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96-600: V/H/S/2 (originally titled S-VHS ) is a 2013 found footage horror anthology film produced by Bloody Disgusting and Roxanne Benjamin . The sequel to V/H/S (2012) and the second installment in the V/H/S franchise , it comprises four found footage segments linked together by a fifth frame narrative . The film features a largely different group of directors: Jason Eisener , Gareth Wuw Evans , Timo Tjahjanto , Eduardo Sánchez , and Gregg Hale , and franchise returnees Simon Barrett and Adam Wingard . The film premiered at

192-505: A GoPro camera attached to the back of a dog" or summarizing segment A Ride in the Park as the tale of "a mountain biker pursued by flesh-eating zombies [rather than turned into one himself early on]". A third installment in the series, titled V/H/S: Viral , was released in the United States on October 23, 2014. Found footage (film technique) The most common use of the technique

288-505: A corpse . In modern popular culture, zombies are most commonly found in horror genre works. The term comes from Haitian folklore , in which a zombie is a dead body reanimated through various methods, most commonly magical practices in religions like Vodou . Modern media depictions of the reanimation of the dead often do not involve magic but rather science fictional methods such as fungi , radiation , gases , diseases , plants , bacteria , viruses , etc. The English word "zombie"

384-504: A Zombie (1943) and Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959). Frankenstein by Mary Shelley , while not a zombie novel per se , foreshadows many 20th century ideas about zombies in that the resurrection of the dead is portrayed as a scientific process rather than a mystical one and that the resurrected dead are degraded and more violent than their living selves. Frankenstein , published in 1818, has its roots in European folklore, whose tales of

480-458: A criminal gang. Ayesha discovers the laptop is still recording and Larry tells her to watch the tapes while he inspects the house. As Ayesha puts the first tape in the VCR , a glimpse of a strange figure peers from the shadows. Middle-aged Herman Middleton is fitted with an ocular implant after his right eye is damaged in a car accident. The doctor informs Herman that he may experience some "glitches" as

576-463: A dead person can be zombified by a small child. It is said that the spell can be broken by a powerful enough sangoma . It is also believed in some areas of South Africa that witches can zombify a person by killing and possessing the victim's body to force it into slave labor. After rail lines were built to transport migrant workers, stories emerged about "witch trains". These trains appeared ordinary, but were staffed by zombified workers controlled by

672-468: A girl and his love for human flesh, and Michele Soavi's Dellamorte Dellamore (1994) (released as Cemetery Man in the U.S.). In 1980s Hong Kong cinema , the Chinese jiangshi , a zombie-like creature dating back to Qing dynasty era jiangshi fiction of the 18th and 19th centuries, were featured in a wave of jiangshi films , popularised by Mr. Vampire (1985). Hong Kong jiangshi films were popular in

768-466: A modest success, nearly outstripping Romero's Day of the Dead for box office returns. After the mid-1980s, the subgenre was mostly relegated to the underground. Notable entries include director Peter Jackson 's ultra-gory film Braindead (1992) (released as Dead Alive in the U.S.), Bob Balaban 's comic 1993 film My Boyfriend's Back , where a self-aware high-school boy returns to profess his love for

864-446: A on-camera suicide attempt but survives—with his lower jaw shattered—and runs off moments before Larry and Ayesha arrive. As Larry tries to leave, an undead Ayesha suddenly rises and attacks him. In self-defense, Larry breaks her neck and rushes into other room while Ayesha chases him on all fours. Larry hides in a closet and fatally shoots Ayesha when she finds him. Hearing a strange gurgling sound, Larry learns Kyle has been hiding there

960-506: A powerful and frequently fatal neurotoxin found in the flesh of the pufferfish (family Tetraodontidae). The second powder consists of deliriant drugs such as datura . Together these powders were said to induce a deathlike state, in which the will of the victim would be entirely subjected to that of the bokor. Davis also popularized the story of Clairvius Narcisse , who was claimed to have succumbed to this practice. The most ethically questioned and least scientifically explored ingredient of

1056-414: A satisfyingly nasty — albeit uneven — dose of gore." Metacritic , which uses a weighted average , assigned the film a score of 49 out of 100, based on 21 critics, indicating "mixed or average" reviews. Borys Kit of The Hollywood Reporter wrote, "The scares are as hit-or-miss as the filmmaking". Dennis Harvey of Variety called it "rip-roaring good time for genre fans". On July 10, 2013, Rex Reed

