Dawn of the Dead (2004)

This is a remake of Romero's classic zombie movie "Dawn of the Dead" from 1978. With an emhasis on extreme gore and hordes of zombies, this movie packs a punch.



The movie begins with a man and a woman in a house, and are both attacked by a zombie. The man is attacked first, becomes infected, and attacks his wife. The wife manages to escape. From here on, the entire city is flooded with zombies and complete chaos.



Eventually a small group of survivors come together and hold their ground in a mall, where the majority of the movie takes place.



As days go by, the survivors are faced with difficulties, and the main difficulty is hunger. The survivors are forced to leave the mall and find food/other survivors. Another challenge the survivors face is the ability to stay sane amongst all of the surrounding chaos. Heated arguments often develop, leading to casualties.





The movie boasts some frightening scenes, and if they aren't enough to scare you, they will certainly make you disgusted. One of the most horrific scenes involves the birth of a zombie baby. An adult woman is pregnant and is bitten by a zombie, therefore, she becomes infected and gives birth to an infected baby. The baby is then killed by someone else. Gruesome.



The horrifying images and bizzare plot in this movie make it a staple in the category of zombie movies. With plenty of action, explosions, and gunfire, this movie has raised the standard of how zombie movies should be made in the future.

George Romero's Dawn of the Dead

George Romero’s “Dawn of the Dead” came out in 1978. The movie follows four people who fly to a mall and reside within it during a zombie outbreak. While the people are at the mall they take whatever they want or need from the stores and seem to have unlimited resources. The people face some challenges such as getting around the mall with all the undead and a group of bikers that come and ransack the mall. By the end of the movie they are down to only two people and it ends on a slightly higher note than that of “Night of the Living Dead” with them escaping in the helicopter.
This film relates a lot to what we have been talking about in class lately. The story shows the conspicuous consumption with both the zombies and normal people. The normal people are continuously getting whatever they want or need. The bikers show this extremely well by just showing up and grabbing whatever they want. The zombies are also consistently trying to get the four people and when the bikers show up the zombies make sure to capitalize on their appearance. Matthew Walker showed a lot of good points in his article “When There’s No More Room in Hell, The Dead will Shop the Earth” which we talked about earlier. He discussed how the people used the mall not only to get good but also as a sanctuary. The line from the movie which was said by Fly Boy when asked why the zombies are showing up at the mall, “Some kind of instinct. Memory, of what they used to do. This was an important place in their lives.” shows a good example of how the people turn into automatons and the zombies just pick up where they left off.
The zombies in the film are also a lot like the zombies in Romero’s other films in which they are pretty much slow moving automatons. Tom Savini did the make up for this film in addition to doing stunts and starring as the second in command biker. He helped give the zombies and gore their now well known looks.

Zombies and Humans: Two Conspicuous Consumers

With the release of George Romero's “Dawn of the Dead” in 1978, the figure of the zombie became forever linked with consumer culture. As Matthew Walker's article “When There's No More Room in Hell, The Dead Will Shop the Earth” illustrated, the film is filled with references to the zombie-like nature of the average consumer who is compelled to purchase goods that he or she may not need.

Because of Romero's film, it isn't hard to draw connections between human behavior, zombies, and the concept of “Conspicuous Consumption” as put forward by sociologist, economist, and Wisconsin native Thorstein Veblen in “The Theory of the Leisure Class.” Veblen's work outlines the purchasing patterns of people in modern society who spend money primarily to demonstrate their level of income to their friends, family and neighbors. While Veblen cites examples of consumption from the aristocracy, you don't need to look far to find it in our daily lives. Though a Dodge Neon may work just as well as a means of transportation, an individual who makes a larger income will likely feel the need to purchase a Mercedes or BWM to demonstrate their position in society.

Though the concept of conspicuous consumption is addressed through works like “Dawn of the Dead,” the zombie itself has another relation to the concept of consumption. As Scott pointed out in the class discussion board for “28 Days Later,” the zombie consumes in a way that is hard to understand. “I cannot imagine that zombies are able to digest food, so what is the driving force that directs a zombie to eat human flesh (or brains)? Is it jealousy? Or a hunger that cannot be satisfied? Or something else?”

The zombie's hunger itself is an example of conspicuous consumption. As the zombie is no longer alive and likely lacks the biological processes to digest the “food” it ingests, it is consuming something that it does not in fact need. The reason for this in a literal sense is difficult to understand, but symbolically, it is rather a clear and useful illustration of Veblen's concept of conspicuous consumption.

She Was Not Alive... Nor Dead... Just a WHITE ZOMBIE!

