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The zombie apocalypse is a particular scenario of apocalyptic fiction that customarily has a science fiction/horror rationale. In a zombie apocalypse, a widespread (usually global) rise of zombies hostile to human life engages in a general assault on civilization. Victims of zombies may become zombies themselves. This causes the outbreak to become an exponentially growing crisis: the spreading "zombie plague" swamps normal military and law enforcement organizations, leading to the panicked collapse of civilian society until only isolated pockets of survivors remain, scavenging for food and supplies in a world suddenly reduced to a hostile wilderness.

Contents 1 Genre tropes 2 Subtext 3 Fandom 4 Examples 4.1 Films 4.2 Comics 4.3 Novels 4.4 Television 4.5 Video games 4.6 Music 5 See also 6 References 7 External links 7.1 Websites 7.2 Articles

[edit] Genre tropes

There are several common story elements that create a zombie apocalypse:

1. Apocalypse is created by the unprecedented generation of zombies; an event that has never happened before and impossible by any reasonable definition.^[1]
2. Zombies begin attacking the living with those killed or infected also becoming zombies. Surviving characters react with initial disbelief to events until hostile encounters precipitate further action.^[2]
3. Authorities are slow to respond to the threat giving the zombies time to grow beyond containment. The zombies cannot be controlled despite the broad choice of countermeasures with available technologies. This outcome then results in the collapse of the given society. Zombies take full control while small groups of the living must fight for their survival.^[2]

The stories usually follow a single group of survivors, caught up in the sudden rush of the crisis. The narrative generally progresses from the onset of the zombie plague, then initial attempts to seek the aid of authorities, the failure of those authorities, through to the sudden catastrophic collapse of all large-scale organization and the characters' subsequent attempts to survive on their own. Such stories are often squarely focused on the way their characters react to such an extreme catastrophe, and how their personalities are changed by the stress, often acting on more primal motivations (fear, self-preservation) than they would display in normal life.^[2][3]

Generally the zombies in these situations are the slow moving kind first made popular in the 1968 film Night of the Living Dead.^[1] Recent films, however, have included zombies that are fast, agile, and stronger than the traditional zombie.^[4]

[edit] Subtext

The literary subtext of a zombie apocalypse is usually that civilization is inherently fragile in the face of truly unprecedented threats and that most individuals cannot be relied upon to support the greater good if the personal cost becomes too high.^[5] The narrative of a zombie apocalypse carries strong connections to the turbulent social landscape of the United States in the 1960s when the originator of this genre, the film Night of the Living Dead, was first created.^[6][7] Many also feel that zombies allow people to deal with their own anxiety about the end of the world.^[8] In fact the breakdown of society as a result of zombie infestation has been portrayed in countless zombie-related media since Night of the Living Dead.^[9] Kim Paffrenroth notes that "more than any other monster, zombies are fully and literally apocalyptic ... they signal the end of the world as we have known it."^[9]

[edit] Fandom

Thanks to large number of films and video games, the idea of a zombie apocalypse has entered the mainstream and there have been efforts by many fans to prepare for the "coming" zombie apocalypse. Efforts include creating weapons^[10], selling posters to inform people on how to survive a zombie outbreak^[11], and creating websites "documenting" zombie attacks.^[12]

At Goucher College students there invented the tag game Humans vs. Zombies where human "survivors" armed with NERF guns face off against "zombies." The game has caused some controversy though in light of the 2007 shooting at Virginia Tech and the 2008 shooting at Northern Illinois with some feeling the game belittles how dangerous guns are.^[13]

Some notable individuals have discussed what they would do in a zombie apocalypse. Mixed martial artist Nick Denis said "I plan on getting, one, an aluminum bat [and], two, a rope ladder, so if I live in the second level of an apartment, that’d be my exit, in and out the window. And then I’d like to get chainmail. No zombie can bite through that. That’d be a good start for my bag."^[14] Adam Cayton-Holland said he tried to practice firing a gun: "in order to prove my worth to the denizens of whatever abandoned hovel I will inevitably hole up in during the zombie attack, I should learn how to fire me a flintlock."^[15]

[edit] Examples

[edit] Films

• The films Night of the Living Dead (1968), Dawn of the Dead (1978), Day of the Dead (1985), Land of the Dead (2005), and Diary of the Dead (2008) by George Romero.^[16]
• The 2002 film 28 Days Later and its sequel 28 Weeks Later where a man-made "rage" virus is unleashed in Britain. ^[17][18]
• The 2003 film Undead. Set in Australia, it features a group of survivors in a village infected with zombies, aliens clean up the infection but it gets out of the village and engulfs the world.^{[19][clarification needed]}
• The 2004 film version of Dawn of the Dead^[20]
• The 2006 film The Zombie Diaries, a British made movie in which a virus creates a plague of zombies.^[21]
• The 2006 film Fido, a zombie comedy set in the 1950s where humanity is saved from a zombie apocalypse by a corporation who turns zombies into personal servants.^[22]
• The 2006 film City of Rott. This animated movie centers around an old man, Fred, and his walker (that he uses to kill legions of zombies). They traverse a metropolis, overtaken by the walking dead, in search of food, water, and new shoes.^[23]
• The 2007 film Resident Evil: Extinction. In this third chapter of the game-based movie, a virus infects most of the Earth's population, turning them into zombies. The few survivors move away in armored groups, or hide underground.^[24]
• The 2007 film Planet Terror, one of the two films in the Grindhouse which was notable for Rose McGowan playing a go-go dancer whose leg is replaced with a machine gun.^[25]
• The 2008 film Dance of the Dead, where a group of students attempt to save their high school prom from the attacking dead.^[26]
• The 2009 film Zombieland where America is ravaged by a zombie plague, but a lone band of survivors attempts to survive in an amusement park.^[27].

