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Are zombies supernatural?

M

mr_macabre

Gone But Not Forgotten
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Dec 3, 2009
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Zombies, bloody everywhere these days aren't they? Back when I was growing up (I'm 38 now) zombies were relegated to scratchy VHS copies or late night movies on one of the four channels we were restricted to back then.

But I was always fascinated by them, because almost every film I watched never gave any clue as to what has caused the zombie epidemic, although it was often alluded to that this was some kind of environmental by-product or virus.

Fair enough I suppose, but to me that always took a bit of the magic away. I wanted zombies to be full-on supernatural in origin, like there was some dark, possibly satanic, power behind this phenomenon. That's why I love Req so much, because there's a demonic element.

Does anyone else feel like this or are you happy with the "virus/industrial disaster" explanation?

Oh and one more thing: do animals ever get zombifed?!!

PS go watch Req, it's amazing!
 
Yes. Animals do get zombified. In Resident Evil, Mila Jovovich becomes the ideal nerd girlfriend when she perfoms a somersault and kicks a zombie doberman in the face.
There's also a remake of a Romero zombie classic which features a curious scene where half a preserved dog in a glass case (think of a Damian Hirst exhibit) comes back to life.

Max Brooks is the pop biographer of the zombie and, I suppose, the modern authority, In his books, he chronicles historic zombie epidemics so I guess we can rule out modern military tech or runaway science as a root cause. I doubt there's a supernatural reason for zombies either as the only ways to kill them are the distinctly ungodly purge of fire and bullets or baseball bat to the head, No bibles required. Which leaves a naturally-occurring virus or other natural cause. Maybe something that rides in on a meteor for example.

Although there's zombie overkill at the moment, I've always felt that zombie films are less about the shambling horrors that roam the streets than about the fragile relationships made between the survivors. Which is what made Telltale's episodic Walking Dead game such a huge success.
 
In most zombie films it's usually caused by a virus (e.g. the Rage virus), but in one film I saw (The Return of the Living Dead), it was some kind of toxic substance (a gas) manufactured by the military.
 
I'm happier with a scientific explanation for Zombies. Same goes for Vampires. I got annoyed with Anne Rice when she clearly moved to a Supernatural explanation.

The early Zombie films from the 1930s eg I Walked With A Zombie, appeared to have a supernatural basis.
 
I think it's more important what the "artist" makes of his premise rather than how he explains things like zombies. Nobody watched Alien and said, "That was rubbish, they didn't explain the Alien's origin!" I'm happy with some throwaway line about an experiment gone wrong, if you really need an explanation, when it's about the undead. Supernatural's fine too: it's not as if they have to be true to life.

Nice bit in Return of the Living Dead: the pinned butterflies flapping.
 
Supernatural creatures (and zombies are some of them) belong to the supernatural, and should remain there. Things go awry when somebody tries to enforce a « naturalistic » explanation, it is out of place (all those things with virus from people who don't even understand what a virus is are funny) and is just ludicrous.
 
Yes, too much explanation of any kind diminishes the horror of what is supposed to be going on, the entire thing is supposed to be insane and a surreal nightmare. There were some fragments of chaotic news reports in Romero's first film (Night of The Living Dead) that mentioned something about strange radiation from a Venus space probe that had been destroyed, but this was never elaborated upon, or confirmed as the cause.
 
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