99 Fun Facts About Zombies

Dictionaries trace the English word 'zombie' back to which group of African languages?

Dictionaries trace 'zombie' to Bantu languages of West-Central Africa, such as Kikongo zumbi and Kimbundu nzambi; the English word is first recorded in 1819, in Robert Southey's History of Brazil.

Which 1929 W. B. Seabrook travel book introduced Western readers to the Haitian voodoo zombie?

William Seabrook's The Magic Island (1929) popularised the Haitian zombie in the West; its account of drugged plantation workers inspired the screenplay of the first Hollywood zombie film three years later.

Which 1932 Bela Lugosi film is generally considered the first feature-length movie of the genre?

White Zombie (1932), made independently by Victor and Edward Halperin with Lugosi as the sorcerer Murder Legendre, is usually counted as the first feature-length zombie film; the metal band White Zombie took its name.

Roughly how many years after his 1962 'death' did Clairvius Narcisse reappear at a Haitian market?

Narcisse was declared dead in May 1962 and walked up to his sister in a village market in 1980, 18 years later, convincing her with a childhood nickname and family details.

Wade Davis claimed Haitian 'zombie powder' relied on tetrodotoxin, found in which animal?

Davis argued the 'coup de poudre' contained tetrodotoxin from pufferfish, whose poison can mimic death; his 1982 Haiti fieldwork became the 1985 book The Serpent and the Rainbow.

Haiti's Penal Code classes drugging someone into a prolonged lethargic coma without killing them as what?

Article 246 of Haiti's Penal Code treats drugging someone into a lethargic coma, without killing them, as attempted murder; if the victim is then buried, it counts as murder whatever follows.

Wes Craven's 1988 film The Serpent and the Rainbow follows an anthropologist sent to Haiti by whom?

In Craven's film a Boston pharmaceutical company sends anthropologist Dennis Alan (Bill Pullman) to Haiti to find the zombie drug, hoping to market it as an anaesthetic; it loosely adapts Davis's book.

What did Romero call his flesh-eaters in Night of the Living Dead (1968)?

Romero's script and the film's radio reports call the creatures 'ghouls'; he saw them as something new, and it was critics and fans who attached the Haitian word zombie.

Why did Night of the Living Dead fall into the public domain almost immediately?

The notice was lost when the distributor changed the title at the last minute, so anyone could sell copies without paying Romero a cent.

Night of the Living Dead was shot in rural Butler County, about 30 miles north of which city?

Butler County lies just north of Pittsburgh, Romero's home base; the Evans City farmhouse and cemetery locations have become pilgrimage sites for horror fans.

Romero's Dawn of the Dead (1978) was filmed largely inside which real shopping centre?

Dawn of the Dead was shot overnight in Monroeville Mall, east of Pittsburgh, after the stores closed; the mall later embraced its fame with zombie-themed events.

Which Italian filmmaker co-financed Dawn of the Dead (1978) for its international distribution rights?

Dario Argento co-produced Dawn of the Dead in return for foreign rights and cut his own version, released in Italy as Zombi, which is why Fulci's unrelated 1979 film was titled Zombi 2.

Lucio Fulci's Zombi 2 (1979) is notorious for an underwater scene in which a zombie fights what?

The underwater zombie-versus-shark fight was staged by a second unit with shark trainer Ramón Bravo as the zombie and a real, well-fed shark; Fulci himself was not on set.

What chemical reanimates the dead in The Return of the Living Dead (1985)?

2-4-5 Trioxin, a gas said to have been developed by the Darrow Chemical Company for the army, reanimates the corpses; the film also introduced zombies' hunger for brains.

Whose 1992 splatter comedy Braindead (Dead Alive in the US) is regarded as one of the goriest films ever?

Peter Jackson directed Braindead in his native New Zealand; a reputed 300 litres of fake blood went into the climactic lawnmower massacre, nearly a decade before The Lord of the Rings.

What is the name of the highly contagious, aggression-inducing virus in 28 Days Later (2002)?

Rage spreads within seconds of exposure; director Danny Boyle never considered it a zombie film at all, yet it is credited with reviving the whole genre.

In 28 Days Later, Jim wakes from a coma in which deserted London hospital?

Jim wakes in St Thomas' Hospital, which faces the Houses of Parliament across the Thames, making his walk over an empty Westminster Bridge all the eerier.

In Zombieland (2009), what snack does Tallahassee spend most of the film searching for?

Tallahassee hunts for one last Twinkie all film, fretting that the snack's shelf life is running out; he finally gets one in the closing scene.

What is Rule #1 on Columbus's list of survival rules in Zombieland?

Rule #1 is 'Cardio', because the fat ones were the first to go; Rule #2 is 'Double tap', and the rules pop up on screen as characters follow or break them.

Which celebrity plays himself hiding in his mansion disguised as a zombie in Zombieland?

Bill Murray, playing himself, wears zombie make-up so he can wander Beverly Hills and play golf; Columbus shoots him, mistaking him for a real zombie.

Which author wrote both The Zombie Survival Guide (2003) and the novel World War Z (2006)?

Max Brooks is the son of Mel Brooks and Anne Bancroft, and has since lectured to the US military on preparedness.

Which Star Wars actor was in the cast of the Audie-winning World War Z audiobook?

Mark Hamill voiced one of the survivors in the multi-cast World War Z audiobook, alongside Alan Alda and John Turturro; the 2013 'complete edition' added Martin Scorsese and Simon Pegg.

In the 2013 film World War Z, zombies pile onto one another to scale a giant wall protecting which city?

