I really think it's a combination of different things. The soulless automatons is a good point, but I think there's additionally the "undead" thing has a lot to do with it. There's a combination of a fear of things which are gone coming back combined with a tragedy of people who we love coming back as mindless, flesheating monsters. Not to mention it's crossing a "line" -- we put so much effort into remembering the people as they were, that seeing them decomposing like that would be horrifying.
Plus there's the whole predation aspect. We humans aren't used to being below another thing on the food chain.
Zombies aren't always undead, though. The traditionally zombie is undead but sometimes they're like, irrevocably diseased, so maybe it doesn't exactly count... The fact that people you know coming back is usually an important part of it is something I forgot! I also forgot that them being contagious is usually pretty important, too.
And yeah, the predation thing. That's almost the entire horror genre, I think. Jaws! Aliens! Dracula!
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2009-04-07 08:47 pm (UTC)ITCHY.
I really think it's a combination of different things. The soulless automatons is a good point, but I think there's additionally the "undead" thing has a lot to do with it. There's a combination of a fear of things which are gone coming back combined with a tragedy of people who we love coming back as mindless, flesheating monsters. Not to mention it's crossing a "line" -- we put so much effort into remembering the people as they were, that seeing them decomposing like that would be horrifying.
Plus there's the whole predation aspect. We humans aren't used to being below another thing on the food chain.
no subject
Date: 2009-04-07 08:53 pm (UTC)Zombies aren't always undead, though. The traditionally zombie is undead but sometimes they're like, irrevocably diseased, so maybe it doesn't exactly count... The fact that people you know coming back is usually an important part of it is something I forgot! I also forgot that them being contagious is usually pretty important, too.
And yeah, the predation thing. That's almost the entire horror genre, I think. Jaws! Aliens! Dracula!