White Zombie is a 1932 horror film starring Béla Lugosi and Madge Bellamy. The story is about a young woman, Madeline (Bellamy), who has just arrived in Haiti and is reunited with her fiancé Neil (John Harron) and they plan to get married quickly. The young couple goes to stay with Charles Beaumont (Robert Frazer), a wealthy plantation owner, whom is in love with Madeline. Charles love for Madeline makes him decide to approach the mysterious voodoo master, 'Murder' Legendre (Béla Lugosi). Charles can't make Madeline love him, so he hopes Legendre has some mystical magic that can help. Legendre gives Charles a potion to give to Madeline that will make her into a zombie. Charles does so, and Madeline dies on her wedding day. Upon being buried, Neil goes into a panic and Legendre seems he can't be trusted. Slowly, Charles realizes that he now has Madeline, but she has lost her soul.

White Zombie is a perfect example of what movies made with improper knowledge can become. The story is over-the-top and is completely false in every way. It's a very narrow minded view of Haitian culture and their beliefs. I also do think it's rather funny that a Hungarian with a Fu Man Chu mustache is a voodoo master of any kind, but I digress. Part of me wants to hate this movie for it's inaccuracy and it's offensive in nature plot, but I can't. Maybe it's my love for B-grade horror films or my love for Bela Lugosi. I'm not sure what it is, but all I know, is this film was fun to re-watch.

When There's No More Room in Hell, The Dead will Shop the Earth.

Matthew Walker's text illustrating the simplest form of a human and zombie and the aspiration of "having the good life" enlightens a new concept of thinking. Walker compared Aristotle and Romero's view on zombies and culture. Why do Zombies return? What does life have to offer us? The term pleonexia means the disposition to have more, grasping for more. Aristotle goes on referring pleonexia as one's desire for sheer survival. I found this intriguing because pleonexia can relate to a couple different aspects of life. Two very important aspects: Shopping and Survival. Us, as humans consume items because either want them, or we think we need them to go on. Zombies on the other hand do not really need any articles; they are just grasping for air, for survival. It's sensational to compare humans to zombies and especially in terms of what makes us happy and gives us pleasure.

Walker's idea of depicting humans as mindless zombies while roaming a mall is quite humorous and accurate. I've seen countless people walking or hanging out in the mall staring at every shopping window for no apparent reason, it just gives them happiness. "Although the mall misleads us by identifying the good life with gadget oriented affluence, the mall at least offers temporary sanctuary for the films main heros, Peter and Fran," says Romero. Perhaps this is what a mall does to us.. creates humans into zombies that cannot think, but stare mindlessly. "Although zombies horrify us, they are sad creatures, lost souls condemned to wander the mall in search of an elusive satisfaction."

The Zombies of Capitalism According the Marx's "Fetishism and Commodity"

“The Fetishism of the Commodity and It’s Secret” is a section in Karl Marx’s “Capital: Volume 1” and discusses the different kinds of values placed on objects in relation to human use, labor and how they contribute to the capitalist system. To start off, it will be helpful to define a few key terms that are consistently used in this excerpt: (according to Marx and Merriam-webster.com)

· Fetish- an object of irrational reverence or obsessive devotion

·Commodity- an economic good, something useful or valued

·Use-Value- the degree to which an object satisfies human needs, property of the item itself

·Exchange Value- the value of an object relative to other objects or a specific system, directly assigned by humans

The term in the title, “Fetishism of the Commodity,” describes the significance of an object in a way that is completely separate from its use value. It is a fetish because although it may have no real use value, the commodity is still revered in a mystical sense because it is a product of human labor. Marx breaks this down by explaining the manner of labor both individually and socially and how certain objects can come to be commodities.

When it comes to exchanging commodity, “what initially concerns producers…is how much of some product they get for their own” (234). In essence this comes down analyzing how much capital value is placed on an object and demeaning the amount of labor put into any given commodity to a single price. This means eliminating labor as a human factor and simply valuing “relations between material objects” (236). In accordance with the theme of this course, we could perceive the dehumanized laborers in this practice, as “zombies.” Take for example the social labor of factory workers, that is a group of people working together to create one specific product. Are they “zombies” because they toil repetitively only to remain unrecognizable? How different are they from the Haitian zombies, who are revived only to fulfill the needs of the field owners?

