Zombies

By:
The Creatures

History
Zombies are fictional undead
creatures created through the
reanimation of human corpses
Most commonly found in works
of horror or fantasy genres
Term comes from Haitian
Folklore: dead body animated by
magic
English word Zombie was first
recorded in 1819 in the form of
zombi

Audience Expectations

Cannibalistic, man-eating fiends

Targeted as the cause for societal/system breakdown
Mindless, decomposing beings appearing inferior to humans
Struggle between the living and living dead

AMCs The Walking Dead, subverts the expectation of what to fear

Zombie Apocalypse: What is expected?

Bizarre event strikes Earth
threatening to human race
Synthetic plague, virus,
radiation exposure etc.
Societal breakdown and chaos
The recently dead rising
feeding on the living
Divergence spawns between
infected and the few lucky
ones?

Evolution and Examples

H.P. Lovecrafts Herbert West- Reanimator (1922)
Victor Hugo Halperins White Zombie (1932)
Steve Sekelys Revenge of the Zombies (1943)
George A. Romeros Night of the Living Dead (1968)
Richard Mathesons I Am Legend (1954)
made the living dead character more personal by
using friends and family as the ones rising from the
grave.
Max Brooks World War Z (2006)
AMCs The Walking Dead (2010+)

Zombies: A Metaphor for

our Reality

Represent everything wrong in the

modern world.

Become increasingly popular as domestic and

international crises arise

Humans attracted to disorder but not in

their own lives
The more zombies bleed into mainstream
media, the more people will believe, fear
and dread their existence

Ebola outbreak caused increased distrust in

governments for fear of zombie virus

Now Do you think

a zombie
apocalypse is
possible?

Lets hope not

Works Cited

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_zombie_films
http://blogofholding.com/?p=6502
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ZombieApocalypse
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/23/magazine/max-brooks-is-not-kidding-about-thezombie-apocalypse.html?_r=1
http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/sor/summary/v081/81.4.drezner.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A64m539HpiE