There are always zombie movies that make us shudder and doubt the universe.
In Legion of the Living Dead, the zombie ancestor stands on the Statue of Liberty in the United States, looks down at the protagonist who breaks into the zombie forbidden land, and watches humans walk like ants through the soles of the goddess statue. The balance of power between the two sides is well known.
In "28 Days of Shock", the protagonist is upset because of the crow's cry, and he can't help but kick the door, and a drop of zombie blood on the door frame drips into his eyes. Suddenly, the sky was spinning, and after only 20 seconds, he was a new zombie.
In "Warm Corpses," in a dark room, the police carefully look around with searchlights. The light hit overhead, and suddenly, a white-flowered, skeleton-only "bone skin" broke through the glass above and swooped in with a low roar. In the next shot, the police fall to the ground, their backs to the audience, slowly turning their heads, revealing two dark and gloomy eye sockets.
Bone skin in Warm Corpse, image: Video screenshot
In almost all zombie films, there are similar horror sections: one second it is still a person, the next second it is passively becoming a zombie, the face is miserable, full of blood, dark red blood is stuck between the gums, and there are signs of flesh corruption around the lips, which is simply disgusting. But it's worth noting that even in the absence of humans or other living creatures, these zombies invariably choose not to eat their own kind.
Why don't zombies eat their kind? How does it distinguish between humans and their kind?
There are always some brain-opening people who fall into this problem and can't extricate themselves. In Zhihu, the answer to this question has 174,000 views. Another question, "Why do foreign zombies bite humans", which was viewed nearly 900,000 times. In the answer area, netizens each showed their magic, of which the highest number of approvals of the answer, ridiculing zombies do not eat the same kind of behavior is "greedy play", because "chasing humans to play, is a group entertainment activity, each zombie can participate, and cooperate with each other."
However, if we have to explain it from a scientific point of view, how should we understand it, and what is the connection between this and the birth of the zombie image? In addition, as an important branch of horror films, zombie films in addition to the thrill of fear to the audience, what is the charm of those shocking stories that can always be favored by the audience? When zombie films have gone through nearly 90 years, what new changes have the creators given it?
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="10" > killer: infectious</h1>
One thing is certain, the characteristics of zombies eating flesh and blood did not exist from the beginning, but were created by the "father of zombies", the American director George W. Bush. A. Romero was first created in Night of the Living Dead.
In this film released in 1968, mysterious meteorites and radiation from outer space from unknown sources return to the human world, and a pair of brothers and sisters who sweep the grave for their father are attacked by zombies, the brother is infected with zombies after being bitten by zombies, and the younger sister escapes by chance. At the end of the film, a group of militiamen shoot at the zombie in the head, killing the zombie and then burning it with a fire.
It is this film that lays the basic operating logic of the subsequent zombie films: zombies have no self-awareness, only the instinct to eat the flesh of the creature and the desire to devour the brain; the zombie bites people with a strong contagiousness, and after eating other creatures, it copies a new zombie; the zombie can only be killed by destroying the brain or burning.
Image: Official stills from Night of the Living Dead
However, in the zombie films at this stage, the reasons for the appearance of zombies are not very clear. Take Romero's "Zombie Trilogy" as an example, in "Night of the Living Dead", zombies were born because satellites launched by the US-Soviet space arms race radiated to humans. Dawn of the Living Dead (1978) is a city of zombies overnight due to an unexplained plague. On The Day of the Living Dead (1985), the zombie outbreak was due to a leak of zombie gas developed by the military.
In the new zombie movies made in the past two decades, the causes of the zombie crisis have become more and more specific. In 28 Days of Shock (2002), scientists used chimpanzees as experimental subjects to study inhibitors to treat rage. Chimpanzee blood becomes the source of transmission, and the zombie's aggression is actually a state of undifferentiated rage. In the Resident Evil series (2002-), the T virus spread through the sewers after it leaked, causing the destruction of entire cities. In "I Am Legend" (2007), a new virus developed to treat cancer mutated and out of control, causing infected people to lose consciousness and launch indiscriminate attacks on humans and animals.
Whether it's radiation, plague, or a specific virus, it's certain that zombies eat not because they're "hungry"—they don't have self-awareness, and their brains naturally don't receive feedback from the body's "hunger/fullness/pain," but rather infect the zombie virus to fresh flesh through biting. Therefore, even if a large group of zombies besieged a living person, they had never seen a living person being eaten dry and wiped clean. On the contrary, in almost all zombie films, zombies take a few bites and then disappear.
