The BBC recently wrote a report on the zombie invasion of Brighton, where 3000 people walked through the streets of the seaside town dressed as the undead. Good, harmless fun, you might think, but the BBC is convinced that there’s more to it than that. They speculate about how the zombie is created.
You can read the full article here, but meanwhile here’s an overview of how zombies are portrayed in different films:
- Hell’s full: The classic movie Dawn of the Dead used the tagline, ‘When there’s no more room in hell, the dead will walk the earth”. Sounds pretty terrifying.
- Witchcraft: The original zombie was a Haitian creature – a corpse brought back to life by magic.
- A virus: 28 Days Later and its ilk herald in a new kind of fast-moving zombie – this time they’re not the undead; they’re infected.
- A result of society’s failings: The more academic view is that zombies are a result of a widespread problem in society, be it commercialism (Dawn of the Dead, again), the spread of reality TV (Dead Set) or unemployment (I don’t think this has been implied in film yet, but the BBC seems to think that it could be).
Did we miss any out? If so, drop us a line and we’ll add them in. While we may very well be ‘over thinking’ this, it’s crucial to understand the cause of zombie-ism if we are to find a long term solution to living with the zombie threat. There’s not much we can do about hell being full (go to church more often?). However, cures can be found for viruses, we can lobby the government if zombie-ism is caused by unemployment, and shoot Simon Cowell if it’s reality TV.