The History of Zombie Films.

When a famous psychologist "Milgram" was questioned about why people are drawn to such gore as shown in zombie films, he gave this response. 

"The attraction of some to the zombie and the genre of films in which they appear represents an inner desire to place blame for society’s misgivings on the establishment, i.e. big business, big government, etc. and use the zombie as the most logical outcome if the establishment were to be left unchecked by a complacent population."

  

In other words this is the idea that an audience is drawn to zombie genered films as it puts the blame of societys downfalls on the bigger institutions such as the government and as a result subconciously makes the individual feel better about these mishaps in society, Zombie films can also often get at the idea of society becoming an extremely commercialsed place. The population can be complacent and as a result society has become commercially controlled to a certain level. Many modern day zombie films are set in shoppping centres or malls this is getting at this idea once again but through the motion of picture and potraying it through the downfall of the victims in these texts. 

Before 1968 zombie films were something completley different, Zombies were potrayed as corpses who were removed from their grave after death and turned into mindless scary looking slaves, who were usually ordered about by a particular master, a good example of a zombie having a master is "Frankenstein". Films of this time which also followed these aspects of a zombie film are " White Zombie"(1932) and "Revenge of the Zombies" (1943). The zombie shown on screen often had blackened faces and white clear eyes as shown in the photo on the right hand side of the page. They would also shown little facial expression if any atall. 

In the 1968 the birth of a modern type of zombie was born, This began when the film " The Night of the Living Dead" was released, a hole new era of Zombie films was started by the director of this text "George A Romero. Its said he is responsible for the creation of a whole new type of Zombie films starting with "The night of the living dead" and continuing all the way to modern day. 

In the 1980`s Zombie films took off, titles such as "Day of the Dead " and " The Dead next Door "  sent zombie films in the right direction and made them what they are today. During the 80`s and the production of these films certain unofficial rules were created as a norm to follow when producing a zombie film. Rules such as if you didnt die first then you aren`t a zombie. Zombies aren`t cannibals, they only feed on living human flesh. The only way to stop a zombie is a well placed head shot, which is the most dominant rule still existing in most zombie films in present day. And last but not least Zombies arent the most intelligent of things. 

In the 1990`s Zombie films seemed to take a bit of a turn for the worst as none of the relased zombie pictures did very well with some exceptions, films such as "Braindead" (1992) and "Dead men Dont Die" (1990) whihc both managed to hit the box office and attract quite a big audience of horror lovers. 

From the 1990`s to Present day Zombie films only seemed to improve, with the release of such zombie films as " 28 days later", " Shaun of the Dead" and a remake of the motion picture " Dawn of the Dead " which were all sucessful apon release.

         - JACK-