What is it about zombies that has remained part of pop culture for decades? WBFO's Focus on Education reporter Eileen Buckley says that's is the question a University at Buffalo professor has been studying for the last three years.
Zombie movies were quite popular in the 1940s and 50s. In 1943 there were two; 'I Walked with a Zombie' and 'Revenge of The Zombies'. There were even more in the 1950s. Then, by 1968, it was 'Night of the Living Dead', followed by more zombie films and then, by the late 1970's it was 'Dawn of the Dead.'
"What we can read into the zombie mythology today. What is it that zombies reveal about ourselves and what is it that they are warning against," said David Castillo, UB Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures. He's an early modern specialist and that's what started his interest in zombies.
"The 16th and 17th centuries are known as an age now for monstrosities and curiosities all throughout Europe," noted Castillo.
Castillo lectures about zombies’ destructive hunger. He appeared earlier this week for UB's Scholars on the Road, speaking in New York City at the law firm of Hodgson Russ.
"In a way the zombies are us. One of the characters of the second George Romero movie, 'Dawn of the Dead', when the massive zombies are approaching the mall -- one of the characters from the inside of the mall said 'oh my God, they are us', and so I take that very seriously. There is a message there," states Castillo.
Castillo talks about zombies being an agent of the apocalyptic, like those portrayed in the popular show 'The Walking Dead' and its spinoff 'Fear The Walking Dead'.
"So with 'The Walking Dead', what I would say is the emphasize is not so much on the zombies themselves, but on the group of survivors and their need to rethink the world and themselves in it," Castillo said.
Castillo said he believes there is a message that we could be turning into 'zombie-like' citizens as consumers, possessed with a hunger we don't understand that could be self-destructive.
