Zombie Apocalypse History

The article “Dead man still walking: Explaining the zombie renaissance” by Kyle Bishop is about the revitalization of the zombie genre. The article talks about the inception in the late 1960’s, the category of zombie films has had its roller coaster ride of ups and downs, starting with its decline in the early 1980’s with the release of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” video. Furthermore, during 1990’s, due to the shift in the cultural consciousness that came with the Clinton Administration and the countries isolation from global tragedies, the popularity of these films continued to decline. Cultural consciousness refers to the understanding and awareness a shift in feelings, sensations, thoughts, of not only our own culture, but adjoining cultures.

Zombies, as we know them today, have mortified movie viewers for the last forty six years. Modern zombies first appeared in George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead in 1968. These zombies were the slow moving, staggering ghouls that one has seen in countless films, but in 1985, Return of the Living Dead featured a new kind of zombie, the first fast moving and talking ghoul. Both Night of the Living dead 1968 and Return of the Living Dead 1985 feature the zombie as its villain, but Return of the living dead’s fast moving, talking zombies are a more modern take on the movie monster.

In the modern movie genre, horror movies accounts for very great proportion of the number of followers. Relevantly, the zombie film genre has been developed into a dominant part of mainstream horror, replacing the previous monster such as vampires and werewolves. In Max Brooks’s essay “The Movies That Rose From the Grave”, he offers his opinion that throughout the process of zombie film transformation, it increasingly captivates viewers while gradually generates the modern horror. Brooks’s essay should be an appropriate inclusion of a college textbook which explains the phenomenon of the “undead explosion” in various kinds of media, proving to the audiences with enthusiasm, interest, credibility and specific examples that zombie culture is resurrecting a formerly obsolete genre.

Continuing on, zombies have had a huge pop culture impact on the world. The peak popularity time of zombies every year is undoubtedly the month of October as Halloween approaches. During the Halloween season many zombie movies, books, video games, etc. are released and a lot of them have a major “hype” factor around them. For example, the popular video game series “Call of Duty” tends to

The horror genre has been captivating and enthralling the masses for centuries, but more recently in the twentieth century these morbid tales have moved from the old media of oral stories and literature to the new medium of horror pictures. Horror pictures still are not the end of the evolution of the horror genre, as this medium itself has experienced evolutions to satisfy an increasingly desensitized audience. To exemplify this evolution of horror pictures we will be taking a look at an occult classic from 1968 Night of the living dead and a new thriller The Walking Dead. Both horror pictures portray a zombie apocalypse and there are similarities and differences in the main characters, the zombies, and the worlds of the two pictures.

The foundation of horror genre was set by monsters that not only haunted your dreams but also conveyed rich themes found deep beneath the surface. Vampires are considered a symbol of seduction and sophistication while Frankenstein monsters represent misunderstanding, oppression, and rebellion. Some of the strongest symbolism is found in standard films of the horror genre does not come from the frequently updated relics. Utilizing fear and horror as mechanisms for subtext, social commentary, and symbolism, George Romero created a new horror genre, one that scares and shines just as much as great horror classics. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead revolutionized the once stagnant zombie film and made into something unstoppable, still to this day zombie movies rake in millions of ticket sales at the box office while remaining culturally relevant.

Night of the Living Dead gave the world its first zombie and since then the zombie has not stopped thirsting for human brains.

Ever since the first zombie movie was created in 1932, there has been a constant rise of zombie appearances in popular media. Like with all monsters, the majority of zombie media aimed to represent a certain aspect throughout the society in question. Whereas vampires represented romanticism and Dracula represented how a certain social group was viewed during a certain time period, zombies in Romero’s “Night of the Living Dead” aimed to create a situation whereby a group of people had to survive a night together, despite their racial tensions between one another. Being the founder of all subsequent zombie films, “Night of the Living Dead” provided a guideline for zombie behavior. As time passed, more and more versions of the zombie came out, whereby zombies stopped being a plot device and turned into the focus of the film itself. The Walking Dead, currently standing as the fourth most popular TV series, took a turn from this progression and decided to imitate Romero’s take on zombies. By including zombies which simply aimed to sustain themselves by consuming the flesh of the “live,” the creators of The Walking Dead caused the remaining survivors to gather together and rely on primitive human instinct to survive. Even though the zombies in this series run rampant, they play a very minimalistic metaphoric role. Instead, by presenting the zombies as a plot device, the characters in this series were able to demonstrate their true prejudiced view on society, ultimately revealing

