# When did zombies change from magic to science? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 19, 2019, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-zombies-change-from-magic-to-science/829833 "2019-02-19T15:33:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Jet\_Jaguar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jet_jaguar/32/3562_2.png) [@Jet\_Jaguar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jet_Jaguar)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2019, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-zombies-change-from-magic-to-science/829833/1 "2019-02-19T15:33:24Z")
Nowadays, zombies are generally the product of some sort of scientific process, such as a viral infection spread by biting. But when I was a kid (late 70’s - early 80’s) zombies were usually created through the use of black magic, raised from the dead by a voodoo shaman. I’m not really into the zombie genre, so I was curious. When did this shift from magic to a scientific origin take place? Was there a single influential work that started it, or was it a more gradual change? Is there any particular reason for the shift? ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2019, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-zombies-change-from-magic-to-science/829833/2 "2019-02-19T15:45:28Z")
George Romero and John Russo pretty much created the modern idea of zombies with _Night of the Living Dead_ in 1968. ---
**Author:** ![DigitalC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ebca7d/32.png) [@DigitalC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DigitalC)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2019, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-zombies-change-from-magic-to-science/829833/3 "2019-02-19T15:51:08Z")
I’m not sure I agree with your premise, some times the zombies are science based but more often than not the cause is unknown. The most popular zombie show “The Walking Dead” has never given a source for the zombies. Neither did the most popular zombie book “World War Z” or the movie that was vaguely based on it. None of the Romero movies ever give a concrete reason. Of the top of my head the only popular zombie franchises that give a scientific reason for the outbreak are the “return of the living dead” movies from the 80s and “28 days later” which are barely zombies. ---
**Author:** ![BubbaDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bubbadog/32/333_2.png) [@BubbaDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BubbaDog)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2019, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-zombies-change-from-magic-to-science/829833/4 "2019-02-19T15:58:52Z")
> [@DigitalC](#): > > I’m not sure I agree with your premise, some times the zombies are science based but more often than not the cause is unknown. The most popular zombie show “The Walking Dead” has never given a source for the zombies. Neither did the most popular zombie book “World War Z” or the movie that was vaguely based on it. None of the Romero movies ever give a concrete reason. Of the top of my head the only popular zombie franchises that give a scientific reason for the outbreak are the “return of the living dead” movies from the 80s and “28 days later” which are barely zombies. The walking dead had a scene of a brain scan showing the brain “re-awakening”. I’d call that a “science based” phenomena. It doesn’t explain the origin but does show some process other than magic occurring. ---
**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 19, 2019, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-zombies-change-from-magic-to-science/829833/5 "2019-02-19T16:04:01Z")
The original Night of the Living Dead did have a radio report that speculated that the zombies were caused by a probe returning from Venus that exploded in the atmosphere. I don’t think that was intended to be the actual answer, and the same report says scientists and the military still have no idea what caused it, but it does sort of “bait the hook” for there being a scientific explanation behind this genre of zombie film. Later films in the series, where we see scientists experimenting on the dead, probably helped cement it as a “science” thing. ---
**Author:** ![DigitalC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ebca7d/32.png) [@DigitalC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DigitalC)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2019, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-zombies-change-from-magic-to-science/829833/6 "2019-02-19T16:04:22Z")
> [@BubbaDog](#): > > The walking dead had a scene of a brain scan showing the brain “re-awakening”. I’d call that a “science based” phenomena. It doesn’t explain the origin but does show some process other than magic occurring. I disagree. I think most zombie franchises purposely keep the reason unknowable because if they go science based it tends to push the story into a search for the cure instead of zombies as a catalyst for the real conflict. ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2019, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-zombies-change-from-magic-to-science/829833/7 "2019-02-19T16:04:44Z")
> [@DigitalC](#): > > None of the Romero movies ever give a concrete reason. Night of the Living Dead has a scientist positing space radiation from a crashed satellite. Which isn’t “concrete” but certainly sets a different tone than “…or maybe voodoo magic”. ---
**Author:** ![mbh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2019, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-zombies-change-from-magic-to-science/829833/8 "2019-02-19T16:07:27Z")
The idea of a scientifically-animated creature has been around since Mary Shelly’s _Frankenstein_. H.P. Lovecraft and Richard Matheson are often credited with popularizing the notion. > **[Zombie](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zombie)** > > A zombie (Haitian French: zombi, Haitian Creole: zonbi, Kikongo: zumbi) is a mythological undead corporeal revenant created through the reanimation of a corpse. In modern popular culture, zombies are most commonly found in horror and fantasy genre works. The term comes from Haitian folklore, in which a zombie is a dead body reanimated through various methods, most commonly magical practices in religions like Vodou. Modern media depictions of the reanimation of the dead often do not involve mag... > [@](#): > > n the 1920s and early 1930s, the American horror author H. P. Lovecraft wrote several novellae that explored the undead theme. “Cool Air”, “In the Vault”, and “The Outsider” all deal with the undead, but Lovecraft’s Herbert West–Reanimator (1921) “helped define zombies in popular culture”.