Zombies Running Without Bite
by Annie Riordon
The word “zombie” has become synonymous with “eater of human flesh/brains” these days. But not all zombies are carnivores. I can’t say I’ve ever known a vegan zombie, but the films listed below feature a bevvy of undead ubermenschen who have more pressing concerns than the acquisition and immediate consumption of people meat.
White Zombie
Long before the Astro Creep 2000, there was Bela Lugosi 1932, flexing his hypno fingers and bulging his eyeballs as voodoo king and zombie master Murder Legendre. What an awesome name, right? This is it, kids; the very first feature length zombie movie EVER, and there’s not a single instant of flesh-munching to be found. Rather, the White Zombie of the title is teeny tiny little Madge Bellamy, a fragile little china doll of a woman whose eyes took up approximately three quarters of her face mass. Her first mistake: moving to Haiti. Second mistake: being pretty. At the behest of a smitten sociopath, Bela whips up some Instant Zombie and one live burial later, we have Madge floating around in long white gowns with a blank expression on her face that still manages to hold more intelligence and coherence than Paris Hilton’s ever has. By today’s standards, White Zombie may seem a bit geriatric in its creaky, arthritic joints, but give great granddaddy his due credit: White Zombie laid the groundwork for all the zombie films to come. Like it or not, you need to respect that shit.
Dead & Buried
George Romero once stated: “I’ve always felt that the real horror is next door to us, that the scariest monsters are our neighbors.” In 1981, Gary Sherman took that idea one step further, giving us an entire town full of scary neighbors. The residents of Potter’s Bluff are just your average bunch of blue-collar joes (and joanne’s), sunny and helpful and friendly…and very, very dead. They have absolutely zero interest in eating flesh and no desire whatsoever for brains. But this tight knit community shares an unchecked enthusiasm for out-of-towners. They’ll smile, they’ll say “Hi!”, and they’ll calmly move on to beating you to death with rocks, setting you on fire, gouging out your eyes and ripping you to pieces. But hey, it’s not all bad. Every single murder victim gets rebuilt, reanimated and granted permanent residency. I might have to go that route if housing prices don’t drop soon.
I Walked With A Zombie
Charlotte Bronte’s 1847 gothic masterpiece “Jane Eyre” gets a hundred year makeover and a trip to Jamaica in this film by horror master Jacques Tourneur. Hired as a caretaker for the wife of a plantation owner, Nurse Betsy gets caught up in the Calypso-tinged world of Voodoo when her patient turns out to be a white zombie. Is it a medical mystery or a genuine voodoo curse? Betsy’s willing to stroll through the cane fields at night to find out, and neither spooky jungle drums nor the presence of a cadaverous, pop-eyed native is going to deter her. Considering this was made in 1943, there’s stunningly little in the way of sexism or racism. Smart and eerie, there’s a reason this is considered a classic.
The Dead Don’t Die
This is perhaps the weirdest and most obscure zombie movie that no one has ever seen. Shot in the sleazy 70s, DDD is set in the tacky art deco past of the 30s. Part film noir throwback, part gumshoe whodunnit, it’s ultimately all voodoo zombie horror, featuring a screenplay written by Robert (Psycho) Bloch and boasting a cast of dispirited has-beens whose hangdog acceptance of their fading careers make them seem like the genuine undead articles. To my knowledge, it’s never been released onto DVD, but my VHS copy was worth the $10 I paid. Tight paced, bitterly nostalgic and thoroughly depressing; exactly what a zombie film should be.
Re-Animator
Dr. Herbert West has nothing but contempt for the living, so one must wonder why he’s so hellbent on discovering the secret to immortality. His glowstick colored serum does indeed bring the dead back to life, but it also has a tendency to turn the reanimated corpses into uncontrollably violent killing machines. West’s zombies don’t have any hunger pangs and aren’t interested in eating…with the sole exception of the decapitated Dr. Hill, whose overwhelming desire to munch on Barbara Crampton’s pink bits takes this splattery 80s flick into the previously unexplored realm of zombie porn.
Plague of the Zombies
Cheap labor. We here in America rely on the Latino community to do our dirty work for a pittance. But in 1800s England, Mexicans were a tad scarce. Leave it to the local mad scientist to turn to voodoo in order to create undead slave labor for the local tin mines. They’re ugly as hell and probably don’t smell very good, but hey – they also don’t require rest, food or paychecks, nor are they adverse to lugging around the occasional buxomy damsel in a silk ball gown. That’s a classic example of a win-win situation, and it’s all brought to you courtesy of Hammer Studios.
The Serpent and the Rainbow
Wade Davis’ serious anthropological case study on the effects of tetrodotoxin, hallucinogens and deep rooted cultural beliefs on the human brain was given the splattery (and rather silly) Wes Craven treatment in 1988 with this film of the same name. Determined to find out if Haitian’s have really discovered a formula which can turn human beings into brainwashed zombie slaves, a superwhite American doctor hightails it down to Port-Au-Prince, pisses off a voodoo priest and pays the price for his curiosity. Highlights include a live burial with a tarantula and watching Bill Pullman get a nail hammered right through his ball sack. Very therapeutic viewing after sitting through Independence Day.
One Dark Night
Some zombies crave human flesh. Other zombies serve the will of their masters. And yet others just kinda fall out of their coffins and smother a couple of pot smoking teenage girls. One Dark Night features some of the most unscary zombies ever caught on film. Controlled by the brain waves of a recently deceased occultist, the undead – some leaky and soggy, others dried to near powder – rise from their tombs and sort of just rub themselves all over the victims, who are considerate enough to stand and wait while the incredibly slowass cadavers take fucking forever to close a distance of less than a foot. Helped slightly by Elizabeth (Devil’s Rejects) Daily, Meg Tilly and Adam “Batman” West, this film ultimately has the same effect as the two Demerol pills that Tilly pops about halfway through her ordeal.
The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed Up Zombies
This is about as un-zombie as a zombie film can get and still keep the word “zombie” in the title. It’s never a good idea to piss off a gypsy fortune teller, especially one with a golfball sized wart on her face and a bottle of poison on the sill. But after doing just that, teenage loser Jerry finds himself zombified by Madame Estrella’s spinning wheel of hypno-vision, forced to kill anyone and everyone that mildly irritates her. But with such a short fuse, gypsy chick has got a serious back stock of pissed off zombies in her closet, and of course they’re bound to break out for a rockin’ and rollin’ dancing girl studded psychedelic climax! This schlocky shit simply must be seen to be believed. MST3K commentary makes the experience much more bearable.
