Sometimes I come across things that just grind my internal gears like nothing else. You know things that compel you to go outside and bash your head against the concrete till you either black out or the guys in white suits come and take you away to the happy farm. Today I watched a documentary on one of those things. You may be asking what was it that made you feel like this? Duh. Zombies, it’s a Romero article. 
Did Romero really truly recreate the modern zombie? We know the generally accepted answer is usually a resounding “yes” and given faster than one can think. We have been taught this from movies, documentaries, friends, and articles. However people have to remember; never believe something just because you read or heard it said by someone. Matter of fact, it is best to go to the source, regardless of what the subject matter pertains to(even a general knowledge question like this one). But I love playing devil’s advocate, so let’s test that fact.
First and foremost we need experts. One very authoritative source has repeatedly stated that George A. Romero did not invent zombies back in 1968. Everyone is clear on that. Romero, no, invent, zombie. Repeat it a few times to get the taste right. One source has said repeatedly that Mr. Romero did not invent zombies in 1968. Can you guess who that source is? That source would be George A. Romero himself.
“WTF, LOL, and any other Internet slang for “yea right”. Romero has, in many interviews over the years, stated that he never intended them to be zombies. Zombies to Romero were the still living Voodoo slaves of classic films as White Zombie. His film was partially intended to be a riff on Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend with updated concepts and contemporary themes thrown in. But Romero didn’t care to use vampires. So after some thought about what to do, the decision was made to make them GHOULS. I first heard him say this in an interview for Day of the Dead. Of course it piqued my interest, so I went searching. Now remember in the “Before Time” of 1985, our Internet was called a library, and it was either hit or miss. With horror films after 1960, it just plain sucked. So after around 6 months of searching, I came across a few interviews and absorbed their content. And yes Virginia he really didn’t mean to make them zombies.
This is an extremely important point. Romero knew what his creatures were and he named them. They were ghouls. And ghouls, even as portrayed in Night of the Living Dead, were not new or original by any stretch of the imagination. Ghouls, as seen in Night of the Living Dead, date back untold thousands of years in legend and lore from all around the world. You can find stories of the ravenous dead in most ancient cultures. In many cases, they were also depicted as the departed friends, family or village-folk that came back both mindless and with an insatiable taste for the flesh of the living. Now doesn’t that sound familiar? That’s not a story new to 1968 or even American storytelling. There were even a few horror comic books floating around since the 1940‘s that at least played with the concept even if they didn’t show full gore body devouring.
So, again, George A. Romero himself has for years said that he never intended these things to be “zombies” and didn’t even call them that himself in the early years. Yet they still became “zombies” to the movie going and horror loving public. So how and why did that happen? Romero has answered that one as well. The press basically did it. It was the press, both professional and fanzine, that labeled the ravenous dead of Romero’s film with the “zombie” tag.
Yea I know, they were new to film. We had never seen such a sight in films before; certainly not American films and not films that had any sort of mainstream coverage and release. To that I answer. Yea. So what? Did Sherlock Holmes not exist as a fully realized creation until his movies came along? Yeah, they changed him a bit in the transition from page to screen, but it has always been acknowledged that Holmes was based on a book, on pre-existing stories. So how are we not to also acknowledge that Romero’s “zombies” existed so fully and firmly in story and legend that he knew what they were well enough to name them as ghouls himself even if a host of press people felt the need to give them a hipper name?
Still scratching your noggin trying to figure this whole enigma out. Let the creator and artist himself explain it to you:
GEORGE ROMERO: “They haven’t. When I did the first film, I didn’t call them zombies. When I did Night of the Living Dead, I called them ghouls, flesh eaters. I didn’t think they were. Back then zombies were still those boys in the Caribbean doing the wet work for Lugosi. So I never thought of them as zombies. I thought they were just back from the dead. I ripped off the idea for the first film from a Matheson novel called I Am Legend which is now back with us after a couple of incarnations prior. I thought I Am Legend was about revolution. I mean this is a 60s guy sitting there [pretends to take a toke, laughs] and I said if you’re going to do something about revolution, you should start at the beginning. Richard starts his book with one man left. Everybody in the world has become a vampire and I said, “No man, we gotta start at the beginning and tweak it up a little bit.” And I couldn’t use vampires because he did so I wanted something that would be an earth shaking change, something that was forever, like this awful shit, something that was really at the heart of it. I said what if the dead stop staying dead. Again it’s just an idea that comes to you. And I just never thought of them as zombies in the first place. This film goes back theoretically to that first night. I mean I didn’t use the word until the second film and that’s only because people who were writing about the first film called them zombies and I said maybe they are in a way, but to me zombies were separate in the rainbow. I mean they were not even undead, they were just people that were … You blew this shit up with blowfish powder which would put someone in a state of suspended animation and then you get them to do your chores for you. I just thought it was completely different.” http://www.horror-movies.ca/george-romero-interview/
It’s kind of hard to argue with the man himself when he says that he never intended them to be “zombies” and in fact thought that they were just ghouls. He also addresses the fact here that he only decided to use that word himself because other people were describing his ghouls as zombies in their writings on the first film.
