# What's the origin of the "Zombie Apocalypse" concept in film/games/fiction/etc.? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 9, 2007, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-origin-of-the-zombie-apocalypse-concept-in-film-games-fiction-etc/391438 "2007-02-09T01:32:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Equipoise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/equipoise/32/151_2.png) [@Equipoise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Equipoise)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2007, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-origin-of-the-zombie-apocalypse-concept-in-film-games-fiction-etc/391438/41 "2007-02-09T22:27:11Z")
Damn, that was a great post Miller! I am in awe. ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2007, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-origin-of-the-zombie-apocalypse-concept-in-film-games-fiction-etc/391438/42 "2007-02-09T22:30:53Z")
[QUOTE=Zebra] I was Chanel surfing the other day and on one of the Spanish language channels there was a movie of Lucha Libre or Masked Wrestlers fighting zombies. . [/QUOTE] “Chanel surfing”? You were using perfume? To cover up the zombie stink, mayhap? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2007, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-origin-of-the-zombie-apocalypse-concept-in-film-games-fiction-etc/391438/43 "2007-02-09T23:55:56Z")
[QUOTE=RickJay] Variations on the theme have also been employed, such as the film “28 Days Later,” where instead of the walking dead, people were infected with a virus that turned them into mindless killing machines, but the jist of it was the same. [/QUOTE] Thing is, though, the concept only works if the cause of the phenomenon is supernatural. If there were a virus like that and you caught it . . . you wouldn’t **live** 28 days. In fact, you’d probably die of thirst or hunger in a week or two. Think about it. ---
**Author:** ![Shirley\_Ujest](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shirley\_Ujest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shirley_Ujest)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2007, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-origin-of-the-zombie-apocalypse-concept-in-film-games-fiction-etc/391438/44 "2007-02-10T00:06:26Z")
[QUOTE=RickJay] A popular setting for horror fiction, movies, horror-themed games and the like is the ever-useful Zombie Apocalypse. In a zombie apocalypse, the world is unexpectedly overrun by swarms of the living dead, moaning, shambling zombies who go around eating the living. Zombie Apocalypse fiction usually features a number of plucky survivors attempting to survive in a world full of hideous, cannibalistic ghouls. Many movies, usually named “(Noun) Of the Dead” have been made on this theme, and virtually every horror writer worth mentioning has written at least one story about a world filled with hungry zombies. There’s even a book out now that serves as a how-to guide for dealing with hordes of flesh-eating corpses, featuring detailed instructions on constructing zombie-proof shelters, engaging in zombie elimination missions, and the like; if there is anything about dealing with homovorous undead, this guy thought of it. It’s a weird book. Variations on the theme have also been employed, such as the film “28 Days Later,” where instead of the walking dead, people were infected with a virus that turned them into mindless killing machines, but the jist of it was the same. I’m wondering where all this came from. Did someone just come up with the idea and then everyone else ran with it? [/QUOTE] In a world gone mad with economic down turns, car bombings,WMD’s, missing white women, rampant obesity, Anna Nicole’s Unsurprising Death and Whose her baby’s Daddy? I am thankful for the Real Issues of life like THIS being asked. This Magnificent Question is the kinda genius that keeps me subscribing to The Dope year after year. I bow to your greatness, sir. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2007, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-origin-of-the-zombie-apocalypse-concept-in-film-games-fiction-etc/391438/45 "2007-02-10T00:17:09Z")
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton] Thing is, though, the concept only works if the cause of the phenomenon is supernatural. If there were a virus like that and you caught it . . . you wouldn’t **live** 28 days. In fact, you’d probably die of thirst or hunger in a week or two. Think about it. [/QUOTE] I can’t think of any movies of the zombie holocaust genre that have involved any supernatural elements. I’m sure there are a few out there, but almost invariably, the zombie plague is either wholly unexplained, or the result of a scientific experiment gone horribly wrong. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Scrivener](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@The\_Scrivener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Scrivener)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2007, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-origin-of-the-zombie-apocalypse-concept-in-film-games-fiction-etc/391438/46 "2007-02-10T00:35:47Z")