[edit] Comics

• The Deadworld comic series by Stuart Kerr and Ralph Griffith, which began in 1987.^{[28][clarification needed]}
• The comic series The Walking Dead by Robert Kirkman, beginning in 2003, chronicles the story of survivors in a world overrun by zombies.^[29]
• The 2005 comic series Marvel Zombies and its sequels: Marvel Zombies: Dead Days, Marvel Zombies vs. The Army of Darkness, Marvel Zombies 2, Marvel Zombies 3.^[30]
• The Japanese manga series Highschool of the Dead, beginning in 2006, features a group of Japanese high school students caught in the middle of a zombie apocalypse.^[31]
• The 2008 webcomic The Black Cherry Bombshells by Johnny Zito and Tony Trov and illustrated by Sacha Borisich, where all the men in the world are turned into zombies.^[32]

[edit] Novels

• The 2003 novel The Zombie Survival Guide by Max Brooks, contains a section on how best to deal with a Class 4 outbreak, or a worldwide zombie apocalypse.^[33]
• The 2006 novel World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War by Max Brooks details humanity's efforts to defeat a worldwide zombie outbreak.^[34]
• The 2006 novel Cell by Stephen King, features people being made into zombies through a cell phone signal that "pulses" them into zombie-like super beings.^[35]
• The 2009 novel Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Jane Austen (Author), Seth Grahame-Smith (Author), a parody novel mashup story combining Jane Austen's classic 1813 novel Pride and Prejudice with elements of modern zombie fiction.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Television

• The 2005 episode of Masters of Horror, Dance Of The Dead. Directed by Tobe Hooper, it features a man made virus causing a zombie outbreak after World War III.^[36]
• The 2008 TV series Dead Set in which a zombie outbreak occurs. Centered around the real television show Big Brother UK^[37]

[edit] Video games

• The 2007 multiplayer Half-Life 2 modification Zombie Master pitting human players against a horde of zombies.^[38]
• The 2007 multiplayer Source modification Zombie Panic that features a human and a player-controlled zombie team fighting against each other in a zombie apocalypse.^[39][40]
• The 2008 PlayStation Network game The Last Guy, where a player attempts to save survivors from zombies and other creatures.^[41]
• The 2008 video game Left 4 Dead, a co-operative, survival horror, first-person shooter that pits human survivors against hordes of zombies.^[5]
• The 2008 game Call of Duty: World at War features a game mode in which players attempt to survive increasingly difficult waves of Nazi zombies. It had one reviewer describe as a zombie apocalypse with World War II weapons.^[42]
• The 2009 game OneChanbara: Bikini Samurai Squad where two sisters fight against a zombie infested Tokyo.^[43]

[edit] Music

• The zombie parody of The Beatles, the Zombeatles, began in 2006 with the song Hard Day's Night Of The Living Dead and are set in a world where the zombies have eaten all the remaining humans.^[44]
• Technical death metal band Brain Drill's 2008 album Apocalyptic Feasting has cover art and songs ("Consumed by the Dead" and the title track^[45]) depicting a zombie apocalypse.
• The 2008 Metallica music video for the song All Nightmare Long features the Soviet Union using a spore found after the Tunguska event on the United States to create an army of zombies.^[46]

[edit] See also

• List of video games featuring zombies
• List of zombie films
• List of zombie novels
• Xombie, Flash cartoons by James Farr
• Zombie
• Zombie Squad, a non-profit charitable organization that uses an upcoming zombie apocalypse as its shtick
• Zombies in popular culture

[edit] References

[edit] External links

[edit] Websites

• Urban Dead - a free-to-play browser-based multi-player game where you play the survivor or victim of a zombie outbreak in a quarantined city center.
• Zombie apocalypse on Zombiepedia
• What Are Your Chances of Surviving a Zombie Apocalypse?
• Tales of the Zombie War - zombie apocalypse fiction

[edit] Articles

• "Zombie Movies from Hell". The Gothic Lilith eZine. http://www.lilith-ezine.com/articles/gothic/Zombie-Movies.html. Retrieved on 2007-04-27. 
• 5 Scientific Reasons a Zombie Apocalypse Could Actually Happen by David Wong, TE Sloth
• Military Developing Blood Farming Machine, Zombie Apocalypse Coming Soon by Jesus Diaz on Gizmodo
• 10 games to prepare for the zombie apocalypse by Conrad Zimmerman
• The zombie boom of 2003 by Racer Django