THE CAULDRON
Stirring the pot with Angeline Hawkes

There is but one step from the grotesque to the horrible.

- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle


Monsters in Horror: Why They Will Never Die
Part 3: Zombies


There are many types of monsters: the ones we classify as supernatural, to the human monster in the news. Monsters are with us whether we like it or not. When researching the origins of typical monsters, one can find similar creatures in nearly every culture. Sometimes used for religious purposes, sometimes for entertainment, or sometimes to take the place of scientific knowledge. Zombies, or the belief in their existence, have been recorded in various cultures since ancient times. The first written record appears in the Epic of Gilgamesh, written in ancient Sumerian.

Simply put, a zombie is a reanimated corpse. How it gets that way varies from people to people. Some are transformed from a living state to a state of zombification by magic, potions, or other narcotics. The influence of the power of suggestion, or brainwashing has been attached to the belief in zombies as well. Powerful voodoo priests use a combination of mind control and narcotics to impose a state of zombification on living individuals. One can still find documented cases in modern newspapers regarding zombies in third world countries.

There are generally two types of zombies: Movie/Literature zombies and Voodoo zombies. The first type, movie/literature zombies do not exist. It's a scientific fact that a human body cannot die, decompose, then return mindless to consume brains. Voodoo zombies are the above discussed living beings turned mindless by powerful substances or brainwashing.

As with other monsters that derive from the living, and end up lumped with all manners of undead, zombies appear in multiple belief systems. In Norse mythology the draugr is believed to be a reanimated corpse of a warrior come back to attack the living. The word zombie perhaps originated with the word jumbie, the West Indian word for ghost.

In popular fiction and movies, the reader/viewer has seen a wide array of zombification methods. Viruses, pollution of some sort be it nuclear or other radiation, voodoo practices, sorcery or witchcraft, or scientific experimentation gone awry all have found their place in the zombie volumes. Sometimes the zombies are rounded up and put down, the world freed of their menace. Other times the outcomes aren't good and the world ends up populated only by zombies -- mankind is destroyed. From Lucio Fulci's ZOMBIE to Brian Keene's The Rising, zombies continue to find new ways to infiltrate fiction.

Rock bands, books, movies, role-playing games, the outlets are endless. Zombies have changed a little, or a lot, depending on your perspective, since the middle ages. Our fears of actual reanimated corpses invading local haunts may not be as strong as the superstitious medieval man, but in this day of biological warfare and experimentation, our fear of potential zombification through virus or other poisons on a living being may not be that unfounded.

Either way, remember: the only way to kill a zombie is decapitation. Unlike the zombie's fellow monster, the vampire, there aren't multiple ways to destroy it. Cut off an arm, and the arm and the rest will continue to hunt you. Don't believe in zombies? Good for you. We'll be sure to keep an extra shovel, chainsaw, ax, sword, or other sharp implement handy just in case zombies invade and you find yourself short on weapons. Or in case you've already joined the zombie ranks.