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Evolution of the Undead: A Brief History of Zombies in Horror

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Of all the movie monsters, the zombie is the most deceivingly simple. Zombies are reanimated corpses, hollow, decayed husks of their former selves driven by primal instinct. Yet, zombies almost always tend to serve as reflections of current fears, making their evolution in film one of the most interesting. In other words, zombie movies are never even really about zombies. From voodoo to viral outbreaks, from rigor mortis crawls to rage-induced sprints, the zombie has grown from B-movie status to mainstream pop-culture phenomena over the decades.

Long before they made their debut on celluloid, the zombie terrorized through Haitian folklore and storytelling. The word “zombie” is said to have come from “nzambi,” which in West Africa translates to “spirit of a dead person,” or “zonbi,” a Haitian Creole word that refers to a dead person that’s been reanimated by magical means. Haitian folklore usually featured Bokors as the necromancers of the dead. These practitioners of the dark arts would resurrect the deceased, though they’d have no free will or speech. They were slaves to the master who raised them. So, it’s not surprising that the first zombies on film followed this tradition in 1932’s White Zombie.

Based on William Seabrook’s novel The Magic IslandWhite Zombie stars Bela Lugosi as Murder Legendre, an evil voodoo master with a horde of zombie slaves that operate his sugar cane mill. A wealthy plantation owner seeks Murder’s help in luring a woman away from her fiancé, but Murder instead turns the woman into another one of his zombie slaves. 1943’s I Walked with a Zombie follows a nurse hired to care for a Caribbean plantation owner’s ailing wife, and runs afoul of voodoo and zombies. 1941’s King of the Zombies saw a trio of wayward travelers wind up at an island mansion for refuge, and find their host is not only working with spies but a voodoo master of zombies. In Revenge of the Zombies, a Nazi inhabiting an old Louisiana swamp mansion raises zombies to amass an undead army for the Third Reich. The shared themes and similar plot setups among the zombie films of the ‘30s and ‘40s heavily revolve around race and fears of oppression.

By the ‘50s, horror had shifted into its atomic age, the threat of the atom bomb and nuclear war playing a significant role in the fears of the decade. Threats from beyond the boundaries of Earth also played a significant factor. This reflected in the zombie trope. Genre filmmakers retooled what a zombie could be, and moved away from voodoo. Teenage Zombies featured a mad scientist that turns teens into her slaves through nerve gas. A former Nazi controlled an atomic-powered zombie to help a gangster return to power in Creature with the Atom Brain. Aliens resurrected the dead to destroy the living in Ed Wood’s Plan 9 from Outer Space. Aliens flat-out inhabited the bodies of the dead to attack the living in Invisible Invaders.

Richard Matheson’s 1954 novel I Am Legend centered around a sole survivor of a pandemic that wiped out most of the human population and turned everyone else into blood-sucking vampires. The book inspired multiple adaptations, but more importantly, it was one of the apocalyptic movies that inspired the filmmaker who would change how we viewed zombies forever; George A. Romero. His seminal Night of the Living Dead never even uttered the word “zombie,” but created a blueprint that would be copied for decades. His film established that the living dead would devour the flesh of the living, that they could only be destroyed by damage to their brains, and that they could spread their undead status with a bite. Despite the gory nature of these ghouls, they were a faceless foe that revealed that the living were their own worst enemy. The casting of Duane Jones as Ben, the hero that meets a tragic fate at the end of the film for being mistaken as a ghoul, takes on a more socially charged context given the political climate at the time of release.

The blank slate of the zombie outbreak continued in Romero inspired films like Let Sleeping Corpses Lie (The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue), which aimed at counter-culture fears, and Deathdream (Dead of Night) explored Vietnam war anxieties through a fallen soldier’s return from the grave. Romero’s follow up, Dawn of the Dead, aimed its bite at consumerism with its central protagonists barricaded in a mall. Dawn was Romero’s first to actually use the word “zombie” in relation to its flesh-eating corpses.

