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Zombies in a Time of Terror

The Development of the Zombie Film Narrative

Jasper Wezenberg

5947634

jasper.wezenberg@gmail.com

Ferdinand Bolstraat 27-3 1072LB Amsterdam

06-20924216

Thesis guide: dr. C.J. Forceville

Second reader: Amir Vudka

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Acknowledgements

First of all I would like to thank dr. Charles Forceville for being an excellent thesis guide who always

provide me with pragmatic tips, interesting insights and fast comments. Thanks to Amir Vudka for

being my second reader. I would like to thank Absaline Hehakaya and Maarten Stolz for reading parts

of my unfinished thesis and providing comments. Many thank to Saskia Mollen for designing the

awesome front cover. Thank to my colleagues Joost Mellink and Renée Janssen for covering for me.

Thanks to my friends Niels de Groot and Rufus Baas for encouraging me. Thanks to Marek

Stolarczyk, Roeland Hofman, and Marije Ligthart for being funny and supportive. Thanks to Nika

Pantovic for making nice music and providing inspiration. And finally thanks to my parents and

brother for being awesome people.

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Contents

Acknowledgements 3

Introduction 5

1. Generic difficulties 6

2. On zombie studies 12

3. The Quantitative of the dead 16

3.1 Introduction 20

3.2 Corpus and zombie movie production numbers 21

3.3 Results 23

3.3.1 Zombie invasion narrative 23

3.3.2 Shots of deserted streets 24

3.3.3 Use of news- or found footage 25

3.3.4 Speed of zombie movement 25

3.3.5 Are they dead? 27

3.3.6 Extra: funny zombies 28

4. Zombies in a time of terror: invoking images 29

4.1 REC 29

4.2 Train to Busan 34

4.3 Land of the Dead 40

Conclusion 45

Bibliography 48

Filmography 50

Appendix A 51

Appendix B 53

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Introduction

Of all the monstrous creatures that have populated the horror stories of Western culture, the zombie

may well be the most characteristic for the late 20th and early 21th century. What is it with massive

amounts of walking, flesh eating, rotting, and mindless corpses that fascinates millions of movie fans?

While it once was a monster of b-movies, nowadays zombies seem to have taken over the world. It is

as if a cinematic zombie apocalypse has been taking place the last two decades.

In film, the creation of the zombie can be traced back to the movie White Zombie (1932). It

was inspired by Haitian folklore like voodoo, in which a witchdoctor takes control of another person’s

body. The genre took a more postmodern turn when filmmaker George A. Romero released his low-

budget movie Night of the Living Dead (1968), containing undertones of social critique. Today,

Romero’s debut has become a prototype for the whole genre. In a typical zombie movie, a zombie

apocalypse takes place, which causes the dead to rise again from the grave. These animate corpses are

almost always murderous and out for human blood. After a person has been attacked by one or more

zombies, he or she then also turns into a zombie. By this mechanism the zombies spread like a virus or

a plague. Amidst this deadly chaos, the story’s protagonists are trying to stay alive and rescue their

loved ones.

What kinds of zombie narratives are there? How is the zombie genre able to reflect social

unrest? Has the genre changed much since Romero? How have zombies been studied by academics?

In this MA Thesis I will investigate the development of the zombie film narrative, hoping to find

answers to these questions.

In the first chapter I set out to create an overview of the studies that have been done on the

subject of genre in film studies. As I am dealing with a very specific genre, I must investigate

numerous theories on the existence and use of film genre. In the second chapter I will look into the

academic studies that have been done to date on zombie films, to provide me with bearings for my

own research: what has been discovered and what needs to be researched more? In the third chapter I

will present the results of quantitative research I have done on the characteristics of zombie narratives,

to show how narrative techniques in the zombie film have changed. In the fourth chapter I will do a

close analysis of three selected zombie titles, to provide us with more details the element that are

typical for the genre, and how zombie narratives function. At the end of this research I will hope to

provide an answer to the question: how has the zombie narrative developed over the years?

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1. Generic difficulties

If we want to be able to discuss and research the zombie movie as a category, we first have to delve

deeper into the structures and processes that define the generic conventions of the zombie movie.

What criteria define a specific genre and how do we use and need our knowledge of genres? In this

chapter I set out to create a general outline of the field of (film) genre studies and some of its main

scholars like Rick Altman, Barry Keith Grant and Stephen Neale. The problems and concepts

introduced here will be used in our next chapter on the genre of horror and its subgenre: zombie

movies.

The concept of genre has been important on many levels of spectating and studying film as the

work of the following scholars will prove. While for the average moviegoer, the different generic

categories may seem like a collection of clear-cut traits bundled to categorize different films, the

concept of genre is of course not without its difficulties. The meaning and use of genre within the

realms of film is the result of a complex interplay between scholars, spectators, critics and the movie

industry.

I would first like to consider the work of Rick Altman and especially his book Film/Genre

(1999), for it has been a seminal work in the study of genre within film studies. Altman starts out his

book stating that one of the first ideas about genre goes back all the way to Aristotle and his famous

work of Poetics. In his work Aristotle states that he will approaches the art of poetry based on its

essential qualities. Determined by these “essential qualities”, Aristotle describes how different forms

of poetry could be discerned from each other based on the medium, the object, and the manner of

imitation. While literary genre theory has of course evolved over the years, Aristotle’s ideas have

remained influential. The main problem with this, according to Altman (1999), is that Aristotle’s ideas

are based on various presumptions. Aristotle namely assumes that his generic categories are

“objectively present, stable phenomena, while the decision whether a certain text belonged into a

specific genre depended on the presence or absence of certain characteristic features embodied in that

text” (Forceville 2001: 1787). Altman states that Aristotle’s ideas have persevered all these year in

literary studies and thus literary genre theory has not been able to come to any definite conclusions

about what constitutes a genre (Altman 1999: 12).

Although a theoretical framework on film genre has been established since the late sixties, this

body of theories has not been without its shortcomings: the same dogmas of genre studies within the

literary field, have crept into the academic work on film genre. Altman point out multiple problematic

tendencies that have persisted within film genre studies. One of the most important things he points

out is that the focus of genre critics and scholars has been on a reduced corpus that consists of

canonical titles, to keep things neat and manageable (Altman 1999: 16). This means is that the critics

and scholars tend to pay more attention to a small number of movies and as a result reduce a genre to a

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very select group of ‘pure’ genre titles. From this strategy follows that only the titles that tick all the

boxes of a generic prototype are included. Cross-genre and titles from outside of the canon tend to get

overlooked. “[Genre critics] have systematically disregarded films that fail to exhibit clear generic

qualifications. [Also], each major genre has been defined in terms of a nucleus of films obviously

satisfying the theory’s […] assumptions” (Altman 1999: 16). He adds to that genres are treated as if

they are trans-historical, as if they are fixed in history and never change of evolve over time. For

Altman, this is clearly not the case.

Altman uses the example of the musical genre to demonstrate that genres undergo historical

development and are constantly susceptible to changes. He explains that in the earlier years, the term

‘musical’ was never applied as genre, but always used as an adjective to other genres such as

melodrama or comedy (Altman 1999: 32). It was only after films with singing and dancing became

less popular, that the term ‘musical’ started being used solely to describe a feature film. Many

examples of movie reviews from the time period are given by Altman to underline the change in

public perception of what a ‘musical’ is.

It is also an important nuance that not all films are deliberately designed to fall into pre-

existing categories. This is where Rick Altman makes the distinction between a ‘film genre’ and a

‘genre film’ (Altman 1996: 277). ‘Film genre’ refers to broader categories that can encompass a wide

scope of films, regardless of the intent with which they were made. ‘Genre films’ refers to a type of

film that self-consciously makes use of existing categories, models and expectations.

When trying to explain the functioning of genre, Altman introduces the idea of creating a

communication model for film genre. He explains that genres are communicative processes: films

belonging to a certain genre change the viewer’s perception from seeing an autonomous title into

seeing a film as belonging to a generic group. And in turn this creates a bond between multiple groups

of “part-real, part-imagined genre viewers” (Altman 1999: 169). In constructing a model for this

process, Altman draws inspiration from the classic encoding/decoding model created by Stuart Hall.

The premise of this model is that a sender communicates with multiple receivers through a medium.

And these receivers also communicate with each other. Adding to the model, Altman points out that

the receivers also interact with the medium, thereby repurposing and redefining the genre (Altman

1999: 172) communicating through the medium as can be seen in figure 1. This process is especially

evident in a cult genre like zombie movies, where the fans constantly discuss, repurpose, and redefine

the genre and its corpus. I will discuss this more in depth.

In the eighties Altman wrote an article named A Semantic/syntactic Approach to Film Genre

(1984). In this text Altman introduces a dual approach, both focused on semantics as well as syntax,

that can be used to identify individual movies as belonging to a certain genre based on textual

characteristics. The semantic approach utilizes identification based on the generic “building blocks”

(Altman 1984: 10). For example: a Western movie contains elements like prairies, cowboys and

saloons and a narrative taking place somewhere during the mid-ninetieth and early twentieth century.

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With the syntactic approach a movie is categorized based on the returning narrative structures. With

the example of the Western, we could describe its structural elements as residing “on the border

between two lands, between two eras, and with a hero who remains divided between two value

systems” (11).

Figure 1: This figure made by Altman (1999: 172) shows how not only the receiver communicates with the text (or in

this case the genre) but also with other receivers.

Concluding Film/Genre, Altman admits that he has made the same mistake as other genre

scholars before him. While a useful method for researching the relation between genre and text, it

completely overlooks how genre operates outside of the text. His earlier model namely misses the

complex relation between reader and text as described earlier, and does not account for the different

interpretations readers can give of a text or genre. Neither does it account for the role of cinematic

institutions like producer or distributors. The importance of how a genre is used by the spectator is not

to be underestimated. Altman admits to have overlooked this important aspect of genre so he proposes

an updated semantic/syntactic/pragmatic approach to address this complex relation, thud adding a

third dimension to his older model. “It is precisely this ‘use factor’ that pragmatic addresses. Whether

we are discussing literature or cinema (or any other meaning-making system), the base language(s)

surpass their own structures and meaning as they are integrated into textual uses” (Altman 1999: 210).

The work Barry Keith Grant also goes to show that a complex concept like genre cannot be

explained through a single method. Grant investigated the different means of determining the

boundaries of a genre. He distinguishes four way of defining genre based on the work of Janet Staiger

while also acknowledging and highlighting their shortcomings. The first method is called the ‘idealist

method’. It uses a standard model that privileges pure genre films over films that are more diluted in

their generic characteristics. The second method, the ‘empiricist method’, defines generic categories

based on characteristics from the existing corpus of a specific genre. The downfall of this method is its

circular nature: categories that are created are based on characteristics from existing categories which

are in turn against based on grouping certain characteristics. The third method is called the ‘a priori

method’. With this method films are selected based on predetermined characteristics they have in

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common. The problem with this method is that it can lead to purely theoretical categories. Lastly there

is the ‘social convention method’ which selects films as belonging to a genre based on public

consensus, something that probably can never be fully determined (Staiger qtd. in Grant 2007: 22). A

lot of the problems when trying to find a fixed model arise from the fact that “different genres are

designated according to different criteria. Such genres as the crime film, science fiction and the

western are defined by setting and narrative content. However, horror pornography and comedy are

defined or conceived around the intended emotional effect of the film upon the viewer” (Grant 2007:

23).

Another important genre scholar I would like to consider is Stephen Neale and his book Genre

and Hollywood(2000). In this book he describes of genre research within film studies. The first

distinction made in classical literary theory is between literature and popular writing. This is a

distinction that has persevered throughout the twentieth century in film studies as well. During the

1930s and 1940s scholars from the Frankfurt School like Adorno and Horkheimer, argued that popular

culture was aimed at turning high culture into homogeneous and mass-produced commodities. Neale

states we can see the same attitude in early film studies. He pinpoints the sixties and seventies as a

turning point for film criticism and theory. It was around this time that the famous French film journal

Cahiers du cinéma began focusing on ‘auteurism’ (Neale 2000: 10). As other critics adopted this

concept, it created the premise of the director being the creative force behind a film. Before the sixties,

comparable with the Frankfurt School, critics saw Hollywood film production as being superficial,

conservative and produced for the mass market. Auteurism provided scholars and critics with the

means to engage with commercial Hollywood cinema in a serious and productive way. Although it led

a big change, most of the attention was thus limited to directors and “individualized corpuses of film”

(Neale 2000: 11). When trying to approach the institutional aspects of Hollywood and its audience,

auteurism was not that useful. It was the American art critic Lawrence Alloway who turned the

attention to genres and categorical film cycles. Tom Ryall also explains in the following quote how

auteurism does not account for the specific characteristics of popular culture: “The auteur theory,

though important and valuable during the 1950s and 1960s for drawing attention to the importance of

the American cinema, nevertheless tended to treat popular art as if it were ‘high art’” (Tom Ryall qtd.

in Neale 2000: 12).

Neale acknowledges that a lot of research has been done on the topic of genre from the sixties

of to the nineties, but he finds, like Altman, many of the theoretical definitions on genre are restrictive

and often one-sided. “Canons of critical preference, rather than those of empirical or historical

enquiry, have often resulted in uneven degrees of attention, discussion and research” (Neale 2000: 3).

Genres are thus treated as fixed and trans-historical. Inspired by for example structural anthropology,

genres are stripped of their historical differences with critics treating genres as beyond history. Instead

of seeing genres as the outcome of a certain historical process, genres are treated as “a representational

form derived directly from a basic human capacity” (Altman 1999: 20).

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Neale tries to avoid creating taxonomic models for genre. Comparable to Altman’s

‘pragmatic’ approach, Neale explains that genre is more than a corpus of films grouped together based

on their similarities. A genre is also a system of expectations, conventions and viewing modes that the

audience bring with them to the film. To clarify this, he explains Tzvetan Todorov’s concept of

‘verisimilitude’ (2000: 32). It refers to the probability or plausibility of a genre for its audience. Each

genre has its own regime of motives that are probable and sometimes obligatory. According to

Todorov there are two basic forms of verisimilitude:

“The first is what we call rules of the genre: for a work to be said to have

verisimilitude, it must conform to these rules. [...] [The second is the relation] between

discourse and what readers believe to be true. The relation is here established between

the work and a scattered discourse that in part belongs to each of the individuals of a

society but of which none may claim ownership; in other words to public opinion. The

latter is of course not ‘reality’ but merely a further discourse, independent of the

work” (Tzvetan Todorov qtd. in Neale 2000: 32).

This may sound quite complex, but what it means is that a generic text is subjected not only to an

internal regime of rules of verisimilitude, but also to an external regime of public discourse and socio-

cultural verisimilitude. This may be called ‘realism’, though we are not literally talking about a

relation between discourse and reality. The balance between these two forms of verisimilitude differs

per genre. “Negotiating the balance between different regimes of verisimilitude plays a key role in the

relations established between spectator, genres and individual films” (Neale 2000: 35). An example of

this would be the musical genre: the defining aspect of a musical is that its characters burst out in

singing to non-diegetic music. This is something that, while not probable within public discourse, is

essential within the internal generic verisimilitude of the musical film. Because the audience knows

they are going to watch a musical, they are guided towards expecting random outbursts of singing in

the film.