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1152-421: A semi-conscious state until he regains his humanity. He takes the shotgun and commits suicide to avoid infecting anyone else as the footage ends. Larry re-enters into Kyle's room and finds Ayesha staring at the television in an hypnotized state, with her nose bleeding. She is woken from her trance and says she has a migraine. Larry leaves to find some medicine as a seemingly entranced Ayesha inserts another tape in

1248-427: A slave after death, as a zombie. A zombie could also be saved by feeding them salt . English professor Amy Wilentz has written that the modern concept of Zombies was strongly influenced by Haitian slavery . Slave drivers on the plantations, who were usually slaves themselves and sometimes voodoo priests, used the fear of zombification to discourage slaves from committing suicide. While most scholars have associated

1344-707: A state of catatonia . Roland Littlewood , professor of anthropology and psychiatry, published a study supporting a social explanation of the zombie phenomenon in the medical journal The Lancet in 1997. The social explanation sees observed cases of people identified as zombies as a culture-bound syndrome , with a particular cultural form of adoption practiced in Haiti that unites the homeless and mentally ill with grieving families who see them as their "returned" lost loved ones, as Littlewood summarizes his findings in an article in Times Higher Education : I came to

1440-422: A state of pharmacologically induced trance for many years. Symptoms of TTX poisoning range from numbness and nausea to paralysis — particularly of the muscles of the diaphragm — unconsciousness, and death, but do not include a stiffened gait or a deathlike trance. According to psychologist Terence Hines , the scientific community dismisses tetrodotoxin as the cause of this state, and Davis' assessment of

1536-511: A vampire story, had a great impact on the zombie genre by way of George A. Romero . The novel and its 1964 film adaptation, The Last Man on Earth , which concern a lone human survivor waging war against a world of vampires, would by Romero's own admission greatly influence his 1968 low-budget film Night of the Living Dead , a work that was more influential on the concept of zombies than any literary or cinematic work before it. The monsters in

1632-471: A witch. The trains would abduct a person boarding at night, and the person would then either be zombified or beaten and thrown from the train a distance away from the original location. Several decades after Hurston's work, Wade Davis , a Harvard ethnobotanist , presented a pharmacological case for zombies in a 1983 article in the Journal of Ethnopharmacology , and later in two popular books: The Serpent and

1728-447: A zombie astral to enhance his spiritual power. A zombie astral can also be sealed inside a specially decorated bottle by a bokor and sold to a client to bring luck, healing, or business success. It is believed that God eventually will reclaim the zombie's soul, so the zombie is a temporary spiritual entity. The two types of zombie reflect soul dualism , a belief of Bakongo religion and Haitian voodoo . Each type of legendary zombie

1824-483: A zombie, since they "knew" that they were dead and had no other role to play in the Haitian society. Societal reinforcement of the belief was hypothesized by Davis to confirm for the zombie individual the zombie state, and such individuals were known to hang around in graveyards, exhibiting attitudes of low affect . Davis's claim has been criticized, particularly the suggestion that Haitian witch doctors can keep "zombies" in

1920-480: Is also abducted as Gary and Tank escape up a ladder. As the aliens close in on them, Gary is suddenly pulled into the air by the alien ship's tractor beam . He is unable to hold on to Tank's leash, and the dog falls to the ground. Mortally injured and unable to move, Tank whimpers while he and the camera both slowly die as the footage ends. Larry watches the laptop footage, where Kyle explains that he and his mother want to make their own tape. Kyle then shoots himself in

2016-475: Is an animated corpse raised by magical means, such as witchcraft . The English word "zombie" is first recorded in 1819, in a history of Brazil by the poet Robert Southey , in the form of "zombi", actually referring to the Afro-Brazilian rebel leader named Zumbi and the etymology of his name in "nzambi". The Oxford English Dictionary gives the origin of the word as Central African and compares it to

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2112-770: Is in horror films , such as The Blair Witch Project , Cannibal Holocaust , Paranormal Activity , Diary of the Dead , Rec , Cloverfield , Trollhunter , V/H/S , and Incantation , in which the footage is purported to be the only surviving record of the events, with the participants now missing or dead. It has also been used in science fiction such as Chronicle , District 9 , Project Almanac , Europa Report , Gamer , drama such as Zero Day , Exhibit A , comedy such as Project X , mystery such as Searching , family such as Earth to Echo , experimental arthouse such as The Connection , The Outwaters , Masking Threshold , and war films such as 84C MoPic . Although found footage

2208-473: Is linked together with the concept of found footage as each segment is from the VHS tapes that were found by Brad, Rox, Zak, and Gary. The frame narrative focuses on private investigators Larry and his girlfriend Ayesha, who are requested to investigate the disappearance of college student Kyle by his mother. After breaking into Kyle's room, they find several VHS tapes and a laptop that contains footage from acts of

