Yet not all of the zombies in film are worker-drones, as the beautiful Madeline is made into a zombie wife for Charles Beaumont. In effect, Legendre creates for Beaumont a kind of dead-eyed and inhuman sexual slave; when Beaumont can no longer abide by this horror, Legendre reveals his plan to make Beaumont into a zombie as well—though whether he means for Beaumont to become a sexual zombie or a working zombie is not definitive. This idea of a subservient sexual zombie (male or female) is in sharp contrast to the more vicious sexuality in Tombs of the Blind Dead, where the undead Virginia stalks her prey nearly nude and viciously kills the morgue attendant. The source of fear has changed from the idea of being controlled and made to do things against one’s will, as it is in White Zombie, to a sexually charged female presence seeking to destroy others. This change in the role of women, from pawns to monsters and heroines (as Betty is the only survivor on the train at the end of Tombs of the Blind Dead) in their own right, reflects the changes in political and social ideologies concerning woman and the resulting anxieties.

The second common method for the creation of zombies is, in a fashion, the direct opposite of the method of creation via religious magic: science is used instead of magic as a means of creating zombies or of bringing the dead back to life. These two goals are not always related because, as in Teenage Zombies, a zombie may not require death and resurrection to be considered a zombie. In this film, the goal of the scientist and her sponsors is not to revive the dead; it is to force the living into a physical state of suggestibility, obedience, and servitude. However, the goal of the characters in the film Re-Animator is quite different; they have set out to “cure” the condition of death, and in the process find themselves creating undead zombies with widely varied intelligences and a prominently aggressive mental state. Each is, of course, reflective of the time period in which it was made: Teenage Zombies was released in 1959 as one of many horror films aimed at attracting teenaged moviegoers, and features an underlying theme that implies a Soviet takeover, certainly not an uncommon subtext in Cold War era films. While people die in Teenage Zombies, there is no gore to be had and there is no concern to the unsavory and occult idea of resurrecting the dead. Re-Animator, on the other hand, is concerned with nothing else; independently released in 1985 and set in a medical school, it revels in its gruesome shots of revived corpses in varying states of decay. However, this film is actually based upon a series of short stories by H.P. Lovecraft that are collectively known as “Herbert West—Reanimator” and which were first published in Home Brew magazine from February to July of 1922 (Lovecraft 25). The tales are bloody and over-the-top, with a satiric sense of humor that would later become one of the major selling points of the movie adaptation. With its mad scientist focus and resurrectionist bent, “Herbert West—Reanimator” acts as something of a response to or an echo of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (Lovecraft 34 and 36), and so illuminates a bridge to one of the ancestors of the mad scientists who labor to create zombies. Though Frankenstein is generally not classed as a zombie film, it is perhaps best described as a forerunner of these later films that utilize science to create zombies, intentionally or inadvertently.

The third common thread of zombie films is not as concerned with the method of creation as it is with the effects, the aftermath, and the methods humans use to survive. The focus of these films is on the infectious nature of zombies and the apocalyptic repercussions that such an infection brings. Though the undead in Tombs of the Blind Dead are shown to be infectious, and it is implied that the infection has only begun to spread by the time of the film’s grisly ending, the focus of the film is not upon the far-reaching consequences of such a situation. The film maintains its focus on how such a situation might begin, while films like Dawn of the Dead and 28 Days Later use the spread of zombie infection to deal with human survival in apocalyptic settings and situations. Sutherland writes that “zombie films represent the survival of such structured movements right as the structures supporting them devolve into crisis; that is, right as civil institutions like cities and courts get overrun with a bloodier version of the voracious appetites they manufacture. Zombie films are quite often about political structure enduring even in the afterlife of its chaotic implosion” (71-72). This is certainly true in Dawn of the Dead, which follows four survivors who take up residence in a mall while the zombie apocalypse rages around them. Because of the mall’s copious resources, they are able to not only survive, but to create a home for themselves, to play games, and ultimately to hide from their horrific situation. 28 Days Later, on the other hand, portrays how a social structure such as an army can survive, bloodthirsty and degraded, in an apocalyptic setting. These apocalyptic conceptions are a relatively new focus for zombie stories, reflecting many of the anxieties of the modern age; interestingly, they may not necessarily leave their roots behind and threads almost always overlap. In Dawn of the Dead, Peter mentions that his grandfather was a Voodoo priest in Trinidad, who would tell him that "When there's no more room in hell, the dead will walk the earth.” In 28 Days Later, the Rage virus is a product of scientific testing on animals. However, though these films may incorporate elements of past zombie films, their focus is ultimately upon the apocalyptic setting and human survival, not upon the creation of zombies themselves.

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Works Cited

Lovecraft, H.P. More Annotated H.P. Lovecraft. Ed. by S.T. Joshi and Peter Cannon. New York: Dell Publishing, 1999.

Rhodes, Gary D. White Zombie: Anatomy of a Horror Film. North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc, 2001.

Sutherland, Meghan. “Rigor/Mortis: The Industrial Life of Style in American Zombie Cinema.” Framework: The Journal of Cinema and Media 48.1 (2007): 64-78.