Zombie

The first article is a medical study of the Haitian Zombie which is the culture that originated the concept of the walking dead. Basically the African slaves worshiped numerous Gods and the Spanish Catholic Priests attempted to impose the European Christianity on the slaves in the Caribbean. Voodoo was hidden in the Catholic religion for centuries. Voodoo believes in being in tune with your environment. If you are Ill there are two possibilities. One Is you are out of whack with nature and a Voodoo priest or priestess can get you back In harmony. Two Is someone Is attacking you magically.

Then you hire a Voodoo priest or priestess to stop the attacks. In Halt here are over 1,000 listed Zombie possessions a year. For a poor society with few medical doctors the Voodoo priest also acts as doctor to the sick. So where do Zombies enter into this equation. Some Voodoo practitioners are aligned with the dark side. They produce a neurotic that kills you; then after a week or so a person comes back to life of a sort. The reanimated person has very limited mental functions and basically becomes a servant to someone being capable of menial tasks.

In Haiti there are approximately 1000 charges of relatives becoming zombies registered with the police. In 1997 there was a medical study in the Lancet journal concerning three people that were Identified as zombies after they had passed away. Their relatives insisted these two women and a man were family members who had died years before. The two doctors did full medical examinations Including Eggs and CT brain scans. Two of the three were Identified as cases of mistaken identity by finger prints and DNA testing. The three individuals were found to not be zombies but people with medical problems.

One was catatonic schizophrenia, one was found to have serious brain damage due to epilepsy and the hire was probably related to fetal alcohol poisoning. (Foot note to a medical study of the Haitian zombie). The first pictures of a Zombie were taken by Zorn Neal Hurst in her 1938 book Voodoo Gods. The neurotic was identified by Anthropologist Wade Davis as a neurotic found in puffer fish. Other powders that were identified had several different substances In them Including puffer fish toxin and toxins from various tree frogs.

Over time the compliant Zombie concept has evolved Into one where the ravenous zombie who has a taste for brains, welcome to Hollywood or Holly weird. Zombies eave Joined the fascination with various other undead characters like mummies, skeletons, ghouls, and vampires (footnote to the American Fascination article). Breaks. Some like the Resident Evil series are science experiments gone wrong, and with each new movie the Zombies have new attributes to make them scarier. They are bigger or stronger or smarter.

Then World War Z has the dreaded fast zombie which means there is no escape. We all have seen the tee shirt . The movie Firefly puts Zombies in Outer Space in the future. The basis for all these were governments doing hidden experimentations that got away from the guards. Who isn’t scared of a government who wants to control their constituents? Also another new factor is the Zombie who can organize and their primary purpose is to remove humans from existence, such as in the Will Smith movie I Am Legend.

So society breaks down and the army is not there to save you, it is very much a run and hide universe; where you have to save yourself. The television show The Walking Dead shows how Americans love to be scared while at the same time want a chance to escape or fight the opponents. But Combinable shows that the Zombie apocalypse movie can also have a sense of humor. But the primary reason for Zombie movies is worldwide people like to be scared, and generally by something they know realistically really cannot exist.

So you can be scared but have no real problem with sleepless nights. So what are the two scariest things about zombie evolution? The fast Zombies climbing over the Jerusalem walls in World War Z, and animals becoming Zombies like those Doberman Pincher’s in I Am Legend. Speed kills and then animals can also become Zombies. So from my anthropological perspective I see the Undead are evolving, at least in Hollywood. I wonder what Darwin would think of Zombies. I chose this Blob because I enjoy Zombie movies though I am not really interested in being part of the Zombie apocalypse.

You run out of food, gas, ammunition, and toilet paper none of which seems like a lot of fun to me. Also it is interesting to me that studying Zombies is a subject that anthropologists have been interested in for close to 100 years. At some colleges you can take a class (foot note to that sheet on Anthropology 3313 about Zombies). But something to remember is how much a small, very poor country like Haiti is responsible with having a lot of influence on the US movie industry. Which has spread over the globe.