2304-485: Is more, if science ever gets to the bottom of Vodou in Haiti and Africa, it will be found that some important medical secrets, still unknown to medical science, give it its power, rather than gestures of ceremony." A Central African origin for the Haitian zombie has been postulated based on two etymologies in the Kongo language , nzambi ("god") and zumbi ("fetish"). This root helps form the names of several deities, including

2400-485: Is not used in Night of the Living Dead , but was applied later by fans. Following the release of such zombie films as Dawn of the Dead (1978) and The Return of the Living Dead (1985)—the latter of which introduced the concept of zombies that eat brains—as well as Michael Jackson 's music video Thriller (1983), the genre waned for some years. The mid-1990s saw the introduction of Resident Evil and The House of

2496-505: Is often claimed to be the first example of found footage. However, Shirley Clarke 's arthouse film The Connection (1961) and the Orson Welles directed The Other Side of the Wind , a found footage movie shot in the early 1970s but released in 2018, predate Cannibal Holocaust . America's Deadliest Home Video (1991), remains a potent use of the format as well as an unsung groundbreaker in

2592-448: Is shot dead by a cult member and Lena is abducted by several women in surgical apparel. Adam attempts to rescue Lena until an explosion knocks him back. He watches a figure crawling across the ceiling and tries to enter into the fiery room, only to be intercepted by Father, who is covered in blood with the cult's symbol inscribed on him. Father tells him "the time has come" and explodes into blood and organs; Adam finds Lena on an altar with

2688-430: Is there and that he is her uncle. Clarissa then has sex with Herman to divert his attention away. That night, Herman awakens to find the young girl in his bed and flees, before he witness Clarissa being dragged into the pool by an unknown entity. Despite his efforts to save her, Clarissa drowns. Herman locks himself in the bathroom and uses a straight razor to cut out the ocular implant in a desperate attempt to escape from

2784-534: Is therefore missing one half of its soul (the flesh or the spirit). The zombie belief has its roots in traditions brought to Haiti by enslaved Africans and their subsequent experiences in the New World. It was thought that the voodoo deity Baron Samedi would gather them from their grave to bring them to a heavenly afterlife in Africa (" Guinea "), unless they had offended him in some way, in which case they would be forever

2880-469: The Chicago Sun-Times chided theater owners and parents who allowed children access to the film. "I don't think the younger kids really knew what hit them", complained Ebert, "They were used to going to movies, sure, and they'd seen some horror movies before, sure, but this was something else." According to Ebert, the film affected the audience immediately: The kids in the audience were stunned. There

2976-636: The Epic of Gilgamesh . One of the first books to expose Western culture to the concept of the voodoo zombie was The Magic Island (1929) by W. B. Seabrook . This is the sensationalized account of a narrator who encounters voodoo cults in Haiti and their resurrected thralls. Time commented that the book "introduced 'zombi' into U.S. speech". Zombies have a complex literary heritage, with antecedents ranging from Richard Matheson and H. P. Lovecraft to Mary Shelley 's Frankenstein drawing on European folklore of

V/H/S/2 - Misplaced Pages Continue

3072-485: The 2013 Sundance Film Festival in January 2013, much like its predecessor, and was released on demand on June 6, 2013. It also made a limited theatrical release in the United States on July 12, 2013. A sequel, V/H/S: Viral , was released on October 23, 2014. The film is presented as an anthology of four short horror films, built into a frame narrative which acts as its own fifth short horror film. Each short film

3168-509: The 2013 Sundance Film Festival , much like its predecessor. The film was released via VOD on June 6, and theatrically on July 12. Dance punk band The Death Set recorded a song, "6 Different Ways To Die", for the film's credits. On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes , 71% of 68 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 6.2/10. The website's consensus reads: "It's as scattershot as its predecessor, but V/H/S/2 rounds up enough horror filmmaking talent to deliver

3264-621: The English-speaking Caribbean , considered to be of the same etymology; in the French West Indies also, local "zombies" are recognized, but these are of a more general spirit nature. The idea of physical zombie-like creatures is present in some South African cultures, where they are called xidachane in Sotho / Tsonga and maduxwane in Venda . In some communities, it is believed that

3360-417: The Kongo words " nzambi " (god) and " zumbi " (fetish). A Kimbundu -to-Portuguese dictionary from 1903 defines the related word nzumbi as soul, while a later Kimbundu–Portuguese dictionary defines it as being a "spirit that is supposed to wander the earth to torment the living". How the creatures in contemporary zombie films came to be called "zombies" is not fully clear. The film Night of

