The 80’s were a heyday of sorts for campy zombie movies.  Zombies were not yet popular enough to make any of the experimental stuff commercially viable and Dan O’Bannon didn’t want to mimic George Romero.  Instead he made 1985’s “The Return of the Dead” the prototype for the modern zombie comedy (or “Zom-com” for short).

Digital effects were still pretty terrible which didn’t matter because they were too expensive for the budget.  Practical effects were the name of the game and Tarman was one of the most memorable.  Played to perfection by professional puppeteer (and naturally skeletal) Allan Trautman it’s reported that most of the film effects budgets went into the creation of Tarman.

The design was meant to convey that immersion in the Zombie creating 2-4-5 Trioxin had melted away the zombie’s skin and much of the musculature.  Trautman’s slower, bent stance and spread limbs was his way of intimating that more traditional, upright movements might cause the eroded zombie to literally fall to pieces.

Tarman was so visually striking that even non-genre fans remember him.  The excellent visuals coupled with Trautman’s truly disturbing movement created one of the most iconic zombies in modern film.

White Zombie [IMDB, Wikipedia] is the story of how a corrupt plantation owner and an evil voodoo master turn the beautiful Madeleine Short into a zombie slave.  Although an independent film it starred Bela Lugosi at the height of his career (less than a year after “Dracula” in fact).  It is widely considered to be the first zombie feature film.

It was also considered to be pretty terrible by the critics of the time.

Reviews included such gems as  “[The film is] interesting only in measure of its complete failure” and “The plot…is really ridiculous, but not so startlingly so as the acting.” It was one of the only American horror movies to be approved for distribution in Nazi Germany (which seems a dubious honor at best).

Madeleine, the titular zombie, was played by former silent movie star Madge Bellamy who reportedly earned $5,000 for her work on the film.  She later recalled that Lugosi would kiss her hand as she appeared on set each day.  Unfortunately her star faded early and she suffered financial issues most of her life.  The first movie zombie died at the impressive age of 90 in 1990.

If there’s one thing that both forgiving fans and devoted haters can agree on it’s that Michael Jackson was best dead.  The music video for “Thriller” was in all ways a full theatrical production.  With a running time of nearly 14 minutes, a screenplay and direction by John Landis (“The Blues Brothers”, “Animal House”, “An American Werewolf in London”) and creature effects by the legendary Rick Baker (“Star Wars”, “Men in Black”, “Hellboy”) no expense was spared.  It even contained a lengthy spoken word section by horror cinema god Vincent Price.

The video was released on December 2, 1983 and quickly sold over 9 million copies (on VHS no less).  It’s been entered into the National Film Registry (the first music video to be so honored) and won two Grammy’s.  It’s estimated that over 4 Billion (with a “B”) people have seen the video.  So whatever your opinion of Jackson and the allegations against him it’s hard to argue with the fact that he’s quite literally the most famous zombie ever.

[Apologies for the delay.  Holiday weekend!]

Way back in 1947 doctor Claude Beck of Western Reserve University School of Medicine, in Cleveland was the first person to successfully resuscitate a patient through defibrillation.  Using a machine like the one pictured.

In this first case the heart of a 14-year old boy stopped while undergoing open-chest surgery.  In other words, he died.  Beck, who we can only assume was giggling like a school-girl at the chance to use his un-christened  zap-box, was able to restore normal sinus rhythm with the application of electricity directly to the heart saving the boy’s life.

Does this mean that we are suggesting that anybody that’s been returned to life by medical science is actually a zombie?  Somebody that secretly desires to moan and eat brains?  Yes.  Yes we are.

One of the charms of Zombieland is the semi-anonymous world in which our hero, Columbus (his home town, not his name), lives in.  (In fact Bill Murray, playing himself, is the only character referred to by actual name.)  What makes this even more poignant is the fact that this was clearly not a reaction to the zombie apocalypse but just generally the way he rolled.  When his beautiful neighbor (Amber Heard) knocks on his door he refers to her only by her apartment number, “406”.

Frightened and in near panic 406 begs to be let in and comforted.  Ever the chivalrous romantic Columbus, interrupting another Friday night of World of Warcraft, does just that.  A crazed homeless man had attacked and attempted to bite her.  After calming her with Code Red Mountain Dew and (crisp) Golden Grahams they fall asleep in each other’s arms.  As Columbus tells us, “setting aside the feverous, homeless cannibal, I’m living the dream.”

Of course stories generally don’t have happy endings in Zombieland and he wakes to a bloated, vomiting, pustule-covered monster trying to take a bit or three out of him.  Although he attempts to reason with her he’s eventually forced to take drastic action and crush her skull with the toilet cover.  You know, like you do.

So we raise a glass in fond memory of 406.  She taught us that what is given can be taken and what is wanted isn’t always what is needed.  She was an early victim but an educational one.  Perhaps Columbus said it best: “You just can’t trust anyone.  The first time I let a girl into my life, she tries to eat me.”

If you saw that strange assortment of pixels over there and immediately experienced a minor, involuntary shudder then you probably also know that sticks and coal makes torches and if you ever hear hissing you should move your ass.  If you have no reaction whatsoever then you probably shouldn’t start nosing around this stuff unless you’d like to lose a significant chunk of your life to something that amounts to digital legos with spiders.