Days letter in my opinion is one of the best zombie films that has been produced in my generation and revalidated the Zombie genre. This is one of my favorites because of its intriguing story line and a great acting performance by all characters. 28 days later provides a plethora of horror engineering, social attitudes, as well as social critique. Released in 2002, 28 Days later draws its viewers in right from the start. At the beginning of the film we see a group of PETA extremists breaking into what seems to be an animal testing facility.

This group of people who are breaking into the facility to free a group of monkeys who are being used as science experiments and being injected with what is called the “Rage” virus. As the group goes to break the monkeys out of their fiberglass cages, a scientist who works at the facility catches them in the act. Here is where us viewers are first introduced (briefly) to the rage virus. The scientist warns them that the monkeys are infected with Rage and that what they are doing is extremely dangerous.

The scientist begs them not to open the cages but ultimately they end up doing it anyway. The female in the group opens the cage and the infected monkey runs out and attacks the group where the virus first begins to spread. The rest of the film shows Jim as he embarks on his journey though post-apocalyptic London. Jim wakes up naked in a hospital bed where he has no idea where he is. After he detaches all of the hoses and wires from his body he ventures out into the rest of the hospital where he discovers that something is right.

Later in the film Jim runs into a few more survivors and rest of the film shows them making the trip to a military stronghold that they heard about on a radio broadcast. 8 Days later is without a doubt a film that revalidated the zombie genre. While the zombies in this film aren’t what the type of zombie fans are used to seeing, this film is still extremely terrifying! 28 Days Later employs horror engineering techniques to add to the mass amounts of “scariness” that already exists throughout the film. The first horror engineering technique that is used throughout this film is formlessness.

Formlessness is focusing a little more on the creatures appearances throughout horror films. In this case formlessness is employed to make these flesh hungry zombies even scarier than they already are. The zombies in 28 Days later are extremely terrifying not only because they want to eat the uninfected’ flesh but mainly because of their appearance. Like I said before, the zombies in this film aren’t like zombies fans of this genre are used to seeing. They are dirty, they are deformed, and they are fast… Really fast.

When these zombies are chasing their prey, they sprint fast as lightning and their arms sway in a fluid motion. This is a small detail that adds massive amounts of horror into the film. There is Just something about these zombie’s fluid body motions that makes them so scary. Another horror engineering technique that was employed frequently throughout the film is mastication. The concept of Mastication is the creature in the specific film involving swarms, crowding, and teeming to overrun anyone that is not infected with the rage virus.

Just about every there is a scene with zombies in it (aside from the one that’s chained up) there is an extremely large number of them that require the uninfected to take immediate action. The zombies in this film are already scary enough, but with a group of at least 20 of them chasing after Selene, Jim and the others in the group of uninfected. One scene in particular that is absolutely petrifying is when the Jim and co. Car breaks down in the traffic tunnel. As the tire is being changed we see tunnel rats running in a group the opposite direction.

Soon after that Jim notices the silhouettes of the zombies’ shadows on the tunnel walls running in their direction. Things don’t seem too alarming at first but when the zombies come in sight there is more than a few of them, there is a group of 20+ zombies in an all-out sprint running toward them. Luckily the group barely escapes but, that scene alone was enough to get viewers blood pumping! Mastication makes this film even scarier than it already is, because one of these zombies alone is scary enough let alone a group of 20 or more!

In this film there are also social attitudes that are present. One of the more prominent social attitudes that are present in this film is the views on modern bio power. In the beginning of the film we see the infected test subjects that happen to be monkeys. It is unknown why the monkeys are infected with the rage virus in the first place but it seems as if scientists were trying to come up with up with a cure for the rage virus where the experiment looked to be ailing because of all of the test subjects that were present in the lab. 8 Days Later has a negative view to this modern borrower that is being used. It seems Danny Bayle and Alex Garland (Director and Writer) were trying to send a message that the modern evolution of borrower can be risky business if we aren’t careful. 28 Days later was a clear depiction of what life would be like if the use of borrower wasn’t carefully handled. In the case of the film scientists were not careful because of the way a small group of PETA enthusiasts were able to sneak into the science facility and let the rage iris lose.