[QUOTE=Gangster Octopus] That’s funny because me and a friend were shoooting the breeze one day and we had an idea for a movie about Zombies, but not the George Romero Zombies, No these zombies would be just like regular people, and the fact that people wouldnn’t stay dead was causing all sorts of problems with resources and there was also whatever -ism one could have against zombies (metabolism?). We actually saw it as a comedy. [/QUOTE] I haven’t seen it yet, but I believe Robin Campillo’s [URL=]Les Revenants [2004] more or less fits your bill, even if it may be more a [melo-]drama than a comedy. And that film in turn sounds like it could’ve been very loosely inspired by Will Self’s 1991 gently comic short story “The North London Book of the Dead,” in which a forty-ish man discovers that his mother, though deceased and cremated, is enjoying an afterlife in a modest basement apartment in a rather dull neighborhood in Crouch End. These living dead are zombies, but they’re perfectly ordinary – even banal – in their behavior. Their society is self-administering, with its own telephone book, real estate agents, and so on. A key difference between the short story and the film might be that Self’s [un]dead aren’t assimilationist, per se – they’re content to avoid their loved ones, live in unfamiliar neighborhoods to prevent their discovery, and not advertise their true nature. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2007, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-origin-of-the-zombie-apocalypse-concept-in-film-games-fiction-etc/391438/47 "2007-02-10T03:20:36Z")
[QUOTE=Zebra] I was Chanel surfing the other day and on one of the Spanish language channels there was a movie of Lucha Libre or Masked Wrestlers fighting zombies. It was called 'The Castel of ?" I wish I had seen the whole movie. It was really fun. [/QUOTE] _Santo contra los zombies_? (1961) [English version: _The Invasion of the Zombies_] > **[Santo vs. los zombies Review](https://www.grace.umd.edu/~dwilt/santozom.htm)** But more likely it was \*El Castillo de las Momias de Guanajuato \* [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0273144/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0273144/) Regarding the “mummies” of Guanajuato: [http://www.mummytombs.com/mummylocator/group/guanajuato.htm](http://www.mummytombs.com/mummylocator/group/guanajuato.htm) > [@](#): > > The Guanajuato mummies were discovered in a cemetery of a city named Guanajuato northwest of Mexico City (near Léon). They are accidental modern mummies and were literally “dug up” between the years 1896 and 1958 when a local law required relatives to pay a kind of grave tax.\* You could pay the tax once (170 pesos) and be done with it; this option may have appealed to wealthier individuals. But you were also allowed to pay a yearly fee (20 pesos); this would have appealed to less wealthy families. However, if the relatives could not pay this yearly tax for three years, the body (which had, by the way, become accidentally mummified) was dug up from the cemetery and (if the fee still wasn’t paid) placed on display in El museo de las momias. [Of course, what if the person’s family had moved from town–or what if the person was the last person from their family? Well, it didn’t matter; the law was the law!] > > Fortunately, in 1958, the law was changed. Although no new bodies have been exhumed, the museum still displays the original mummies. > > According to an article in the Arizona Republic (November 1, 2005), the mummies began attracting tourists in the early 1900s, “when cemetery workers began charging people a few pesos to enter the ossuary building where bones and mummies were stored. But business really took off after the 1970 movie Santo Versus the Mummies of Guanajuato, starring masked wrestler Rodolfo Guzmán Huerta.” And all that reminded me that in 1932 besides _White Zombie_, the original \*The Mummy \* was also released, AFAIK Lugosi’s zombies were more related to the zombies from Haiti (slaves in a trance, the people not quite really dead) I do wonder if the Mummy’s walk and mood at the time of reanimation was the influence for future undead behavior. ---
**Author:** ![Kamino\_Neko](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kamino_neko/32/34_2.png) [@Kamino\_Neko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamino_Neko)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2007, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-origin-of-the-zombie-apocalypse-concept-in-film-games-fiction-etc/391438/48 "2007-02-10T03:26:42Z")
[QUOTE=GIGObuster] And all that reminded me that in 1932 besides _White Zombie_, the original \*The Mummy \* was also released, AFAIK Lugosi’s zombies… [/QUOTE] Nitpick: The Mummy was Karloff, not Lugosi. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2007, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-origin-of-the-zombie-apocalypse-concept-in-film-games-fiction-etc/391438/49 "2007-02-10T03:49:37Z")
[QUOTE=Tengu] Nitpick: The Mummy was Karloff, not Lugosi. [/QUOTE] I know.. that came a little bit confusing. I meant to say indeed that in _White Zombie_ Lugosi’s Zombies were walking around like in a trance, Karloff’s _The Mummy_ was more (Romero) zombie like when it got out of the sarcophagus. BTW if you have the time and the bandwidth, you can check the original _White Zombie_ in Youtube, (warning: terrible sound quality) [![](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/0z6j1Hhqbxk/hqdefault.jpg "White Zombie 1932 Bela Lugosi") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0z6j1Hhqbxk) ---
**Author:** ![Kamino\_Neko](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kamino_neko/32/34_2.png) [@Kamino\_Neko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamino_Neko)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2007, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-origin-of-the-zombie-apocalypse-concept-in-film-games-fiction-etc/391438/50 "2007-02-10T03:55:01Z")
[QUOTE=GIGObuster] I know.. that came a little bit confusing. I meant to say indeed that in _White Zombie_ Lugosi’s Zombies were walking around like in a trance, Karloff’s _The Mummy_ was more (Romero) zombie like when it got out of the sarcophagus. [/QUOTE] OK, that’s clearer. Gotcha. Nitpick retracted. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2007, 4:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-origin-of-the-zombie-apocalypse-concept-in-film-games-fiction-etc/391438/51 "2007-02-10T04:55:28Z")