Marx continues to explain how we as humans come to assign value to commodities and why labor is a determining factor in this process. He uses the example of “Robinson Crusoe,” the English novel by Daniel Defoe, and how Crusoe slowly turns items into commodity and conforms to the ideology of capitalism. After being stranded on the island, Crusoe makes use of what he has acquired, using labor to ensure his survival, but as he forms his new life, he realizes that certain tasks have greater importance because they require different amounts of labors. Crusoe essentially creates his own system of capitalism because he assigns exchange value to all the commodities he has created and starts to adhere to this as a cost.

Often times, we as consumers are hardly different than Robinson Crusoe because we assign commodity value according to a similar system. But once this system is known it seems to disappear from everyday transactions and appears only as a price tag, thus come the consumers who are bred to ignore the labor and adore the cost, or as Marx would call them the bourgeois. The system thrives on these people because they feed the market and demand exchange value over use value. But what comes to mind when we think of these mindless consumers, only waiting for the next best commodity to come their way? They are the “zombies” on the other end of capitalism, buying into fetishism, adoring the high value of commodity and forgetting that by paying the price, they are losing sight of the human element.

When one hears Zora Neale Hurston, generally the first thing that comes to mind is not zombies. But like most people who've visited Haiti, Hurston encountered the zombie while there. In her work "Tell my Horse," Hurston tries to make sense of voodoo and zombie mysticism. She begins by examining sexuality and voodoo. In Western christianity, sex is often almost completely ignored when it's not being touted as sinful. Voodoo seems to celebrate creation through sex. Although, admittedly in a somewhat ritualistic pagan way. I'm not entirely sure what that has to do with zombies, but I thought it was interesting so I thought I would ramble about that for a while.

The Haitian zombie, as we have noted in class, is much different from the pop culture zombie of the West. Haitian zombies are simplistic and less violent, which seem to make them scarier than our a bloody, flesh craving zombies. These zombies are not so much scary in the way that you fear to meet one, but rather to be one. These zombies don't get to run around seeking to fulfill their desire for brains, but rather have to toil like a "beast" as Hurston puts it. There is no rest for Haitian zombies and their work seems greater than searching for flesh.

To add to the terribleness of being a Haitian zombie, it seems that a Haitian zombie can be cured. However, for that to happen someone would have to recognize the zombie and feed it salt. But because the zombie is always toiling and the zombie master, Bocor, makes sure the keep the zombie hidden, there is little chance of the zombie being recognized. These zombies are to be pitied and no fears to become one.

It is interesting to think that the fear in pop culture zombies lies in being attacked by them, but so much becoming one. It seems that once someone becomes a pop culture zombie, it only feels the overwhelming need for brains, but the Haitian zombie feels the wear of it's toil; a toil that someone else benefits from.

Sorry for the late post. I had almost forgotten about it. Hopefully, someone will have time to read it before class.

The zombie in Haiti is very unlike the version of the zombie we see in most of the world. We, as Americans at least, normally see the zombie as something of horror stories, something that can be terrifying, but not very plausible. They are used in our modern culture as many things, such as social commentary, cheap thrills, or even a good laugh. In Haiti, the zombie is a different thing entirely according to Zora Neale Hurston.

The book Tell My Horse by Hurston, or at least the two chapters I read, gives a lot of first hand information about zombies in Haiti and the Voodoo religion in general. And though the book gets a lot of criticism for being more a travelogue than a legitimate scientific work, I think it still creates a pretty clear picture of the way Haitian’s view the world, and in my opinion their view of the zombie is more chilling than ours. For them, the fear lies not in the zombie apocalypse or being attacked by zombies. Like Hurston says, “the fear is real and deep” (189) Zombies are created by a bocor, or an evil voodoo priest, in contrast to the houngan, normally seen as the real or true voodoo priest. To put it simply, once a victim is chosen to be a zombie, they bocor visits the house and basically steals the victim’s soul, and soon after they die. After the burial ceremony, the bocor and his associates dig up the body and the bocor calls the victim and basically becomes his slave, or a zombie. From then on the zombie will no longer recognize family or friends. There was a feeling of helplessness I got when I read this, that all of your loved ones have no idea of what happened to you, and even if they did there would be no rescue. Because whether you believe that the zombies are real, there is still a lot of mental damage happening to you in this process, making you unable to be rescued or saved. You would basically be trapped in a body that you have no will over and only true death, or death of your bocor, would be your release.

I think Hurston does a great job of making the zombie and voodoo more real than I ever thought they were. She immerses herself in the culture, giving her a lot of rich stories full of details. It seemed to me that she got scared and I even got the feeling that she withheld some information for either her own safety or the safety of others.

