How Slow And Shambling Became Scary
I came across this article on the Arkansas Democratic Gazette about the history of zombies, mainly in cinema. While this article is a very simplified history, and doesn’t give any new information that most readers of the ZRC wouldn’t already know, it does make an interesting comparison of zombies to the mummy. Mostly about how filmmakers learned how to make a slow, shambling monster to be scary:
The Mummy (1932 ) did the considerable trick of making people scared of something they could outrun. Mummies have been sneaking up on people ever since. Zombies learned from mummies. Producer Val Lewton’s shadowy I Walked With a Zombie (1943 ) put the audience in the zombie’s shoes.
It’s an interesting point on the idea of monsters who are traditionally slow and weak still having the ability to be horrifying and dangerous. Will this comparison come in handy this week with our ZMON? featuring The Mummy? We’ll see…
Also, check out this Arkansas Democratic Gazette article, with blurbs from George Romero, on zombies running and more.