Altman states that the audience, and the way they make use of genres, is determining how

genres function (Altman 1999: 173). Neale on the other hand places more emphasis on the role of

institutions like Hollywood. He describes the cinematic institutions as defining in the creation and

shaping of genres. Hollywood is his main film industry of focus, but of course we can substitute

Hollywood for any large industry of film production, or cultural production for that matter, as genre is

“common to all instances of discourse (2000: 31). Hollywood must be seen as just one specific

instance of many cultural forms.

When producing and promoting a film, a ‘narrative image’ (Neale 2000: 39) is created. This is

a promotional image of the film containing information about the actors, narrative and overall

atmosphere. The ‘narrative image’ is created in public discourse by the film industry itself, journalists,

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as well as the audience. And essential part of this ‘narrative image’ is of course genre. “The indication

and circulation of what the industry considers to be the generic framework – or frameworks – most

appropriate to the viewing of a film is therefore one of the most important functions performed by

advertising copy, and by posters, stills and trailers” (Neale 2000:39). All these images that are being

brought into circulation contribute to the ‘narrative image’ and are part of the ‘inter-textual relay’

(Neale 2000: 39). These posters, advertisements, and also film credits, are not part of the films

narrative but do shape spectator expectations about a film’s narrative. A relay can also include the

screening venue, a video store and even genre studies itself (Langford 2006: 6). The ‘inter-textual

relay’ of a film contributes to, and interacts with the generic status of a film. A lot of genres are not

cinema exclusive, and the generic images created are thus part of a bigger generic movement across

media like theatre or television. The sum of these images contributes to the cultural embedding of a

genre. We must note though, that genre is only a part of the ‘narrative image’ and ‘inter-textual relay’,

as other elements like production companies, directors and stars also make up an integral part of this.

Coming back to Neale’s earlier assessment that a lot of genre definitions are too restrictive, he

goes on to counter the theories of Thomas Schatz on the confining nature of genres. According to

Schatz, genre films encompass a story and setting that are always familiar and predetermined,

resulting in one-dimensional characters. Neale explains that he agrees that genres bring a certain

degree of familiarity, but adds that Schatz’s definitions are also too narrow. While a lot of generic

protagonists exhibit typical traits conform to the genre, it does not exclude the addition of more

complex characteristics that can even be contradictory. The same goes for narrative structure: While

for example a war films always have a violent conclusion, “the path to these climaxes and resolution

vary considerably” (Neale 2000: 209). I might add that these deviations are what lead to progression,

as genres are not static but subjected to change over time. For example, the effectiveness of Night of

the Living Dead (1968 dir: George A. Romero) lay in the fact that it kept breaking with generic

conventions of the horror genre (Grant 2007: 53).

The works of the authors discussed in this chapter provides important cues on how to research

genre, as well as which pitfalls to avoid. I am therefore going to research the zombie genre in the

upcoming with multiple methods. When studying genre, it is key to not only look at the textual

elements but also be aware of the historical development of a genre, as well as the important roles both

the cinematic institutions and the audience are playing.

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2. On zombie studies

“The zombie remains, for the most part, underappreciated. Zombie films are relegated

to the last page of every horror movie guide, saved from utter obscurity only by the

dubious Zontar, the Thing from Venus. There are almost no serious studies of TV and

movie zombies, as there are for vampires in abundance. Nevertheless, the sheer

volume of zombie movies attests to their enduring cult popularity and contemporary

relevance” (Dendle 2001: 1).

While Peter Dendle wrote this in 2001, and things have changes for the better, the zombie movie still

remains a relatively understudied film genre. In this chapter I will create a compact overview of the

zombie as a cultural icon and as an object of academic research. The last few years, after Dendle,

scholar Kyle William Bishop has done a lot of the research on the genre. He has published multiple

books and articles on the phenomenon of zombies in popular culture and introduced some new ideas

on recent developments.

Bishop started his work on zombies with an article he wrote trying to find an explanation for

explosion of zombie movie production occurring around the beginning of the new millennium. The

article “Dead Man Still Walking: Explaining the Zombie Renaissance” (Bishop 2009) begins with a

short introduction of the genre, describing its (re)rise to fame in the late sixties with the movie The

Night of the Living Dead (1968). After a decline in popularity, zombies where declared as good as

dead in the nineties. Bishop now tries to prove to us that the popularity of movies like 28 Days Later

(2002) and Dawn of the Dead (2004) is not coincidental, but part of a much bigger cross-media

zombie renaissance taking place in the twenty-first century. To understand why the zombies are back,

we have to understand how the structural narrative features of the genre resonate with a modern,

mostly western, audience. Since the 9/11 attacks, Bishop supposes the American people have become

more acquainted with images of death and urban destruction. He describes the eerie similarity between

the newsreel footage of the 9/11 attacks and hurricane Katrina on the one hand and scenes from the

aforementioned movies on the other.

Bishop’s article provides a nice clear example of the relevance of zombie media and the

importance of researching it. “Although the conventions of the zombie genre remain largely

unchanged, the movies’ relevance has become all the more clear – a post-9/11 audience cannot help

but perceive the characteristics of zombie cinema through the filter of terrorist threats and apocalyptic

reality” (Bishop 2009: 24). Being a literature scholar as well, Bishop states that zombie movies can be

placed within the gothic tradition. Not only do zombie stories blend the romantic with the realistic,

they also have shown the ability to “adapt to changes in cultural anxiety over time” (Bishop 2010: 25).

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Like gothic literature, they are “a barometer of the anxieties plaguing a certain culture at a particular

moment in history” (Steven Bruhm qtd. by Bishop 2010: 24).

Before we continue to look at the relevance of zombie studies and how this thesis will fit in

with the existing research, I will investigate the origins of the zombie. Unlike other iconic horror

antagonists like vampires and werewolves which stem from European culture, zombies are the product

of fusion between old African and New World culture. This ties the zombie to colonialism, slavery

and ancient mysticism. “Zombies, in fact, made the leap from mythology to cinema with almost no

previous literary tradition. Rather than being based on creatures appearing in novels or short stories,

zombie narratives have developed instead directly from their folkloristic, ethnographic, and

anthropological origins” (Bishop 2010: 38). Before the zombie made its first leap to the big screen, it

was a product of colonial history and religious society of Haiti.

If we want to understand the cultural impact and the significance of the zombie, we must first

try and understand the culture that created it. Bishop names ethnographers Hans W. Ackermann and

Jeanine Gauthier, whom have stated that the roots and the folkloric origin of the Haitian zombie go

even further back to Benin, Zambia, Tanzania, and Ghana. Legends of witches who reanimated

corpses were imported to many islands in the West Indies when slaves were brought over. So while

the general American perception is that the zombie was created in Haiti, this research proves that the

zombie has a diverse background coming from many places of the African continent (Bishop 2010:

42).

The French government acquired Haiti, a country that was located on the western half of the

island of Hispaniola, after the Treaty of Ryswick in 1697 (Sidney W. Mintz qtd. by Bishop 2010: 43).

The French called their part of the island Saint Domingue and started a brutal regime, bringing in

slaves from the West-African coast to work on the plantations. Because of the high mortality rate, and

the fact that new slaves were brought in at a higher pace, there was a less creolized slave population.

This in turn resulted in more preserved African traditions and resistance against the French oppressor.

At the end of the 18th century, the slaves revolted against the French, which resulted in a long

revolutionary war that lead to the creation of the independent country of Haiti. After becoming

independent, the voodoo practices taken from Africa had the freedom to grow and develop without the

interfering of imperial forces. This evolved eventually into ‘Haitian Vodou’, a religion that combined

elements from African voodoo with elements from Roman Catholicism. It was in this fusion that the

first incarnation of the zombie was created. Bishop explains, “[ancient believes were] likely

transformed when abducted slaves were exposed to the Christian concept of resurrecting a body–

returned from the grave–and the ideologies of colonial enslavement–bodies lacking freedom and

autonomy. As a result of this cross-cultural fusion, Haitian zombies were born: victims of nefarious

chemical assault, lacking conscious minds and, implicitly, their souls as well” (Bishop 2015: 7).

People were transformed into mindless zombies by witchdoctors, and then sold to plantation owners to

work the fields. Zombies instilled fear because the people of Haiti were afraid of being turned into a

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zombie. The ideology of the zombie in Haitian culture is thus related to power struggles and

oppression. Bishop uses the theories of Louis Althusser to explain that the ideological institution of

the voodoo religion, in the form of the zombie threat, “can be seen working on political, social, and

economic levels” (Bishop 2010: 54).

Haiti remained politically instable throughout the nineteenth century and in 1915 the United

States occupied Haiti to restore order and install a pro-American president. The occupation lasted for

nearly twenty years, and this was the first time that the American people learned about the dark and

mysterious voodoo practices of Haiti. It was the travel author William Seabrook who brought tales of

seemingly dead people working in cane fields to the American audience, when he released his book

The Magic Island (1929).

“It seemed ... that while the zombie came from the grave, it was neither a ghost, nor

yet a person who had been raised like Lazarus from the dead. The zombie, they say, is

a soulless human corpse, still dead, but taken from the grave and endowed by sorcery

with a mechanical semblance of life—it is a dead body which is made to walk and act

and move as if it were alive. People who have the power to do this go to a fresh grave,

dig up the body before it has had time to rot, galvanize it into movement, and then

make of it a servant or slave, occasionally for the commission of some crime, more

often simply as a drudge around the habitation or the farm, setting it dull heavy tasks,

and beating it like a dumb beast if it slackens” (William Seabrook qtd. in Bishop 2010:

48).

The fascination of the American public in twenties and thirties with the Haitian Zombie can be

explained by a combination of factors. In some ways the United States resembled Haiti, as it is a

former colony, and had been relying on slavery for many years. This new post-colonial order that

existed at the turn of the century also lead to a combination of collective social guild and fear for the

post-colonial other (Bishop 2010: 60). These were the social conditions under which racist narratives

of voodoo priests taking possession of white, often female, victims became of interest to the American

mainstream public.

The first Hollywood movie featuring these Caribbean zombies was White Zombie (Victor

Halperin 1932), which was partly based on William Seabrook’s novel. The movie introduced a novel

horror plot to the audience and it was an unanticipated success. In White Zombie a wealthy plantation

owner enlists an evil voodoo master to force a woman to marry him by turning her into a zombie. In

the same vein of White Zombie, more horror films were released exploiting “racial and cultural

difference to instill its audience with the terrors of a misunderstood and menacing (post)colonial

Other” (Bishop 2010: 66): Ouanga, Revolt of the Zombies (1936), King of the Zombies (1941), I

Walked with a Zombie (1943), Zombies of Mora-Tau (1957), and The Plague of the Zombies (1966).

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All these movies used fear of the Other to create horror. Also, these movies confronted audiences with

the fear of losing autonomy; being dominated, which could also be linked to the realities of the Great

Depression. It was a time were the American working class felt enslaved by “a tedious job, a bleak

economy, or a helpless government” (Bishop 2015: 8).

The idea of losing your autonomy carried over to the science-fiction movies that were made

after the Second World War with titles such as Invisible Invaders (1959), The Earth Dies Screaming

(1964) and Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956). Furthermore, these movies used the context of the

Cold War and fear of communism to frighten their audience. Of course these movies did not feature

any zombies but they did carry some of these themes, syntactic characteristics, as Altman would call

them, over to the sixties. Peter Dendle names The Earth Dies Screaming as an obvious inspiration to

the zombie genre of the sixties (Dendle 2001: 64). Both Bishop and Dendle hail George A. Romero as

the director who (re)invented the modern zombie genre by bringing the zombies back from the dead in

his low-budget feature film Night of the Living Dead (1968).

Romero took the Caribbean zombies and combined them with other iconic horror monsters

like the Gothic bloodthirsty vampire and the hordes of invading aliens from the fifties, to create a type

of subgenre that was completely original. These new zombies Romero created did not have any

relation to voodoo or a zombie master that controlled them. It is also typical that they come in huge

groups that outnumber the human protagonists; are hungry for human meat and move slowly. Also, if

a zombie bites a human, he or she turns into a zombie itself after some time, showing the zombie-

condition to be contagious.

Romero was influenced by the existing horror tradition, as he employed the use of fear for an

unfamiliar monstrous Other, in this case the zombie. The fear of being turned into the Other something

that vampire narratives have in common with Romero’s zombie story. The novel I Am Legend (1954)

by Richard Matheson was a mayor influence on the script of Night of the Living Dead. In this novel its

protagonist Neville becomes the last man on earth, while the rest of the world population has turned

into bloodthirsty vampires. Neville tries to survive in this post-apocalyptic world where he is

extremely outnumbered. The concept of a large group of invading monsters is also inherited from the

alien invasion movies from the fifties I discussed earlier. Romero’s zombies were in short a “synthesis

of the voodoo zombie, the alien invader, and the vampire” (Bishop 2010:112-13). Night of the Living

Dead became a horror classic and a prototype for the whole zombie film genre.

So what makes zombies so frightening and zombie narratives so effective? In answering this

question we provide ourselves with the means for further in-depth analysis of our corpus in the fourth

chapter of this thesis. What made Night of the Living Dead such an effective horror movie was the

allegoric power of its narrative. It had a direct link to American social issues of the late sixties, and

zombies formed a vessel to address “violence, death, mortality, cannibalism, invasion and infection,

not to mention sexism, racism, the collapse of the nuclear family, and even incest” (Bishop 2015: 10).

It took almost a decade for Romero to produce a follow-up, but since its release, Dawn of the Dead

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(1978) is considered as one of the most influential films on the zombie genre. In Dawn of the Dead a

group of zombie apocalypse survivors become trapped in a shopping mall. The movie draws parallels

between the mindless, hungry zombies and us humans: creatures of habit and consumerism. Even after

the humans have died, their zombie counterparts are still drawn to the shopping mall. Romero is

effectively suggesting here that maybe humans are already part zombie, driven by modern

consumerism.

Since zombies are former living humans, being confronted with animated corpses that were

formerly people known to the protagonists creates the effect of the uncanny; the Unheimlich as Freud

called it (Bishop 2010: 95). Like vampires and ghosts, zombies are the returned dead that remind us of

our own mortality. What makes Romero’s zombies all the more frightening is the fact that while

zombies are animated corpses looking like humans, they are empty characters that cannot speak and

do not seem to possess any form of ratio. It is the constant tension between the Heimlich and the

Unheimlich that makes zombies such effective scaring machines. While they definitely look like

humans, they are in fact rotting but moving corpses, which makes them very unfamiliar and thus

uncanny, as can be seen in figure 2.

Figure 2: Graph made by Masahiro Mori (qtd. In Bishop 2010:120). A zombie does resemble a human but since it is

in essence a dead animated body, its level of familiarity is very low. It is therefore Unheimlich.

