What is a zombie? Where do they come from? What do they want?
Watching horror movies on Halloween is a great tradition to get your fright night going, and for a night devoted to the dead rising to walk the streets, zombie movies are the way to go.
But for those of you who might get confused by all the zombie movies out there and their resident monsters, here's a quick and easy guide to find the right zombie for you.
Flesh-eaters Most of the zombies are flesh-eaters, meaning that they don't just want "brains!" They will scoop out your bright red organs and happily gnaw away if you let them. George A. Romero created the classic zombie-plague film Dawn of the Dead, in which our heroes lock themselves inside a huge abandoned shopping mall while the zombies putter and stumble about outside. A bite from a zombie will turn a person into the living dead after a few days of infection, so be prepared to shoot your friends.
Brain-eaters This rare type of zombie is found only in Dan O'Bannon films, most notably Return of the Living Dead. According to the zombies, who have a vocabulary that extends farther than the root words "brains" and "more brains," eating brains helps to ease the pain of death. This is a tongue-in-cheek spoof on the zombie movie genre, with such unforgettable lines as, "But I don't care, darling, because I love you, and you've got to let me eat your brains!"
Zombies as a result of radiation If you watch too many zombie movies, you will firmly believe that your unnatural death will be caused by the human race's own ignorance. In Night of the Living Dead, the prequel to Dawn, zombies are caused by radiation seeping into the graves and infecting their brains.
Zombies as a result of a virus In probably the best zombie film in the past decade, 28 Days Later, director Danny Boyle creates an apocalyptic nightmare in which an escaped virus causes the victims to turn into violent killing creatures in a matter of seconds. The zombies are fast like junkies on adrenaline and their blood will infect the living, so the survivors have to maintain a kill or be killed attitude toward their friends.
Zombies as a result of evil rat monkeys Only in a Peter Jackson movie, Braindead, will you find this type of zombie. It's a good thing, too, because it makes no sense whatsoever. But the humor in this film is sick and twisted, so rent it so you can say you've seen him at his worst.
Zombies as a result of voodoo The term "zombie" is historically related to voodoo, but you won't find many movies that explain this. In Zombie, directed by the king of Italian zombie movies, Lucio Fulci, a newspaperman and a daughter searching for her father find a Caribbean island overrun by voodoo zombies created by the natives.
Fast zombies O'Bannon likes the fast zombies, who hide while the victim investigates to see if the coast is clear, then attacks like a linebacker tackling his opponent. I laugh every time I see the scene in which the paramedics try to take on 40 rushing zombies. Boyle also incorporates fast zombies, which is not at all funny in his movie.
Slow zombies Ambling, confused zombies shuffle around in Romero's movies like geriatrics, which gives the heroes a fighting chance to escape them or at least knock them off their feet long enough to get away. Still, the zombies can move as slow as they want when they have the rest of eternity to find the last living humans.
Underwater zombies If you ever want to see a zombie battle a shark, rent the aforementioned Zombie. Logically it makes sense that zombies can survive underwater - they don't breathe - but I found myself confused by this scene. Perhaps I was just upset by the unlikely crossing of horror genres.
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