After looking up the definition of 'living dead' on Google I came to the realization that mummies and vampires can also fall within this category. The living dead are not just limited to zombies, like the definition above may suggest but I will be focusing on zombies in particular. There are times through out history when different horrors rise in and out of popularity. They rise and fall and rise and fall in an unpredictable pattern each monster or spirit or idea having its turn in that way. These days however I must say the zombie has been dominating. It cannot be said how long Zombies will stay in popularity. However through the use of film and television, I can trace the history of their recent rise to popularity.
The zombies that have taken popularity in current popular culture are those that become zombies by being 'infected' also known as the 'zombie apocalypse'. People find this method most plausible and can most easily relate to this method, a pose to alternative of a more supernatural means. The original zombie apocalypse genre started with the Night of the Living Dead trilogy. These movie aired in sparsely form 1968 to 1985. Since then there have been zombie movies but none that I find crucial enough to mention. Then the genre of the original trilogy made a come back in the mid 2000's and made four new movies, the last of which aired in 2010. They key difference between the two ages of zombie movies that clearly defines them is that the originals focus on radioactive contamination. this contamination however is not infectious. Thus the original source of the recent outbreak of zombie fandemonium is not due to the 2004 remake of Dawn of the Dead but established by the 2002 horror film 28 Days Later. This movie could be seen as the first bite in the recent spread of the infectious zombie drama. This genre has only picked up popularity since and is especially reinforced by movies such as Zombieland and the show The Walking Dead. The last two examples display the creative and successful depiction of Zombies outside their original genre. In the case of Warm Bodies zombies are even established as protagonists in the romantic comedy genre, though I do not know how successful this movie was. With a bigger scope of use, Zombies have kept their popularity and continue to be a popular monster today.
There are several displays of zombie culture throughout society today. UVic runs an annual game of Humans vs. Zombies that is particularly popular. There are also several books and blogs about zombie survival. The popularity of zombies is prominent in today's society. However what I find most interesting is our relationship to the dead. Yes there are still depictions of the scary 'needs to instantly be killed' zombie but with movies like Zombieland and Warm bodies there is a sense of comedy and human emotion (the latter is only in the case of Warm bodies) that has not been associated with the living dead, in this case I mean zombies (excluding the specific case of Frankenstein. For it may be argued that he was created to have more human emotion than an individual who has no control over an infection that takes over all their senses). Back to the point which is that the change in cultural depictions of zombies may correlate to a change in societies perspective of corpses. BRAINS!
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