[QUOTE=Miller] I can’t think of any movies of the zombie holocaust genre that have involved any supernatural elements. I’m sure there are a few out there, but almost invariably, the zombie plague is either wholly unexplained, or the result of a scientific experiment gone horribly wrong. [/QUOTE] If it’s not a supernatural cause, it’s a matter of practically indistinguishable blackboxing. I mean, you and I walk and move because we eat food and drink water every day. A zombie who cannot be killed except by a head injury – IOW, who cannot die of dehydration or malnutrition, yet still somehow finds the energy to walk and move – is not a living organism by conventional standards. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2007, 5:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-origin-of-the-zombie-apocalypse-concept-in-film-games-fiction-etc/391438/52 "2007-02-10T05:02:03Z")
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton] If it’s not a supernatural cause, it’s a matter of practically indistinguishable blackboxing. I mean, you and I walk and move because we eat food and drink water every day. A zombie who cannot be killed except by a head injury – IOW, who cannot die of dehydration or malnutrition, yet still somehow finds the energy to walk and move – is not a living organism by conventional standards. [/QUOTE] What’s your point? ---
**Author:** ![Raguleader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/258eb7/32.png) [@Raguleader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raguleader)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2007, 5:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-origin-of-the-zombie-apocalypse-concept-in-film-games-fiction-etc/391438/53 "2007-02-10T05:19:09Z")
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton] If it’s not a supernatural cause, it’s a matter of practically indistinguishable blackboxing. I mean, you and I walk and move because we eat food and drink water every day. A zombie who cannot be killed except by a head injury – IOW, who cannot die of dehydration or malnutrition, yet still somehow finds the energy to walk and move – is not a living organism by conventional standards. [/QUOTE] Ooh, ooh, I know! He’s a plant! ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2007, 5:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-origin-of-the-zombie-apocalypse-concept-in-film-games-fiction-etc/391438/54 "2007-02-10T05:19:58Z")
[QUOTE=Raguleader] Ooh, ooh, I know! He’s a plant! [/QUOTE] No, no, plants die without water. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2007, 5:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-origin-of-the-zombie-apocalypse-concept-in-film-games-fiction-etc/391438/55 "2007-02-10T05:21:04Z")
[QUOTE=Miller] What’s your point? [/QUOTE] That zombies cannot exist except by means supernatural or practically indistinguishable from supernatural. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2007, 5:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-origin-of-the-zombie-apocalypse-concept-in-film-games-fiction-etc/391438/56 "2007-02-10T05:44:50Z")
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton] That zombies cannot exist except by means supernatural or practically indistinguishable from supernatural. [/QUOTE] I kinda think “zombies aren’t real” is a given for threads like this. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2007, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-origin-of-the-zombie-apocalypse-concept-in-film-games-fiction-etc/391438/57 "2007-02-10T19:29:16Z")
[QUOTE=Miller] I kinda think “zombies aren’t real” is a given for threads like this. [/QUOTE] My point is that you can’t even make a “realistic” SF film about living pseudozombies, such as _28 Days,_ and actually have it be realistic. ---
**Author:** ![Hugh\_Mongoose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8dc957/32.png) [@Hugh\_Mongoose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hugh_Mongoose)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2007, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-origin-of-the-zombie-apocalypse-concept-in-film-games-fiction-etc/391438/58 "2007-02-10T20:08:27Z")
(Going back to an earlier discussion) As far as **I Am Legend** goes, I can’t say I hold out too much hope for the plot of the movie. I can, however, say that I expect it to be visually stunning. I’m biased, however. My cousin Pat’s the art director. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2007, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-origin-of-the-zombie-apocalypse-concept-in-film-games-fiction-etc/391438/59 "2007-02-10T20:53:56Z")
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton] My point is that you can’t even make a “realistic” SF film about living pseudozombies, such as _28 Days,_ and actually have it be realistic. [/QUOTE] Thanks for clearing that up. I’m sure it was a source of great confusion for many of us. ---
**Author:** ![chrisk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@chrisk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chrisk)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2007, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-origin-of-the-zombie-apocalypse-concept-in-film-games-fiction-etc/391438/60 "2007-02-10T21:04:49Z")
Re the Serenity variant: [QUOTE=Raguleader] …In later years, the Reavers become the Boogieman for those who live out on the Rim, occassionally attacking ships and small colonies, raping, killing, and eating most (if you’re very very lucky, in that order)… [/QUOTE] [spoiler]Hmm… if I’m very very lucky, I’d rather be killed first, raped, and THEN eaten. Or maybe, (if I’m in a whimsical mood that day,) killed first, then eaten, and then raped, but I’m not so sure about that. Or are you implying that nobody is ever lucky enough to be killed first??[/spoiler] 😃 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-origin-of-the-zombie-apocalypse-concept-in-film-games-fiction-etc/391438.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-origin-of-the-zombie-apocalypse-concept-in-film-games-fiction-etc/391438.md?page=4)