3456-476: The United States occupation of Haiti (1915–1934), when a number of case histories of purported "zombies" began to emerge. The first popular book covering the topic was William Seabrook 's The Magic Island (1929). Seabrooke cited Article 246 of the Haitian criminal code , which was passed in 1864, asserting that it was an official recognition of zombies. This passage was later used in promotional materials for

3552-425: The epistolary novel , which typically consists of either correspondence or diary entries, purportedly written by a character central to the events. Like found footage, the epistolary technique has often been employed in horror fiction : both Dracula and Frankenstein are epistolary novels, as is The Call of Cthulhu by H. P. Lovecraft . In filmmaking , the 1980 cult horror feature Cannibal Holocaust

3648-453: The 1920s and early 1930s, Lovecraft wrote several novellae that explored the undead theme. " Cool Air ", " In the Vault " and " The Outsider " all deal with the undead, but Lovecraft's " Herbert West–Reanimator " (1921) "helped define zombies in popular culture". This series of short stories featured Herbert West , a mad scientist , who attempts to revive human corpses, with mixed results. Notably,

3744-445: The 1932 film White Zombie . Also shall be qualified as attempted murder the employment which may be made by any person of substances which, without causing actual death, produce a lethargic coma more or less prolonged. If, after the administering of such substances, the person has been buried, the act shall be considered murder no matter what result follows. In 1937, while researching folklore in Haiti, Zora Neale Hurston encountered

3840-607: The Dead (1978), including once in dialog. According to Romero, film critics were influential in associating the term "zombie" to his creatures, and especially the French magazine Cahiers du Cinéma . He eventually accepted this linkage, even though he remained convinced at the time that "zombies" corresponded to the undead slaves of Haitian voodoo as depicted in White Zombie with Bela Lugosi . Zombies are featured widely in Haitian rural folklore as dead persons physically revived by

3936-525: The Dead films and the 2004 Dawn of the Dead remake. These films also adopted an action approach to the zombie concept, which was also influenced by the Resident Evil and House of the Dead video games. Films featuring zombies have been a part of cinema since the 1930s. White Zombie (directed by Victor Halperin in 1932) and I Walked with a Zombie (directed by Jacques Tourneur ; 1943) were early examples. With George A. Romero 's Night of

V/H/S/2 - Misplaced Pages Continue

4032-452: The Dead films, the 2004 Dawn of the Dead remake , and the British zombie comedy Shaun of the Dead (2004). The " zombie apocalypse " concept, in which the civilized world is brought low by a global zombie infestation, has since become a staple of modern zombie media, seen in such media as The Walking Dead franchise . The late 2000s and 2010s saw the humanization and romanticization of

4128-471: The Dead , two break-out successes of video games featuring zombie enemies which would later go on to become highly influential and well-known. These games were initially followed by a wave of low-budget Asian zombie films such as the zombie comedy Bio Zombie (1998) and action film Versus (2000), and then a new wave of popular Western zombie films in the early 2000s, the Resident Evil and House of

4224-547: The Far East from the mid-1980s to the early 1990s. Prior to the 1990s, there were not many Japanese films related to what may be considered in the West as a zombie film. Early films such as The Discarnates (1988) feature little gore and no cannibalism, but it is about the dead returning to life looking for love rather than a story of apocalyptic destruction. One of the earliest Japanese zombie films with considerable gore and violence

4320-464: The Haitian zombie with African cultures, a connection has also been suggested to the island's indigenous Taíno people , partly based on an early account of native shamanist practices written by Ramón Pané  [ es ] , a monk of the Hieronymite religious order and companion of Christopher Columbus . The Haitian zombie phenomenon first attracted widespread international attention during

4416-618: The Kongo creator deity Nzambi Mpungu and the Louisiana serpent deity Li Grand Zombi (a local version of the Haitian Damballa ), but it is in fact a generic word for a divine spirit. The common African conception of beings under these names is more similar to the incorporeal "zombie astral", as in the Kongo Nkisi spirits. A related, but also often incorporeal, undead being is the jumbee of

4512-412: The Living Dead (1968) made no spoken reference to its undead antagonists as "zombies", describing them instead as " ghouls " (though ghouls, which derive from Arabic folklore, are demons, not undead). Although George A. Romero used the term "ghoul" in his original scripts, in later interviews he used the term "zombie". The word "zombie" is used exclusively by Romero in his script for his sequel Dawn of

4608-403: The Living Dead (1968), the zombie trope began to be increasingly linked to consumerism and consumer culture. Today, zombie films are released with such regularity (at least 50 films were released in 2014 alone) that they constitute a separate subgenre of horror film. Voodoo-related zombie themes have also appeared in espionage or adventure-themed works outside the horror genre. For example,