Zombies in Minecraft aren’t the most original enemies nor are they the nastiest ones.  Truth be told they’re rather easy to dispatch and those of us that have been playing for a while remember when we gleefully hunted them for feathers.  (Yes, killing zombies in Minecraft used to give you feathers.  No, there was no real sense to it.)  Now you can mow them down and collect a nice chunk of rotting meat which, if you’re hungry enough, you can eat.  Sure, you’ll get sick but it’ll keep you alive until you can slap a pork-chop out of a pig.  (Minecraft is hard to explain.)

So sure, they’re about as harmless as monsters can get but the real issue with zombie is that moan.  If it doesn’t send shivers down your spine then you’re not human.  It plugs directly into your brain’s “oh shit!” centers like almost nothing else can.  Here’s an experiment you can try: put a copy of the moan on your phone.  Now go to a place with a lot of people crammed together like a subway car or a crowded elevator.  Now play the sound.  Did you see anybody look really nervous for a second?  That person plays Minecraft!  If you’re really cruel you can also do this with the creeper noise but we warn you: people make get hurt when the Minecraft players instinctively run.

[Note that there will be spoilers here for season two of the The Walking Dead.  But if you’re here and reading this then I think we can assume that you’ve seen it.]

The second season of The Walking Dead took a lot of heat.  It was slow, it headed squarely into soap-opera territory and it didn’t make with the corpses like many fans wanted.  But oh lordy, lordy, that mid-season payoff.

The season focused heavily on two threads: Shane and Rick’s fight over control of the group and the search for poor, lost Sophia.  We watched Shane’s descent into madness and Carol’s emotional break as hope for her daughter faded collide into the frenzied massacre of the dead in the barn.

As the dust settled and the enormity of their actions began to sink into the survivors little Sophia shambles out.  As the group sits in shocked inaction Rick cements his leadership role by doing what needs to be done.

Zombie Sophia was the solid, unforgiving gut-punch that the series needed to find its footing again.  It was also a stark reminder to the fans: nobody was safe.  Forget what you thought you knew (this hit fans of the comics, where Sophia is still counted among the living years-on, especially hard).  If we can turn this cute little girl into a walker then anything can happen.

Kirkman, you terrible, glorious bastard, you.

The cemetery zombie, played by Bill Hinzman, is the first zombie we see in the 1968 classic “Night of the Living Dead“.  George Romero’s classic single-handedly defined the modern zombie genre while scaring the living crap out of audiences unprepared for it.

The cemetery zombie was doubly troubling being the resurrected corpse of an executed child-killer.  Escaping when his coffin was open to allow his victim’s family to confirm his death he  sets off the chain of events that throw our heroes, Barbara and Ben and the rest, together.

Sure cemetery zombie is quickly overshadowed by the rest of the horde but he’ll always have a special place in our hearts.  Even if he’d prefer to rip them out and feast on them still-beating.

This week we celebrate a really old school zombie, the always diabolical Solomon Grundy!  The character was introduced in 1944, almost 70 years ago, in All-American Comics #61.  Although introduced as a foil for the Golden Age Green Lantern he was so popular that he found his way into almost every major book including Batman, Swamp Thing and Superman.

Further cementing the character as awesome is the fact that he’s based on a supremely twisted 19th century children’s rhyme:

Solomon Grundy,

Born on a Monday,

Christened on Tuesday,

Married on Wednesday,

Took ill on Thursday,

Grew worse on Friday,

Died on Saturday,

Buried on Sunday.

That was the end,

Of Solomon Grundy

What’s not to love about a super-villainous reanimated corpse based on a mad children’s chant about death?  Nothing!

While it’s not a traditional zombie, none can deny that Valve’s alien head-hugging monstrosity deserves a position of honor at the table of the wandering dead.  Few creations have been so thoroughly effective in so many roles as the humble headcrab.  Beginning in Half-Life as a bloated, scuttling, shadow-loving nuisance enemy it only took a befuddled scientist or an under-trained security guard to transform it into a walking nightmare.

Inflicting its host with hideous mutations the resulting zombie grew enormous, skinless claws and a terrible, gaping groin-to-gullet vertical maw.  Leveraging those  with a bloodlust and terrible brutality the zombie would literally tear its victims to pieces.

(An aside: If you want to revisit the world of the Black Mesa Incident, or haven’t yet had the pleasure, check out the amazing Black Mesa Mod.  This complete, ground-up rewrite brings the Black Mesa Incident from Half-Life up to modern graphical standards and is truly the best way to play.)

Upping the ante in Half-Life 2 we experienced new variations on the theme with the grenade-wielding zombine, the flayed fast zombie and the devastating poison zombie.  We were also introduced to the diabolical ingenuity of the Combine and its population-erasing headcrab-infused bombing campaigns.  Already effective with the (now) primitive graphics of the first game Half-Life 2 also upped the visual ante making playing in the dark a serious challenge.

Many of the best gameplay experiences and one of the worst nightmares of my adult life featured the headcrab zombie.  So here’s to you, you shambling, flesh-ripping, parasite-controlled terror.