Zombies: A Living History

Zombies: A Living History (2011)

*** (out of 4)

This documentary from the History Channel tries to tell the complete story of zombies from their earliest days to the possibility of a future attack. The film starts off talking about George Romero's NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD and how it pretty much started the myths of current zombies. We then flashback in time to hear about "The Epic of Gilgamesh", the poem by Mesopotamia, which is one of the earliest surviving works and it also features a bit about flesh-eating zombies. We learn about how China had a special way of burying their dead so that they didn't return. Also covered are other place's ways of making sure the dead don't return including some bodies recently discovered that had bricks placed into their mouths so that they couldn't bite. The documentary also goes onto cover cannibalism, the fear of having your flesh eaten and of course places where this still happens. The second portion is where things really take a bad turn as we turn to "current" zombie situations and they talk about Hurricane Katrina, 9/11 and various viruses out there that could lead to a mass problem. The first portion of this documentary is quite wonderful as there's so much terrific information about zombies from around the world. Not only do they briefly cover their movie lives but the most fascinating thing is how various cultures buried their dead in order to keep them from coming back. There's even a funny line about here in America how we lock the casket as if we're trying to keep something from getting out (you can still get in). The second part of the film seemed to forget all about zombies and instead talked about how terrorists were "like" zombies because they're willing to die for what they want. I thought this might have been an interesting idea but not in a film like this. It just comes off as a bunch of political propaganda and it doesn't work and it nearly kills the film. However, fans of the genre should still enjoy at least the first hour and they'll also be happy to know that this is a pretty gory little film. For being on cable television and a station like History, I was shocked to see how gory the re-enactments were.