Zombies continued to be popular throughout the seventies and early eighties, but Bishop

mentions Michael Jackson’s music video of Thriller as the point where zombies first turned from

effective allegorical creatures into pastiche and comedy. By the time Romero released his third zombie

movie Day of the Dead (1985), zombie comedy movies (better known as “zomedies”) like The Return

of the Living Dead (1985) and I Was a Teenage Zombie (1987) proved more lucrative. In the nineties

hardly any zombie films were made. It was not until 28 Days Later (2002) that the zombie returned to

popularity. According to Bishop it were the events of the 9/11 attacks and the social unrest that

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followed it that called for the return of an allegorical creature capable of addressing these issues. This

of course meant the return of the zombie to the big screen. Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later showed

Cillian Murphy wandering through the empty streets of London and thereby invoking the newsreel

images of the 9/11 attacks. It was also a strong critique on the “excessive empowered military”

(Bishop 2015: 12). At the time of writing this thesis, the zombie renaissance may have slowed down a

little, but big budget zombie films are still being made. David Fincher is working on a follow up to

World War Z (2013) and last year the South Korean made Train to Busan (2016 dir: Yeon Sang-ho)

was a box office hit.

Bishop and Dendle have made a valuable point about the zombie being of scholarly interest

because of its capacity to reflect the fears of society. Bishop has done extensive research into the

cultural context in which the zombie was created, using his extensive knowledge of literary studies to

analyze a multitude of texts. What it lacks though is hard data. Bishop’s research consists of historical

research combined with a close analysis of three of Romero’s first zombie films. To seek further proof

for the zombie as society’s barometer, as well as investigate the development of the genre, we need to

have a good look at the, albeit scarce, quantitative data that has been collected.

One of the few quantitative researches on zombie films was performed by Annalee Newitz and

published in the online magazine io9. The research features a graphic (figure 3) showing on the y-axis

how many zombie movies are produced, and on the x-axis the corresponding years. Newitz has used

data from The Internet Movie Database to create the graph. The spikes in zombie movie production,

she argues, are linked to moments of social unrest in western society (Newitz 2008). This research is a

great inspiration and an interesting starting point. It shows in an effective way how Bishop’s claim that

zombie films are a reflection of social unrest, can be substantiated by doing quantitative research. It

also proves how accessible abstract data can become when it is used to create a clear graph. It does

have its shortcomings which are for the most part pointed out by the author: “Mostly we've focused on

movies from the U.S. and Europe, and we've included the living dead among zombies — so mummies

are included, but vampires and ghosts aren't” (Newitz 2008). She is somewhat vague about the origin

of the movies, not excluding non-Western movies but also not including all. Newitz also points out

that the data has to be corrected for the increase in total movie production from 1910 to 2008.

Bishop has combined multiple sources, including not only Newitz’s research, but also data

from The Zombie Movie Encyclopedia (Peter Dendle 2001) and Book of the Dead (Jamie Russel 2005)

to create a comparable graph. He does not explain the process of collection the data, but I am guessing

that he just used the filmography of both books to create the graph (figure 4). Where Newitz relates the

spikes in production to “social upheaval”, Bishop uses the peaks in his graphic to show the

developmental cycles of the genre using four phases: the “developmental peak”, the “classical peak”,

the “parodic peak” and lastly the “renaissance peak” (Bishop 2010: 14). The peaks correspond nicely

to his genealogy of the zombie movie, a genealogy I used a lot in this chapter. However, he is not

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consistent in choosing the peaks, switching between datasets to choose a peak that fits his story. Still,

it provided a nice example on how to use quantitative data to create meaning.

Figure 3: The graph made by Annalee Newitz (2008) for her quantitative research on zombie movie production. She

links spikes in the production to global social unrest.

Figure 4: The graph made by Bishop (2010: 14) where he combined data of three researches, including that of Newitz.

He uses it to point out the developmental peaks of the zombie genre.

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In the next chapter the goal is to create my own data for research. To do this I shall use

Altman’s theory of syntactic and semantic genre elements to look for similarities and differences

between zombie movies. When looking for inspiration for which semantic features I will be scoring in

my quantitative research, I can consult Bishop’s “the Taxonomy of the Dead” (Bishop 2010: 20). In

this taxonomy (figure 5) he shows us all the options for the type of zombies we have encountered over

the years in movies. In my own quantitative research I want to investigate the development of the

zombie genre, from before, and after the zombie renaissance. Since the reinvention of the genre by

Romero, zombie movies have been mostly featuring infected zombies. That is why I can use the

categories of the ‘infected’ part of the taxonomy to create a set of traits to look for in zombie films.

The categories ‘slow’, ‘fast’, ‘dead’, and ‘alive’, are the ones I will be using in my next chapter. I will

add to them more categories that address Altman’s syntactic approach. These will be categories that

focus more on the structural elements of zombie narratives.

We can conclude now, that in this chapter I have done three things. First I tried to retrace the

history of the genre, arguing that the zombie movie is indeed an acknowledged film genre or sub genre

with a diverse cultural embedding. Secondly, I have shown, using the theories of Bishop, that zombie

movies can be used as a barometer for societal upheaval of a certain historic period. This is possible

because of the allegorical possibilities of the figure of the zombie and the narrative structures used in

zombie films. Lastly I have examined the data research that has already been done on zombie movies,

so as to provide me with bearings for my own data research in the next chapter.

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3. The quantitative of the dead

3.1 Introduction

In chapter 2, I have delved deeper into the history of the zombie as a cultural symbol and the

development of zombie cinema. At the end of that chapter I outlined the few quantitative studies that

have been done on zombie movies by Newitz and Bishop. In this chapter I want to build upon their

studies, investigating the development of the zombie narrative. I will focus mostly on my own

quantitative research on zombie movies, hoping to find patterns and trends that support my claims on

the development of zombie film narrative and the way it reflects social unrest.

Bishop has stated that since the 9/11 attacks a zombie renaissance has taken place, using the

work of Dendle en Newitz to prove that the production of zombie movies has indeed increased since

2001. He has also claimed that the renewed popularity of the genre can be explained because the

images of a zombie apocalypse can be linked closely to changed social conditions after the 9/11

attacks. The modern audience is accustomed to newsreel footage showing panicked crowds, deserted

streets, extreme violence and environmental disasters. It is these images of a threatened Western

society that contemporary zombie movies closely mimic. Bishop also stated that these new zombie

films, starting with Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later (2002), closely follow the narrative structure of

original movies made by zombie godfather George A. Romero, but that they have taken on new

meaning for a modern audience. Is Bishop right in in calling this new popularity a zombie

renaissance? Can modern zombie movies indeed be said to address these modern anxieties? Has the

zombie narrative changed over the years? If I want to find out if there is indeed a correlation between

contemporary social unrest and zombie movies, I need to answer these questions with my own

quantitative research.

You may ask yourself; why focus on numbers and graphics instead of analyzing the films in

question using methods like close reading? In choosing this method of research I draw inspiration

from cognitivist film studies. I am of the opinion that if I want to make any valid claims on the

development of genre and zombie films, I need to combine interpretative research with hard data.

Genre is a complex language made up films, cinematic institutions and the people that interpret and

use genre to understand and enjoy texts. Because of the multifaceted nature of genre, it is useful to

approach it from a cognitivist angle using scientific methods. In contrast to what other film scholars

like Warren Buckland have argued (Buckland 1989), I think interpretative analysis and cognitivist

film studies are not there to compete with each other. I propose to use both methods to enrich and

enhance each other.

Because there is always a limit to what one can research, I assume the position of a fallibilist,

hoping that my data will be of use for future research. A fallibilist, as cognitivist Noël Carroll

describes, “admits that she may have to revise her theories in light of future evidence or of

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theoretical implications of later developments because she realizes that at best her theories are

well-warranted, and that a well-warranted theory can be false. There is no claim to a purchase on

absolute truth here” (Carroll 1992: 202). With this research I also hope to provide any leads for future

research. The interpretation of what this data may say about the development of the zombie narrative

will be discussed at further length in the conclusive chapter.

3.2 Corpus and zombie movie production numbers

To start out my research, I first had to define what encompassed the total corpus of zombie film. This

is immediately problematic since a multitude of studies on genre are about defining generic corpuses,

but have come to no definite conclusions. I had to make a pragmatic decision when choosing which

list is representative for the genre of zombie films. Peter Dendle’s The Zombie Movie Encyclopedia

(2001) would have been the obvious choice, since it is the most extensive list of zombie movies made

by an academic. The problem is that it is still one person’s opinion of what the zombie canon

encompasses. Both Neale and Altman have argued convincingly that if we want to research genre, we

have to look beyond the textual elements as well. I want to use a list that addresses what Altman has

called the pragmatic (Altman 1999): the complex relation between genres and the way the audience

uses them to create meaning. Since the zombie genre is very much a cult genre, the audience is a

defining factor in what constitutes its corpus. Many zombie films were low budget made box-office

flops that were later hailed by genre fanatics as cult classics. Because of the democratic nature of its

creation I have chosen to use the zombie film list from Wikipedia. This is a list that is made and

updated by people who enthusiastic about the subject: the fans. As is the case with every article on

Wikipedia, this is a list that is co-created and co-edited by anyone who wishes to contribute. But they

can only contribute on the condition that all entries are “reliably sourced” (Wikipedia: Identifying

reliable sources 30-6-2017). This leads me to conclude that, because of its democratic nature, this list

consists of titles that are labeled as zombie films by the fan and connoisseur community. The

International Movie Database, while used by a lot of film scholars for primary reference, is not as

democratically established or as transparent in its sources. But because IMDB does contain advanced

searching functions I still needed it for my research to sort my selected zombie titles. I therefore

merged the Wikipedia list with the IMDB title information. I will explain this merging process in this

chapter.

The first thing I set out to do was to create an updated chart based on the zombie film list I

retrieved from Wikipedia (see appendix B for the full list of titles that I used). Graph 1 shows on the y-

axis the amount of films produced annually and on x-axis which year. As you can see in the chart,

there is no arguing with Bishop that a zombie film explosion has occurred since the 00s with zombie

film production peaking in 2008 with thirty-two zombie films produced that year alone. There are a lot

of similarities between my graph and the graphs made by Newitz and Bishop. That does not mean that

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it is exactly the same down to the numbers, as each researcher made his or her own choices regarding

the corpus. But it does correspond roughly with the trends and peaks of the other charts. Bishop

recognized four different peaks in the development of the genre. First there is the developmental peak

set around 1973. Second there is the classical peak set around 1980. At the end of the eighties we have

the parodic peak; the moment where the genre turned into pastiche. In the nineties the popularity of the

genre dwindled to revive again at the beginning of the new millennium. For my quantitative research I

chose to compare two decades; the eighties and the 00s. I chose these two decades because, as can

been seen in the graph, they contain most of the zombie movie production peaks that Bishop talks

about.

Graph 1: This graph show the annual film production based on the list of zombie films from Wikipedia. Although not

exactly the same, it follows most trends of the graphs by Newitz and Bishop. (c) Jasper Wezenberg.

Since it would be impossible for me to analyze all the movies produced during both decades, I had to

take a sample with a limited set of titles. I chose to analyze twenty-five titles of each decade to keep

things neat and manageable but not too limited in scope. I could not go out and just pick my favorite

titles, as this would make the research appear biased and unscientific, so I had to find an effective way

of selecting these titles. This is where The International Movie Database comes in, as it contains a

way more advanced searching engine than Wikipedia. I initially had the idea of selecting titles based

on their revenue since this would show how popular a title would have been at the time of its

cinematic release. But as I stated earlier, the zombie genre is a cult genre that encompasses titles that

sometimes did poorly at the box-office, but in retrospect got appreciated by the fans as classics of the

genre. I therefore chose to sort zombie titles based on their IMDB popularity. On IMDB, popularity is

calculated based on a title’s rating, the number of votes, and the number of page visits. Using IMDB’s

search engine I searched for horror titles using the keyword ‘zombie’ and setting the release date

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ranging from 1980 till 1989 and from 2000 till 2009. After this I took the titles from IMDB and

checked if they were also on the zombie list retrieved from Wikipedia. Only if a title is present in both

the Wikipedia list, as well as the IMDB list, I would use them for my research. In doing this I created a

list containing twenty-five zombie movies for each decade based on the Wikipedia list but ranked

according to their popularity on IMDB. The two lists, in essence, contain the top twenty-five most

popular zombie movies from the eighties, as well as the 00s. The appendices also contain all the titles

I used in this part of the research.

Now that I had my two lists, I had to decide which zombie film characteristics I was going to

investigate. Bishop has stated that the classic zombie narrative of Romero has not changed much since

it was introduced again during the zombie renaissance. So I chose categories based on the

characteristics of typical zombie apocalypse films. The categories are binary which means their

presence in the selected movies is either positive or negative (0 or 1, as can be seen in the appendix).

The categories are for the most part based on characteristics of the classic zombie movies made by

Romero like Dawn of the Dead(1979) which we also see returning in popular modern zombie films

like 28 Days Later (2002). In the following paragraph I will explain each category individually and

then show the results of my research on that category.

3.3 Results

3.3.1 Zombie invasion narrative

The first and most important category I created was ‘the zombie invasion narrative’. This style of

zombie narrative was introduced in Night of the Living Dead (1968). What it means is that the

narrative of the film is built around an expanding group of zombies that attack the protagonists. This

does not mean that the film’s narrative has to feature a zombie apocalypse were whole of society gets

overrun by zombies. It can also mean an zombie invasion on a mansion like for example in Burial

Ground: The Nights of Terror(1981). Graph 2 shows the percentage of films containing such a

narrative, compared in both decades. These results are immediately interesting and possibly even

contesting Bishops theories. What is claimed to be the archetypical zombie narrative structure only

appears to make up thirty-two percent of the most popular zombies movies from the eighties. So while

the movies made by Romero, featuring hordes of contagious bloodthirsty zombies, are now identified

as the prototype of the genre, this probably was not the case in de eighties. For example a classic film

like Re-animator(1985) does feature aggressive undead corpses but it does not follow a narrative

structure where a big group of zombies try to invade the house or the city of the protagonists.

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Graph 2: This graph shows a significant increase in the films containing a zombie apocalypse narrative from the

eighties to the 00s. (c) Jasper Wezenberg.

3.3.2 Shots of deserted streets

The category ‘zombie invasion narrative’ does not per se mean an apocalypse narrative. That is why I

created more categories made up of characteristics that are signs of an apocalypse. As Bishop claimed

images of deserted streets resonate strongly with a modern audience, I also looked for this

characteristic in my selection of zombie movies. Shots of deserted streets are a typical characteristic of

a zombie apocalypse. As most people are dying and survivors have to hide in sanctuaries. The

authorities fail to contain the zombie epidemic and the cities become empty. Graph 2 shows how there

has been an increase in the use of shots of deserted streets. Where only 16% of the zombie movies in

the eighties contained these shots, almost half of the films featured them by the 00s. This could

indicate an increase in apocalypse narratives.

Graph 3: Shots of deserted streets in zombie movies during the eighties were rare. In the 00s almost half of the zombie

films contain them. (c) Jasper Wezenberg.

