The movie Night of the Living Dead came out in 1968. I don’t know exactly when I saw it for the first time but it is the first “zombie” movie as far as I am concerned. I mean the kind where people are eating each other, contagious, etc. I know there is the historical reference to zombies as the result of Haitian voodoo witch doctors, etc. but I don’t mean that kind. I mean the kind in popular movies since 1968 and current references. There are some interesting explanations of the distinction at the web page On the Origin of Zombies.

 

Most of this —— what should I call it —— Episode? Chapter? Installment? —— whatever. This is just the preface maybe to an old and continuing journey of metaphor, analogy, simile, mixed metaphor, cliché, hyperbole, etc. etc. And don’t be embarrassed or insulted if you get the feeling I am calling you a zombie or if you, indeed, feel like a zombie. (For instance, I Googled several of those big words I just used.) So this is just the beginning of my thoughts on zombies and I don’t think there is an end to those thoughts while I am still alive —— at least so far as what thoughts I am allowed as a member of the living, the living dead or the dead-dead. It does get confusing. In one of those popular movies there is a discussion between two people about a zombie that had recently been killed. But since the zombie was already dead once, but was living dead, it got complicated. So the guy says the zombie is now dead-dead, not living dead, because he blew the zombie’s head off. So, even though the headless body was still wandering about, it was dead-dead because it was headless —— not living dead with a mindless head. This distinction is hard to illustrate but it seems somehow relevant.