Linell Bonnette
Mrs. McGehee and Mrs. Dickey
English IV
18 November 2009
The Undead Menace
The moans echo gently through the abandoned city. With shambling steps they move about aimlessly, constantly seeking prey. Nothing else moves. This scene is one witnessed in many books and movies about zombies. That is all just fiction though, right? Well, the problem lies in that statement. The lines between fact and fiction become blurred when speaking about the topic of zombies. That is right, the flesh eating monsters seen in many movies are possible. In fact, some zombies are real. Zombies as seen in Haiti are real, but zombies in popular culture, such as literature and films, plausible but not probable.
When the subject of a zombie is brought up, many immediately think of a shambling and flesh-eating corpse. While that is a zombie, that definition does not convey everything that a zombie truly is. Does a zombie have to be a cannibal? Does a zombie have to be truly dead? That is the problem with almost any way of explaining a zombie; no single definition can accurately convey everything that a zombie is. To fully understand what a zombie truly is, the different kinds of zombie must be understood. The two types of zombie are the zombie depicted in modern media and the zombies discovered in Haiti. The zombies in modern books and movies are usually referred to as ‘movie’ zombies while the zombies discovered in Haiti are usually thought of as ‘real’ zombies.
Before the definition of a zombie can be seen, the material from which the definition will be drawn must be understood. This history of zombies is mainly concerned with ‘movie’ zombies but often features the ‘real’ zombies. Early works more often featured the ‘real’ zombies, probably because of the reality of them. More modern works predominately feature the ‘movie’ zombie, which is why these zombies are dubbed ‘movie’ zombies. Over time, the zombie evolved from the ‘real’ zombie to the ‘movie’ zombie. The evolution of the zombie from its roots to the modern cannibalistic monster is clearly evident in the history of the zombie genre.
Zombies have existed in concept for many years. One prime example is One Thousand and One Nights, in which an outcast prince fights off a family of ravenous ghouls. Another, much better known, example is Frankenstein. Shelly did not write the novel to be about zombies, it predates many modern ideas about zombies. It shows the resurrection of the dead as being more scientific rather than mystical. The first true zombie story to come to America was The Magic Island by W.B. Seabrook. Introduced in 1929, it is the account of a narrator who encounters voodoo cults and their resurrected thralls in Haiti. Island introduced the word ‘zombi’ into the United States vernacular (Zombies in Popular Culture, 2009).
From there come many of the founding ideas of a zombie. H.P. Lovecraft, influenced greatly by Ambrose Bierce and Edgar Allan Poe, wrote several stories about zombies and the undead. These stories included several important new ideas for the zombie genre. Lovecraft introduced perhaps the first recorded character actually bitten by a zombie in the story “In the Vault”. The most definitive zombie story to be credited to Lovecraft is Herbert West—Reanimator. This story helped define zombies in popular culture. It showed the resurrected dead as uncontrollable, primate, extremely violent, and mute. This concept anticipated modern zombies by several decades (Zombies in Popular Culture, 2009).
In 1932 zombies made the jump to film with Victor Halperin’s movie White Zombie. This film starred Bela Lugosi and capitalized on voodoo. In it, zombies are depicted as mindless, unthinking thralls under the spell of a magician. Zombies were, at first, uncommon in cinema, but managed to appear sporadically from the 1930s all the way to the 1960s. The 1936 film Things to Come was one of the first to cast an apocalyptic scenario around the zombie sickness. Zombies were a key feature in the 1950s EC Comics such as Tales from the Crypt. George A. Romero would later claim these comics as an influence. Finally, the publication of I Am Legend in 1954 influenced the zombie genre. It shows a worldwide apocalypse due to the infestation, and it uses the concept that the vampires are caused by a disease (Zombies in Popular Culture, 2009). While Legend is about vampires, not zombies, it heavily influenced Romero, who in turn heavily influenced the zombie genre.