4704-456: The Living Dead began the shift away from Haitian dark magic, though did not give scientific explanations for zombie origins. A more decisive shift towards scientific themes came with the Resident Evil video game series in the late 1990s, which gave more realistic scientific explanations for zombie origins while drawing on modern science and technology, such as biological weaponry , genetic manipulation , and parasitic symbiosis . This became

4800-508: The Rainbow (1985) and Passage of Darkness: The Ethnobiology of the Haitian Zombie (1988). Davis traveled to Haiti in 1982 and, as a result of his investigations, claimed that a living person can be turned into a zombie by two special powders being introduced into the bloodstream (usually through a wound). The first, French: coup de poudre ("powder strike"), includes tetrodotoxin (TTX),

4896-499: The VCR while the figure from earlier crawls out from the shadows and watches her. A film crew—interviewer Malik, producer and Malik's fiancée Lena, Malik's best friend Adam, and cameraman Joni—infiltrate a cult in Indonesia to film a documentary about their mysterious activities with numerous hidden cameras. They are invited inside the cult's compound by a woman known as "Madame". The crew find

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4992-410: The VCR. Brothers Gary and Randy attach a camera to their dog, Tank, to film videos at their lakeside house. Their parents leave on a romantic getaway so they invite their friends Shawn and Danny to harass the brothers' older sister Jen and her boyfriend Zack. While the quartet ambush Jen and Zack with squirt guns at a nearby lake, they fail to notice a grey alien hiding beneath the water. That night,

5088-591: The Zombies (1966). Romero was also inspired by Richard Matheson 's novel I Am Legend (1954), along with its film adaptation, The Last Man on Earth (1964). The modern conception of the zombie owes itself almost entirely to George A. Romero 's 1968 film Night of the Living Dead . In his films, Romero "bred the zombie with the vampire, and what he got was the hybrid vigour of a ghoulish plague monster". This entailed an apocalyptic vision of monsters that have come to be known as Romero zombies . Roger Ebert of

5184-421: The act of necromancy of a bokor , a sorcerer or witch. The bokor is opposed by the houngan (priest) and the mambo (priestess) of the formal voodoo religion. A zombie remains under the control of the bokor as a personal slave, having no will of its own. The Haitian tradition also includes an incorporeal type of zombie, the "zombie astral ", which is a part of the human soul . A bokor can capture

5280-427: The basement, Adam finds a woman with her womb carved out and strapped to a chair. She awakens, screams and convulses, causing him to run away. While Father is interviewed, a bell chimes, and he suddenly announces the "time of reckoning" over the intercom. After Joni repeatedly interrupts the announcement, Father cuts his throat out with a box cutter while the cultists begin a mass suicide via poison and gunshots. Malik

5376-421: The bed is empty. He looks up and comes face to face with a bleeding, undead person. Herman calls his doctor to address the problem until he sees the person again, this time with a young undead girl. Herman is forced to sleep in the bathroom overnight and, the next day, the woman from the clinic visits him. She identifies herself as Clarissa, saying she is experiencing a similar situation. Clarissa explains that she

5472-423: The car before the demon looks down and calls him "Papa", revealing that it is, in fact, his own child. The camera malfunctions while Adam laughs hysterically as the footage ends. Larry returns to Kyle's room with medicine, only to discover that Ayesha is dead after she committed suicide with her gun. A tape with the word "WATCH", written with lipstick, lies beside her before a dazed Larry picks it up and puts it into

5568-478: The case of a woman who appeared in a village. A family claimed that she was Felicia Felix-Mentor, a relative, who had died and been buried in 1907 at the age of 29. The woman was examined by a doctor; X-rays indicated that she did not have a leg fracture that Felix-Mentor was known to have had. Hurston pursued rumors that affected persons were given a powerful psychoactive drug , but she was unable to locate individuals willing to offer much information. She wrote: "What

5664-505: The conclusion that although it is unlikely that there is a single explanation for all cases where zombies are recognised by locals in Haiti, the mistaken identification of a wandering mentally ill stranger by bereaved relatives is the most likely explanation in many cases. People with a chronic schizophrenic illness, brain damage or learning disability are not uncommon in rural Haiti, and they would be particularly likely to be identified as zombies. Pulliam and Fonseca (2014) and Walz (2006) trace

5760-536: The early 1950s EC Comics , which George A. Romero would later claim as an influence. The comics, including Tales from the Crypt , The Vault of Horror and Weird Science , featured avenging undead in the Gothic tradition quite regularly, including adaptations of Lovecraft's stories, which included "In the Vault", "Cool Air" and "Herbert West–Reanimator". Richard Matheson 's 1954 novel I Am Legend , although classified as

