The Science of Monsters

While George Romero refined the zombie genre in film, the concept of the undead has existed in numerous cultures for ages. References to zombie-like creatures date back as far as the writings of Gilgamesh in 2100 BCE. The Epic of Gilgamesh from ancient Mesopotamia is considered to be the oldest surviving work of literature. It contains the haunting warning “the dead go up to eat the living! And the dead will outnumber the living!” This is strikingly similar to the well-known quote from 1978’s Dawn of the Dead, “when there’s no room in Hell, the dead will walk the Earth!” In China, the undead were known as the jiang shi. These creatures killed people in order to steal their life force, or qi. This lore dates back to the Qing Dynasty and the scholar Ji Xiaolan. He cited various reasons for bodies coming back to life including possession or a person’s soul not leaving their body. There was even the belief that if a pregnant cat leapt across your coffin you would be zombified! In Scandinavia the myth of draugr dates back to the eighth century. The draugr were believed to rise up from the dead to guard the treasures in their graves. And in twelfth century England, regarded historian William Newburgh wrote of “corpses [that] come out of their graves.”

Most modern horror movies trace their version of the undead to folklore revolving around the religion of voodoo in the country of Haiti. Voodoo folklore views zombies as bodies without souls. For one to become a zombie, “zombification” must occur. A sorcerer, or boko, performs a spell on a person to kill, enslave, or sicken them. They may perhaps use poisonous powders such as frog or toad venom and tetrodotoxin, a powerful neurotoxin that is secreted by puffer fish. This toxin can trigger paralysis or death-like symptoms and cause others to believe the person is dead. Other steps in the zombification process include keeping the ti-bon anj, the manifestation of awareness and memory, in a special bottle. The zombie will remain a slave to the sorcerer until the bottle is broken or the zombie ingests salt or meat.

In 2014, George Romero spoke to NPR’s Arun Rath about the inspiration behind his zombie franchise.¹ He explained that he “grew up on classic movie monsters” and never dreamed he would be the father of the modern-day zombie, “I never expected it. I really didn’t, all I did was I took them out of ‘exotica’ and I made them the neighbors ... I thought there’s nothing scarier than the neighbors!” Although Romero’s film went on to earn $12 million at the box office (two hundred and fifty times its modest budget) years before Kelly and I (Meg) were born, both of us have had our own personal experience with this groundbreaking horror film. Kelly remembers a Christmas morning when she unwrapped a VHS copy of Night of the Living Dead, a special gift from her father. It was the first horror movie she ever watched, ultimately the catalyst in sparking her adoration for all things spooky. Meg fell in love with the film’s sequel, Dawn of the Dead, before she laid eyes on the original. Dawn of the Dead holds much of the same charm as its predecessor, yet with a bigger budget, therefore a more ambitious representation of zombie carnage. A decade later, Romero was able to add a greenish pallor to his zombies as well as a neon red blood to the victims. This undoubtedly upped the horror ante.