Up until Romero, zombies had generally been just that, the real kind of zombie. There were exceptions, such as Lovecraft, but zombies were generally seen as nothing more than mindless slaves. In 1968, George A. Romero introduced the world to Night of the Living Dead. It is unanimously agreed that “the modern conception of the zombie owes itself almost entirely to George A. Romero”(Zombies in Popular Culture, 2009). In Night, Romero “bred the zombie with the vampire, and what he got was the hybrid vigor of a ghoulish plague monster” (Twitchell, 1985). Romero reinvented zombies. He didn’t just use them as zombies, he used them as a vehicle to criticize things like government ineptitude, bioengineering, slavery, greed, and exploitation (Cole). Romero had, in effect, created his own genre. This genre is the modern zombie movie genre. It includes a zompocalypse, an apocalypse caused by zombies. Nearly every film based around zombies takes for granted that the zombies will cause the utter breakdown of society (Zombies in Popular Culture, 2009).
After Romero’s success, zombies enjoyed a moderate run, or perhaps a shambling walk, at the box office. From the 1980’s all the way to the turn of the century, only a few noteworthy zombie films were produced. These films generally followed the Romero model, but a few, such as The Serpent and the Rainbow and the Evil Dead series, did break make minor changes. The years where zombies were generally inactive changed along with the millennium though. Successes such as the Resident Evil series, 28 Days Later and its sequel 28 Weeks Later, Shaun of the Dead, and the Dawn of the Dead remake caused a resurgence in the zombie genre. During this time the depiction of zombies as biologically infected became popular (Zombies in Popular Culture, 2009).
The zombie phenomenon has spread from early literature, to film, and then back again. In the process, it has infected the whole world. Everything from music to video games now often contain a reference to zombies. From Michael Jackson’s Thriller to the award winning video game Left 4 Dead, zombies have changed modern media permanently. Due to this resurgence in the genre, numerous new works of literature have emerged dealing with the subject of zombies. In 1990 zombie fiction emerged as a distinct literary genre with the publication of Book of the Dead. Famous novelist Stephen King even contributed to the zombie theme, writing “Home Delivery” for the Book of the Dead and also Cell, a number-one bestseller. Next to Cell stand Max Brooks’ World War Z and The Zombie Survival Guide (Zombies in Popular Culture, 2009). These books, along with the movies, are attributed to keeping the zombie genre alive.
So, all of that media has combined into a single definition by now, right? No, sorry, but it has not. What a zombie is, exactly, is a subject of much controversy. In fact, to fully define the zombie requires two definitions. These definitions concern the ‘real’ zombies and the ‘movie’ zombies. The Zombie Survival Guide defines a zombie as “An animated corpse that feeds on living human flesh” (Brooks, 2003, p. 1). This seems fair enough, and this definition goes along with most movies. This definition works with ‘movie’ zombies but falls woefully short of ‘real’ zombies. Wade Davis, a Harvard ethnobotanist, has spent several years studying ‘real’ zombies and he says this, “The zombie, by Haitian belief, is an individual who has lost their soul and has been cast into purgatory” (Maberry, 2008, p. 12). This does not sound like a big difference, but in reality makes all the difference.
Davis has published two books, The Rainbow and the Serpent and Passage of Darkness chronicling his search for the pharmaceutical basis of ‘zombie powder’. Zombie powder is the substance that is believed to turn people into zombies, and has been known about for centuries. Davis was contacted by Nathan Kline, who was interested in obtaining the powder for use in the medical field, and then contracted to find the powder. After several years in Haiti, Davis managed to obtain several different samples of the powder. These samples led him to the conclusion that tetradotoxin, a potent neurotoxin produced by a family of toxic puffer fish called Tetraodontidae, is the chemically active ingredient. This toxin induces a state of apparent death. The victim of such the poison is identified as dead, buried, then disinterred and administered an antidote. This person often suffers brain damage, and is very vulnerable due to the drugs involved with the whole process. Due to these factors a Vodoun—the correct name for voodoo—priest, or bokor in this situation, lets the victim know that he or she has become a zombie and the victim believes it (Davis, 1988, pp. 1-165).
