The question itself arises from George A. Romero’s cult horror classic, “Night of the Living Dead,” which premiered in 1968. In this movie a virus, thought to have been brought back from outer space, reanimates the corpses of dead humans, who then go on a feeding frenzy and seek to eat living people. The question remains, however—Why do these reanimated corpses seek to feed on the living?
To begin with, the story line of “Night of the Living Dead” was reportedly based on a true case which the United States Army supposedly covered up. If we put aside the obvious marketing advantage of flesh eating zombies (although in the movie these creatures were never called ‘zombies,’ but were referred to as ‘those things,’ ‘monsters’ or ‘ghouls’), we are left looking to the scientific realm for answers.
The definition of Dead is: ‘Having ceased to live; no longer endowed with life; inanimate.’ So this virus reanimates the dead. The definition of Reanimate is: ‘To animate anew; restore to life.’ The medical definition of Death is: ‘Lack of heartbeat, lack of respiration and lack of brain function.’ But zombies obviously have Brain Function of some sort, else how could they be able to navigate about (albeit slowly and with ungainly movement) and seek out humans to eat? Not to mention the fact that a few of them were able to use tools in their attempt to kill people. (The little girl in the cellar used a garden trowel to kill her mother, while the zombie in the graveyard used a rock to smash a car window and at least two other zombies carried wooden clubs at some point in the movie).
So are the ‘zombies’ undead, which means they are obviously not dead, or are they reanimated, which also means they are not dead? Mayhap they are something in between the living and the dead. Let us not forget that this plague was brought about (supposedly) by a space virus or radiation, so earthly assumptions of life and/or death may not apply to them. Or we can simply put all of this down to “Literary License.”
Regardless, why do the zombies suddenly feel the need to eat living human flesh? (There was one scene in the movie where a zombie ate an insect, so is any living thing on the menu?) Mayhap it is out of a sense of vengeance. After all, the zombies are dead—well, not really, since they are now reanimated and thus living, in an obscure sort of way—and may want revenge on those who are still actually alive. But since the zombies are, let us say ‘technically’ dead, they have no bodily functions—no respiration, no heart beat, and no working digestive system—so why the need to eat at all, let alone human flesh? (Although Max Brooks states in his book, The Zombie Survival Guide, that after the virus—Solanum—takes over the victim’s brain, some bodily functions are still used—is one of those the digestive system?).
Mayhap it was Romero’s way to touch upon one of our last great taboos: Cannibalism. If the film was simply about crazed humans eating one another, many viewers would have possibly boycotted the movie, seeing it as obscene and disgusting, even immoral. Yet by having the ‘cannibalistic’ frenzy perpetrated by zombies, it may still seem obscene and disgusting to some, but overall it is a huge hit with moviegoers since the sickening behavior can be blamed on an unknown, not-of-this-world virus.
Historical note: In the early evening of December 9th, 1965, dozens of people saw a flaming object shoot across the sky of Canada and the Northern United States, while many witnesses saw it crash to Earth in a wooded area near rural Kecksburg, Pennsylvania. Several locals were able to locate the still steaming ‘bell shaped’ object and get a fairly good look at it before a large contingent of Army personal arrived and cordoned off the crash site from the public. A local radio news reporter, as well as a newspaper reporter from a nearby town took dozens of witness statements, many of which were recorded on tape. At least two people witnessed an empty Army flatbed truck enter the restricted area and thirty minutes later the truck left the area with a large, bell shaped object on the flatbed, covered with a tarpaulin.
Many at first considered the Object a crashed UFO, but it was later theorized that it was more likely a Russian space probe, the Cosmos 96, which was lost after it reentered Earth’s atmosphere. The probe was supposedly sent to Venus and then crashed in rural Pennsylvania. George Romero must have known about this incident, since he used a Venus space probe as the possible catalyst for the zombie plague, and the action in his movie took place just three years after this event in rural Pennsylvania, some 200 miles from Pittsburg. In the movie, he said it was a NASA probe however, since I guess he couldn’t very well blame the Russians for this epidemic, not in the middle of a 1960s Cold War. Not surprisingly, our government sources stated that the object seen was a meteor, but after searching the area for several hours found nothing important. To this day our government denies any knowledge of a crash site in Kecksburg.
So, if we jump ahead in time from 1968 some seventeen years to 1985 we are presented with another zombie movie, this one directed by Dan O’Bannon. “The Return of the Living Dead” is a satirical and frequently hilarious unofficial sequel to “Night of the Living Dead.” This movie picks up on the premise of the original film that the U.S. Army had something to do with the zombie virus attack and presumes that the Army managed to acquire some of these zombies back in 1968, which were kept in storage for further examination. As is predictable with Army secret projects, somehow one of the zombie storage units was misplaced and ended up in a medical warehouse storeroom, where it sat undisturbed for years until two bumbling workers ‘accidentally’ manage to open the case and release not only the zombie, but the stored virus, which is now in a gaseous form.
As if that were not enough to keep the movie rolling along, it now seems that while enclosed in the storage case all those years the virus has mutated and any dead body affected by this new strain can now speak and perform limited cognitive functions. Oh, and they also eat Brains!
This new virus is supposedly destroyed at the end of the movie—that is until “Return of the Living Dead II” comes out. And while there have been dozens of Zombie movies produced since “Night of the Living Dead” first premiered (including many which featured ‘running’ zombies, which I personally find deplorable [not to mention basely unscientific] and goes totally against Romero’s original vision), if you seek a realistic history of the zombie plague, one should stick to Romero’s movies for source material.
Much like the Black Death of the middle ages, the zombie plague is never quite eradicated and new outbreaks continue to pop up around the globe for nearly forty years after our first exposure in 1968. In 2005 George A. Romero released yet another of his zombie films, “Land of the Dead,” which starred Dennis Hopper. In this installment the zombies have nearly taken over the world and people live in city-like enclaves behind electrified fences to protect themselves from the zombies. By now, however, the virus has mutated again and the zombies find they can communicate, in an almost telepathic way. Thus a large group of them manage to band together, taking orders from a leader of sorts and attack the human city enclave, where they feed upon the helpless humans who are unable to escape their frenzied wrath.
This story ends not with the destruction of the zombies, but with the destruction of yet another human enclave and the zombies wander off into the sunset as victors, while the leader gives a knowing look to one of the remaining human defenders. Hmmm. We can only wonder where these zombies will be in another decade. Might they eventually form their own communities, relearn how to live as a ‘people,’ survive alongside humans, and produce their own zombie children—or something far different? Only time will tell, I suppose.
As for the original question—Why do zombies eat people? I have no idea. I have merely put forth some hypotheses, all of which are obviously open to discussion. Feel free to offer up your own ideas. And as a safety precaution, always remember: You never have to reload a bladed weapon!
