Zombie
A tag for organizing content
In De instaurando Aethiopium salute (1627), Alonso de Sandoval described the slave trade on São Tomé as “a living death, in which people die even while they live”. At this time, de Sandoval’s own Jesuit order was the biggest slave owner in all of South America. The original Haitian zombie myth treats such literal slaves’ fear of being forced to toil endlessly, but as Charles Stross and others have pointed out, when this myth was appropriated in US media, “it hybridized with white settler fear of a slave uprising” (“Yet Another Novel I Will No Longer Write”, Charlie’s Diary, 2020-04-03).
As a metaphor, the living dead are the exploited, sometimes viewed with pity, sometimes with the gaze of the fearful exploiter, and sometimes both. In the worst zombie narratives, the dead are predatory trash and the author’s viewpoint rests firmly on heroic survivors, but in the best zombie narratives, subject and object combine.
Articles
Images
Reviews
- Matthew (ca. 80–90 CE entry)
- J’accuse! (1919)
- White Zombie (1932)
- “Small World” (1957)
- Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959)
- The Last Man on Earth (1964)
- The Plague of the Zombies (1966)
- Night of the Living Dead (1968)
- “Override” (1973)
- Let Sleeping Corpses Lie (1974)
- Dawn of the Dead (1978)
- “Within the Woods” (1978)
- Zombi 2 (1979)
- City of the Living Dead (1980)
- The Evil Dead (1981)
- Night of the Comet (1984)
- Day of the Dead (1985)
- Lifeforce (1985)
- Re-Animator (1985)
- The Return of the Living Dead (1985)
- Night of the Creeps (1986)
- Evil Dead II (1987)
- Return of the Living Dead II (1988)
- Night of the Living Dead (1990)
- Night of the Day of the Dawn of the Son of the Bride of the Return of the Revenge of the Terror of the Attack of the Evil, Mutant, Alien, Flesh Eating, Hellbound, Zombified Living Dead Part 2: In Shocking 2-D (1991)
- Witches Abroad (1991)
- Army of Darkness (1992)
- Braindead (1992)
- Return of the Living Dead III (1993)
- Dellamorte Dellamore (1994)
- Bio-Zombie (1998)
- Night of the Living Dead: 30th Anniversary Edition (1999)
- Wild Zero (1999)
- 28 Days Later... (2002)
- “Deadline” (2002)
- Resident Evil (2002)
- Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003)
- Blade of the Phantom Master (2004)
- Dawn of the Dead (2004)
- Monster Island (2004)
- “Mördarzombiesarna anfaller! (på vintern)” (2004)
- Resident Evil: Apocalypse (2004)
- Shaun of the Dead (2004)
- “Dance of the Dead” (2005 entry)
- Hanteringen av odöda (2005)
- “Homecoming” (2005 entry)
- Land of the Dead (2005)
- “Haeckel’s Tale” (2006 entry)
- Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest (2006)
- World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War (2006)
- “Deathtic 4” (2007 entry)
- I Am Legend (2007)
- Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End (2007)
- Planet Terror (2007)
- Rec (2007)
- The Zen of Zombie (2007)
- Day of the Dead (2008)
- “I Love Sarah Jane” (2008)
- Pontypool (2008)
- Zombieland (2009)
- High School of the Dead (2010)
- “Mister Hadj’s Sunset Ride” (2010)
- “A Morning Stroll” (2011)
- Game of Thrones (2011)
- “Cargo” (2013)
- In the Flesh (2013)
- Warm Bodies (2013)
- World War Z (2013)
- The Strain (2014)
- Ash vs Evil Dead (2015)
- School-Live! (2015)
- “A Father’s Day” (2016)
- Seoul Station (2016)
- The Girl with All the Gifts (2016)
- Train to Busan (2016)
- Cargo (2017)
- “Lau og Laudrup” (2017)
- Day of the Dead: Bloodline (2018)
- Performance: A Red Markets Novel (2018)
- Zombieland Saga (2018)
- Black Summer (2019)
- Daybreak (2019)
- Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress: The Battle of Unato (2019)
- The Dead Don’t Die (2019)
- The Midnight Gospel (2020)
- Army of the Dead (2021)
- “Night of the Mini Dead” (2022 entry)
- Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead (2023)
Other
The following make direct references to the zombie tag.
- An American Werewolf in London (1981)
- “The Last Smoker” (1987)
- “Identity Crisis” (1991)
- Mythbusters (2003)
- Starship Troopers 2: Hero of the Federation (2004)
- Super 8 (2011)
- “Me! Me! Me!” (2014)