The whole process of creating these zombies seems unlikely and rather stupid. It is, however, not unlikely and is believed by an entire culture to be fact. In truth, it has been proven to be a fact that these zombies exist. Clairvius Narcisse, a native Haitian, is generally accepted to be the world’s first proven real zombie. He was admitted to Albert Schweitzer Hospital at Deschapelles in the Artibonile Valley in west-central Haiti on April 30, 1962 at 9:45 P.M. The next day at 1:15 P.M. he was pronounced dead by two physicians. One physician was American and both were American trained. Narcisse’s sister identified the body and fixed her thumbprint to the death certificate. The body was placed in cold storage for twenty hours then buried on May 3. The family placed a heavy concrete memorial slab over the grave ten days later. Eighteen years passed without incident, but then a man introduced himself to Narcisse’s sister in the town market. He introduced himself as her brother, using a childhood nickname that only the close family had known. He claimed that he was Narcisse and that his brother had made him into a zombie over a land dispute.
Lamarque Douyon, the director of the Centre de Psychiatrie et Neurologie Mars-Kline, the first modern psychiatric hospital in Haiti, had been investigating supposed cases of zombies for some time when he came across this case. He investigated it further, and, lacking the necessary equipment to do a DNA or dental test, decided to design a series of questions about Narcisse’s boyhood. He designed, with the help of Narcisse’s sister, a series of questions that not even a close family friend could answer. Narcisse answered the questions all correctly. To further back the man’s claims, over two hundred residents of L’Estere confirmed his identity and Scotland Yard matched the fingerprints of his sister to those on his death certificate. Since there was no social or economic incentive to perpetrate a fraud, it is generally agreed that Narcisse was turned into a genuine Haitian zombie. Davis concludes by saying, “ the reputed zombie’s medical and psychiatric history and his present condition had been thoroughly studied by Haiti’s leading psychiatrist who, together with two of the most respected of his North American colleagues, had concluded that the case was legitimate” (Davis, 1988, pp. 78-75).
So, there are established cases of these real zombies. What is the difference between zombies in movies and zombies in real life though? The main difference is this: zombies in movies are generally depicted as mindless killing machines that are autonomous want only to eat human flesh (Zombies in Popular Culture, 2009). In reality, zombies are thinking humans that feel pain, need to eat and drink real food, and are controlled by a master (Davis, 1988). These real zombies, while much more plausible, are not the most interesting things. They are just humans with a degree of brain damage that have been tricked into a life of slavery. Movie zombies are much more interesting, especially the zombies in more modern movies.
Modern movies do not always agree about the anatomy and physiology of zombies. The first modern zombie movie was George A. Romero’s movie Night of the Living Dead. The movie was made in 1968 and kicked off the zombie rise to prominence. Given its station as the first modern zombie movie, it is often looked to as the defining word on what is a zombie. It casts a zombie as being dead, moderately thinking (as seen by the zombies’ fear of fire), not breathing, not feeling pain, and it showcases the zombies shambling walk (Romero, 1968). The majority of zombie movies since Romero’s have kept to this basic guideline. Many have stripped any thought from zombies, casting them as completely mindless. Only recently has anything truly major changed about zombie movies. The 2002 movie 28 Days Later changed the whole concept of zombies in mainstream movies and is credited with reinvigorating the zombie genre. It casts zombies as being very fast and strong. It also has a virus that does not cause the death of the infected individual (Boyle, 2002). This has lead some to day that 28 Days Later is not a zombie movie, just an apocalypse movie, but it is in fact a movie about zombies.
Thanks to the flexible nature of the zombies in movies, a definitive definition of zombies can not be found. For the purpose of clarity though, a few general rules guide zombies in movies. The first rule is that the zombies have to have been humans at some point. The second rule is that zombies must be in a state of lowered consciousness. The third rule is that zombies can not be immediately killed by anything other than severe head trauma. The fourth rule is that these zombies bite and sometimes eat uninfected humans to spread the disease. These four rules are very important to the genre but are not always observed. Because these guidelines have been used in the vast majority of movies though, it is enough to constitute a general idea of what a zombie should be.
