Now let's be honest, we all know what the History Channel is there for -- it's nickname for years wasn't the World War II channel for nothing! Except in recent years, the History Channel has been trying to appeal to a broader audience with its documentaries, especially in its discussion of things like the destruction of the earth, vampires and UFO's. Now the History Channel is taking on the biggest craze in the monster world since Bella discovered sparkley blood-drinkers. That's right, the History Channel has discovered zombies!
Zombies: A Living History debuts on the History Channel tonight, October 25, and it looks to be a gory, messy good time. Not only that, it's educational too! No, this isn't covering movie history, though that'll be mentioned, and it's not just discussing the voodoo-zombie phenomenon out of places like Haiti that had everyone jumping in the '70s. That's in there too. Zombies: A Living History is about what makes us so fascinated historically with zombies, the differences between the cultural phenomenon history and the popular culture icon of the flesh-eater we're so used to from film and television.
I chatted up Andre Abramowitz, executive producer and writer for Zombies: A Living History, about the challenges and triumphs of getting this documentary made. "A lot of people didn't get what I was talking about when I said 'I've got an idea about the history of zombies...' People either said, 'Oh, a film history?' or 'Oh, about voodoo zombies in Haiti?' Of course we touch on both but we really go a lot deeper than that to find out how and why the living dead keep returning and what they tell us about ourselves as a society. We use Romero's model of the zombie (the creature itself, as well as the apocalyptic scenario that results in an outbreak) as the blue-print for the modern tale and work our way back in time to figure out what makes the zombie tick... and why they continue to scare us."
Abramowitz admits to being a zombie fan since he was a kid and was inspired to do this documentary after he saw one about vampires on the History Channel. "When I saw the vampire history show, it struck me that vampires aren't the only undead monster with a long-storied history. I started reading a lot of ancient folklore and legends regarding the living dead. They weren't called zombies until recently -- Romero didn't even call them that in Night of the Living Dead, he referred to them as ghouls -- but they shared a number of the same traits as what we know today as the zombie: reanimated dead, flesh-eating, nearly indestructable. There has always been this fear of the living dead and throughout the ages, they've always been a metaphfor for whatever we fear most. In the old days, it was the supernatural or the wrath of angry gods. Today, it's terrorism, emerging pandemics and societal collapse."
From there, Abramowitz and his team put together a trailer and went shopping for a home for their historical homage to the undead. He notes the support that zombies have had the world over in pop culture today as the reason that this documentary got made. "The zombie invasion of popular culture has become so pervasive that it makes this show a no-brainer -- pun intended."
Along with some historical context for the zombie phenomenon throughout myth, legend and fiction, Zombies: A Living History brings in some of the best names in zombie lore to speak about the zombie zeitgeist, including Max Brooks, author of World War Z and The Zombie Survival Guide. Abramowitz says, "Max Brooks was great... He's such a professional when it comes to giving good TV bites and he's got a great sense of humor. He's also got an incredible knowledge of history, so it was amazing to see how he was able to take the ideas that we gave him and run with them in ways we didn't expect." He notes that World War Z, as well as the show The Walking Dead, was one of the major influences for this documentary to begin with, and inspired Abramowitz to take a shot at bringing zombies to their rightful place in horror, not just film, lore.
"[Our goal was] to help put the zombie up on a pedestal and help it get the respect that it is so deserving in horror lore. We wanted to make a show that people had never seen before, not try to find 'real-life' zombies in Haiti... but trying to trace back the roots of the myths and legends that have informed what we know today as the zombie. Along the way, hopefully we can scare people a bit, give them a history lesson and get them thinking about disaster preparedness."
And if all that history talk doesn't get your engine going, then check out this ooey-gooey trailer:
Zombies: A Living History debuts on The History Channel October 25 at 8PM EST. So strap on your zombie-killing gear and get informed, folks! This documentary won't just be a great ride, it'll be educational too boot!
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