Legacy of the Dead: Unveiling the History of Zombies

In 1968, George Romero made a groundbreaking impact on zombie cinema, but interestingly, his iconic film ‘Night of the Living Dead’ never actually used the term “zombie.” Instead, it referred to its reanimated undead characters as “ghouls.” Romero cited Richard Matheson’s novel ‘I Am Legend’ as a key inspiration, which tells a story of a lone human survivor facing plague-induced vampires. This raises the question of why Romero’s film is often credited with revolutionizing the zombie genre if it didn’t actually feature zombies.

To understand this, we need to explore the origins of the zombie in American film. The roots of the zombie archetype can be traced back to Henry Francis Downing’s 1914 play ‘Voodoo’. Although it didn’t depict zombies directly, it incorporated voodoo magic, a significant element in zombie lore. Downing, an African-American diplomat and writer, set the stage for what would become the zombie genre. Oscar Micheaux, a pioneering African-American filmmaker, was aware of Downing’s work but never adapted it into a film.

Image Courtesy: IMDb

The first film to truly establish the zombie genre was Victor Halperin’s 1932 film ‘White Zombie’. Starring Bela Lugosi, this movie introduced the classic elements of zombies—voodoo, dark magic, and reanimated corpses. However, it did not include the iconic brain-eating behavior that later became synonymous with zombies. Although ‘White Zombie’ was successful, it did not lead to a wave of similar films.

In the 1940s, zombie films began to enter the mainstream with comedies like ‘Ghost Breakers’ and ‘Zombies on Broadway’, which depicted zombies in a less serious light. Jacques Tourneur’s ‘I Walked with a Zombie’ in 1943 was more notable for its atmospheric style and focus on Caribbean superstitions rather than on explicit zombie horror.

Image Courtesy: IMDb

Romero’s ‘Night of the Living Dead’ transformed the zombie genre by discarding the Caribbean and voodoo origins and introducing fully reanimated corpses that consume human flesh. By redefining zombies as a universal threat detached from their cultural roots, Romero expanded their symbolic range. Zombies evolved from cultural artifacts to vehicles for critiquing modern society and consumerism. Romero’s film didn’t just popularize zombies; it redefined them, turning them into a universal metaphor rather than a culturally specific one.

–Farheen Ali