World War Z

[Major Robert Dump]

Theres also a book called "The Zombie Survival Guide" that was, as far as I know, the first of its kind. Had it for a few years now, very fun read

[Lemur]

Theres also a book called "The Zombie Survival Guide" that was, as far as I know, the first of its kind. Had it for a few years now, very fun read

Sam author as World War Z, as I just noticed. This guy, Max Brooks, definitely has his finger to the undead pulse of America.

[Rodion Romanovich]

The Hollywood interpretation of the "zombie" cultism/religion always make me think of the masses deprived of own thought when exposed to propaganda. That they happen to eat brains makes the methaphor even more ironic. I don't know if it's intentional or not that the Hollywood zombies are depicted in such a way. As for the origins of zombies, wiki says: "A zombie is an undead person in the Afro-Caribbean spiritual belief system [...] zombies are humans who have had their 'Ti Bon Ange' or soul stolen by supernatural means and shamanic medicine, and are forced to work for their 'zombie master' as uncomplaining slaves on isolated plantations", which makes for an interesting parallell with the European slave-driven plantages established by early colonists in America, and how the victims of these would have been thinking about their situation, and how they in folklore and tales would escape reality into a fantasy inspired by the real-life horrors they escaped from. Folkloric tales of various forms similar to the zombie myth, i.e. undead rising to fight the living in various ways, seem to exist in many other cultures too, but with other directions. Medieval France apparently being the rise of the classical European ghosts who would usually be victims of crimes and would return to haunt the uncaught criminal and sinner who slayed them - perhaps a methaphor of conscience, a tool of instilling God-fearing, or just a myth risen from the dogmatic desire that no crimes would go past unpunished and the myths see those perpetrators that in real life escape punished. And wiki also mentions the existence of the "undead" in the old Sumeric "Epic of Gilgamesh".

I don't fear any mythological folklore zombies, but some of the real-world concepts that have influenced various forms of literary zombie myths are IMO scary, and the metaphors close enough to real-life concepts that are worth fearing:
- the oppressive plantage owners, and the concept of slavery
- the Hollywood type of zombie which is in my interpretation a metaphor of brainwashed masses who have fallen for propaganda and act without own thought

Perhaps it's this real-life connection that makes zombies such successful horror movie characters... As it subconsciously makes you relate to real-life things that you fear, even when you don't believe in supernatural ghosts. The concepts of the zombies do exist, but they are seldom presented by hideous-looking living dead, but rather by charismatic persuasive human beings. As for hideous-looking people who look like walking dead, perhaps our strange mutations and most twisted forms of genetical research, as well as the ways in which we breed ourselves humans and expose ourselves to different forms of poisonous substances and cause an unnatural selection which selects the most psycopathic and cold-hearted of us from each generation, perhaps something both looking and acting like a zombie, like a machine, will be reality when thousands of more years of "civilization" have passed.

[yesdachi]

- the Hollywood type of zombie which is in my interpretation a metaphor of brainwashed masses who have fallen for propaganda and act without own thought

And is it any surprise that they all went to the mall (Dawn of the dead?)!
The effects of marketing last past death! (or would it be un-death?)