5856-472: The film and its sequels, such as Dawn of the Dead (1978) and Day of the Dead (1985), as well as the many zombie films it inspired, such as The Return of the Living Dead (1985) and Zombi 2 (1979), are usually hungry for human flesh, although Return of the Living Dead introduced the popular concept of zombies eating human brains. There has been an evolution in the zombie archetype from supernatural to scientific themes. I Am Legend and Night of

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5952-427: The found-footage field - an ahead-of-its-time application of the vérité-video form to the horror/crime genre. The device was popularised by The Blair Witch Project (1999). Found footage has since been used in other commercially successful films, including Paranormal Activity (2007), REC (2007), Cloverfield (2008) and Chronicle (2012). Reviewing V/H/S for The A.V. Club , Scott Tobias notes that

6048-401: The genre "has since become to the '00s and '10s what slasher movies were to the '80s." The genre appeals to film producers because of its lower cost, as it is believed the illusion of amateur documentary style allows lower production values than would be accepted on a conventional film. Writer-director Christopher B. Landon , who has made several found footage horror films, posits that

6144-399: The genre is likely to extend in the future outside horror. The following entries are notable films in the found footage genre, though some were only partially made in that style. Andolan Films Zombie A zombie ( Haitian French : zombi ; Haitian Creole : zonbi ; Kikongo : zumbi ) is a mythological undead corporeal revenant created through the reanimation of

6240-421: The ghosts. As Clarissa's ghost and her uncle appear behind him, Herman unwittingly runs into the young girl and the bleeding person, who strangles him to death, grabs the implant—still attached to the razor—and shoves it deep into Herman's throat as the footage ends. Back in the frame narrative, Ayesha discuss the tapes' legitimacy with Larry. He tells Ayesha to continue watching the tapes while Kyle's recording on

6336-412: The group and seal them in their sleeping bags in an attempt to drown them in the lake. Shawn and Danny are abducted while Gary, Randy, Jen, and Tank run into the woods. After Tank inadvertently alerts the aliens through his barks, the group run toward what they believe to be police sirens, which turns out to be a trap set by the aliens, who abduct Randy. Gary, Jen, and Tank flee to a nearby barn, where Jen

6432-408: The implant is still in experimental stage. As Herman leaves the clinic, he notices a young woman staring at him intently. At home, Herman plays video games, then goes to the kitchen for a cup of tea. He returns to find his game controller far from where he left it and his teakettle suddenly breaks. Herman also sees what appear to be a figure lying under his bed's sheets; when he pulls the sheets backs,

6528-511: The laptop explains that the tapes must be watched in a proper sequence "to affect you". Ayesha fails to notice the figure in the hallway behind her and puts another tape in the VCR. Shortly after answering a call from his girlfriend Amy, cyclist Mike affixes a camera to his helmet and goes on a bike ride through the woods of a local park. He abrutly comes across a terrified, blood-covered woman who begs him to help her boyfriend before she vomits blood. Mike sees several zombies approaching them until

6624-504: The late 1970s. The mid-1980s produced few zombie films of note. Perhaps the most notable entry, the Evil Dead trilogy, while highly influential, are not technically zombie films, but films about demonic possession , despite the presence of the undead. 1985's Re-Animator , loosely based on the Lovecraft story, stood out in the genre, achieving nearly unanimous critical acclaim and becoming

6720-436: The light novel Is This a Zombie? In this context, zombies are often seen as stand-ins for discriminated groups struggling for equality, and the human–zombie romantic relationship is interpreted as a metaphor for sexual liberation and taboo breaking (given that zombies are subject to wild desires and free from social conventions). In Haitian folklore , a zombie ( Haitian French : zombi , Haitian Creole : zonbi )

6816-442: The man until he reanimates. The three zombies invade a young girl's birthday party and kill several people, some of whom also reanimate. Mike chases a father and his daughter before he gets stabbed in the eye with a fork. As Mike sees his reflection in a window, a man with a shotgun is overwhelmed and eaten by the zombies. Mike is hit by a truck and, as he falls, accidentally pocket dials Amy. Upon hearing her voice, Mike enters into

6912-415: The nature of the reports of Haitian zombies is viewed as overly credulous. Scottish psychiatrist R. D. Laing highlighted the link between social and cultural expectations and compulsion, in the context of schizophrenia and other mental illness, suggesting that schizogenesis may account for some of the psychological aspects of zombification. Particularly, this suggests cases where schizophrenia manifests

