Zombies Through the Ages

No dissection of geek/nerd culture would be complete without briefly mentioning zombies. Whether you enjoy taking part in the co-op, horde-hustling action of Left 4 Dead, or watching the gritty lonesome road of 28 Days Later, we geeks know that one day we will need to get ready for the dog eat dog (or human eat human) world of the zombie apocalypse. Yet with so many iterations of infected, what sort of undead are we likely to face? In this post I hope to cover as many as I can so we can all be prepared.

Like most popular fictional incarnations, the roots of those loveable brain biting blokes are in ancient mythology, in this case Sumerian. They are featured in the Epic of Gilgamesh though could even date back further, the texts reads: “I will knock down the gates of the Netherworld, I will smash the door posts and leave the doors flat down, and will let the dead go up to eat the living! And the dead will outnumber the living.”

"Good News for the more fashionable amongst you. In a battle of high heels vs. chainsaw, high heels win."

While many pieces of literature including work by H.P. Lovecraft and H.G. Welles touched upon themes that were reminiscent of what we now think of as “the zombie” it was of course George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead that gave us what became the traditional image of the undead, shuffling slowly with an appetite for human brains, though it was a relatively long time before zombies evolved in full view of the public. Films such as Braindead and My Boyfriend’s Back, despite explicitly showing zombies’ hunger for human flesh rather than just brains, did not rise to fame very quickly at all. It was the next generation of media that showcased this alteration: the video game. Specifically the first Resident Evil game, released in 1996. Even that, however, showed zombies as the sort of creature that you wouldn’t need to worry about providing you had limbs which could propel you at a “non-backward” velocity.

This is where the zombie archetypes that we are more familiar with today come into play. Films such as 28 Days Later, the Dawn of the Dead remake and House of the Dead feature what my friends like to refer to as ‘the urban zombie’. Faster, more agile and more intelligent, these creations are more typically referred to as ‘infected’ rather than zombies. The common factor with all these undead monstrosities is that their brain must be destroyed in order to render them harmless (and dead…again).

So there we are. A quick trip through the history of the zombie. If you’re still worried about how to survive the zombie apocalypse, you’re perfectly sane, as for one, it’s a scary thought, and two I haven’t actually told you enough to survive. I know, I'm evil. But hopefully we are now all more aware of exactly what will be eating our brains, and everybody knows that it’s not how long you can survive against a zombie that impresses the girls, but how many facts about them you can reel off before experiencing that bite that goes straight through the speech centre of your brain. Sleep well everybody! As always, questions or comments are very much appreciated, so leave them here.

I’ll see you shuffling along at the end of the world.