Re-Animator

The golden age of practical effects in the ‘80s meant that zombies as metaphor took a backseat, letting the gore and creature effects take center stage. Lucio Fulci upped the ante on zombie gore with his zombie-centric films. The basic rules of Romero’s Living Dead were mostly adhered to but tinkered with enough to offer up exciting takes on the subgenre. The Return of the Living Dead showed off the dead’s playful side with punk rock attitude. Re-Animator gave H.P. Lovecraft’s work a gory sense of humor with teeth. Dead & Buried reintroduced voodoo to the subgenre. Wes Craven’s The Serpent and the Rainbow eschewed the ‘80s practical effects-driven aesthetic to take the zombie film back to its Haitian roots. Mostly, though, the decade was defined by intricate and unique designs for its brain-hungry undead, with buckets of blood and guts spilled. Peter Jackson’s early ’90s Dead Alive (Braindead) set the gold standard in zom-com gore, though the decade was zombie-lite for the most part.

It was in the 21st century, though, that the subgenre splintered into various branches of exploration of what a zombie could be. Viral outbreak films like 28 Days LaterI Am Legend, and the Dawn of the Dead remake exploited fears of contagion while making the infected zombies faster and stronger than ever before. Zombie comedies like Shaun of the Dead and Fido used zombies as a mere backdrop and catalyst for the personal growth of its human characters. More recently, Train to Busan and One Cut of the Dead used the zombie formula as a foundation to craft heartwarming (and tear-jerking) tales of family bonds tested.

Every time the zombie subgenre falls into an overly repetitive pattern and looks to wane in popularity, a new take brings about a resurgence. Look at The Walking Dead series, for example. Its extreme success didn’t just make zombies trendy again but gave the zombie story mainstream appeal. Even in its latter seasons with viewership at an all-time low, it still pulls in 4.5 million viewers. It also helped pave the way for gore on TV, at least in terms of making it more acceptable.

More than any other movie monster, the zombie has proven adept at evolving; the mindless nature of the living dead makes for a perfect blank canvas. Even without the potential applications of socially-driven horror, we humans tend to fear death and what could be waiting for us beyond. There’s something inherently terrifying about a flesh-eating, rotting corpse, and the apocalyptic nature surrounding it; the not-so underlying message that you can’t escape death is crystal clear.

No matter the ebbs and flows of horror trends, zombies never stay dead for long.

Horror journalist, RT Top Critic, and Critics Choice Association member. Co-Host of the Bloody Disgusting Podcast. Has appeared on PBS series' Monstrum, served on the SXSW Midnighter shorts jury, and moderated horror panels for WonderCon and SeriesFest.

Editorials

‘Leprechaun Returns’ – The Charm of the Franchise’s Legacy Sequel

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leprechaun returns

The erratic Leprechaun franchise is not known for sticking with a single concept for too long. The namesake (originally played by Warwick Davis) has gone to L.A., Las Vegas, space, and the ‘hood (not once but twice). And after an eleven-year holiday since the Davis era ended, the character received a drastic makeover in a now-unmentionable reboot. The critical failure of said film would have implied it was time to pack away the green top hat and shillelagh, and say goodbye to the nefarious imp. Instead, the Leprechaun series tried its luck again.

The general consensus for the Leprechaun films was never positive, and the darker yet blander Leprechaun: Origins certainly did not sway opinions. Just because the 2014 installment took itself seriously did not mean viewers would. After all, creator Mark Jones conceived a gruesome horror-comedy back in the early nineties, and that format is what was expected of any future ventures. So as horror legacy sequels (“legacyquels”) became more common in the 2010s, Leprechaun Returns followed suit while also going back to what made the ‘93 film work. This eighth entry echoed Halloween (2018) by ignoring all the previous sequels as well as being a direct continuation of the original. Even ardent fans can surely understand the decision to wipe the slate clean, so to speak.

Leprechaun Returns “continued the [franchise’s] trend of not being consistent by deciding to be consistent.” The retconning of Steven Kostanski and Suzanne Keilly’s film was met with little to no pushback from the fandom, who had already become accustomed to seeing something new and different with every chapter. Only now the “new and different” was familiar. With the severe route of Origins a mere speck in the rearview mirror, director Kotanski implemented a “back to basics” approach that garnered better reception than Zach Lipovsky’s own undertaking. The one-two punch of preposterous humor and grisly horror was in full force again.