[46] This series of short stories featured Herbert West, a mad scientist who attempts to revive human corpses with mixed results. Notably, the resurrected dead are uncontrollable, mostly mute, primitive and extremely violent; though they are not referred to as zombies, their portrayal was prescient, anticipating the modern conception of zombies by several decades.[citation needed] Edgar Rice Burroughs similarly depicted animated corpses in the second book of his Venus series, again without ever using the terms “zombie” or “undead”. > > Avenging zombies would feature prominently in the early 1950s EC Comics, which George A. Romero would later claim as an influence. The comics, including Tales from the Crypt, Vault of Horror and Weird Science, featured avenging undead in the Gothic tradition quite regularly, including adaptations of Lovecraft’s stories, which included “In the Vault”, “Cool Air” and Herbert West–Reanimator.[47] > > Richard Matheson’s 1954 novel I Am Legend, although classified as a vampire story would nonetheless have definitive impact on the zombie genre by way of George A. Romero. The novel and its 1964 film adaptation, The Last Man on Earth, which concern a lone human survivor waging war against a world of vampires, would by Romero’s own admission greatly influence his 1968 low-budget film Night of the Living Dead;[48][49] a work that would prove to be more influential on the concept of zombies than any literary or cinematic work before it. > [@](#): > > The modern conception of the zombie owes itself almost entirely to George A. Romero’s 1968 film Night of the Living Dead.[1][54][55] In his films, Romero “bred the zombie with the vampire, and what he got was the hybrid vigour of a ghoulish plague monster”.[56] This entailed an apocalyptic vision of monsters that have come to be known as Romero zombies. > [@](#): > > The 1981 film Hell of the Living Dead referenced a mutagenic gas as a source of zombie contagion: an idea also used in Dan O’Bannon’s 1985 film Return of the Living Dead. Return of the Living Dead featured zombies that hungered specifically for brains. ---
**Author:** ![DigitalC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ebca7d/32.png) [@DigitalC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DigitalC)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2019, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-zombies-change-from-magic-to-science/829833/9 "2019-02-19T16:07:55Z")
> [@Jophiel](#): > > Night of the Living Dead has a scientist positing space radiation from a crashed satellite. Which isn’t “concrete” but certainly sets a different tone than “…or maybe voodoo magic”. It’s a guess, no more certain than “when there is no more room in hell the dead will walk the earth”. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2019, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-zombies-change-from-magic-to-science/829833/10 "2019-02-19T16:18:19Z")
> [@DigitalC](#): > > es. Neither did the most popular zombie book “World War Z” or the movie that was vaguely based on it. The book(s) most definitely did- they mention some sort of virus called “Solanum” that causes the dead to rise, etc… ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2019, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-zombies-change-from-magic-to-science/829833/11 "2019-02-19T16:19:26Z")
George Romero claimed in various interviews that he was inspired by Richard Matheson’s novel _I Am Legend_ to make his zombies. so if you’re claiming Romero as your source, Romero’s source was a 1954 novel, which was actually trying to give a science-fiction gloss to _Vampires_, not Zombies. Matheson’s book was first adapted to film in 1964 as _The Last Man on Earth_, starring Vincent Price in an unusual-for-him role. Matheson wrote the first draft of the screenplay, but wasn’t happy with the way the film ultimately veered from his work, and used a pseudonym. Nevertheless, the film predates _Night of the Living Dead_ by four years. Despite Romero’s claim, however, I think he was much more heavily influenced by a movie, rather than a book. **Invisible Invaders** , a 1959 film, featured invaders from space who took over dead human bodies and attacked the living. They didn’t eat people, but they had the same dark-circles-under-the-eyes look as Romero’s zombies, the same stiff walk, and they went about dressed in suits (as they were buried in, or as they wore when they died), and the whole look is similar to Romero’s zombies. Plus, the “zombies” WERE in this case revived by a “satellite in outer space” Of course, you could make many of the same arguments about Ed Wood’s **Plan Nine from Outer Space** 9which was originally to be called “Grave Robbers from Outer Space”), which also came out in 1959, but Invisible Invaders had infinitely higher production values, not to mention the presence of John Carradine (who, like Lugosi, had also played Dracula, another famous revenant) and other stars of note. So I think "scientific’ zombies date back at least to 1959. ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2019, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-zombies-change-from-magic-to-science/829833/12 "2019-02-19T16:20:59Z")
> [@DigitalC](#): > > It’s a guess, no more certain than “when there is no more room in hell the dead will walk the earth”. As I said, it’s not concrete but offers a scientific explanation for it instead of “A wizard did it”. It also came during an era of numerous horror and monster films which used (generally laughable) science as their foundation. I think you’re dismissing it (and its impact on later films) a little too readily. ---
**Author:** ![Dropo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ce7236/32.png) [@Dropo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dropo)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2019, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-zombies-change-from-magic-to-science/829833/13 "2019-02-19T16:21:31Z")
Scientific creation of zombies goes back at least to the 1940s. _King of the Zombies_ (1941) uses a combination of voodoo and Nazi science, while in _Revenge of the Zombies_ (1943), it’s all Nazi science. In _Invisible Invaders_ (1959), aliens possess the bodies of the recently deceased. ETA: Ninja’d on the last by Mr. Meacham. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2019, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-zombies-change-from-magic-to-science/829833/14 "2019-02-19T16:22:53Z")