You’ve built a car. A bunch of people who don’t know any better call it a plane. You finally give in and call it a plane. Did you really invent the modern plane?
No. No you did not, and Romero may not have created the modern zombie. He certainly had a hand in it and might be honestly labeled a co-creator who has had the good fortune of having many other co-creators who were far more unknown than he was, and in some cases with the passage of time mostly forgotten.
The closest thing that you can make the claim of being a “Romero Zombie” about would be the first zombies of Night of the Living Dead. Creatures, again, that Romero himself has stated were never zombies, and after that film we saw the creature drifting away from what it was and into pop culture, creating a narrative of what the zombies are. Think about the evolution of the “Romero Zombie” for a moment. The zombies seen in Night and the zombies seen in Dawn could almost be different creatures. Yeah, they both rise from the dead to munch warm, living flesh, but there’s much more about them that’s different.
Beside the two child zombies at the airport in Dawn, the zombies of Night show the ability for faster movement than their counterparts in Dawn. In Night of the Living Dead, the very first zombie we see jogs at a good pace while chasing after the scared Barbara. He also shows us zombies in Night that are more physically capable and that show more signs of intelligence. The jogging zombie when he catches up to Barbara’s car starts pounding on the window. He then, figures out that his knuckles won’t work, steps back, looks around the ground, picks up a rock, and then smashes the window with the rock. Throughout Night we even see the undead using basic tools with regularity. Did we forget the little girl using a tool to stab her own mother? They also seemed light sensitive, with their fear of fire.
By Dawn of the Dead, the whole concept of the Night of the Living Dead ghoul being instead a “zombie” has seemingly infected their presentation on screen. They’re slower, lumbering, and clueless. They seem to have completely forgotten what tools are. Now they resemble the lumbering Voodoo zombies of classic films as their general actions and movements are much more than their Night of the Living Dead counterparts did. It was as if labeling them as zombies had in turn affected the way they were written and performed. By Day of the Dead, the transformation of the creatures from being a ghoul to simply being a deader, hungrier version of the Voodoo zombie was more or less complete.
We could argue that Romero allowed others and their descriptions of his ideas for his creatures to shape the development of his creatures(either consciously or unconsciously) rather than keeping them what they were and expanding on that. They changed in between NotLD and DotD into being closer to something you might see in White Zombie or King of the Zombies.
So what do we have then? What is the bottom line in everything we thought we knew, and now know? It’s quite simple really. It is a story as old as time. What we have is a man who set out to use one thing(ghouls), slowly allowed the populace (pop culture) forces of the time to shift his creatures closer to their vision(zombie). Then after many years, the populous finally set out to use his ideas based on his rules when the rules in question were never really his rules in the first place, but what they wanted as rules. They then used him as a standard which wasn’t really his to begin with(take a shot and breath). So where does this all leave Romero insofar as being the creator of the modern zombie?
He’s certainly an incredible filmmaker. He’s made some fantastic films over the years. But the reality of the situation is that he’s an unintentional co-creator of the modern zombie at best. Now how does that leave you feeling? Since I like to kick a person when they are down (hey, if they stand up they might hit me). If it wasn’t for a blunder, we might not even have the modern zombie(ghoul).
You see, with the copyright of the film, they screwed up. It fell out of copyright almost immediately. Because of it being practically free to air, channels snatched it up and ran it. Basically anyone with a screen could run the film for nothing. And with it being everywhere, it generated a following. I remember a cousin even had it on Super 8 (that was the Blu-ray of the 70‘s kids). Then VHS came along and expanded the audience even further. Same with DVD’s. You could get a copy for less than a buck(I got a 10 horror movie DVD for $1.99, and it was on it). Most people either have a copy or have seen the film. All because it fell into the public domain, and was an extremely good movie. I know I used to see it at the Chiller Theater on Saturday night as a kid. Now let’s put a nice hat on this.
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