LEPRECHAUN

Pictured: Linden Porco as The Leprechaun in Leprechaun Returns.

With Warwick Davis sitting this film out — his own choice — there was the foremost challenge of finding his replacement. Returns found Davis’ successor in Linden Porco, who admirably filled those blood-stained, buckled shoes. And what would a legacy sequel be without a returning character? Jennifer Aniston obviously did not reprise her final girl role of Tory Redding. So, the film did the next best thing and fetched another of Lubdan’s past victims: Ozzie, the likable oaf played by Mark Holton. Returns also created an extension of Tory’s character by giving her a teenage daughter, Lila (Taylor Spreitler).

It has been twenty-five years since the events of the ‘93 film. The incident is unknown to all but its survivors. Interested in her late mother’s history there in Devil’s Lake, North Dakota, Lila transferred to the local university and pledged a sorority — really the only one on campus — whose few members now reside in Tory Redding’s old home. The farmhouse-turned-sorority-house is still a work in progress; Lila’s fellow Alpha Epsilon sisters were in the midst of renovating the place when a ghost of the past found its way into the present.

The Psycho Goreman and The Void director’s penchant for visceral special effects is noted early on as the Leprechaun tears not only into the modern age, but also through poor Ozzie’s abdomen. The portal from 1993 to 2018 is soaked with blood and guts as the Leprechaun forces his way into the story. Davis’ iconic depiction of the wee antagonist is missed, however, Linden Porco is not simply keeping the seat warm in case his predecessor ever resumes the part. His enthusiastic performance is accentuated by a rotten-looking mug that adds to his innate menace.

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Pictured: Taylor Spreitler, Pepi Sonuga, and Sai Bennett as Lila, Katie and Rose in Leprechaun Returns.

The obligatory fodder is mostly young this time around. Apart from one luckless postman and Ozzie — the premature passing of the latter character removed the chance of caring about anyone in the film — the Leprechaun’s potential prey are all college aged. Lila is this story’s token trauma kid with caregiver baggage; her mother thought “monsters were always trying to get her.” Lila’s habit of mentioning Tory’s mental health problem does not make a good first impression with the resident mean girl and apparent alcoholic of the sorority, Meredith (Emily Reid). Then there are the nicer but no less cursorily written of the Alpha Epsilon gals: eco-conscious and ex-obsessive Katie (Pepi Sonuga), and uptight overachiever Rose (Sai Bennett). Rounding out the main cast are a pair of destined-to-die bros (Oliver Llewellyn Jenkins, Ben McGregor). Lila and her peers range from disposable to plain irritating, so rooting for any one of them is next to impossible. Even so, their overstated personalities make their inevitable fates more satisfying.

Where Returns excels is its death sequences. Unlike Jones’ film, this one is not afraid of killing off members of the main cast. Lila, admittedly, wears too much plot armor, yet with her mother’s spirit looming over her and the whole story — comedian Heather McDonald put her bang-on Aniston impersonation to good use as well as provided a surprisingly emotional moment in the film — her immunity can be overlooked. Still, the other characters’ brutal demises make up for Lila’s imperviousness. The Leprechaun’s killer set-pieces also happen to demonstrate the time period, seeing as he uses solar panels and a drone in several supporting characters’ executions. A premortem selfie and the antagonist’s snarky mention of global warming additionally add to this film’s particular timestamp.

Critics were quick to say Leprechaun Returns did not break new ground. Sure, there is no one jetting off to space, or the wacky notion of Lubdan becoming a record producer. This reset, however, is still quite charming and entertaining despite its lack of risk-taking. And with yet another reboot in the works, who knows where the most wicked Leprechaun ever to exist will end up next.


Horror contemplates in great detail how young people handle inordinate situations and all of life’s unexpected challenges. While the genre forces characters of every age to face their fears, it is especially interested in how youths might fare in life-or-death scenarios.

The column Young Blood is dedicated to horror stories for and about teenagers, as well as other young folks on the brink of terror.

Leprechaun Returns movie

Pictured: Linden Porco as The Leprechaun in Leprechaun Returns.

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