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3.3.3 Use of news- or found footage

Another technique that is used a lot in the zombie apocalypse context is the use of news- or found

footage. As the protagonists turn on their television or radio they can hear or see on the news how the

zombie disaster is unfolding. It also adds to a strong sense of realism. The modern western audience is

used to seeing newsreel footage of environmental disasters and terrorist attacks. Showing news images

of a zombie attack strongly invokes the real news footage. I have also included films that feature

diegetic found footage like we see in the movie REC (2007); a film shot in camcorder style, creating

the appearance of a documentary. I will analyze the use of news- or found footage more extensively in

Chapter 4. The use of news- or found footage has increased significantly from 12% to 56% (graph 4).

This could indicate that modern zombie films are more likely to invoke real news footage that is

recognizable for the modern audience. It could also indicate an increase in zombie films with a more

‘realist’ style.

Graph 4: Comparable to shots of deserted streets, we see a marked increase in the use of news- or found footage. (c)

Jasper Wezenberg.

3.3.4 Speed of zombie movement

Speed of zombie movement is a topic of some debate amongst the fans. Purists claim that running

zombies are not real zombies because that is not how Romero envisioned them. We see an increase

from 20% to 60% (graph 5), so it is hard to argue that they are not an increasingly important factor.

While Bishop claimed that the running zombies were introduced in 28 Days Later (2002), my research

shows that they were present in zombie movies before that. Still, they formed only a small part of the

zombies in the eighties, where in 00s they became the majority. Because the running, or even

26

sprinting, zombies pose more of a threat to humans, their increase could indicate an increase in

suspense in the modern zombie films.

Graph 5: While not much of a presence in films of the eighties, running zombies now seem to dominate the genre. (c)

Jasper Wezenberg.

3.3.5 Are they dead?

It seems like a stupid question to ask if ‘the undead’ are dead. But as graph 6 shows, zombie films

containing zombies that are still alive increased from almost zero to nearly 50%. Zombies used to be

supernatural corpses that became animate without any clear explanation. Modern zombie films feature

zombies that are actually alive humans contaminated with a virus that makes them rabid and hungry

for flesh. “This kind of zombie is more frightening than the traditional fantasy monster, and instead of

just being a horror movie, 28 Days Later crosses into science fiction: it could happen” (Bishop 2009:

23). This is why I chose ‘alive zombies’ as a category. I only marked this category as positive on the

condition of a clear explanation in the narrative that the zombies are still alive. For example the

narrator of Zombieland (2009) at one point explains to the spectator that the whole zombie apocalypse

started with someone eating a hamburger containing mad cow’s disease, causing him to slip in to a

rabid state but still being alive. The increase of the ‘alive zombie’ could be linked to the increased fear

for epidemics, a topic I will come back to in Chapter 4.

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Graph 6: The increase of ‘alive zombies’ could indicate an increased public fear for disease outbreaks. (c) Jasper

Wezenberg.

3.3.6 Extra: funny zombies

This is a category that did not prove to be of any use to the questions I am trying to research in this

thesis. Still, I am presenting the results here. They may be of use for future research. Graph 7 shows

the percentage of zombie comedies that have been made in the eighties and 00s. What is does prove is

that Bishop’s ‘parodic peak’ really is not that much of a peak. Only a quarter of the zombie films

made in the eighties are zombie comedies. And while zombie comedies are still very popular, there

has not been a significant increase.

Graph 7: There has not been a big increase of zombie comedies. (c) Jasper Wezenberg.

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4. Zombies in a time of terror: invoking images

“Unlike many other tales of terror and the supernatural, the classical zombie story has very specific

criteria that govern its plot and development. These genre protocols include not only the zombies and

the imminent threat of violent deaths, but also a postapocalyptic backdrop, the collapse of societal

infrastructures, the indulgence of survivalist fantasies, and the fear of other surviving humans. All of

these plot elements and motifs are present in pre-9/11 zombie films, but they have become more

relevant to a modern, contemporary audience” (Bishop 2009: 20).

Bishop states in this quote that, while the narrative structure of zombie movies has stayed the

same, zombie movies have found a new audience in a changed post-9/11 world. I mostly agree but

would like to nuance his argument. My quantitative data from Chapter 3 namely shows that while in

the eighties there was a multitude of zombie narratives, since the zombie renaissance, most zombie

stories are based on the zombie invasion narrative. This type of narrative is what probably proved

most resonant with a post-9/11 audience as Bishop argues. How has this premise shaped modern

zombie narratives? And has the genre evolved further beyond Romero’s prototypes?

In this chapter I am going to do a close analysis of a few selected zombie titles to further

investigate and expand on the findings of the previous chapter. On the one hand I hope to show how

modern zombie films utilize its audience’s post-9/11 awareness and, in the tradition of the Gothic,

form an allegory for social and geo-political unrest of the last two decades. On the other hand I will

argue that the genre is constantly reinventing itself and employing new cinematographic techniques

and narrative structures. The titles I have selected are examples of modern zombie film that utilize this

post-9/11 awareness while at the same time introducing new elements to the genre.

4.1 REC, dir: Jaume Balagueró, Paco Plaza, 2007

In this close analysis of REC, I want to show that REC employs imagery reminiscent of the famous

television documentary 9/11 (2002 dir: Gédéon,Jules Naudet & James Hanlon) to engage a post-9/11

audience. Secondly I want to investigate how directors Balagueró and Plaza combined the traditional

zombie invasion narrative of Romero with new narrative and visual techniques to create a film that

stands firmly in the existing zombie movie tradition while at the same time providing a fresh new way

to approach the genre.

The story of REC is set around a television crew consisting of cameraman Pablo and presenter

Ángela. They are shooting an item on a Barcelona fire station for the fictive television show While

You're Sleeping. While the night starts out quietly, things turn disastrous quickly when the firemen get

called away based on report of a screaming old lady. The lady, as it turns out, has been bitten by a dog

and subsequently turned into a raging rabid zombie that is hungry for human flesh. After the women

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bites a police officer, the infection starts to spread. Local authorities respond quickly and ruthlessly by

sealing of the entire building, shutting in Pablo, Ángela, the firemen, two police officers and the

tenants together with a growing group of zombies.

Before they made 9/11, the French-American Naudet brothers, together with firefighter and

filmmaker James Hanlon, were originally shooting a documentary on a New York firefighter trainee.

Things took a turn for the worse on September 11, 2001, when Jules Naudet and Battalion Chief

Joseph Pfeifer were out on patrol investigating a report of a gas leak. Jules only accompanied Chief

Pfeifer because he needed some time to practice his camerawork; something that is proved by the

jittery camera footage we see around 00:24:23. Just when Jules and the firefighters had arrived at the

scene, a plane flew right over their heads to crash into the north tower of the World Trade Center.

From then on Jules followed the firefighter throughout the rest of the disastrous day, as they went into

the World Trade Center to try to save lives.

REC bears a striking resemblance to 9/11 by showing us handheld camera footage made by a

television crew that is following a group of firefighters at just another day at the office. By using a

handheld camera that is operated by cameraman Pabo, REC creates a very realistic faux-documentary

reminiscent of the found footage documentary of the Naudet brothers. REC also clearly draws

inspiration from the horror movie classic The Blair Witch Project (Eduardo Sánchez, Daniel Myrick

that made the found footage style popular. It should also be noted that REC is the first zombie movie

to employ this cinematographic style beating Romero to it by a year, as the latter did release his own

found footage zombie film Diary of the Dead until 2008.

One important difference between REC and The Blair Witch Project is the way in which the

camera is operated. In the latter movie the protagonists are amateur student filmmakers using small

camcorders. This results in lots of shots of the ground and a very unstable and shaky handling of the

camera. While this adds to the authenticity of the film, as it connects the camera and footage to the

diegesis, it also makes for a somewhat tiresome viewing experience. This problem is largely avoided

in REC by the fact that the narrative revolves around a professional television crew with Pablo as the

cameraman. Because they are journalists their job is to show their audience as much as they can. This

also explains why they keep the camera running constantly, even when the situation worsens. To keep

things realistic everything is shot using natural lighting. Because some parts of the building are very

dark, and sometimes the light gets switched off, this adds to the suspense of the scenes: the spectator is

sometimes literally in the dark.

The footage used in 9/11 was originally supposed to be used in a documentary about the

everyday life of firemen but it turned out that the Naudet brothers and the firemen became part of an

extremely dramatic and traumatic event. The beginning of the documentary gives us a glimpse of the

film that the Naudet brothers indented to make. A montage with a lighthearted tone shows the daily

life of the firemen. We see shots of the firemen doing drills, cooking, eating and laughing together.

We also see rookie fireman Tony Benetatos anxiously waiting for his first fire to get his hands dirty.

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REC starts out in the same way with the showing of footage of everyday life at the fire station. Ángela

interviews multiple firemen about their work and takes a tour of the station, even walking in on their

supper as they are cheeringly greeted by the laughing and socializing firemen. As the night falls

Ángela, much in the same way as Tony Benetatos, starts to wish for something to happen so she can

get into action.

Although in many ways similar the mode of narration is something that differs between both

films. 9/11 uses a voice-over and talking heads to fill in a lot of the gaps left by the footage. Since the

events unfolded totally different from what they could ever have expected, a lot of explanation is

needed, hence the talking heads. Off course when making a suspenseful horror movie, even if it is a

fake documentary, it is hard to use any talking heads as this would stand in the way of creating any

suspense. In REC Ángela fulfills the role of the narrator on a diegetic level, while at the same time

being the protagonist to the film’s story.

When the call arrives of a screaming lady in a multistory apartment building Àngela and Pablo

accompany two firemen to inspect the scene. When they get to the building, two police officers have

also arrived and they al gather in the lobby of the building to talk with the upset tenants. Things start

to go really wrong when the firemen and the police officers go up in the building to find the screaming

lady. As I already metioned, the police officer gets bitten by the zombie lady, fatally wounding him.

As the group tries to save the police officer, they carry him down the stairs in hope of evacuating him.

As they arrive at the bottom of the stairs, police sirens can be heard everywhere. It turns out that the

local authorities have sealed off the building to put everyone inside in quarantine. This scene strongly

invokes the part of 9/11 where the south tower of the World Trade Center has just collapsed at

00:50:58. Jules Naudet and the firemen were at that time in the lobby of the north tower that was filled

with debris and smoke. They use Jules’s camera light to reorient themselves and discover that chaplain

Mychal Judge has been mortally wounded by the debris. As the normal exits are now blocked because

of the collapse, they are trying to find a way out with the chaplain’s body. In the background sirens

and sound of shouting and screaming people can be heard. Photographer Shannon Stapleton later

photographed the men carrying the chaplain, a photograph that went all over the world. Judge was

later designated as the first official victim of 9/11 with the status ‘Victim 0001’ (New York Post 4-9-

2011) (see image 1).

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Image 1: The iconic photograph of Mychal Judge who gets carried out of the WTC. Photo by Shannon Stapleton.

Image 2: A handheld shot of the police officer that gets carried down the staircase. This image is in way reminiscent of

photograph made of Mychal Judge. REC: 00:14:57.

One of the most traumatizing aspects of the attacks on the World Trade Center attacks for the

firemen as well as other bystanders were the ‘jumpers’. Above the location of impact of the planes in

both towers, thousands of people were stuck facing smoke and extreme heat. Because of these

conditions some people jumped out of the tower, fatally landing on the pavements and adjacent

buildings. Before the collapse of the south tower, loud bangs can be heard every minute. The

voiceover of Jules explains those are the sounds of the ‘jumpers’ landing next to the lobby. Jules did

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not film the bodies themselves out of respect. Instead, every time a bang is heard he made close-ups of

the firemen’s faces looking around in frustration. Not long after the scene in REC where the wounded

police officer is carried down the stairs, the protagonists are standing in the lobby contemplating how

to get out of the building. At this point, while not clearly in focus of the shot, we see a body fall down

in the middle of the staircase, landing with a loud bang and everybody starts panicking (00:18:27).

One of the firemen had stayed upstairs and for a reason unknown he fell down the staircase of multiple

floors.

With the examples I have given so far I do not want to argue that REC tries to create a zombie

copy of 9/11. What I want to argue is that REC references the iconic images of the World Trade

Center attack. These images have created a collective memory with modern western audiences: a

cognitive structure. And by invoking these images REC engages these post-9/11 audiences by

referencing societal fears and traumas. Also, instead of portraying a big zombie apocalypse and

societal breakdown, REC keeps things small and intimate by creating a zombie invasion of an

apartment building. While a full apocalypse seems like something less plausible, a terrorist attack on

an apartment or public building is something a modern audience is more used to seeing on the

television.

In a scene later on in the movie (00:34:10), while the protagonists are still trapped in the

building, Ángela wants to conduct interviews with the tenants of the building. One of the tenants, a

mustachioed old man, explains how he thinks that his Chinese neighbors are the cause of the zombie

outbreak. It is unknown to him that the camera is already recording and he goes on saying that his

neighbors are not the nice kind of Chinese that practice feng shui, but the kind that screams and makes

smelly food. This scene forms a very strong allegory for the increasing xenophobia in western society

as a response to social unrest.

Finally I want to discuss the cause of the zombie plague that REC’s narrative contains and

how it diverges from the classic zombie invasion narrative. Near the conclusion of the movie Ángela

en Pablo are the only survivors left, as the rest of the group has been turned into zombies. They find

refuge in the penthouse of the building that was supposed to be vacant. The apartment turns out to be

owned by a now absent agent of the Vatican. They find a tape recorder that contains a record where

the agent explains he was looking for a cure for a demonic possession. In order to so, the Vatican

kidnapped a possessed girl to experiment on. While the girl was in the agent’s captivity the virus

became contagious and the agent left, sealing off the penthouse. After he left the virus spread

throughout the apartment building. This narrative is related to what Noël Carroll would call the

“overreacher plot” (Carroll, 1990: 118). The main character of this plot style is always a mad scientist

or a necromancer whose experimenting creates an uncontrollable monster. When Ángela en Pablo

enter the apartment they find all kinds of experimenting equipment and even a room with a chair with

straps to hold down the possessed girl. It turns out the girl is somewhere in the house and what follows

is a suspenseful chase where Pablo has to use the infrared mode of his camera because the lights are

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out. Pablo is eventually killed, and the spectator is left unsure of the faith of Ángela. In the case of

REC the mad professor is an agent of the Vatican, which also ties the cause of the outbreak to the

Catholic church and to stories of demonic possession comparable to classic horror film The

Exorcist(1973, dir: William Friedkin).

Image 3: Shot made by Pablo inside the laboratory in the penthouse. The equipment reveals how the Vatican agent

was doing some sort of experiments on a captured girl. REC: 01:00:35.

As this analysis shows REC, while being in many ways a zombie film, also firmly draws

inspiration from other types of narratives of the horror genre creating a new kind of zombie film. REC

also shows its awareness of the post-9/11 collective consciousness of modern audiences. This places

the film within Bishops zombie renaissance but without the usual narrative of an apocalypse.