It would be extremely difficult to imagine Danny Bayle and Alex Garland directing and writing a movie where modern borrower is a raging success, probably because it would be difficult for borrower to have that type of outcome. Other social views that are in this film are the shifting attitudes towards gender. One of the first characters that are met in this film happens to be an African British female by the name of Selene. She and another male are the first two people that Jim meets right when he gets out of the hospital and begins to wander the streets of London.

For the iris half of the film, there is a positive social attitude towards females. Selene is a walking zombie killing machine and is extremely knowledge on how to take care of her self in post-apocalyptic times. In other words she is a complete bedaubs! Selene even teaches Jim a few things such as after the first time they are attacked together she asks Jim if he got zombie blood in his eyes or mouth. Selene then proceeds to tell Jim that if someone is bitten then you only have a short period of time to kill that person before they turn. Selene shows Jim her ways and even saves his ass every once and a while.

The positive views towards the females in the film are apparent and wouldn’t be surprised if female viewers were to shout muff Go Girl” a few times throughout the movie! To contrast, these positive views kind of disappear in the second half of the film. As the group makes it to the military stronghold the Major Henry West informs Jim that he had promised all of his men women if they were to send out a radio broadcast about their location. After Jim is informed is when things shift downwards in terms of social attitudes towards female at least for this part of the film.

It is night and day when comparing the views towards females from the first half of the film to the second. In the first half Selene is a zombie killer with a ton of different skills that she uses in order to survive. In the second half Selene and Hanna are nothing but sex dolls for the soldiers at the strong hold to play with. The soldiers begin to harass and inappropriately touch Selene and Hanna to the point where zombies aren’t the only things they should be afraid of anymore. At one point the horny soldiers think it would be a good idea to get Selene and Hannah all dressed up n extravagant dresses to make them look even more appealing.

Hannah and Galena’s stay at the makeshift military base is not a pleasant one to say the least. 28 Days Later also does a fantastic Job at illustrating what life would be like after society has failed. At the very beginning of the film we see one of the test subjects being shown montages of global disaster and conflict. It seems that the film was trying to send us a message, and that message was if we as a society keep on the same track then the ending could be a disaster and something to similar to 28 Days later could become a reality.

Some perspectives could see this opening scene as humanity being the tied up monkey watching these tragic events happen before our eyes and then facing death from the rage virus. 28 Days Later at the time was a misunderstood masterpiece where over time it has shifted into a classic film that revalidated the zombie genre. 28 Days Later will without a doubt go down as a classic film as it perfectly summed up how crazy our society is and what it could become if we aren’t careful. Danny Bayle and Alex Garland did a fantastic Job at putting this film together making it one of the best and most recognizable zombie films of my generation!

Zombies There is a current fad of entertainment in popular culture about zombies and zombie apocalypses. Have you ever heard of a real “Zombie”? Have you ever thought of where this idea of “Zombies” came about? Theyre history does not stem from Hollywood or comic books. Zombies have a real history as well as an actual scientific capability of existing. Isak Niehaus (writer for The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute) explained the cultural connection to zombies in Africa, and Wade Davis (writer for New York: Simon & Schuster) researched the reports in Haiti of he zombie culture there.

Ker Than researched the topic for National Geographic news and came up with startling possibilities of a zombie-like outbreak. Just about everybody knows about fictitious zombies, but less are familiar with the facts about zombies. There are many people zombies are very real. They aren’t a fable and are something to be taken seriously. Belief in magic and witchcraft is widespread throughout Haiti and the Caribbean, often in the form of religions such as Voodoo and Santeria.

The Oxford English Dictionary, the term “zombie” initially showed up in English around 1810 when historian Robert Southey declared it in his book “History of Brazil. ” But this “Zombi” wasn’t the typical Hollywood version of the brain-hungry horror. Instead it was a West African deity. The word “zombie” later came to propose the human life force exiting the body, ultimately leaving a creature human in form but lacking self-awareness and intelligence. The word was introduced to Haiti and to other places from Africa through the slave trade.

