Zombie Movie History
By Juanito Perez
Even though we never wish to get frightened, we all we all do love watching horror movies. Zombie movies are what viewers appreciate highly. They have all the ingredients that can make a viewer’s bone tickle. The sight of blood and rotten flesh is what you will find common in such genre of movies. A figure, which looks like a dead body and moves with great difficulty with a speed like that of a turtle, is how you will find a Zombie. These creatures are all the time looking for human flesh to eat and have specific words that they utter continuously after every few minutes. At one look, it seems that these zombies do not have a mind of their own. These imaginative figures have attracted people from all over the world.
The Zombie production became widely popular in 1968 after the release of the movie titled Night of the Living Dead. This was just the beginning of the popularity of this production and since then, it never looked back.
The zombie movie culture has been in existence since 1938. White Zombie Production was the first to release a movie of this genre and it was given the name, Dead Men Working in the Cane Field. It was based on a novel written by W. E. Seabrooks. This movie was to be released in the year 1934, but took a lot of time and finally got released 4 years later. The first zombie movie was produced and directed by the two brothers, Victor and Edward Halperin.
The story revolved around a girl, who turns into Zombie. This is done as she comes in the contact of an evil Voodoo master. The antagonist in the movie was played by Bela Lugois. The other leads of the movie were Madge Bellamy, who played the role of the girl. She was also the fiancé to the character named Neil Parker and the one, who turns into a Zombie under the influence of Murder Legendre (Bela Lugosi). The character of Neil Parker was played by John Harron. He portrayed the role of an employee of the bank.
After the success of Dead Men Working in the Cane Field and George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead, a number of directors entered this genre. Zombie, Tombs of the Blind Dead, Hell of the Living Dead, Night of the Comet, Evil Dead, Return of the Living Dead, Braindead, Dead Rising, House of the Dead and Resident Evil (A movie series) were some of the successful movies that took the path started by Halperin Brothers and Romero.
The trend of Zombie Horror Movies is still on the move. There are a number of movies that get released with dead people walking in them looking to curb their only desire: EAT. A number of directors have achieved success in the recent past, but it is believed that George Romero set a standard, which others could only match, but found difficulty in getting ahead of it.