4.2 Train to Busan, dir: Yeon Sang-ho, 2016

Train to Busan is the most recently released zombie movie I am going to discuss in this thesis.

When it was released it broke all box office records (Variety 24-7-2-16) and it is also the first South

Korean made zombie apocalypse film. Train to Busan shows how the zombie genre is perfectly

adapting to new social changes and how the zombie narrative can be effective outside of western

countries. In this analysis I am going to show how Train to Busan references recent important South

Korean social topics, while at the same time introducing new elements to the classic zombie

apocalypse story.

Train to Busan starts out with a scene of a truck driver approaching a roadblock. After his

truck gets stopped, a shot is shown of the truck passing through what seems to appear as a

decontamination shower. After the truck is decontaminated, the driver is approached by men in white

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hazmat suits and breathing masks1. One man explains to the driver he cannot pass, saying that he has

to turn around. But after the driver complains about being late, the man agrees to let him pass just this

one time. As the driver continues he gets startled when he accidently hits a crossing deer. He stops his

car to see what has happened after which he finds the dead deer in a puddle of blood. He assumes it is

dead and gets in his truck to continue his journey. In a medium long shot we see the truck drive off

while panning to the right to bring the lying deer in the shot. All of a sudden the deer stands up and

there is a cut to a close-up of the deer’s head. It is now shown that the deer’s eyes have turned white.

Because the film is branded as a zombie, a spectator with knowledge of the genre can draw the

conclusion that the deer has turned into a zombie deer (which is a first in zombie movies) because of

the contaminated area. This suggestion also immediately creates suspense as we are now expecting

that the virus will contaminate humans as well.

These images immediately draw a parallel between a zombie outbreak and the deadly outbreak

of Middle East respiratory syndrome2 in South Korea in 2015. This was a year before this film was

released in South Korea. MERS is a virus related to Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome and is highly

contagious, also having a mortality rate higher than 30% (World Health Organization 2017). The

outbreak in South Korea started when a contaminated man traveled back from the Middle East to

South Korea and was reported to have caught MERS on the 20th of may 2015 (The Wall Street

Journal 8-6-2015). The outbreak eventually led to the contamination of 186 people while 36 have

died. As of yet there is no cure for the virus, so the South Korean government tried to halt the virus by

disinfecting public locations. The opening scene of Train to Busan bears a striking resemblance to the

photos of the disinfection process of different public transport vehicles (see image 4, image 5, and

image 6). The audience is immediately reminded of newspaper photographs of the MERS outbreak

even before the main characters have been introduced.

Image 4: Shot from the opening scene were government workers decontaminate the truck. Train to Busan 00:01:10

1 A hazmat suit provides its wearer protection from biological agents.

2 It is also known as MERS

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Image 5: “Workers disinfect a Korean Air aircraft at Incheon international airport. South Korea reported a fourth

death from Middle East Respiratory Syndrome prompting Seoul’s mayor to declare “war” on the virus. Photograph:

YONHAP/AFP/Getty Images” (The Guardian 5-6-215).

Image 6: “A worker disinfects a subway train carriage in Seoul. Photograph: Yonhap/AFP/Getty Images” (The

Guardian 5-6-215).

After this introduction the opening credits start to roll and the main narrative starts. We are

introduced to Seok-woo and his daughter Soo-an. Seok-woo is portrayed as a young fund manager and

workaholic who lives and works in Seoul. His daughter complains he never has time for her and how

she misses her mother, from whom Seok-woo has divorced. Because it is her birthday she want to take

the train to Busan to visit her mother. Seok-woo reluctantly agrees and they board the train the next

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day. When the train leaves the station Soo-an sees a man being jumped on by a zombie on the

platform. As it turns out, a girl with a fever also got on the train. After a short while the girl starts

getting convulsions and turns into a zombie. She starts to bite the passengers and zombie epidemic

spreads throughout the train. The passengers that are still healthy and alive manage to isolate the

zombies in a few wagons of the train, as they discover the zombies are not able to open doors.

The passengers are made aware of the developments in the rest of the country through

watching the news footage that is shown inside the train. Of course in the previous chapter I argued

that the use of newsreel footage is a typical characteristic of zombie movies since the zombie

renaissance. It is used to signal the apocalypse and to show that society is breaking down, as the

authorities cannot contain the zombie crisis. On the newsreel footage shown in the train the

government is clearly disclosing wrong information as they label the zombies as rioters. They also

state that people must remain calm and have confidence the authorities will solve the problem (image

7). At the same time the train passengers start watching YouTube videos of zombie attacks that totally

contradict the government’s claim that everything is under control. These statements are in some way

comparable to the statements released by the real South Korean government when MERS epidemic

started in may 2015. When the news of the epidemic broke, the Government refused to disclose the

names of the hospitals affected by the virus (Korea Herald 2-6-2015). This in turn caused public

outcry and has led to an increased distrust of the government in South Korea. This reference will

probably resonate more with the Korean audience than the audience in Western countries.

Image 7: Newsreel footage of a press officer encouraging the citizens of South Korea to have faith in the government.

Train to Busan 00:30:01.

Another theme presented in Train to Busan is the immorality of big corporate businesses and

the people that work for them. This is shown through multiple elements and scenes in the movie. The

first element being one of the main characters: Seok-woo. At the start of the movie the audience

already learned about him that he is a fund manager at a big corporation and that he is more concerned

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with his work than his family life. Later on in the movie, after the newsreel scene I just discussed,

there is a scene where Seok-woo and Soo-an are looking for a place to sit in the crowded wagon. Just

as Soo-an has found a chair for herself an old lady walks by. As a kind gesture Soo-an offers the old

lady her chair to sit in. After this happens, Seok-woo takes here apart explaining to her that in times of

crisis, you cannot go and help others: you have to look out for yourself. The same happens when the

train first stops at Daejeon Station. The city authorities have supposedly created a sanctuary, but Seok-

woo learns through a telephone call from a colleague that everyone entering the city will be

quarantined. Seok-woo arranges for him and his daughter to be picked up by this colleague so they can

bypass this quarantine. As soon as Soo-an finds out about his plan she wants to take other passengers

with them. Again Seok-woo explains to her that she has to stop caring for others and take care of

herself. As the story progresses Seok-woo even discovers to his devastation that he may himself have

contributed to the cause of the zombie outbreak. At 01:24:11 he receives a call from his colleague,

who explains to him that their company funded a biological organization responsible for the zombie

virus. His colleague then asks Seok-woo to comfort him by telling him it is not his fault and that he

was only doing his job. Seok-woo does so. Of course the morale of this plot twist is that individualism

and corporate greed can lead to disastrous things. As the story progresses Seok-woo develops into a

more compassionate character that sacrifices everything for his daughter.

Other humans are sometimes as big of a threat as the zombies, as Bishop has also argued. It

will then come as no surprise that the main antagonist in Train to Busan is also a character with a

corporate background. Yong-suk is the CEO of a major business corporation named Stallion Express.

He is also a passenger on the train and, being a somewhat one-dimensional character, he is mostly

concerned with his own survival. During a scene at the beginning of the film, Yong-suk is already

portrayed as being a bully when he makes condescending remarks about a homeless man that also

boards the train. When the train later on stops at Daecheon station, the train conductor wants to go and

look for survivors, but Yong-suk keeps insisting they keep moving and leave the survivors. Near the

end of the film Yong-suk develops into a very aggressive man that uses other people as bait for the

zombies, to ensure his own survival. Eventually he gets bitten and also turns into a zombie.

Both these examples of corrupt and crooked businessmen can be related to a recent scandal at

the top of major South Korean multinational Samsung. At the beginning of this year, the acting

president of the Samsung Group was arrested on allegations of paying bribes to a close friend of the

now impeached president Park Geun-hye. These bribes were meant to secure a fusion between

Samsung and another company. President Park was impeached and arrested based on allegations of

corruption (Trouw 11-1-2017). Both examples show recent headlines have been dominated by South

Korean corruption scandals and illegal links between the government and the business world. Train to

Busan seems to be a clear reflection of the current distrust of both institutions.

Lastly I would like to take a look at the innovations Train to Busan offers to the classic

zombie narrative. In many ways Train to Busan is a typical example of a zombie movie made after the

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zombie renaissance. Many of the characteristics identified by Bishop can be found in the movie. It

contains a fast spreading zombie invasion, a collapse of modern society, failing authorities, danger

from other humans and a storyline of survival. It pays tribute to the movies made by Romero while at

the same time introducing new elements to the classic zombie narrative. What is most unique about

Train to Busan is of course the fact that it situates a zombie story on a train. Instead of being fortified

in a mansion or a shopping mall, the protagonists are on a train that moves through a collapsing

country. In that way Train to Busan can also be related to the tradition of train suspense stories that go

all the way back to The Great Train Robbery (1903 dir: Edwin S. Porter). The paradox of being stuck

on a moving vehicle together with monsters gives the story an extra layer of suspense. The

protagonists are stuck in the limited space of the train, which forces them to confront the zombies face

to face. Image 5 and image 6 that I discussed earlier also create a close tie between contamination and

public transport, as the images show, respectively, a plane and a subway wagon being disinfected.

The zombies themselves are of the modern and fast type, like those introduced in 28 Days

Later. Zombies can be seen running, jumping, and climbing, making them even more dangerous than

before. As can be seen in the scene at Daecheon station, the zombies also seem to be able to climb on

top of each other to form one big moving mass of multiple zombies, thereby creating an almost

unstoppable force. The same phenomenon occurs near the end of the movie, as a huge group of

zombies grabbing hold of the train, slowly bringing it to a halt (image 8). Another new characteristic

that is introduced in Train to Busan is the fact that the zombies do not seem to be able to see much in

darker conditions. After Seok-woo and a small group of cut-off passengers discover this, they come up

with a plan to move through a wagon full of zombies to reach the other passengers again. Every time

the train goes through a tunnel, they move a few meters before hiding from the zombies. Doing this,

they slowly make their way through the wagon safely, finally rejoining the other passengers after a

suspenseful scene.

Image 8: A growing group of zombies is grabbing hold of the train, thereby slowing it down. Train to Busan 01:39:26.

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In this analysis I hope to have shown how a zombie narrative can be used, not only to create a

thrilling suspenseful movie, but also to address social unrest outside of the western world. Train to

Busan is an Asian film that appropriates the zombie narrative and relates it in an effective way to

South Korean social unrest and political scandals. It stands in the tradition of the zombie renaissance

while at the same time introducing new elements to the classic zombie invasion story.

4.3 Land of the Dead, dir: George A. Romero, 2005

Land of the Dead is the only American zombie film featured in this chapter’s triple analysis. I selected

the titles in this chapter based on the fact that they are using new narrative and cinematographic

techniques to innovate the genre while still being a barometer for society. This led me to selecting two

films made outside of the US and that had not been discussed yet in academic research on zombie

movies. But it was the godfather of zombie cinema himself, Romero, who provided fresh new ideas to

the genre in 2005. Instead of dwelling on his own legacy, he uses Land of the Dead to further explore

new possibilities for zombie narratives.

Land of the Dead begins with small snippets of news radio broadcasts that describe the

outbreak of the zombie epidemic preceded by a title saying “some time ago”. As has been discussed,

the use of news material to signal the apocalypse has been typical of zombie movies since the zombie

renaissance. We hear quotes like “unburied human corpses are returning to life and feeding on the

living”, “do not try to leave your homes”, “everyone who dies will become one of them”, and “they’re

not your neighbors and friends, not anymore”. There also some quotes in French and Russian that may

hint at the idea that the zombie outbreak is worldwide. All these quotes indicate to the spectator that he

or she is indeed watching a zombie genre film and the story will start when the apocalypse has already

commenced.

After the introductory credits there is a cut to a crane shot of a deserted village (another

typical element that I used as category in the previous chapter). An off-key sounding tuba is heard, and

as the shot keeps panning right, a group of zombies is shown holding instruments. While they are not

really playing their instruments, it looks as if they are trying to do so (image 9). Next we see a shot of

a boy and a girl zombie holding hands. Then there is a cut to a big zombie who is holding a petrol

hose, looking as if he is a petrol pump attendant (image 10). After this shot, we see one of the

protagonists, Riley, spying on the zombies together with a buddy. His buddy remarks “it’s like they’re

pretending to be alive” and Riley comments “isn’t that what we’re doing, pretending to be alive?”

With this scene Romero immediately compares humans to zombies, as he did before in Dawn of the

Dead. With this scene he also immediately introduces the concept of zombies having a memory of

their previous life, almost as if they are not totally dead.

The story of Land of the Dead, while not exactly specified, is set some time (possibly years)

after the zombie apocalypse. Surviving humans have created strongholds and scavenge abandoned

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villages for food and supplies. Riley is one of these scavengers and he is contracted by a man named

Paul Kaufman. Kaufman is the leader of a sanctuary in the former city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

While the poor people and minorities have to live on the outskirts of the city, Kaufman has set himself

up with other rich upper class people in a luxury high-rise building named Fiddler’s Green. While still

dangerous, the zombies are not a direct threat anymore, because of an electric fence and high security

around the sanctuary.

Image 9: A group of three zombies still holding their instruments, pretending to play. The zombies seem to remember

their previous life. Land of the Dead 00:03:08.

Image 10: The zombie named Big Daddy pretending to work at a petrol station. Land of the Dead 00:03:44.

In Land of the Dead Romero is introducing a new kind of zombie, one that that appears to

remember parts his previous human life. The zombie that is operating the petrol station, called Big

Daddy, is especially clever. Big Daddy seems to have sympathy for his fellow zombies, and is

increasingly frustrated by the killing of other zombies. Riley and his colleagues are used to distracting

the zombies with fireworks before they go on a supply raid. In an early scene of one these raids it is

shown how Big Daddy has learned to ignore the fireworks and tries to communicate with the other

zombies to do the same. By introducing all these new zombie characteristics, Romero creates

sympathetic zombie protagonists, something totally original in the genre. Land of the Dead contains a

subplot of a zombie uprise against the humans led by Big Daddy.

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Romero also uses these sympathetic zombies to express social critique. Land of the Dead

was released during the height of the reign of the Bush administration in 2005. It was also a year after

the public disclosure of tortures of Iraqi prisoners that took place in the Abu Ghraib prison by

American soldiers. The American soldiers had taken pictures of themselves happily posing next to

tortured naked prisoners (image 11). Personal photographs of the soldiers also showed how prisoners

were used for target practice (image 12) and sometimes hung upside down for hours on end. There

was an international outcry when the first of these photographs were shown on the American

television program 60 Minutes 2 (The New Yorker 10-5-2004). Romero invokes theses images in

scenes where the humans use the zombies to make fun of. The zombies are chained by the neck so that

people can pose for a photograph (image 13). There are scenes with zombies being used for target

practice and being hung upside down to shoot at (image 14 & image 15). While the zombies are

dehumanized by the humans, Romero is employing new focalization techniques to humanize the

zombies while drawing a link to real life events.

Image 11: Iraqi prisoners stacked on top of each other with the American guards happily posing behind them.

(Wikipedia).

Image 12: Iraqi prisoner after being used as target practice for the American guards. (Wikipedia).

