Zombies in Film

American horror cinema has long held a fascination for zombies. Cinema zombies, in turn, have long held a fascination for human flesh. George Romero’s 1968 film, “Night of the Living Dead” is usually considered to be the first American zombie movie however, the first actual zombie film in the United States came out in 1932. It was titled “White Zombie” and starred the famous horror film actor, Bela Lugosi. There were a couple of films released before that, which involved reanimated human flesh two of these were Frankenstein movies, the first of which came out in 1910, and the second in 1931 the third was a film about Hollywood’s favorite undead denizen of the desert, “The Mummy,” which was released in 1911 (IMBD, 2013).

Though these earlier films did involve the walking dead, none of these three were technically considered zombie movies although they each did their fair share of shambling, neither Frankenstein nor the Mummy actually craved human flesh. It is well known that the unrelenting craving for human brains and other tasty, Homo Sapien snacks is the driving force behind any true zombie. While zombies have changed dramatically since the first zombie films, going from slow and shambling and relatively easy to dispatch—like the creatures in Romero’s movie—to fast and furious and relatively terrifying—like the non-shufflers that populate “28 Days Later,” their hunger for human flesh never seems to diminish. This appetite keeps Hollywood cranking out zombie films it also keeps American cinema goers feeding the zombies.