There has been a resurgence of zombie films in the last decade, ranging from Danny Boyles 28 Days Later to Paul W.S. Andersons Resident Evil. This renaissance of zombie cinema has resurfaced in response to the cultural, political, and social volatility experienced in today’s society, much like its predecessors. A zombie film, unlike other monster movies, plays more with the real-world fears and anxieties, presenting the audience with inescapable realities. However, to understand why this subgenre has been brought back into the mainstream cinema, a comparison is needed across generations of film. This paper will focus on the comparison between George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead and Danny Boyles 28 Days Later; in an attempt to show how zombie cinema is a reaction to cultural shocks.

In the “Night of the Living Dead”, it illustrates the year on which it's based pretty accurately in some ways, but not so accurately in others. In one case where the motion picture portrays 1969 accurately is when they said the cause of the dead rising was revealed as high-level radiation from a space probe, but you could compare that radiation to what nuclear fallout could be due to the cold war looming with the Russians. It also depicted how gruesome the Vietnam war was, like the blood, guts and how relentlessness the zombies were compared to the Viet-Kong. The way the movie depicted 1969 inaccurately was that there wouldn't be a black man in charge of a household of white men and women. That would be due to the reason that black people back then barely had any rights at all and weren't even seen as human due to racial discrimination. Also, movies during this time barely showed any skin on women, but you could clearly see in the movie that some women zombies were completely naked which was extremely unusual for 1969. In this movie, it puts in a lot of diversity that was very uncommon at this time, but it also broke the ice for future leadership roles to be African Americans.

Zombies continue to keep their popularity alive through the entertainment industry. Zombies have been around for years now with no sign of leaving anytime soon. In the story Max Brooks suggests that zombies have given the other horror movie monsters a run for their money because, zombies are the only monsters that keep their popularity going strong in today’s society. I enjoyed the way Max Brooks shows the reader that he is a fan of zombies and thinks that zombies have been dominating the entertainment industry.

“Movies that Rose from the Grave” was written by Max Brooks in which attempt to explain and inform people with curiosity and excitement towards zombies, on their history and how they came about. He introduced how the voodoo zombie aroused the “hostile, fleshing-eating, ghoul” we see in movies and other productions. It was not until 1968 that the tall tale of the science experiment became the monster we all avoided to see underneath our beds. With the anticipation at our feet, George A. Romero revolutionized a whole new genre, now known as “horror-apocalypse.” Since then other productions such as, Night of the Zombie, Zombie 2, Wild Zero, and Michael Jacksons Thriller music video, have flourished the killer

Love, romance, and comedies have always been a success in whether it be books or movies. These are genres that throughout centuries have succeeded in standing the tests of time. The author Issac Marion took on this genre with an undead twist. Marion published a book about a zombie, R, and his perspective of the now post-apocalyptic world. As the story progresses, the audience sees what zombie life is, R’s experience of love, and the war between the living and the undead. Three years after publishing the book, Jonathan Levine created the movie adaptation. Zombies, at the time of the movie release, were perceived as romantic in an eerie way. Marion 's original plot changed into more of a romantic/comedy genre that would appeal to the teen,

Is it possible to kill an idea when it is undead? Classic movie monsters tend to fade in and out of popularity as audiences grow bored and move on to fresher concepts. But there is one that has risen up and does not seem to slow down: zombies. Zombies have gone from being a small subgenre of horror film to a staple of popular culture across various media. This paper will explore the rise of zombies in popular culture and why it continues to remain relevant.

The popularity and appeal of the undead has greatly increased in the past few years with the rise of the popular television show, The Walking Dead. The show began in October 2010, and is still on the air today. Before the show was created, there were The Walking Dead comic books that were first published in 2003, and continue to be published today with over 148 issues. The fascination did not begin with The Walking Dead, though. Many movies were produced, and many books published before The Walking Dead was even thought of. An extremely influential individual to note is George Romero. Romero is an American-Canadian screenwriter, film producer, film director, and editor. He is best known for his series of apocalyptic films, beginning with Night of the Living Dead in 1968. Romero has been nicknamed the “Godfather of the Undead.” Some other works of fiction and film to note include 28 Days Later, I am Legend, Pride and Prejudice Zombies and The Zombie Survival Guide, also by Max Brooks. Our cultural fascination with “the return of the dead” can be traced back to the events and the general morale leading up to World War Two, and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.