Isak Niehaus found that the term Zombie is used to describe a spellbound person deprived of cognizance and self- wareness, yet able to move and react to immediate provocations. Though many people treat the current “zombie apocalypse” as a fun pop culture meme, Haitian culture ” like many African cultures ” is greatly immersed in faith in magic and witchery. Belief in zombies is related to the Voodoo religion, and has been widespread in Haiti for many years. Haitian zombies were said to be people brought back from the dead through magical means by voodoo priests called bokors or houngan.

Sometimes the zombification was done as punishment which struck fear in those who believed that they could be abused even after death. Often the zombies were said to have been used as slave labor on farms and sugarcane plantations. A mentally ill farmer claimed to have been seized captive as a zombie worker for two decades, though he couldn’t show researchers where this had taken place. Researchers pursued a case in Haiti, 1937 of rumors that the affected persons were given a powerful psychoactive drug, but they were not able to locate anyone willing to offer much evidence.

After many years the researchers concluded that there is more to Voodoo than ritual and that there is a medical base behind what is going on. Several decades later, Wade Davis, a Harvard ethno botanist, offered a pharmacological case for zombies some of his books. Davis went to Haiti in 1982 and, after investigations, claimed that a living being could be changed into a zombie by way of two specific powders being put into the circulatory system, most of the time by an open wound.

One of the powders includes tetrodotoxin (TTX), a potent and often tatal neurotoxin tound in the putte The second powder consists ot dissociative drugs like datura. These powders could induce a deathlike state where will of the eing would be completely open to that of the bokor. Davis also popularized the story of Clairvius Narcisse, who was claimed to have succumbed to this practice. Davis described the case of an initial state of deathlike suspended animation, followed by reawakening into a psychotic state.

The insanity induced by the drug and psychological trauma was hypothesized by Davis to strengthen socially learned beliefs and to cause the individual to rebuild their characteristics as that of a zombie, since they actually thought they were dead, and had no other role to play in the Haitian society. Though dead humans can’t come back to life, certain viruses can induce such aggressive, zombie-like behavior, scientists say in the new National Geographic Channel documentary The Truth Behind Zombies.

For instance, rabies, a viral disease that infects the central nervous system can drive people to be violently mad. If a rabies virus was to combine with the ability of a flu virus, in order to spread quickly through the air, you might have the makings of a zombie apocalypse. The first signs a human has rabies, such as anxiety, confusion, hallucinations, and paralysis ont typically appear for ten days to a year after infection, as the virus incubates inside the body. This is very unlike movie zombies, which become reanimated almost immediately after infection.

Once rabies sets in, though, it’s fatal within a week if left untreated. If the genetic makeup of the rabies virus went through enough changes, or mutations, its incubation time could be condensed dramatically. Many viruses have naturally high mutation rates and constantly change as a means of evading or bypassing the defenses of their hosts. For the rabies virus to cause an event like a zombie pandemic, not unlike the ones ou might see in a movie, it has to be much more contagious.

Typically a human could catch rabies after being bitten by an infected animal and the infection usually stops there, but thanks to pet vaccinations, people seldom get rabies in the U. S. nowadays, and even fewer people die from the disease. For example, in 2008 only two cases of human rabies infection were reported to the U. S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. A faster mode of transmission would be through the air, which is how the influenza virus spreads. The movie 28 Days Later depicts a scenario of a age virus. If rabies somehow became airborne this movie would be very plausible.

In order to be transmitted by air, rabies would have to mutate or use traits from another virus like influenza. Elankumaran Subbiah, a virologist at Virginia Tech, states that diverse forms, or strains, of the same virus can change pieces of genetic code using reassortment or recombination. Unrelated viruses, although, don’t Just randomly create hybrids in nature. Likewise, he also said “They’re too different. They cannot share genetic information. Viruses assemble only parts that belong to them, nd they don’t mix and match from different families. It’s theoretically possible for scientists to use a rabies virus and an influenza virus, though extremely difficult, to create a hybrid rabies-influenza virus using modern genetic engineering techniques. Sure, you could imagine a scenario where you mix rabies with a flu virus to get airborne transmission, a measles virus to get personality changes, the encephalitis virus to cook your brain wit n tever and throw in the ebola virus to cause you to bleed from your guts. You would probably get something like the zombie virus, but nature oesn’t let these things to happen all at the same time.