7008-490: The original Jonny Quest series (1964) and the James Bond novel Live and Let Die as well as its film adaptation both feature Caribbean villains who falsely claim the voodoo power of zombification to keep others in fear of them. Romero's modern zombie archetype in Night of the Living Dead was influenced by several earlier zombie-themed films, including White Zombie , Revolt of the Zombies (1936) and The Plague of

7104-485: The player. Later the same year, Sega 's arcade shooter The House of the Dead introduced running human zombies, who run towards the player and can also jump and swim. The running human zombies introduced in The House of the Dead video games became the basis for the "fast zombies" that became popular in zombie films during the early 21st century, starting with 28 Days Later (2002), the Resident Evil and House of

7200-441: The powders is part of a recently buried child's brain. The process described by Davis was an initial state of deathlike suspended animation , followed by re-awakening — typically after being buried — into a psychotic state. The psychosis induced by the drug and psychological trauma was hypothesised by Davis to reinforce culturally learned beliefs and to cause the individual to reconstruct their identity as that of

7296-470: The quartet startle Jen and Zack while they are having sex by blaring loud music and flashing lights. A deafening noise is heard, but they do not notice it. In retaliation, Jen attaches another camera to Tank to catch Gary masturbating with a pornographic film. The noise is heard again and the power goes out. Zack grabs Jen's father's gun after he sees a figure outside the door, but is suddenly abducted by an alien, along with others of its kind. The aliens attack

7392-430: The resurrected dead are uncontrollable, mostly mute, primitive and extremely violent; though they are not referred to as zombies, their portrayal was prescient, anticipating the modern conception of zombies by several decades. Edgar Rice Burroughs similarly depicted animated corpses in the second book of his Venus series , again without using the terms "zombie" or "undead". Avenging zombies would feature prominently in

7488-555: The standard approach for explaining zombie origins in popular fiction that followed Resident Evil . There has also been shift towards an action approach, which has led to another evolution of the zombie archietype, the "fast zombie" or running zombie. In contrast to Romero's classic slow zombies, "fast zombies" can run, are more aggressive and are often more intelligent. This type of zombie has origins in 1990s Japanese horror video games. In 1996, Capcom 's survival horror video game Resident Evil featured zombie dogs that run towards

7584-419: The symbol carved into her skin. He kills Madame but is unable to save Lena as the demon the cult worships—which resembles Baphomet —tears its way out of her body. The cultists and schoolchidren, including Malik and Joni, rise from the dead and turn into zombie-like ghouls who proceed to attack Adam. He flees outside to his car and drives off, only to be rammed by the demon and gravely injured. Adam crawls out of

7680-442: The term "discovered footage" for the narrative gimmick . Found-footage films typically employ one or more of six cinematic techniques — first-person perspective , pseudo-documentary , mockumentary , news footage, surveillance footage , or screenlife —according to an analysis of 500 found-footage films conducted by Found Footage Critic. As a storytelling technique, found footage has precedents in literature, particularly in

7776-405: The undead. Victor Halperin directed White Zombie (1932), a horror film starring Bela Lugosi . Here zombies are depicted as mindless, unthinking henchmen under the spell of an evil magician. Zombies, often still using this voodoo-inspired rationale, were initially uncommon in cinema, but their appearances continued sporadically through the 1930s to the 1960s, with films including I Walked with

7872-535: The vengeful dead also informed the evolution of the modern conception of the vampire . Later notable 19th century stories about the avenging undead included Ambrose Bierce 's " The Death of Halpin Frayser " and various Gothic Romanticism tales by Edgar Allan Poe . Though their works could not be properly considered zombie fiction, the supernatural tales of Bierce and Poe would prove influential on later writers such as H. P. Lovecraft , by Lovecraft's own admission. In

7968-419: The walls adorned with bizarre symbols, schoolchildren in classrooms, and woman dressed in white garments; they also meet and interview the cult's leader, a man referred to as "Father". During the interview, Lena becomes ill and steps out. While he searches for a spare camera battery, Malik overhears a private conversation between Adam and Lena in which the latter reveals that she is pregnant with Adam's child. In

8064-508: The whole time and is strangled to death. Afterward, Kyle gives a thumbs up to the recording and uploads the tapes on social media —as he and his mother's plan has been successful—before turning off the camera. For the first short, originally the part had been written with James Rolfe in mind, but had to decline due to working on The Angry Video Game Nerd Movie ). The film was rushed into production in late 2012, and premiered on January 19, 2013, at Park City's Library Center Theatre as part of

