Zombie stories have been part of our history for centuries. Even in biblical times, there were reports of people rising from the dead, and today is no different. In the past, these stories of animated dead arose out of myth, and were also often found in religious scripts. Today we are more likely to picture a shambling zombie apocalypse not unlike a scene from the Walking Dead.
Zombies of the silver screen have all in some way or another based around the creatures that were first seen on the screen in George A Romero’s ‘Night of the Living Dead’. This iconic film, however, is by no means the earliest mention of undead flesh-eating nasties. One of the oldest stories known to mankind, the Epic of Gilgamesh (an epic poem that came out of Mesopotamia, now better known is Iraq) even has mention of zombie like creatures:
“ I will knock down the Gates of the Netherworld,
I will smash the door posts, and leave the doors flat down,
and will let the dead go up to eat the living!
And the dead will outnumber the living!”
It’s not hard to tell that humans have always been fascinated for what awaits us beyond the grave, and if the best case scenario is that we ascend to a set of pearly gates and are rewarded with eternity in bliss in heaven, then the opposite would surely be to revived as one of these brainless, shambling creatures to suffer and hunger forever more.
Nowadays, zombies are something of a pastiche: we have comedy films featuring zombies as nothing more than mere pests (see: Sean of the Dead). Popular opinion has changed from fearing these undead creatures to holding them up as some sort of folly, maybe a kind of way of feeling better about some of the crazier things we used to believe possible.
However, as of the last few months, popular opinion may have swung back to fearing these supposed flesh-eaters, after a number of severely troubling incidents occurring around the United States have gotten people wondering if there really is a zombie apocalypse on the horizon.
The most notorious of these recent ‘zombie’ stories is that of Rudy Eugene, who was recently shot down by Miami police when he refused to stop attacking a homeless man beneath a bridge. This was not your ordinary assault, mind you. Eugene was fully nude, and was on top of the homeless man, Ronald Poppo, eating away at his face and trying to rip his clothes off. This bears little resemblance to zombie stories of old, except for the fact that Rudy Eugene was actually eating this man’s face – his nudity and apparent agility were not so in line with the brainless flesh-hungry automatons we are used to calling zombies. Scary stuff, indeed!
This is not the only zombie-related incident to pop up in the last few weeks. In other news, a man named Wayne Carter, from Hackensack New Jersey, allegedly cut open his own stomach and threw his intestines at police. It was reported to the police by people in his neighborhood that the man had locked himself in his room and was planning on harming himself. When they arrived they tried to subdue him by incapacitating him with pepper spray, though this apparently served only to enrage him further, at which point he began stabbing himself in the stomach and neck, and then proceeding to throw bits of himself at police before they shot and killed him.
These are just two out of many incidents that are popping up on an almost daily basis now, where people are trying to pin inexplicable phenomena on a coming zombie apocalypse. Skeptics (or realists, as you please) are saying instead that this crazed behavior is typical of a drug induced freak out, and pin the blame on a new over-the-counter party drug called “bath salts” that were found in the system of Rudy Eugene in the autopsy following his death.
Whether or not these attacks are a sign of things to come, or whether they were once off, they sure as hell are scary! Zombies or no – people eating other people is never a nice thought. Maybe now would be a good time to stock up on canned foods and a bunker.
Jeff is a guest writer for IFC – a medical aid consultancy which may or may not have zombie-related medical aid schemes to provide.
Zombies of the silver screen have all in some way or another based around the creatures that were first seen on the screen in George A Romero’s ‘Night of the Living Dead’. This iconic film, however, is by no means the earliest mention of undead flesh-eating nasties. One of the oldest stories known to mankind, the Epic of Gilgamesh (an epic poem that came out of Mesopotamia, now better known is Iraq) even has mention of zombie like creatures:
“ I will knock down the Gates of the Netherworld,
I will smash the door posts, and leave the doors flat down,
and will let the dead go up to eat the living!
And the dead will outnumber the living!”
It’s not hard to tell that humans have always been fascinated for what awaits us beyond the grave, and if the best case scenario is that we ascend to a set of pearly gates and are rewarded with eternity in bliss in heaven, then the opposite would surely be to revived as one of these brainless, shambling creatures to suffer and hunger forever more.
Nowadays, zombies are something of a pastiche: we have comedy films featuring zombies as nothing more than mere pests (see: Sean of the Dead). Popular opinion has changed from fearing these undead creatures to holding them up as some sort of folly, maybe a kind of way of feeling better about some of the crazier things we used to believe possible.
However, as of the last few months, popular opinion may have swung back to fearing these supposed flesh-eaters, after a number of severely troubling incidents occurring around the United States have gotten people wondering if there really is a zombie apocalypse on the horizon.
The most notorious of these recent ‘zombie’ stories is that of Rudy Eugene, who was recently shot down by Miami police when he refused to stop attacking a homeless man beneath a bridge. This was not your ordinary assault, mind you. Eugene was fully nude, and was on top of the homeless man, Ronald Poppo, eating away at his face and trying to rip his clothes off. This bears little resemblance to zombie stories of old, except for the fact that Rudy Eugene was actually eating this man’s face – his nudity and apparent agility were not so in line with the brainless flesh-hungry automatons we are used to calling zombies. Scary stuff, indeed!
This is not the only zombie-related incident to pop up in the last few weeks. In other news, a man named Wayne Carter, from Hackensack New Jersey, allegedly cut open his own stomach and threw his intestines at police. It was reported to the police by people in his neighborhood that the man had locked himself in his room and was planning on harming himself. When they arrived they tried to subdue him by incapacitating him with pepper spray, though this apparently served only to enrage him further, at which point he began stabbing himself in the stomach and neck, and then proceeding to throw bits of himself at police before they shot and killed him.
These are just two out of many incidents that are popping up on an almost daily basis now, where people are trying to pin inexplicable phenomena on a coming zombie apocalypse. Skeptics (or realists, as you please) are saying instead that this crazed behavior is typical of a drug induced freak out, and pin the blame on a new over-the-counter party drug called “bath salts” that were found in the system of Rudy Eugene in the autopsy following his death.
Whether or not these attacks are a sign of things to come, or whether they were once off, they sure as hell are scary! Zombies or no – people eating other people is never a nice thought. Maybe now would be a good time to stock up on canned foods and a bunker.
Jeff is a guest writer for IFC – a medical aid consultancy which may or may not have zombie-related medical aid schemes to provide.
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