Our Fascination With Zombies Just Won’t Die

Poster for "Night of the Living Dead", the movie that started the modern zombie mythos.

BY LOUIS DENNIN

They’re coming to get you, Barbara- and they have been for a very long time.  For decades now, the undead have been quite a hot topic in America, overwhelming our nation in hoards. The ranks of zombie fans grow in number every year and are showing no sign of slowing down. So how did these brain-eating fiends captivate so many people and continue drag us deeper and deeper into their world?

Zombies first began to claw their way into the pop culture spotlight through the medium of cinema. While several lesser known zombie flicks were released prior, the film that really sparked the genre was George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead (1968), which not only originated the rules of this genre, but reshaped horror movies altogether.  While Night of the Living Dead launched it’s own franchise including Dawn of the Dead and Day of the Dead, it also inspired many other films similar to itself.  Even in todays day and age, zombies still appear and act more or less how they did in Night of the Living Dead; a true testament to it’s influence.

Zombie movies prospered enough in the realm of film to ascend into other types of entertainment, including television shows and music. The extremely popular Walking Dead television series, for example, is a highly respected and greatly enjoyed drama fearing the undead. Zombies also picked up steam thanks to Michael Jackson’s “Thriller”, which got people all over the world dancing like them.

As we screamed, cheered and danced to these monsters, their fame began snowballing more and more.  People began to crave these new entities of fear and gore- so much that they themselves wanted to experience the peril and thrill of zombies themselves.  Video games like Resident Evil, Left 4 Dead and Dead Island continue to gain popularity. Zombies have also crept into the Call of Duty franchise, which prior to the outbreak of zombies was just simply a game about guns and war.

What better platform to simulate the terror and thrill of the undead than video games?  Well, perhaps real life.  For the fans that really want to see zombies for themselves, there are even ways to experience it in real life: zombie runs.  While the details variate depending the specific event, zombie runs are generally real life events where participants run through an obstacle course while being perused by legions of zombies.

Between movies, music and real life events, there’s no questioning their daunting image in today’s world of entertainment.  But why are they so popular?  How did they grow and stay so huge?  It’s rather hard to believe that something as grisly as rotting, walking corpses could become the pinnacles of our entertainment. In the case of zombies, the fear that they fuel is very likely the base of their popularity.  People enjoy the thrill that horror movies and games create. It’s exhilarating to be able to see something scary and morbid without the actual danger being present.

So why zombies specifically?  Other things that terrify have had their turn in the spotlight, but seldom do any see the kind of booming success as the zombie legacy.  What makes their brand of fear so appealing to us?  The edge that zombies have over other horrors is they they have a very nonfictional feel to them; they aren’t huge jungle beasts or growling wolf men. They’re people. People that are a physical incarnation of one of humanity’s oldest, strongest fears: death.  They’ve come back from the dead only to drag others to their grave and they show us that even we, normal people, can be the monsters.

The genre that clawed its way to center stage is still standing strongly on a fan base that’s always hungry for more.  Zombies have been around for decades and have seen themselves as the stars of movies, video games, music videos and even real life.  With new zombie flicks still being released (such as World War Z this past summer), the future looks bright for these creatures of the night.