Zombie Invasion
Living dead infest box office, pop culture
Kasey Doyle/Accent editor
Issue date: 10/28/04 Section: Accent
Blood, gore, dead people and pretty women.
All these elements are needed in a good zombie movie, said Shahed Jameel, a 29-year-old graduate student from Chennai, India.
In the past year, the big screen has been filled with the living dead searching for a flesh feast. The releases of "Dawn of the Dead," "Shaun of the Dead" and "Resident Evil: Apocalypse" have proved that zombie movies are a popular sub-genre of the horror movie.
"I think (zombie movies) have become part of popular culture," said Doug Rogers, assistant professor of communications.
Rogers, who has taught a film course on horror movies, said zombie movies originated in the early 1930s.
Films such as "White Zombie" (1932) and "Revolt of the Zombies" (1936), focused on voodoo rituals as the main reason for zombie infestation; bodies were reanimated using voodoo spells.
Rogers said during the 1960s, with the release of "Night of the Living Dead" (1968), other causative agents were introduced. In this film, dead bodies are reanimated because of radiation. Later, zombie movies depicted chemical, viral and alien experimentation as the source for zombie plagues.
In more recent films, such as "Resident Evil" (2002) and "28 Days Later" (2003), a virus produces the zombies.
According to "The Zombie Survival Guide," by Max Brooks, the origin of the zombie stems from a virus known as Solanum. This virus works by traveling through the bloodstream, ceasing all bodily functions. The virus mutates and causes the dead body to reanimate.
"The idea of the zombie has not changed much since the beginning," Rogers said. He said zombie movies tap into cannibalism, which is one of the "most repulsive of ideas."
"The concept of people dying and coming back is pretty fascinating," Jameel said.
Rogers said the idea of the zombie is "especially repulsive because it is something that could happen to anyone if they buy into the belief system."
Zombie movies scare people, Jameel said.
All these elements are needed in a good zombie movie, said Shahed Jameel, a 29-year-old graduate student from Chennai, India.
In the past year, the big screen has been filled with the living dead searching for a flesh feast. The releases of "Dawn of the Dead," "Shaun of the Dead" and "Resident Evil: Apocalypse" have proved that zombie movies are a popular sub-genre of the horror movie.
"I think (zombie movies) have become part of popular culture," said Doug Rogers, assistant professor of communications.
Rogers, who has taught a film course on horror movies, said zombie movies originated in the early 1930s.
Films such as "White Zombie" (1932) and "Revolt of the Zombies" (1936), focused on voodoo rituals as the main reason for zombie infestation; bodies were reanimated using voodoo spells.
Rogers said during the 1960s, with the release of "Night of the Living Dead" (1968), other causative agents were introduced. In this film, dead bodies are reanimated because of radiation. Later, zombie movies depicted chemical, viral and alien experimentation as the source for zombie plagues.
In more recent films, such as "Resident Evil" (2002) and "28 Days Later" (2003), a virus produces the zombies.
According to "The Zombie Survival Guide," by Max Brooks, the origin of the zombie stems from a virus known as Solanum. This virus works by traveling through the bloodstream, ceasing all bodily functions. The virus mutates and causes the dead body to reanimate.
"The idea of the zombie has not changed much since the beginning," Rogers said. He said zombie movies tap into cannibalism, which is one of the "most repulsive of ideas."
"The concept of people dying and coming back is pretty fascinating," Jameel said.
Rogers said the idea of the zombie is "especially repulsive because it is something that could happen to anyone if they buy into the belief system."
Zombie movies scare people, Jameel said.