The Zombie? – – Of Corpse!
– – On this Dia de Los Muertos following hard on the heels of Halloween, the mind runs more naturally to a consideration of supernatural, creepy, and scary considerations. Zombies are much in vogue, having developed as a horror sub-genre through the work of George Romero among others and more recently, well-written and acted shows such as The Walking Dead.
In our modern age, death is kind of a final taboo, and the dead are swiftly and antiseptically spirited away so our delicate sensitivities are not offended by them, and we can postpone dealing with our own mortality. Such was not the case in earlier times, when people would have been well-acquainted with both the sight of the dying and dead bodies. In ancient times especially during plague years, dead bodies could be seen in public places in varying stages of decomposition, their numbers at times overwhelming burial details. As zombies are essentially animated corpses, their presence in film and literature may hark back to a kind of revulsion and fear in the collective unconscious over events that transpired earlier in human history…
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FOXSYLVANIA 
November 4, 2013 at 5:22 pm
The early b/w films, like WHITE ZOMBIE starring Bela Lugosi, were the ones that got it (the actual folklore) correct. It was George Romero who combined that aspect with the pre-Islamic Persian legends about corpse-eating ghouls to give us the original NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD (circa 1969).
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November 5, 2013 at 4:24 am
Corpse-eating ghouls just need a better spin doctor, I say…
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