EXCELLENT REVIEW OF THE ZOMBIE BOOK By Nick Redfern and Brad Steiger Your Halloween Treat for 2014 Zombies! What You Need to Know A look at “The Zombie Book: The Encyclopedia of the Living Dead” By Stephen Wagner I RECALL A vivid and highly disturbing dream I had many years ago. From a rather cinematic point of view, looking down onto the grassy yard of my home, there was a woman in gray ragged clothes and straggly hair. She was squatting on the ground over the body of a man. She turned her head and looked up at me. Her witch-like face was covered in blood and her hands were dripping with the bloody flesh of her victim. She was eating the poor guy! She was a zombie! We forget most of our dreams, but this one has stayed with me, for obvious reasons. I had probably seen a zombie movie or two prior to this dream, although I never found the genre particularly interesting. And at the time, the cultural fascination – almost obsession – with zombies was still decades ahead. Zombie popularity has never been higher than it is today, with very successful TV shows like The Walking Dead and the gazillion movies featuring the ghouls (World War Z was particularly nerve-wracking). The popularity might have something to do with the sophistication of digital and physical special effects that now present the flesh-eating undead and their inevitable dispatch via decapitation, a shotgun blast to the face, or spike through the eyeball in utterly realistic fashion. It’s this realism, I think, that causes many to wonder – or fear – that a “zombie apocalypse” might actually be possible. Even if you’re a zombie fanatic, I’ll wager you know only a fraction of zombie facts, lore, and legend. Well, now you can get completely up to speed with The Zombie Book: The Encyclopedia of the Living Dead (Visible Ink Press), authored by two of the most prolific and respected researchers of the paranormal, Nick Redfern and Brad Steiger. As the perfect companion to Mr. Steiger’s previous volume, Real Zombies, the Living Dead, and Creatures of the Apocalypse, this book provides comprehensive information about every zombie movie and TV show ever made (and some of their stars), along with every real-life rumor, legend, cultural tradition, crime, or event that somehow ties into the zombie. Granted, the connection is sometimes loose, but included are any creature, story, or human experience that feature one or more zombie characteristics, such as the eating of human flesh or the re-animating of the dead. It turns out, there’s quite a lot of that horror – enough to fill up this 368-page book. If you like the zombie films and shows, you’ll find all of your favorites detailed, as well as many you probably never heard of. For me, the most interesting entries in encyclopedias like this are the ones about creatures, lore, or historical events with which I am not familiar. For example: Civil War Zombies. According to this legend, Voodoo and Hoodoo Kings and Queens reanimated fallen soldiers of both the North and the South by grinding up their corpses and concocting Zombie Brand powders. The undead soldiers were then sold as zombie slaves. I don’t believe this one for a minute, but it’s a story I never heard before. The Gregg Family. One of the most horrific allegedly true stories told is that of the Gregg family, who terrorized the village of Clovely, England. “From the heart of a huge, dark cave on the coastal part of the moors, the Greggs held terrifying sway over the area for more than a quarter of a century,” the authors say, “robbing, murdering, and eating just about anyone and everyone that had the misfortune to cross their path.” Moreover, the Greggs were severely inbred from incest, resulting in a deformed and mentally retarded clan. I’m surprised there hasn’t been a movie made about them. Adolf Hitler. Adding to his monstrous reputation, there were even zombie rumors about Hitler and his Nazi minions. His scientists, it was claimed, somehow began to create an army of zombies. It was alleged that zealous German soldiers and members of the Hitler youth kept marching toward their enemies, even though they had been peppered by machine gun fire. “Some of the charging troops... revealed faces that had been half-blown away in earlier conflicts.” The Draugr. The 1,000-year-old legend of this zombie-like creature comes from the people of Denmark, Sweden, Iceland, and Norway, and its name translates as “one who walks after death.” The Draugr were humans that rose from the grave with supernatural abilities and an appetite for human flesh. And like today’s modern zombies, they were devilishly hard to kill (again). Impaling it with a sword or iron rod would only weaken it. Only a beheading would do the job completely. This is just a small sampling of the ghoulish treats that you’ll find in this book. It might also surprise you with its zombie connections to King Arthur, extraterrestrials, Mayan prophecy, Men in Black, the CIA, Hurricane Katrina, and even Jesus Chris Hemsworth t! It all just goes to show that with its roots spreading back thousands of years, the zombie will never die.
Posted on: Wed, 30 Jul 2014 07:01:59 +0000
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