Yet… There is a vast history of zombies, from Africa to Haiti and other trade lands, all the way to Hollywood. The general focus of zombies is the entertainment of it all. To this day there are still cases of zombie voodoo and stories of dead people coming back from the grave. The focus should be on the possibilities of the future though. If Just one team of scientists with access to the means to hybrid existing viruses the entertaining idea of zombies on a TV would not be funny at all. It’s not all that unreal now is it?

Matt Coon Mrs. Scott English Comp 15 March 2013 Zombies A zombie is defined as a deceased human body that has somehow become reanimated and autonomous, yet no longer has sufficient brain or vital functions to be considered alive or capable of thought. The characteristics of a zombie have evolved over the years and throughout various cultures. In Africa they portray a zombie as a soulless being used as a slave for a voodoo priest. Never the less we will take a look at the American portrayal of the modern day zombie.

We will do this by dividing the “zombie” into four different categories; the walkers, the runners, the crawlers, and the mutated zombies. In the older legends, zombie lore usually involved some form of voodoo or evil magic, but most modern zombie-themed media centralizes the idea of a rapidly spreading disease or virus causing the human species to turn into mindless beings with an intense hunger for the human flesh. Walkers were the first breed of zombie that actually craved human flesh. The usually spell-induced African zombies were just soulless beings; they had no desire to feast on people.

Very fragile, and mostly decomposed, these “walkers” move extremely slowly. However, what they lack in agility, they make up for in magnitude. Usually walking around aimlessly, the walkers normally travel in groups, a lot like a flock of birds, but at the first sight of flesh the group converges and the next thing you know your overcome. Of all the types of zombies, walkers are probably the most realistic. The idea of somebody dying and being resurrected as a necrotic, dead cannibal is terrifying to a majority of the population.

They may lurch about and stumble comically, but it only takes one to alert the rest of the group and nest thing you know you have an army chasing you from all directions. All for the BRAINS! Created to put zombie movies at a faster pace, the “runner” is not technically a zombie. Customarily originated by a man-made disease or virus, these zombies are exceedingly fast and viciously savage. This is why happening upon a single runner can be just as deadly as meeting an entire horde of the inferior walkers. Assumedly because quick, hard-to-catch targets darting around the screen present more of a threat han those slower moving zombies, runners often play the most crucial part in zombie-based video games and films of this day and age. Zombies are nothing but soul-less, rotting bodies; so what happens to them when they lose a part of themselves? Started by the popular video game Call of Duty, crawlers are normal zombies, walkers or runners, who had their legs dismembered in an attempt to kill them. Usually caused by trying to cut them or some sort of explosion. These zombies are typically slow moving and easy prey; but if you are not vigilant they can be very hazardous.

Even if they can’t chase you down and attack you, they still carry whatever infection or virus put them in their current condition, and they are more than capable of passing it on while fighting you off. They will often attack the feet and ankles first, in attempts to infect and weaken you. Then, when you fall to the ground, they feast. Last of all, there are the mutated zombies. Mutated zombies were started by the popular video-game-turned-movie series, Resident Evil. Infected, panicked, and fighting to retain life, scientists attempted to create a serum to battle the virus.

At first it seemed as if it was working, and the disease was to be cured; alas, most of them turned into to heaps of rotting, radioactive flesh, starving for the taste of brains. There are other cases where a zombie is doused in radioactive material, afterwards becoming virtually unrecognizable afterwards. These unlucky few are freakishly disfigured; they are also generally very agile and extremely strong. Not only infected, most mutated zombies also come radioactive, one touch who knows what may happen?

Uninfected humans often have no chance of survival when standing up to one of these monsters. Even though the will probably never happen, it is always going to be one of the human race’s biggest fears. Maybe this essay will help somebody through it by knowing all of the many types of zombies, each one stronger and faster than the other. We also know never to turn your back on a zombie, even if it is just crawling around snapping at your ankles. The zombie apocalypse might not happen any time soon but it is always good to be prepared.