Image: The official stills of "I Am Legend"
On the other hand, unlike Hong Kong zombie films, the zombie image originates from the xiangxi corpse exorcism culture, which is the corpse transformation of the deceased due to the grievances of the deceased or the imbalance of yin and yang in the feng shui of the cemetery. The popular "zombie" image in the current movie is mainly derived from Romero's personal creation, from the perspective of dramatic conflict, "nibbling contagion" and "not biting the same kind" can create a collective panic psychology, immediately, zombies will grow geometrically, and the next step is the end of the world and the destruction of mankind.
Although this setting seems commonplace now, it was groundbreaking at the time. Back in the 60s, the classic horror movie "violence often comes from a devil who uses supernatural or alien ways to invade, a mad scientist, or an abnormal pervert", the source of terror is the individual, the scope of the spread of horror, the atmosphere is very limited, rarely appear "survivors are swallowed alive by relatives and lovers in the next second" This modern zombie film has long been flooded.
There is also the question, how do zombies distinguish between their kind and other organisms?
In Za's new work "Army of the Living Dead" (2021), a hand that is heated in the microwave oven is more in line with the taste of zombies; after someone accidentally makes a sound, the dormant zombies wake up one by one. In Shaun the Zombie (2004), the living can avoid being besieged by simply walking and imitating zombies. In The Walking Dead (2010), the blood of zombies is smeared on the body and clothing to mask human odors. Obviously, in order to meet the needs of the plot when the film was filmed, multiple perception systems such as taste, hearing, vision, and smell explained the way zombies identify humans.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="23" > reflects the tradition of reality</h1>
In fact, before Night of the Living Dead, there were already a lot of zombie movies. Unlike later zombie images, early zombies were neither contagious nor bloodthirsty, and the fear of zombies during this period stemmed mainly from the anxiety of being controlled and pagan.
The first well-documented zombie movie was Pale Zombie, released in 1932, in which witchcraft turned people into zombies and worked day and night for their masters. But in fact, according to anthropologists, the legend of the resurrection of the dead is only the use of tetrodotoxin, mandalas and other people to fake death, and when they wake up, they will be delirious and conducive to manipulation.
The zombies here are closer to the meaning of "puppet", coupled with the makeup and sets of that period are very clumsy, and some films even use chocolate pudding to pretend to be stained with blood, creating a horror atmosphere far less than today. Especially watching a group of zombies working on a plantation, with empty eyes and at the mercy of others, is not so much horror as pity.
Image: Official stills of "Pale Zombie"
According to legend, Voodoo originated in West Africa, and during the colonial period, it was spread from trafficked African slaves to Haiti and other Caribbean regions. At the time of the birth of "Pale Zombie", it was the period when the United States ruled Haiti with military power, a large number of Caribbean people emigrated to the United States, and Voodooism also infiltrated black American society, causing panic in the Western world. Therefore, in the early zombie films, the presentation of zombie images is more tangled, with both fear of unknown religions and limited interpretations, as well as expressions of black/white racial issues and colonized relationships.
The tradition of using zombie films to reflect reality has not been interrupted, after the rise of Romero zombie films, the zombie image has been further enriched, and the doomsday situation caused by zombies, human tests, social disorder, and human superstitions on science and technology are all reflections of social reality.
Night of the Living Dead corresponds to American society's real reaction to the Vietnam War and the civil rights movement. Special effects makeup artist Savigny, a former war photographer, is a horrific sight of internal organs and severed limbs that come from his traumatic memories of the Vietnam War. At the end of the film, the surviving black hero is shot as a zombie, symbolizing the innocent death of Martin Luther King Jr. In the documentary The Birth of the Living Dead (2013), Romero claims to have "thought that the world has changed or made some reforms," but in reality there is no difference, and the zombie character is the product of anger and disappointment.
Image: Poster of Night of the Living Dead
The story framework of many zombie films since then is actually not much different from "Night of the Living Dead": zombies invade human society, large-scale infection causes the end of the world, and survivors find ways to solve zombies. It's just that the details are adapted, and the demands expressed through this are also different -
Dawn of the Living Dead (1978) borrows a large shopping mall that traps human beings, alluding to the vast number of sentient beings alienated by consumer desires. The Living Dead's Day (1985) uses cold, dark underground bases to cast the shadow of the Cold War nuclear threat. In 28 Days of Shock (2002), the protagonist team seeks refuge in the military camp, but the military camp just wants to find women to breed offspring, explaining the core of the story that "human nature is worse than zombies".
