Although vampires, lycanthropes, ghosts and ghouls can all be petrifying in various different ways, there is something particularly chilling about the legions of the undead which have come to be known as zombies. Although zombie legends have their roots in Haitian Vodou and West African Vodun, the zombies which have infested popular culture for the past forty years or so can be traced back to the 1968 movie ‘Night of The Living Dead’ . Since then, these reanimated cannibalistic revenants have stiffly but unstoppably marched their way through numerous movies and TV series. Zombies entered popular culture in America in the midst of The Cold War and some of their initial appeal is linked to the concept of a profound psychological and ideological invasion at the heart of American culture. As the decades have progressed and fictional zombies have ranged further from their American heartland, their various depictions have perhaps horrified Western audiences on a more visceral level than other horror antagonists because they have held up a disturbing mirror to our societies which has reflected an inherent hypocrisy and moral decay which is far more disturbing than the decomposed flesh of the undead.
Several different types of zombies have stumbled onto our screens over the years, so here follow five examples of the most fascinating sub-groups.
1) The Generic Zombie (Romero Type)
With the movies ‘Night of The Living Dead’, ‘Dawn of the Dead’,’Day of the Dead’, ‘Land of the Dead’, ‘Diary of the Dead’ and ‘Survival of the Dead’, director George A Romero created a veritable zombie canon which brought the archetypal shuffling, slow, remorseless and blank-eyed zombie from the revolutionary era of the late 1960s straight through to the 21st Century. Although none of the movies is an official sequel, the zombie virus continues to plague the contemporary world of each movie and each highlights contemporary issues such as racism, mass production and consumerism and the series therefore infers a societal decay which accompanies and undermines supposed advances. Romero’s zombies are the types which rise uncannily from graves, transfer their infection through the means of a bite and have an insatiable appetite for human flesh. The original source of the zombie virus is never revealed in Romero’s movies; thus forcing each generation of fans to look deep within themselves in order to consider the zombie within!
![]()
Several different types of zombies have stumbled onto our screens over the years, so here follow five examples of the most fascinating sub-groups.
1) The Generic Zombie (Romero Type)
With the movies ‘Night of The Living Dead’, ‘Dawn of the Dead’,’Day of the Dead’, ‘Land of the Dead’, ‘Diary of the Dead’ and ‘Survival of the Dead’, director George A Romero created a veritable zombie canon which brought the archetypal shuffling, slow, remorseless and blank-eyed zombie from the revolutionary era of the late 1960s straight through to the 21st Century. Although none of the movies is an official sequel, the zombie virus continues to plague the contemporary world of each movie and each highlights contemporary issues such as racism, mass production and consumerism and the series therefore infers a societal decay which accompanies and undermines supposed advances. Romero’s zombies are the types which rise uncannily from graves, transfer their infection through the means of a bite and have an insatiable appetite for human flesh. The original source of the zombie virus is never revealed in Romero’s movies; thus forcing each generation of fans to look deep within themselves in order to consider the zombie within!
Originally posted at Popgive.com.![]()