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Image 13: At an underground party, zombies are chained by the neck and used to go on a photograph with. Land of

the Dead 00:26:00.

Image 14: A chained zombie is being used as target practice at and underground party. Land of the Dead 00:26:08.

Image 15: Zombies hung upside down with bags over their heads and with bulls eyes on their bodies. Land of the Dead

00:34:02.

A colleague of Riley named Cholo dreams of gathering enough money so he can move into

an apartment in Fiddler’s Dream. In a scene where Cholo pays Kaufman a visit to ask if he can move

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into an apartment, Kaufman explains to him that he would not fit in, implicating his Hispanic

background would not fit in with the other tenants. At the end of the film Cholo has turned into a

zombie and comes after Kaufman to take his revenge. As soon as Kaufman recognizes Cholo he calls

him a ‘spic’ before shooting him in the chest. As ‘spic’ is a derogatory term for a Hispanic person, this

scene proves Kaufman’s reason for not admitting Cholo earlier was based in Cholo’s ethnic

background. It soon becomes clear to Kaufman that Cholo is now a zombie, after which Cholo attacks

him, aided by Big Daddy. Kaufman’s character (skillfully played by Dennis Hopper) is the film’s

symbol of the xenophobic attitude of the American government. “Kaufman, the ‘Donald Rumsfeld’ of

the Fiddler’s Green tenants board, has created a dystopian society in which the wealthy live in stylish

opalescence while the masses barely eke out a pitiful existence on the streets” (Bishop 2010: 193). The

electrical fences used to keep the zombies out can nowadays even be re-interpreted today as a symbol

of American president Donald Trump’s plans to construct a fence between the American and the

Mexican border to keep foreigners with Hispanic roots out.

This analysis shows that it took the return of George A. Romero to once again introduce new

elements to the genre zombie films. While the premise of most zombie movies is the presence of

undead irrational zombies, Romero sought to reverse the roles between humans and zombies even

more than in Dawn of the Dead. By creating a conscious and sympathetic zombie protagonist, Romero

has been able to critique and reflect American society of the Bush era.

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Conclusion

In answering the question ‘how has the zombie movie as a genre developed?’ I looked at the genre

from multiple angles before doing my own research. Because I am researching the functioning of the

zombie film genre, I first needed to investigate prominent theories on film genre.

Stephen Neale describes how film studies have evolved over the years, and how in the sixties

the focus on the auteur was the foremost way to consider a film title. Although this led to new and

productive ways to approach film, a focus on auteurs did not consider how the institutional aspects of

especially Hollywood cinema functioned. This led to the invention of genre studies for film. Genre

studies has come a long way but Neale thinks the main problem that is still plaguing genre studies is

its emphasis on “[c]anons of critical preference” (Neale 2000: 3) and thus a cherry-picked corpus.

Rick Altman adds to this that genres are often treated by scholars as trans-historical instead of part of

an evolving process. Neale explains that if you want to research genre, you have to investigate the

institutional conditions. For example posters, advertisements and even screening venues are part of a

film’s ‘inter-textual relay’. And because these factors all contribute to and shape the spectators’

expectations, they can contribute to the generic status of a film.

In 1984 Rick Altman tried to create a model that recognized the importance of the textual

elements that account for the generic status of a film. What he proposed was a ‘semantic/syntactic

approach to genre’. The two terms stem from semiotics. In short “the semantic approach [...] stresses

the genre’s building blocks, while the syntactic view privileges the structures into which they are

arranged” (Altman 1984: 10). While an effective method for accounting the generic elements of a text,

it does not account for the often-complex ways the audience interacts with generic texts and genres as

a whole. He later updated his approach in calling it “semantic/syntactic/pragmatic approach to

genre”(Altman 1990: 207). With this pragmatic dimension Altman tries to recognize how “multiple

users of various sorts – not only various spectator groups, but producers, distributor, exhibitors,

cultural agencies, and many others as well” (Altman 1990: 210) engage with generic texts.

After establishing a base for analyzing genre I went on to delve deeper into the history of

zombie films and the way they have been studies by scholars like Peter Dendle and William Kyle

Bishop. The origins of the zombie can be traced back to colonial history and the Caribbean islands. A

fusion of African and new world culture led to the creation of the zombie: a dead body reanimated and

under the control of a voodoo witch doctor. In the 1920s there was an increase in interest in Haitian

culture stirred amongst others by the travelogue The Magic Island (1929) written by William

Seabrook. Hollywood picked up on this increased interest and turned the folklore of the zombie in into

a blockbuster story with White Zombie (1932). Many films of this kind followed but interest waned

after the forties.

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Peter Dendle describes how director George A. Romero combined elements of the early zombie

movies together with the alien invasion films of the fifties to inspire his horror debut Night of the

Living Dead in 1968. Dendle also describes how Romero was very much inspired by the post-

apocalyptic novel I Am Legend (1954). Almost all scholars agree on the fact that Romero single

handedly invented the new zombie genre. Bishop also states that this new style of zombie films can be

placed in the tradition of Gothic fiction. An important feature of works of the Gothic is their ability to

form an allegory on the anxieties of society. In other words zombie films are a reflection of their times

and reflect the social context in which they are released.

In 2009 Bishop wrote an article to try to account for the sudden explosion of zombie movies in

the first decade of the new millennium. It was Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later (2002) that spearheaded

the zombie revival that Bishop has baptized (pun intended) the zombie renaissance. The only way that

he could explain this new popularity was because of the way western society has changed since the

9/11 attacks. The modern audience has gotten used to newsreel images of war, terrorist attacks and

ecological disasters. In other words, the modern audience has the apocalypse on its mind, and,

according to Bishop the zombie films are a clear expression of these anxieties.

I decided to take these claim to the test when conducting my own quantitative research. Do

these apocalyptic zombie films have indeed increased in number since the new millennium? I decided

to test the most popular zombie films from the eighties and the 00s for semantic and syntactic

elements that reflect the anxieties of modern audiences. These included an invasion narrative; fast

zombies; the use of newsreel footage and shots of deserted streets amongst others. What came out of

the investigation was that almost all elements saw a significant increase from the eighties to the 00s,

especially the ‘zombie invasion narrative,’ which increased from 32% to a staggering 88%. We can

agree with Bishop that this data leads to the conclusion that indeed the interest in apocalyptic zombie

films has increased. Bishop also stated that the narratives have stayed the same over the years and that

the socio-political changes have led to the re-appreciation of the genre. My data clearly contradicts

that the zombie narratives have stayed the same by showing how a multitude of zombie narratives

have condensed over the years into the narrative of the zombie invasion. This then raises question

about the way the genre has evolved over the years. The data may suggest that what is now considered

as the zombie genre by scholars and critics was not the same in the eighties. Romero did indeed invent

a new zombie narrative that has become the prototype for the majority of the modern zombie movies.

But this does not automatically mean that scholars should not investigate the zombie movies that were

not inspired by Romero’s zombie apocalypse. My data shows there was more to the genre than zombie

invasions. It may be a bit bold to accuse zombie scholars of cherry-picking titles in the style of the

Romero narrative, but maybe the development of the genre needs to be reconsidered and further

researched. It may be so that we can discover something along the lines of Altman’s research on the

musical film. Altman discovered how in the earlier years, the term ‘musical’ was never applied on its

own, as a noun, but always used as an adjective to other genres such as melodrama or comedy. It was

46

only after films with singing and dancing became less popular, that the term ‘musical’ started being

used solely to describe a feature film. Altman has warned us to avoid thinking of genres as being

trans-historical. My findings suggest that this teleological way of thinking has also been applied to

zombie films, simplifying what the genre may have constituted in earlier years.

To round off my research I decided to take a look at the present and the future by analyzing

three recent zombie titles. On the one hand these titles clearly display what Bishop called the Gothic in

the zombie renaissance: a reflection of societal fears in a post-9/11 western society. On the other hand

my analysis showed how these movies employ new narratives and cinematographic techniques to

evolve the genre beyond the prototype of the classic Romero movies. Zombie films are constantly

evolving and, like other genres, are firmly grounded in the societal context of their production,

reflecting fears, and engaging with their users. For now it seems the genre has not yet exhausted its

use, and the dead probably are going to keep on walking the earth for a while.

47

Bibliography

Altman, Rick (1996). “Cinema and Genre”. The Oxford History of World Cinema. Ed. Geoffrey

Nowell-Smith. Oxford: Oxford UP. 276-285.

Altman, Rick (1999). Film/Genre. London: British Film Institute.

Author unknown (2017). “Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS-CoV)”. World

Health Organisation. 29-6-2017. <http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/mers-cov/en>.

Author unknown (11-1-2017). “Topman Samsung Verdachte in Politiek Schandaal Zuid-Korea”.

Trouw. 28-6-2017. <https://www.trouw.nl/home/topman-samsung-verdachte-in-politiek-schandaal-

zuid-korea~af39e13b>.

Bishop, Kyle William (2009). “Dead Man Still Walking: Explaining the Zombie Renaissance”.

Journal of Popular Film and Television 37.1: 16-25.

Bishop, Kyle William (2010). American Zombie Gothic: The Rise and Fall (and Rise) of the Walking

Dead in Popular Culture. Jefferson NC: Mcfarland.

Bishop, Kyle William (2015). How Zombies Conquered Popular Culture: The Multifarious Walking

Dead in the 21st Century. Jefferson NC: Macfarland.

Carroll, Noël (1990). The Philosophy of Horror or Paradoxes of the Heart. New York: Routledge.

Carroll, Noëll (1992). “Cognitivism, Contemporary Film Theory and Method: A Response to Warren

Buckland”. Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism Spring: 199-219.

Dendle, Peter (2001). The Zombie Movie Encyclopedia. Jefferson NC: Macfarland.

Grant, Barry Keith (2007). Film Genre: From Iconography to Ideology. London: Wallflower Press.

Hersh, Seymour M. (10-4-2004). “Torture at Abu Ghraib”. The New Yorker. 29-6-2017.

<http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2004/05/10/torture-at-abu-ghraib>.

International Movie Database. 1990. Amazon.com. 29-6-2017. <http://www.imdb.com>.

Ji-hye, Shin (2-6-2015). “Korea Mulling Disclosure of MERS-affected Hospitals”. The Korea Herald.

28-6-2017. <http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20150602001071>.

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Kil, Sonia (24-6-2016). “Korea Box Office: Runaway ‘Train to Busan’ Smashes Records”. Variety.

29-6-2017. <http://variety.com/2016/film/asia/korea-box-office-train-to-busan-smashes-records-

1201821937>.

Kwaak, Jeyup S. (8-6-2015). “South Korea MERS Outbreak Began With a Cough”. The Wall Street

Journal. 28-6-2017. <https://www.wsj.com/articles/south-korea-mers-outbreak-began-with-a-cough-

1433755555>.

Langford, Barry (2005). Film Genre: Hollywood and Beyond. Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP.

McCurry, Justin (5-6-2015). “South Korea declares 'war' on Mers virus as death toll rises”. The

Guardian. 29-6-2017. <https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/05/south-korea-declares-war-

on-mers-virus-as-death-toll-rises>.

Neale, Steve (2000). Genre and Hollywood. London: Routledge.

Newitz, Annalee (2008). “War and Social Upheaval Cause Spikes in Zombie Movie Production”. io9

gizmodo. 1-3-2017. <http://io9.gizmodo.com/5070243/war-and-social-upheaval-cause-spikes-in-

zombie-movie-production>.

Russel, Jamie (2005). Book of the Dead. Surrey: FAB Press.

Walker, Joe (4-9-2011). “Tribute to 9/11 victim Father Judge: jacket, helmet placed in NYC Fire

Museum”. The New York Post. 23-6-2017. <http://nypost.com/2011/09/04/tribute-to-911-victim-

father-judge-jacket-helmet-placed-in-nyc-fire-museum>.

Warren Buckland (1989). "Critique of Poor Reason". Screen vol. 30, no. 4.

Wikipedia (25-6-2017). “Abu Ghraib Torture and Prisoner Abuse”. Wikimedia Foundation. 29-6-

2017. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghraib_torture_and_prisoner_abuse#Media_coverage>.

Wikipedia (22-6-2017). “List of Zombie Films”. Wikimedia Foundation. 29-6-2017.

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_zombie_films>.

Wikipedia (21-6-2017). “Wikipedia:Identifying Reliable Sources”. Wikimedia Foundation. 29-6-2017.

< https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Identifying_reliable_sources>.

49

Filmography

28 Days Later. Dir. Danny Boyle. Fox Searchlight Pictures. 2002.

Day of the Dead. Dir. George A. Romero. United Film Distribution Company. 1985.

Dawn of the Dead. Dir. George A. Romero. United Film Distribution Company. 1978.

Dawn of the Dead (remake). Dir. Zack Snyder. Universal Pictures. 2004.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Dir. Don Siegel. Allied Artists Pictures. 1956.

I Was a Teenage Zombie. Dir. John Elias Michalakis. Horizon Films. 1987.

Land of the Dead. Dir. George A. Romero. Universal Pictures. 2005.

Night of the Living Dead. Dir. George A. Romero. The Walter Reade Organization. 1968.

REC. Dir. Jaume Balagueró, Paco Plaza. Filmax International. 2007.

The Earth Dies Screaming. Dir. Terence Fisher. Twentieth Century Fox. 1964.

The Return of the Living Dead. Dir. Dan O’Bannon. Orion Pictures. 1985.

Train to Busan. Dir. Yeon Sang-ho. Next Entertainment World. 2016.

White Zombie. Dir. Victor Halperin. United Artists. 1932.

World War Z. Dir. Marc Forster. Paramount Pictures. 2013.

Zombieland. Dir. Ruben Fleischer. Colombia Pictures. 2009.

50

Appendix A: The top-25 zombie scoring lists

Graph 8: Excel scoring sheet for top-25 zombie films from the eighties. (c) Jasper Wezenberg.

51

Graph 9: The continued excel scoring sheet. This part contains the top-25 zombie movies from the 00s. (c) Jasper Wezenberg.

52

Appendix B: The full Wikipedia zombie film list

This list was used to create my zombie movie production graph.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_zombie_films

Title Director Year Notes

Patient Zero Stefan

Ruzowitzky

2017

Cell (film) Tod Williams 2016

The Girl with All the Gifts Colm

McCarthy

2016

I Am a Hero Shinsuke Sato 2016

Miruthan Shakti

Soundar

Rajan

2016 First Tamil zombie film

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (film) Burr Steers 2016

Resident Evil: The Final Chapter Paul W. S.

Anderson

2016

Seoul Station Yeon Sang-ho 2016

Train to Busan Yeon Sang-ho 2016

Zoombies Glenn R.