At the same time, due to the development of digital cinema, the traditional stumbling zombies have become more and more agile, and their running speed, attack power and infectivity are increasing. In Resident Evil (2002) and Zombie World Wars (2013), the image of "corpse mountain corpse sea" has become very common. In "Deadly Calls" (2016), the mobile phone radio waves are set as virus carriers, which means that no one can escape the day.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="35" > deconstructed</h1>
When all zombies are the same image, and the story routines of zombie films are similar, zombie films inevitably have the characteristics of patterning.
In order to avoid the aesthetic fatigue of the audience, when Romero's zombie films became popular in the 80s, some directors made zombie films that were different - using humor to deconstruct fear, and classic horror films became a bloody farce. In The Return of the Living Dead (1985), zombies can talk to people, and the police are their targets, and after catching the prey, they use the police walkie-talkie to tell each other to "send more policemen over."
Image: Screenshot of the Video of "The Return of the Living Dead"
The B-grade film "Corpses Play Across the Line" (1992) takes the style of bloody farce to the extreme: the zombie's internal organs fly into the air and attack the protagonist in turn, causing him to have to use a meat grinder to grind the zombie into meat paste. Because the scene was too disgusting, when the film was released, many theaters intimately provided vomit bags for the audience.
Along this path, another batch of zombie films merged with other genre films to create a completely different zombie image. Warm Corpse (2013) is not so much a horror film as a romantic comedy. Zombies eat human brains in order to possess the victim's memory and re-experience the feeling of being human, and after the male protagonist devours the brain of a young man, he falls in love with his girlfriend and protects her for this. Adhering to the spirit of Western Christianity, it is this "love" that awakens the memory of all zombies as "people" and slowly comes back to life.
It's a black humor story that makes the audience nervous. The male protagonist zombie R, handsome face, thick hair, eyes are gothic smoky makeup, only a red coat stained with a little blood, anyone who looks at it, it is difficult not to be moved by this somewhat decadent melancholy teenager. Not to mention that he also has a strong sense of self, humming and communicating with his peers, often teasing himself: "What do I do every day?" My face is too pale, I should go out more, I should eat better, and now it's really bad. I should stand up straight, hold my head high, and others will respect me. What the hell is wrong with me, I just want to communicate with people. But why not? Oh, remember, because I'm dead. ”
Image: Screenshot of the "Warm Corpse" video
In Warm Corpse, there is another innovation. The zombie group is divided into ordinary zombies and the "bone skin" that only has one skeleton left, which is a bit similar to the corpse transformation in the Hong Kong film, the combat power of the flying zombie is higher than that of the wool zombie, higher than the green zombie, and the lethality of the bone skin is not comparable to that of ordinary zombies. But unlike the zombies, which change over time and enter different stages, they have to evolve from zombies to bone skins, not the result of the natural corruption of the flesh, but more like the individual choices of zombies - in the movie, they tear off their faces little by little and become skeletons.
For example, Za Dao's latest work "Army of the Living Dead", although it was criticized as "full of slots", but obviously, he did not want to follow the routine of the classic zombie film: a group of people around a few shaky zombies, while exploding zombie heads while live broadcasting, as if playing an immersive zombie game; like vampires, zombies also have ancestors, queens, and even heirs, zombies personally transformed by the ancestors, the level of thinking and action is stronger, forming an upper class; zombies have territorial consciousness, and humans enter the zombie forbidden land by sacrificing living people. Reduces conflicts.
All of this is actually a kind of deconstruction of previous zombie films. People who enter the forbidden land and blast zombies are not heroes, but to make another profit, just because the forbidden land is also an "extralegal place". But to a large extent, what human beings think of as an extralegal place is replicating the social order of the human world, which cannot but be said to be a great irony.
Zombie queen in Legion of the Living Dead. Image: Video screenshot
However, despite these innovations, in view of the director's lack of deep digging into each role, the characters are all labeled, so that the audience does not empathize with the protagonist group, and the final Douban score is only 5.3 points.
In fact, as a subtype of horror films, if you count from the 1932 years since the release of "Pale Zombie", zombie films have been developing for nearly 90 years, and the audience's aesthetic taste will only become more and more picky. In the case of the big IP of "The Walking Dead", the eighth season fell below 8 points for the first time (Douban score 6.8 points), and the "Walking Dead: Outside World" launched in 2020 dropped to 5.3 points. In addition to the visual spectacle and the adaptation of the zombie image, what kind of humanistic care and innovation can be expressed by zombie films is not an easy question to answer.
But what is certain is that as long as human beings still have anger, still lose hope, and still lose their decadence, zombie films will still be needed by audiences and by creators who are eager to express themselves. On the other hand, watching zombie movies, reality is in an absolutely safe environment, which is also a kind of self-consolation for the audience.