Religion, Ritual, and Re-animation

The excerpts from Zora Neale Hurston's Tell My Horse and from Alan Lomax's Notebook both deal with the ritualistic side of voodoo (however you want to spell it).

Lomax's notes from his ethnic study of Haitian voodoo is, frankly, hard to read. The wording is awkward and does not translate well into the present. But, Lomax does give an authentic feel to some of the voodoo ceremonies, describing the intricacies of each rite. The rules that must be followed in this religion (?) are quite strict and specific (the lists of the gifts that must be given to the different loa, or gods, are astounding).
Zombies make a very brief appearance in this selection, so there is not much to say directly about them here. But the reading does give a more visceral understanding of the religion that "created" zombies.

Hurston's chapters give a further (and more clearly written) explanation of the religion. She gives the background of the most important gods in voodoo. Here's the breakdown:

• Damballah - the head cheese. If you were to ask another god for a favor, that god would have to ask Damballah if it's okay.
• Erzulie - the goddess of love. She is supposed to be the ideal woman, and must be loved and obeyed... even by married men.
• Papa Legba - the gatekeeper. Praying to this god first will make sure you get where you're going.

As with Lomax's notes, these chapters go into great detail about the ritual aspects of the religion: giving similar (and always specific) gifts to the gods, having to perform certain rites, and praying in a certain order.

Then she finally gets around to talking about zombies. Many of the stories she tells here are seen in other texts we have read. But she does focus more on the idea of sacrifice within the zombie myth. She mentions the "Ba Moun" ceremony, which is a Faustian deal a person can make with a loa. The person becomes wealthy and successful, but most periodically offer up souls to the loa, and, if unable to, must give their own.

The souls that are given must be considered a real sacrifice (i.e. a family member, wife, or friend), and will then become a zombie. Hurston tells two types of stories, each with its own moral. In one, a man sacrifices his entire family in order to stay alive and wealthy. In the other, the man realizes how selfish he is being and offers himself up as the sacrifice in order to save a loved one.

The idea of a zombie being a sacrifice is interesting from a socioeconomic standpoint. Since the sacrifice is being made in order to gain wealth and prosperity, I find it interesting that the people being sacrificed are made to do menial labor with no will of their own. Sounds a bit Marxist to me. Rise up, zombies!

Sorry to ramble on.

Passing through the Dark

Wade Davis’ scientific approach to the Haitian zombie is quite different from the religious and magic aspects in Seabrook’s “The Magic Island.” Davis uses his “Passage of Darkness,” to explore the many possible ways to turn one into a zombie, mostly poisons, whether they are plant or animal based, with effects that range from merely psychotropic to lethal.

Davis himself is an anthropologist and an ethnobotanist (studying plants in relation to people and culture) whose work focused on the indigenous cultures around the world, particularly involving the beliefs and uses of psychotropic plants in rituals and the like. So of course his eye would eventually fall on Haiti and their use of such plants and even animals to somehow drain a person of their will, their mind and ability to do anything but follow orders.

The idea of being buried alive or somehow rising from the grave after death is a thought that permeates most, if not all societies. Even ancient cultures had their legends of something animating the dead and bringing them back to the world of the living, and stories about someone being mistaken for dead and subsequently being buried or entombed alive. As Davis points out, even Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet has such a drug, one that puts Juliet into a death-like trance so convincing it causes young Romeo to kill himself. Drugs that can cause one to stop, or appear to stop breathing, have no heartbeat, etc etc; even human beings can do this under the right circumstances and with enough training. So it makes sense that even in Victorian England, as Davis tells us, these beliefs and fears were prevalent, and people went to great lengths to ensure that they wouldn’t be buried alive, or come back once dead. In fact, we still have these fears today.

Davis concludes that a poison must be the key to the “zombie mystery,” as he puts it, but that if such a thing were possible that it would suggest “the existence of men and woman who actually created the poison and decided how, when and to whom it should be administered… undoubtedly involve[ing] explanations rooted at the very structure and beliefs of the Haitian peasant society.” In other words, he asserts that there must a type of secret society, beyond even the priesthood. Beyond that, he asserts that he has met with some of the leaders of said secret society, and that they have poisons and powders that can not only kill, both quick and slow, some that only give pain and some that “make you the master.” One can assume the last is the one that could create a zombie.

With such borderline outrageous claims, along with the few quite unethical practices he professes to in these pages, not the lease of them unburying the body of a small child and aiding in using it to create one of the many zombie powders he learned the ingredient lists too, it’s no wonder that he was criticized by his peers. But at the very least, his research can help us understand the context around the Haitian zombie, and make the concept even a little bit more believable.