Miller

2016

Dead 7 Nick Carter 2016

Diao Chan Vs Zombie Ma Le 2016

The Burning Dead Rene Perez 2015

Flesh of my Flesh Edward

Martin III

2015

JeruZalem Doron Paz

and Yoav Paz

2015

Maggie Henry

Hobson

2015

Night of the Living Dead: Darkest Dawn Zebediah de

Soto

2015

53

Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse Christopher

B. Landon

2015

Vere Vazhi Ille M.S. Prem

Nath

2015

Z Island Hiroshi

Shinagawa

2015

The Rezort Steve Barker 2015

Don't Grow Up Thierry

Poiraud

2015

Kampung Zombie Billy Christian 2015 First Indonesian zombie film

Phi Ha Ayodhaya (The Black Death) Chalermchatri

Yukol

2015 Thai film, mixture of zombie

film and historical epic

Extinction Miguel Angel

Vivas

2015

Freaks of Nature Robbie

Pickering

2015

Army of Frankensteins Ryan

Bellgardt

2014

Burying The Ex Joe Dante 2014

The Dead and the Damned 2 Rene Perez 2014

Dead Within Ben Wagner 2014

Dead Snow: Red vs. Dead Tommy

Wirkola

2014

Doc of the Dead Alexandre O.

Philippe

2014

Goal of the Dead Thierry

Poiraud and

Benjamin

Rocher

2014

Life After Beth Jeff Baena 2014

Night of the Living Dead Chad Zuver 2014 remake

Ojuju C.J. Obasi 2014

REC 4: Apocalypse Jaume 2014 parallel stories to REC

54

Balagueró

Reichsführer SS David B.

Stewart

2014

Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead Kiah Roache-

Turner

2014

Zombeavers Jordan Rubin 2014

Zombie Fight Club Joe Chien 2014

Bath Salt Zombies Dustin Mills 2013 drug turns people into flesh-

eating zombies

Cargo Ben Howling

& Yolanda

Ramke

2013

The Dead 2: India Howard J.

Ford &

Jonathan Ford

2013

The Dead Inside (2013 film) Andrew

Gilbert

2013

Evil Dead Fede Alvarez 2013 reboot

Germ Z J.T. Boone 2013 infected humans

Go Goa Gone Raj Nidimoru

and Krishna

D.K.

2013 publicized as India's first

"zom-com"

The Last Days on Mars Ruairí

Robinson

2013

Miss Zombie Sabu 2013

Open Grave Gonzalo

López-Gallego

2013

Pro Wrestlers vs Zombies Cody Knotts 2013

The Returned Manuel

Carballo

2013

Stalled Christian

James

2013

Warm Bodies Jonathan

Levine

2013

55

World War Z Marc Forster 2013

The Zombie King Aidan

Belizaire

2013

Zombie Massacre Luca Boni and

Marco Ristori

2013

Zombie Night (2013) John Gulager 2013

Dead Sands Ameera Al

Qaed

2013

KL Zombi Woo Ming Jin 2013 Malaysian film

Run! Oudom Touch 2013 First Cambodian zombie film

Zombie Hood Steve Best 2013

Abraham Lincoln vs. Zombies Richard

Schenkman

2012

The Amazing Adventures of the Living

Corpse

Justin Paul

Ritter

2012

The Battery Jeremy

Gardner

2012

Cockneys vs Zombies Matthias

Hoene

2012

Dead Before Dawn April Mullen 2012 half-zombie, half-demon

Decay Luke

Thompson

2012

Detention of the Dead Alex Craig

Mann

2012

Evil Head Doug

Sakmann

2012 Adult parody of The Evil Dead

A Little Bit Zombie Casey Walker 2012

Night of the Living Dead 3D: Re-Animation Jeff

Broadstreet

2012 prequel to Night of the Living

DE3D

ParaNorman Sam Fell &

Chris Butler

2012 described as a "zombie movie

for kids"

Portrait of a Zombie Bing Bailey 2012

REC 3: Genesis Paco Plaza 2012 parallel stories to REC

56

Resident Evil: Retribution Paul W. S.

Anderson

2012

Resident Evil: Damnation Makoto

Kamiya

2012 animated

Rise of the Zombies Nick Lyon 2012

Sick: Survive the Night Ryan M.

Andrews

2012

Zombie 108 Joe Chien 2012 First Taiwanese zombie film

The Kirishima Thing (Kirishima, Bukatsu

Yamerutteyo)

Daihachi

Yoshida

2012 The male protagonist is an

admirer of George Romero’s

zombie film and try to shot a

student zombie film with his

schoolmates

The Zombinator Sergio Myers 2012

Bled White Jose Carlos

Gomez

2011

The Cabin in the Woods Drew

Goddard

2011 Zombies only peripheral to

plot.

Caustic Zombies Johnny

Daggers

2011

DeadHeads Brett Pierce &

Drew T.

Pierce

2011

Dylan Dog: Dead of Night Kevin Munroe 2011

Fading of the Cries Brian A.

Metcalf

2011

First Platoon Chris Gabriel 2011

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides Rob Marshall 2011

Pop Punk Zombies Steve Dayton 2011

Quarantine 2: Terminal John Pogue 2011

Remains (Steve Niles' Remains) Colin Theys 2011

Schoolgirl Apocalypse John S. Cairns 2011

State of Emergency Turner Clay 2011

57

War of the Dead (Stone's War) Marko

Makilaakso

2011

Zombie Apocalypse Nick Lyon 2011

Zombie Ass (Zombie Ass: Toilet of the

Dead)

Noboru Iguchi 2011

The Zombie Diaries 2 Michael

Bartlett &

Kevin Gates

2011 sequel

The Zombie Farm Ricardo Islas 2011

Zombie Undead Rhys Davies 2011

Beverly Lane Joshua Hull 2010

Big Tits Zombie (Big Tits Dragon: Hot

Spring Zombie Vs. Stripper 5)

Takao Nakano 2010

The Dead Howard J.

Ford &

Jonathan Ford

2010

The Dead and the Damned Rene Perez 2010

Devil's Playground Mark

McQueen

2010

Die-ner (Get It?) Patrick

Horvath

2010

Horrorween Joe Estevez 2010

Island: Wedding of the Zombies (Ada:

Zombilerin Düğünü, The Zombie Wedding)

Murat Emir

Eren, Talip

Ertürk

2010

Juan of the Dead (Juan de los Muertos) Alejandro

Brugués

2010 Cuba's first zombie movie

L.A. Zombie (Gay of the Dead) Bruce

LaBruce

2010 Adult film

Pushin' Up Daisies Patrick

Franklin

2010

Rammbock Marvin Kren 2010

Resident Evil: Afterlife Paul W. S.

Anderson

2010

58

Sint (Saint, Saint Nick) Dick Maas 2010

Survival of the Dead George A.

Romero

2010 fifth sequel to Night of the

Living Dead

They Walk Charles House

II

2010

The Dark Lurking Greg Connors 2010

Autumn Steven

Rumbelow

2009

Blood Creek (Creek, Town Creek) Joel

Schumacher

2009

The Book of Zombie Scott

Kragelund,

Paul

Cranefield,

Erik Van Sant

2009

Broken Springs (Broken Springs: Shrine of

the Undead Zombie Bastards)

Neeley

Lawson

2009

The Crypt Craig

McMahon

2009

Dark Floors Pete Riski 2009

Dead Air Corbin

Bernsen

2009

Doghouse Jake West 2009

Eat Me! (The Eaters) Katie Carman 2009

Evil: In the Time of Heroes (To Κακό 2:

Στην Eποχή Tων Hρώων)

Yorgos

Noussias

2009 sequel to "To Κακό"

Gallowwalkers Andrew Goth 2009

George: A Zombie Intervention J.T. Seaton 2009

The Horde (La Horde) Yannick

Dahan &

Benjamin

Rocher

2009

Mutants (2009 film) David Morlet 2009

Night of the Living Dead: Reanimated Mike 2009

59

Schneider

The Night Shift Thomas

Smith

2009 Based on a 2009 short film of

the same title.

Pontypool Bruce

McDonald

2009 zombie appears like infected

human

REC 2 Jaume

Balagueró &

Paco Plaza

2009 sequel to REC

The Revenant D. Kerry Prior 2009 combination of zombie and

vampire

Silent Night, Zombie Night Sean Cain 2009

The Sky Has Fallen Doug Roos 2009

Tormented Jon Wright 2009

ZMD: Zombies of Mass Destruction Kevin

Hamedani

2009

Zombieland Ruben

Fleischer

2009

Zombie Women of Satan Steve O'Brien

and Warren

Speed

2009

Zone of the Dead (Зона мртвих, Zona

Mrtvih, Apocalypse of the Dead)

Milan

Konjević &

Milan

Todorović

2009

Colin Marc Price 2008

Dance of the Dead Gregg Bishop 2008

Day of the Dead Steve Miner 2008 remake

Descendents (2008 film) (Solos) Jorge Olguín 2008 billed as first-ever Chilean

zombie film

The Dead Outside Kerry Anne

Mullaney

2008

Dead Snow Tommy

Wirkola

2008

Dead Space: Downfall Chuck Patton 2008 animated film based on Dead

60

Space video game

Deadgirl Marcel

Sarmiento &

Gadi Harel

2008

Deep River: The Island Ben

Bachelder

2008

Demon Resurrection William

Hopkins

2008

Diary of the Dead George A.

Romero

2008 fourth sequel to Night of the

Living Dead

Edges of Darkness Jason Horton

& Blaine Cade

2008

Flick David

Howard

2008

Grave Mistake Shawn

Darling

2008

I Sell the Dead Glenn

McQuaid

2008

Insanitarium Jeff Buhler 2008

Last of the Living Logan

McMillan

2008

Make-out with Violence Deagol

Brothers

2008

Ninjas vs. Zombies Justin

Timpane

2008

Outpost Steve Barker 2008

Plaguers Brad Sykes 2008 alien orb turns people into

zombies

Quarantine John Erick

Dowdle

2008 remake of REC

Reel Zombies David J.

Francis

2008 third installment in Zombie

Night series, mockumentary

Resident Evil: Degeneration (Biohazard:

Degeneration)

Makoto

Kamiya

2008 animated

61

Sexykiller (Sexykiller, morirás por ella) Paco Cabeza 2008

Splinter Toby Wilkins 2008

Stag Night of the Dead Neil Jones 2008

Trailer Park of Terror Steven

Goldmann

2008

Uniform SurviGirl I (Seifuku Survivor Girl,

Seifuku sabaigâru I)

Hiroshi

Kaneko

2008

Virus Undead Wolf Wolff

and Ohmuti

2008

Yoroi Samurai Zombie (Yoroi: Samurai

Zonbie, Samurai Zombie)

Tak

Sakaguchi

2008

Zombie Strippers Jay Lee 2008

28 Weeks Later Juan Carlos

Fresnadillo

2007 sequel to 28 Days Later

American Zombie Grace Lee 2007

Beneath the Surface Blake Reigle 2007

Black Swarm (Night of the Drones) David

Winning

2007

Brain Blockers Lincoln

Kupchak

2007

Brain Dead Kevin Tenney 2007

Days of Darkness Jake Kennedy 2007

Dead Moon Rising Mark E. Poole 2007

Dorm of the Dead Donald

Farmer

2007

Flight of the Living Dead: Outbreak on a

Plane

Scott Thomas 2007

Forest of the Dead Brian

Singleton

2007

Forever Dead Christine

Parker

2007

I Am Legend Francis

Lawrence

2007 infected humans

62

I Am Omega Griff Furst 2007 remake of the Last Man on

Earth

The Mad John Kalangis 2007

Planet Terror Robert

Rodriguez

2007

REC Jaume

Balagueró &

Paco Plaza

2007 original

Resident Evil: Extinction Russell

Mulcahy

2007

Undead or Alive Glasgow

Phillips

2007

Undead Pool (Attack Girls' Swim Team

Versus the Undead)

Kôji Kawano 2007

Urban Decay Harry Basil 2007

Wasting Away (Aaah! Zombies!!) Matthew

Kohnen

2007

Zibahkhana (Hell's Ground) Omar Khan 2007 Pakistan's first zombie movie

Zombies! Zombies! Zombies! Jason M.

Murphy

2007

After Sundown Christopher

Abram &

Michael W.

Brown

2006

Automaton Transfusion Steven C.

Miller

2006

Black Sheep Jonathan King 2006 zombie sheep

City of Rott Frank Sudol 2006

Dead and Deader Patrick

Dinhut

2006

Fido Andrew

Currie

2006

Forbidden Siren (Sairen) Yukihiko

Tsutsumi

2006 live-action adaptation of

Siren video game series

63

Gangs of the Dead (Last Rites) Duane

Stinnett

2006

Horrors of War Peter John

Ross & John

Whitney

2006

Mulberry Street Jim Mickle 2006

Night of the Dead (Night of the Leben Tod) Eric Forsberg 2006

Night of the Living Dead 3D (Night of the

Living DE3D)

Jeff

Broadstreet

2006

Pathogen Emily Hagins 2006 documentary Zombie Girl:

The Movie covers the making

of this movie

The Plague (Clive Barker's The Plague) Hal

Masonberg

2006

Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead Lloyd

Kaufman

2006

The Quick and the Undead Gerald Nott 2006

Shadow: Dead Riot Derek Wan 2006

Slither James Gunn 2006

Special Dead Thomas L.

Phillips and

Sean

Simmons

2006

Wicked Little Things J.S. Cardone 2006

The Zombie Diaries Michael

Bartlett &

Kevin Gates

2006

Zombie Night 2: Awakening David J.

Francis

2006 sequel

Zombie Self-Defense Force (Zonbi jieitai) Naoyuki

Tomomatsu

2006

Zombie Wars David A. Prior 2006

All Souls Day Jeremy

Kasten

2005

64

Beneath Still Waters Brian Yuzna 2005

Boy Eats Girl Stephen

Bradley

2005

Day of the Dead 2: Contagium Ana Clavell &

James Glenn

Dudelson

2005 Unofficial sequel to Day of the

Dead.

Dead Men Walking Peter Mervis 2005

Die You Zombie Bastards! Caleb

Emerson

2005

Die Zombiejäger Jonas

Wolcher

2005 Sweden's first zombie feature

film

Doom Andrzej

Bartkowiak

2005 Based loosely on the 1994

video game

Evil (To Κακό) Yorgos

Noussias

2005

Hood of the Living Dead Eduardo

Quiroz & Jose

Quiroz

2005

House of the Dead 2 Michael Hurst 2005

Land of the Dead George A.