> [@DigitalC](#): > > I disagree. I think most zombie franchises purposely keep the reason unknowable because if they go science based it tends to push the story into a search for the cure instead of zombies as a catalyst for the real conflict. There’s never been any suggestion in _The Walking Dead_ that there are supernatural causes for zombies. And while much of the show is focused on conflicts between humans, there have been several story lines related to zombification being some kind of infection and finding a cure for it. _The Walking Dead_ clearly suggests that there is some kind of scientific basis for zombies. (Set aside the fact that zombies appear to defy physical laws like being able to walk around for years without any energy input like food.) ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2019, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-zombies-change-from-magic-to-science/829833/15 "2019-02-19T16:46:34Z")
The original _I Walked with a Zombie_, which was instrumental in popularizing the term, was ambiguous, but definitely leaned toward a scientific explanation: people were turned into zombies due to a combination of drugs and psychological manipulation. ---
**Author:** ![DigitalC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ebca7d/32.png) [@DigitalC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DigitalC)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2019, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-zombies-change-from-magic-to-science/829833/16 "2019-02-19T16:48:21Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > There’s never been any suggestion in _The Walking Dead_ that there are supernatural causes for zombies. And while much of the show is focused on conflicts between humans, there have been several story lines related to zombification being some kind of infection and finding a cure for it. _The Walking Dead_ clearly suggests that there is some kind of scientific basis for zombies. (Set aside the fact that zombies appear to defy physical laws like being able to walk around for years without any energy input like food.) The one scientist on the show suggested a scientific basis, but his only real answer was “we don’t know and we can’t cure it”. The Walking Dead takes place on the “real” world where things like magic and voodoo don’t exist so the default assumption is disease either man made or natural, but we don’t actually KNOW. Same is true for Romero zombies. There are only a couple examples with clearly defined scientific explanations for zombies, the government chemical barrels in Return of the Living Dead and the Rage virus from the monkey experiments in 28 Days Later. Everything else is guesses and theories, obviously mostly science based because the worlds they take place on are mostly realistic ones. ---
**Author:** ![MrAtoz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@MrAtoz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrAtoz)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2019, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-zombies-change-from-magic-to-science/829833/17 "2019-02-19T17:03:53Z")
> [@bump](#): > > The book(s) most definitely did- they mention some sort of virus called “Solanum” that causes the dead to rise, etc… “Solanum” is actually the genus that includes potatoes, tomatoes, and eggplants, among other foodstuffs, so be very careful in your vegetable garden… It’s worth mentioning, I think, that _Night of the Living Dead_ never actually uses the word “zombie” to describe its undead antagonists. Romero tended to call them “ghouls,” and the characters in the movie mostly call them “those things.” I’m not sure when the “hoards of undead feasting on the living” came to be called “zombies”–possibly it had to do with the Italian zombie films of people like Lucio Fulci–but Romero wasn’t responsible for that part of it. I’ve always kind of wished that popular culture had settled on a different name for these things. The sort of ravening undead things craving human flesh that are modern “zombies” are really a very different type of monster than the magically-created undead slave labor that derives from Haitian folklore. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2019, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-zombies-change-from-magic-to-science/829833/18 "2019-02-19T17:28:32Z")
The _Return Of The Living Dead_ movies(five so far) use a chemical called “Trioxin” to create the zombies. ---
**Author:** ![Jet\_Jaguar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jet_jaguar/32/3562_2.png) [@Jet\_Jaguar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jet_Jaguar)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2019, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-zombies-change-from-magic-to-science/829833/19 "2019-02-19T17:54:57Z")
> [@MrAtoz](#): > > I’ve always kind of wished that popular culture had settled on a different name for these things. The sort of ravening undead things craving human flesh that are modern “zombies” are really a very different type of monster than the magically-created undead slave labor that derives from Haitian folklore. Sounds like the question I should be asking is, how did the Haitian zombie become conflated with the sci-fi zombie in the 70’s? I suppose there was a general interest in magic and the supernatural at the time. I remember when I was a kid that I was certain that I’d either disappear in the Bermuda Triangle, or be possessed by the Devil. ---
**Author:** ![ricksummon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ricksummon/32/3333_2.png) [@ricksummon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ricksummon)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2019, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-zombies-change-from-magic-to-science/829833/20 "2019-02-19T18:12:00Z")
> [@Jophiel](#): > > As I said, it’s not concrete but offers a scientific explanation for it instead of “A wizard did it”. It’s more likely that a _cleric_ did it, since _animate dead_ is a lower-level spell for them. 😃 [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-zombies-change-from-magic-to-science/829833.md?page=2)