THE HISTORY OF ZOMBIES

Alas, spooky season is upon us. I am, unfortunately, too terrified of anything remotely scary to enjoy it, but that doesn’t stop me from being curious about the genesis of what we consider to be “horror.” 

Specifically, I want to talk zombies. I used to be a hater of zombie films, but then I took a fascinating course in college and learned the history of zombies in Hollywood and their connection to American colonialism. The idea originated in Haiti, but those zombies looked very different from the ones we’re all so familiar with. Rather than blood-soaked, brain-eating immortals with decaying flesh, Haitian zombies looked just like living humans, except for their “lifeless eyes.” They were believed to be creatures devoid of soul and human agency, brought back to life often to be used as slave labor. This account was detailed by W.B. Seabrook in his 1929 book The Magic Island (warning: this is a book with a strong colonial attitude toward race). The book came out in the middle of the American occupation of Haiti, and spoke to Westerners’ lack of understanding of voodoo and black magic—and fear that the Haitians could use it against them and turn them, the white colonizers, into zombies. In fact, this fear inspired the first Hollywood zombie film, WHITE ZOMBIE (1932), in which a white American woman turns into a Zombie after planning a plantation wedding in Haiti. A similar storyline can also be seen in THE SERPENT AND THE RAINBOW (1988), a horror cult-favorite. The idea of zombies has quite obviously changed throughout the years, but this is a perfect example of how horror constructed on screen has always been inspired by, or deeply rooted in horror in real life. 

I’ll stop there. But, this Halloweekeend, as you enjoy horror films and TV with your loved ones, I encourage you to do some fun research into the fascinating history of what we see on screen! 

—Mimi Li, Development Assistant