Romero

2005 third sequel to Night of the

Living Dead

Livelihood Ryan Graham 2005

Mortuary Tobe Hooper 2005

Return of the Living Dead: Necropolis Ellory

Elkayem

2005

Return of the Living Dead: Rave to the

Grave

Ellory

Elkayem

2005

The Roost Ti West 2005

Severed: Forest of the Dead Carl Bessai 2005 not to be confused with

Forest of the Dead

The Stink of Flesh Scott Phillips 2005

Swamp Zombies Len

Kabasinski

2005

65

Tokyo Zombie Sakichi Satō 2005

Zombiez John Bacchus 2005

Bone Sickness Brian Paulin 2004

Choking Hazard Marek Dobes 2004

Curse of the Maya (Dawn of the Living

Dead, Evil Grave: Curse of the Maya)

David

Heavener

2004

Dawn of the Dead Zack Snyder 2004 remake

Dead & Breakfast Matthew

Leutwyler

2004

Dead Meat Conor

McMahon

2004

Ghost Lake Jay Woelfel 2004

Graveyard Alive: A Zombie Nurse in Love Elza Kephart 2004

Hide and Creep Chuck

Hartsell &

Chance

Shirley

2004

Die Nacht der lebenden Loser (Night of the

Living Dorks)

Mathias

Dinter (de)

2004

Oh! My Zombie Mermaid (Â! Ikkenya

puroresu)

Naoki Kubo 2004 mermaid is not a zombie, but

it has a zombie character

Resident Evil: Apocalypse Alexander

Witt

2004

SARS Wars Taweewat

Wantha

2004

Shaolin vs. Evil Dead (Shao lin jiang shi, Siu

lam geung see)

Douglas Kung 2004

Shaun of the Dead Edgar Wright 2004

They Came Back Robin

Campillo

2004

Vampires vs. Zombies (Carmilla, the

Lesbian Vampire)

Vince

D'Amato

2004

Zombie Honeymoon David Gebroe 2004

66

Zombie King and the Legion of Doom

(Zombie Beach Party, Enter … Zombie King)

Stacey Case 2004

Zombie Nation Ulli Lommel 2004

Battlefield Baseball (Jigoku Kôshien) Yūdai

Yamaguchi

2003

Beyond Re-Animator Brian Yuzna 2003

Blood of the Beast Georg

Koszulinski

2003

Corpses Are Forever Jose Prendes 2003

Exhumed Brian Clement 2003

The Ghouls (Cannibal Dead: The Ghouls,

Urban Cannibals)

Chad Ferrin 2003

Gory Gory Hallelujah Sue Corcoran 2003

House of the Dead Uwe Boll 2003

Undead Michael

Spierig &

Peter Spierig

2003

Zombie Night (2003) David J.

Francis

2003

Zombiegeddon Chris Watson 2003

Zombie Planet George

Bonilla

2003

28 Days Later Danny Boyle 2002 Infected humans

Deathwatch Michael J.

Bassett

2002

Necropolis Awakened Garrett White 2002

Resident Evil Paul W. S.

Anderson

2002 first in Resident Evil series

Ritual (Tales from the Crypt: Ritual) Avi Nesher 2002

Biohazardous Michael J.

Hein

2001

Children of the Living Dead Tor Ramsey 2001

67

Meat Market 2 Brian Clement 2001

Plaga Zombie: Zona Mutante Pablo Parés &

Hernán Sáez

2001

Route 666 William

Wesley

2001

Stacy Naoyuki

Tomomatsu

2001

Zombie Chronicles Brad Sykes 2001

The Dead Hate the Living! Dave Parker 2000

Junk (Shiryo-gari) Atsushi

Muroga

2000

Machine Head Michael

Patrick,

Leonard

Murphy

2000

Meat Market Brian Clement 2000

Versus (Vāsasu) Ryuhei

Kitamura

2000

Wild Zero Tetsuro

Takeuchi

2000

I, Zombie: The Chronicles of Pain (I,

Zombie)

Andrew

Parkinson

1999

Violent Shit III: Infantry of Doom (Zombie

Doom)

Andreas

Schnaas

1999

Zombie! vs. Mardi Gras Will Frank &

Karl DeMolay

1999

Bio Zombie (Sun faa sau si) Wilson Yip 1998

Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island Hiroshi

Aoyama &

Kazumi

Fukushima

1998

Plaga Zombie Pablo Parés &

Hernán Sáez

1997 First-ever Argentine zombie

horror film and part of the

Plaga Zombie film series.

Premutos: The Fallen Angel (Premutos – Olaf Ittenbach 1997

68

Der gefallene Engel, aka Premutos: Lord of

the Living Dead)

House of the Damned Sean

Weathers

1996

Uncle Sam William

Lustig

1996

Legion of the Night Matt Jaissle 1995

Voodoo Rene Eram 1995 Voodoo cult

Zombie Holocaust (Female Mercenaries on

Zombie Island)

Gary Whitson 1995

Cemetery Man (Dellamorte Dellamore) Michele Soavi 1994

Shatter Dead Scooter

McCrae

1994

Ed and His Dead Mother Jonathan

Wacks

1993

Ghost Brigade (The Lost Brigade) George

Hickenlooper

1993

My Boyfriend's Back Bob Balaban 1993

Ozone J.R.

Bookwalter

1993 drug turns people into

zombies

Return of the Living Dead 3 Brian Yuzna 1993

Weekend at Bernie's II Robert Klane 1993

Zombie Bloodbath Todd Sheets 1993

Zombie Genocide Andrew

Harrison,

Khris Carville,

& Darryl

Sloan

1993

Army of Darkness Sam Raimi 1992 third film in The Evil Dead

franchise

Braindead (Dead Alive) Peter Jackson 1992 First zombie movie from New

Zealand

Pet Sematary Two Mary Lambert 1992

69

Waxwork II: Lost in Time Anthony

Hickox

1992

Battle Girl: The Living Dead in Tokyo Bay

(Batoru gâru)

Kazuo

Komizu

1991

Black Demons (Dèmoni 3) Umberto

Lenzi

1991 unrelated to Demoni films by

Lamberto Bava

Bride of Re-Animator Brian Yuzna 1991

Chopper Chicks in Zombietown Dan Hoskins 1991

Netherworld David

Schmoeller

1991

Night of the Day of the Dawn of the Son of

the Bride of the Return of the Revenge of

the Terror of the Attack of the Evil, Mutant,

Alien, Flesh Eating, Hellbound, Zombified

Living Dead Part 2: In Shocking 2-D

James Riffel 1991

Nudist Colony of the Dead Mark Pirro 1991

Teenage Exorcist Grant Austin

Waldman

1991

Zombie 5: Killing Birds (Uccelli assassini) Claudio

Lattanzi

1991

The Boneyard James

Cummins

1990

Frankenhooker Frank

Henenlotter

1990

Maniac Cop 2 William

Lustig

1990

Night of the Living Dead Tom Savini 1990 remake

Voodoo Dawn Steven

Fierberg

1990

Beverly Hills Bodysnatchers Jonathan

Mostow

1989

C.H.U.D. II: Bud the C.H.U.D. David Irving 1989

The Dead Pit Brett Leonard 1989

Night Life David 1989

70

Acomba

Pet Sematary Mary Lambert 1989

The Vineyard James Hong 1989

Dead Heat Mark

Goldblatt

1988

The Dead Next Door J.R.

Bookwalter

1988

The Discarnates (Summer Among the

Zombies, Ijintachi tono natsu)

Nobuhiko

Obayashi

1988

FleshEater (Zombie Nosh) Bill Hinzman 1988

Maniac Cop William

Lustig

1988

Return of the Living Dead Part II Ken

Wiederhorn

1988

The Serpent and the Rainbow Wes Craven 1988

Waxwork Anthony

Hickox

1988

Zombi 3 (Zombie Flesh Eaters 2) Lucio Fulci &

Bruno Mattei

1988

Zombie 4: After Death (Oltre la morte,

Zombie Flesh Eaters 3)

Claudio

Fragasso

1988

Evil Dead II Sam Raimi 1987

I Was a Teenage Zombie John Elias

Michalakis

1987

Killing Spree Tim Ritter 1987

Prince of Darkness (John Carpenter's Prince

of Darkness)

John

Carpenter

1987

Redneck Zombies Pericles

Lewnes

1987

Revenge of the Living Dead Girls Pierre B.

Reinhard

1987

The Video Dead Robert Scott 1987

Zombie High Ron Link 1987

71

Deadly Friend Wes Craven 1986

Night of the Creeps Fred Dekker 1986

Raiders of the Living Dead Samuel M.

Sherman

1986

The Rape After Ho Meng Hua

& Moon-Tong

Lau

1986

The Supernaturals Armand

Mastroianni

1986

Zombie Brigade Carmelo

Musca &

Barrie

Pattison

1986

Zombie Nightmare Jack Bravman 1986

Day of the Dead George A.

Romero

1985 second sequel to Night of the

Living Dead

Re-Animator Stuart Gordon 1985

The Return of the Living Dead Dan

O'Bannon

1985

Warning Sign Hal Barwood 1985

Bloodsuckers from Outer Space Glen Coburn 1984

Mutant John Cardos 1984

Night of the Comet Thom

Eberhardt

1984

Surf II Randall Badat 1984 drink turns people into

zombies

Hysterical Chris Bearde 1983

One Dark Night Tom

McLoughlin

1983

Wilczyca (The Wolf, She-Wolf) Marek

Piestrak

1983 dead woman comes back as

an undead werewolf

Zeder (Revenge of the Dead) Pupi Avati 1983

Creepshow George A. 1982

72

Romero

I Was a Zombie for the F.B.I. Marius

Penczner

1982

Mansion of the Living Dead Jesús Franco 1982

La Morte Vivante (The Living Dead Girl) Jean Rollin 1982

Oasis of the Zombies Jesús Franco 1982 French-Spanish co-

production

The Beyond Lucio Fulci 1981 second film in The Gates of

Hell trilogy

Burial Ground: The Nights of Terror Andrea

Bianchi

1981

Dawn of the Mummy Frank Agrama 1981

Dead & Buried Gary Sherman 1981

The Evil Dead Sam Raimi 1981

Frankenstein Island Jerry Warren 1981

Hell of the Living Dead (Night of the

Zombies)

Bruno Mattei 1981

The House by the Cemetery Lucio Fulci 1981 third in The Gates of Hell

trilogy

Kiss Daddy Goodbye (Revenge of the

Zombie)

Patrick Regan 1981

Kung Fu Zombie (Wu long tian shi zhao ji

gui)

Hwa I Hung 1981

Zombie Lake Jean Rollin 1981

Alien Dead Fred Olen Ray 1980

The Children Max

Kalmanowicz

1980

City of the Living Dead Lucio Fulci 1980 first in The Gates of Hell

trilogy

Don't Go in the House Joseph Ellison 1980

Erotic Nights of the Living Dead (Sexy

Nights of the Living Dead)

Joe D'Amato 1980

73

The Fog John

Carpenter

1980 called ghosts in the film

Frozen Scream Frank Roach 1980

Nightmare City (City of the Walking Dead) Umberto

Lenzi

1980

Toxic Zombies Charles

McCrann

1980

Zombie Holocaust (Zombi Holocaust) Marino

Girolami

1980

Zombi 2 (Zombie Flesh-Eaters) Lucio Fulci 1979 an unlicensed sequel to

Zombi (the Italian title of

Dawn of the Dead)

Dawn of the Dead George A.

Romero

1978 sequel to Night of the Living

Dead

Les Raisins de la Mort (The Grapes of Death,

Pesticide)

Jean Rollin 1978

Shock Waves Ken

Wiederhorn

1977

Black Magic 2 (Gou hun jiang tou, Revenge

of the Zombies)

Ho Meng Hua 1976

The Cross of the Devil John Gilling 1975

Night of the Seagulls Amando de

Ossorio

1975

Garden of the Dead John Hayes 1974

The Ghost Galleon Amando de

Ossorio

1974

The House of Seven Corpses Paul Harrison 1974

Let Sleeping Corpses Lie Jorge Grau 1974

Sugar Hill Paul

Maslansky

1974

Curse of the Living Dead (Les

Démoniaques)

Jean Rollin 1973

The Hanging Woman (Return of the

Zombies)

José Luis

Merino

1973

74

The Hidan of Maukbeiangjow (Invasion of

the Girl Snatchers, Kaspar and Prudence

Laugh Till It Hurts at The Killers of the

Zombie Plot: A Musical)

Lee Jones 1973 aliens possess corpses

Horror Express (Pánico en el Transiberiano,

Panic on the Trans-Siberian Express)

Eugenio

Martín

1973

House of the Living Dead (Doctor Maniac) Ray Austin 1973

The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires Roy Ward

Baker

1973

Return of the Blind Dead Amando de

Ossorio

1973 second film in Ossorio's Blind

Dead series

Vengeance of the Zombies (La rebelión de

las muertas)

León

Klimovsky

1973

A Virgin Among the Living Dead Jesús Franco 1973 main character has visions of

zombies

Baron Blood (Gli orrori del castello di

Norimberga)

Mario Bava 1972

Blood of Ghastly Horror Al Adamson 1972

Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things Bob Clark 1972

Deathdream Bob Clark 1972

Horror Rises from the Tomb Carlos Aured 1972

Messiah of Evil Willard

Huyck &

Gloria Katz

1972

Tombs of the Blind Dead Amando de

Ossorio

1971

The Astro-Zombies Ted V. Mikels 1968

Isle of the Snake People (La muerte

viviente)

Juan Ibáñez 1968

Night of the Living Dead George A.

Romero

1968 First film to depict zombies as

reanimated cannibalistic

cadavers

The Plague of the Zombies John Gilling 1966

Terror-Creatures from the Grave (5 tombe

per un medium, Cemetery of the Living

Massimo 1965

75

Dead) Pupillo

The Earth Dies Screaming Terence

Fisher

1964

The Horror of Party Beach Del Tenney 1964

I Eat Your Skin (Zombies) Del Tenney 1964

The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who

Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up

Zombies

Ray Dennis

Steckler

1964

The Last Man on Earth (L'ultimo uomo della

Terra)

Ubaldo

Ragona

1964

War of the Zombies (Rome Against Rome) Giuseppe Vari 1964

Monstrosity Joseph

Mascelli

1963 Shown on MST3K as Atomic

Brain

Santo vs. the Zombies (Invasion of the

Zombies)

Benito

Alazraki

1962

Tales of Terror Roger

Corman

1962

The Curse of the Doll People (Munecos

infernales)

Benito

Alazraki

1961

The Dead One (El Muerto) Barry Mahon 1961

Doctor Blood's Coffin Sidney J. Furie 1961

The Four Skulls of Jonathan Drake Edward L.

Cahn

1959

Invisible Invaders Edward L.

Cahn

1959 aliens possess corpses

Plan 9 from Outer Space Ed Wood 1959

Teenage Zombies Jerry Warren 1959

Voodoo Island Reginald

LeBorg

1957

The Woman Eater Charles

Saunders

1957

Zombies of Mora Tau Edward L.

Cahn

1957

76

Creature with the Atom Brain Edward L.

Cahn

1955

Zombies of the Stratosphere Fred C.

Brannon

1952

Valley of the Zombies Philip Ford 1946

Zombies on Broadway (Loonies on

Broadway)

Gordon Dines

& Gordon M.

Douglas

1945

Voodoo Man William

Beaudine

1944

I Walked with a Zombie Jacques

Tourneur

1943

Revenge of the Zombies Steve Sekely 1943

Bowery at Midnight Wallace Fox 1942

King of the Zombies Jean

Yarbrough

1941

The Ghost Breakers George

Marshall

1940

The Devil's Daughter (Pocomania) Arthur H.

Leonard

1939 semi-remake of Ouanga

Revolt of the Zombies Victor

Halperin

1936

White Zombie Victor

Halperin

1932 Believed to be the earliest

zombie film

Hood of the Dead Snoop Dogg TBA