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Zombie movies go to the heart of our fears of death and dying. All human beings have an inherent fear of death, and fight death off strongly with the will to live-this coming from the reptille part of our brains: fight or flight. Therefore, these movies court our basic, primal fear of death and dying. To see the undead walking around on the big screen plays on these deep-seated fears, making us watch them even more, as we try and rationalize what we see. Everything from "Plan 9 from Outer Space" to the remake of the "Dawn of the Dead" plays on these deep-seated fears, as the writers and directors intended them to.

Such movies also play on the reptille part of the human brain in a different way: savage bloodlust, sometimes cannibalism, usually a theme of these movies. We are civillized, but those savage instincts are still there, usually kept in check by the neurons of the higher-brain centers. As human beings, we are still drawn to watch acts of extreme violence and brutality, although the higher centers of the brain usually end up making us recoil in disgust. Also, with the zombie movies, these higher brain centers of ours usually end up mocking it or sharply criticizing it as we continue to rationalize what we see.
With zombie movies, the fear also entails things in our world, such as war, famine, terrorism, economic collapse and disease. The fear comes out in these lurid movies as these beings are everywhere, escape is almost impossible-much like our deep-seated fears that eventually we'll be engulfed one way or another in such events. At times, we may consider death further off, but disease, war, terrorism and economic collapse haunts us to the very essence of sour soul-doubly with the fear of death. The zombie images are stark and haunting reminders of the combined fears of our human existence. The zombies swarm their victims and eat them alive much like all the events in our nightmares do.
When I saw the original "Night of the living dead", I knew that to be so true. The George Romero classic was lensed during a time of great upheaval in the world-1968. The Viet-Nam war was raging on with no end in sight, with riots, uprisings and political assassinations the norm in the USA, the Middle East was awash in blood, and the world always seened to be on the verge of nuclear annihilation from the Cold War between the USA and then Soviet Union. Fear and paranoia was everywhere. George Romero caught the essence of that fear in the first movie and a string of others that followed over the years. As our fears never diminish, neither do these movies. I believe these movies always will be around as long as all our deep-seated fears continue to rage unchecked in an increasingly dangerous and frightening world, exemplified by these movies.

Learn more about this author, Todd Daigneault.
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