Zombies in movies have always been regarded as impossible. While improbable, they are not impossible. The things that could possible make these zombies possible range from the improbable to the chillingly possible. Movies themselves have provided many reasons. Night of the Living Dead casts radiation coming from a space probe returning from Venus as the cause of the dead rising (Night of the Living Dead, 2009). The movie 28 Days Later shows a highly infections virus called ‘Rage’ as the cause of the zombies (28 Days Later, 2009). The top reasons have been discussed in great detail on the internet. While there are more possibilities than can be counted, a few of the reasons are more likely than the others.
Brain parasites are a likely candidate for causing zombies like seen in movies. Parasites that infect the brain and turn the victims into mindless zombies are fairly common in nature. One, toxoplasmosa gondii, shows exactly what kind of potential these parasites show for zombies. This parasite infects only rats. In order for the disease to breed, it has to be inside the intestines of a cat. It knows that it has to get the rat inside of the cat, so the parasite takes control of the rat’s central nervous system and makes the rat intentionally scurry toward a cat. The parasite is causing the rat to get itself eaten (Toxoplasmosa Gondii, 2009). The parasite is highly prevalent in the human population, infecting more than sixty million people in the United States of America alone (Toxoplasmosis - CDC DPD). The parasite does not cause any proven changes in human behavior, but the potential is obviously there. Parasites are constantly changing and evolving to better suit their needs, and one day that need just may include causing humans to want to eat each other.
A more likely candidate for causing zombies comes almost straight from 28 Days Later. Not to long ago, there was an outbreak of Mad Cow disease that gained a lot of media attention. This is because Mad Cow disease is transferrable to humans. When the disease is transferred to humans, it is called Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, also known as CJD, is a form of brain damage. It causes a rapid decrease in mental function and movement. It is believed to be caused by an abnormally folded protein, called a prion. This abnormal folding encourages other proteins to have bad shapes as well, and this affects the proteins ability to function (Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease). A disease caused by a prion can not be treated and is always fatal. Prion diseases can be transmitted through infected tissue. Cannibalism caused the spread of a prion disease called kuru in New Guinea (Merck & Co., Inc., 2005). Symptoms of CJD include blurred vision, changes in gait, hallucinations, lack of coordination, muscle twitching and stiffness, personality changes, profound confusion, speech impairment, and memory loss (Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease). Cannibalism is not on that list, so people suffering from CJD are not zombies, but it shows what kind of diseases nature is capable of churning out.
There are the two most likely candidates for causing zombies as seen in the movies. A disease caused by a prion, such as Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, and brain parasites, such as toxoplasmosa gondii, both have the qualifications to cause humans to turn into mindless creatures. A prion disease is accepted as the better of the two explanations, simply because of the fact that it meets nearly every qualification set to a zombie causing disease. In fact, as mentioned, 28 Days Later ‘rage’ disease very closely resembles CJD. Theses two factors will probably never cause the dead to rise, but it is a definite possibility that zombies just like seen in the movies are possible.
So, zombies just like seen in the movies are possible? Well, yes and no. Night of the Living Dead shows everyone that died recently as coming back as a zombie (Romero, 1968). This is simply not plausible. A zombie coming up from its coffin is also not plausible. 28 Days Later is the more plausible of the two movies, but it also has its weak points. It shows the virus’s transmission time, the time it takes to fully gain control of an individual from the time of infection, as being only a few seconds (Boyle, 2002). While this makes for amazing cinema, it is not possible. The virus has to have enough time for the entire blood supply and all of the mucous membranes to become totally infected, and this can not be accomplished as quickly as shown in the movie. Another key point is that a zombie will be affected by a bullet, even if it does not feel pain. The momentum from a bullet, especially if it hits a hard bone, will transfer to the zombie and at least knock it down (Maberry, 2008, p. 180). So, the zombies possible in real life are not the exact same as those seen in cinema, but they are chillingly close.
Zombies in Haiti are real and confirmed, and zombies like in popular culture are possible but not probable. This statement is shocking, but is obviously true. While zombies are not likely to invade a local city, it is possible. This fact is chilling really. It is possible for the ‘dead’ to rise and kill the living. It is possible that zombies as seen in the movies come knocking sometime soon. Will it happen? It probably will not. Can it happen? Yes, it definitely can.