8160-411: The woman suddenly turns into a zombie herself. She bites Mike on the throat before he kills her. Mike staggers through the woods, heavily bleeding; he also vomits blood and dies. Two bikers—a man and a woman—come across him and call emergency services, but Mike reanimates, kills the man and bites the woman before she runs off into the woods. The now-zombified woman returns before she and Mike begin eating

8256-428: The zombie archetype , with the zombies increasingly portrayed as friends and love interests for humans. Notable examples of the latter include movies Warm Bodies and Zombies , novels American Gods by Neil Gaiman , Generation Dead by Daniel Waters, and Bone Song by John Meaney , animated movie Corpse Bride , TV series iZombie and Santa Clarita Diet , manga series Sankarea: Undying Love , and

8352-474: The zombie lineage back to ancient Mesopotamia . In the Descent of Ishtar , the goddess Ishtar threatens: If you do not open the gate for me to come in, I shall smash the door and shatter the bolt, I shall smash the doorpost and overturn the doors, I shall raise up the dead and they shall eat the living: And the dead shall outnumber the living! She repeats this same threat in a slightly modified form in

8448-448: The zombie revival of the 2000s. The 1981 film Hell of the Living Dead referenced a mutagenic gas as a source of zombie contagion: an idea also used in Dan O'Bannon 's 1985 film Return of the Living Dead . Return of the Living Dead featured zombies that hungered specifically for human brains. Zombie films in the 1980s and 1990s were not as commercially successful as Dawn of the Dead in

8544-422: The zombie, distinct from that described in Haitian folklore, emerged in popular culture during the latter half of the 20th century. This interpretation of the zombie, as an undead person that attacks and eats the flesh of living people, is drawn largely from George A. Romero 's film Night of the Living Dead (1968), which was partly inspired by Richard Matheson 's novel I Am Legend (1954). The word zombie

8640-492: Was Battle Girl: The Living Dead in Tokyo Bay (1991). According to Kim Newman in the book Nightmare Movies (2011), the "zombie revival began in the Far East" during the late 1990s, largely inspired by two Japanese zombie games released in 1996: Capcom 's Resident Evil , which started the Resident Evil video game series that went on to sell 24 million copies worldwide by 2006, and Sega 's arcade shooter House of

8736-568: Was almost complete silence. The movie had stopped being delightfully scary about halfway through, and had become unexpectedly terrifying. There was a little girl across the aisle from me, maybe nine years old, who was sitting very still in her seat and crying. Romero's reinvention of zombies is notable in terms of its thematics; he used zombies not just for their own sake, but as a vehicle "to criticize real-world social ills—such as government ineptitude, bioengineering, slavery, greed and exploitation—while indulging our post-apocalyptic fantasies". Night

8832-486: Was born deaf and had a cochlear implant installed in her ear that gave her the ability to hear ghosts frequencies. Herman tries to remove his ocular implant, but Clarissa claims that doing so will only keep him from seeing ghosts, not getting rid of them. Clarissa also explains that the ghosts will get more dangerous the longer one pays attention to them; an overweight, bloodied man appears behind Clarissa and Herman alerts her about his presence. She says she already knows he

8928-470: Was first recorded in 1819 in a history of Brazil by the poet Robert Southey , in the form of "zombi". Dictionaries trace the word's origin to African languages, relating to words connected to gods, ghosts and souls. One of the first books to expose Western culture to the concept of the voodoo zombie was W. B. Seabrook 's The Magic Island (1929), the account of a narrator who encounters voodoo cults in Haiti and their resurrected thralls. A new version of

9024-488: Was originally the name of an entirely different genre, it is now frequently used to describe pseudo-documentaries crafted with this narrative technique such as Lake Mungo , Noroi: The Curse and screenlife films such as Unfriended , Searching . The film magazine Variety has, for example, used the term "faux found-footage film" to describe some titles. Film scholar David Bordwell criticizes this recent usage, arguing that it sows confusion, and instead prefers

9120-449: Was the first of six films in Romero's Living Dead series . Its first sequel, Dawn of the Dead , was released in 1978. Lucio Fulci 's Zombi 2 was released just months after Dawn of the Dead as an ersatz sequel ( Dawn of the Dead was released in several other countries as Zombi or Zombie ). Dawn of the Dead was the most commercially successful zombie film for decades, up until

9216-411: Was the subject of controversy due to a scathing review, in which he admitted having walked out at the end of the first segment. His review criticizes parts of the film that happened after he supposedly walked out, but his references are imprecise. For example, he describes segment Slumber Party Alien Abduction as "a sleepover invaded by psycho kidnappers [as opposed to aliens] told from the perspective of

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