Jerusalem's towering wall is breached when the undead swarm up each other, drawn by noise; the Brad Pitt film grossed over $540 million worldwide.

Train to Busan (2016) unfolds mostly aboard what kind of railway?

The film premiered in the Midnight Screenings section at Cannes and was the first Korean film of 2016 to pass 10 million admissions.

In the film Warm Bodies (2013), what are the skeletal zombies who have shed their flesh called?

The fleshless skeletal zombies are the Boneys, past any hope of recovery; the film riffs on Romeo and Juliet, with R (Nicholas Hoult) falling for Julie after eating her boyfriend's brain.

Roughly what share of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (2009) is Jane Austen's original text?

Seth Grahame-Smith kept about 85% of Austen's original text, splicing in zombie mayhem; the mash-up hit number three on the New York Times bestseller list within weeks.

In Shaun of the Dead (2004), what is the name of the pub where Shaun plans to wait out the crisis?

The Winchester is the refuge in the first of Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg's Three Flavours Cornetto trilogy, followed by Hot Fuzz and The World's End.

The Walking Dead premiered on AMC on which date in 2010?

The pilot aired on Halloween, 31 October 2010; the series ran eleven seasons and 177 episodes before ending in November 2022.

Which English actor played sheriff's deputy Rick Grimes on The Walking Dead?

Andrew Lincoln left in season nine, and the zombies he spent all those years fighting are only ever called 'walkers'.

Which fan-favourite Walking Dead character was created for the TV show and never appeared in the comic?

Daryl Dixon was invented for the show after Norman Reedus auditioned for his brother Merle; the crossbow-wielding survivor never existed in Robert Kirkman's comic.

Which company published The Walking Dead comic, begun in 2003 and printed almost entirely in black and white?

Image Comics published The Walking Dead's 193 issues from 2003 to 2019; Charlie Adlard took over the art from Tony Moore at issue #7 and drew nearly the entire run.

On which network did iZombie, about a brain-eating morgue assistant who solves murders, air 2015–2019?

iZombie ran on The CW for five seasons; every brain Liv Moore eats gives her the victim's traits and memory flashes, which she passes off as psychic visions.

Who plays Ellie opposite Pedro Pascal's Joel in HBO's adaptation of The Last of Us?

Bella Ramsey's Ellie faces a real zombie-ant fungus turned villain, adapted into a strain that infects humans instead of insects.

The Resident Evil games are sold under what title in Japan?

In Japan the series is Biohazard; Capcom renamed it Resident Evil in the West because of trademark clashes over the 'Biohazard' name, and the 1996 original defined survival horror.

Which actress played Alice across the six live-action Resident Evil films?

Milla Jovovich played Alice in all six films from 2002 to 2016; the character never appeared in the games, and writer-producer Paul W. S. Anderson married his star in 2009.

George Fan conceived Plants vs. Zombies as a defence-oriented follow-up to which of his earlier games?

Fan's earlier Insaniquarium had players feeding fish and fending off aliens; Plants vs. Zombies grew from a tower-defence take on that idea and was published by PopCap in 2009.

What is the name of the AI in Left 4 Dead (2008) that adjusts pacing and item placement each playthrough?

The AI Director varies enemy spawns, pacing and item drops each run; Zoey, Bill, Louis and Francis are the four survivors of the 'Green Flu' outbreak.

Which Left 4 Dead special infected is a bloated creature that spits vision-blurring bile?

The Boomer is the bloated infected whose bile blinds survivors and draws a horde; it explodes when shot, so killing one at close range is a rookie mistake.

Treyarch's Zombies mode made its Call of Duty debut in which 2008 game?

Zombies debuted in Call of Duty: World at War as a bonus mode unlocked after the campaign, pitting one to four players against endless waves of Nazi zombies.

What is the very first Call of Duty Zombies map, set in a bombed-out bunker?

Nacht der Untoten is German for 'Night of the Undead'; later maps added Perk-a-Colas and the Pack-a-Punch weapon-upgrade machine that became series staples.

The infected in The Last of Us were inspired by a segment of which BBC nature documentary series?

Planet Earth (2006) showed the real fungus taking over an ant's body, and Naughty Dog asked what would happen if it jumped to humans.

Who directed Michael Jackson's 14-minute Thriller video in 1983?

John Landis directed Thriller after his 1981 film An American Werewolf in London caught Jackson's eye; Rick Baker's makeup team turned the singer into a werecat rather than repeat a werewolf.

Which horror legend narrates the spoken section of Michael Jackson's Thriller video?

Vincent Price's spoken section aside, the zombie dance was choreographed by Michael Peters, who had also choreographed 'Beat It'.

The Cranberries' 1994 protest song 'Zombie' was written in response to a bombing in which English town?

Warrington's 1993 attack killed two children; in 2020 the video became the first by an Irish act to pass a billion YouTube views.

Which US agency published the 2011 blog post 'Preparedness 101: Zombie Apocalypse'?

The CDC's Ali Khan, an assistant surgeon general, posted it in May 2011 as a hook to get people stocking the same kit they would need for a hurricane or pandemic.

'CONOP 8888', a zombie-apocalypse training plan, was written by officers of which body?

Planners at US Strategic Command in Omaha wrote CONOP 8888 in 2011 as a training exercise, picking an absurd enemy so nobody could mistake it for a real war plan against a real country.

Where was the Guinness record zombie gathering of 8,027 people set in October 2012?

Zombie walks often double as charity drives; one city's alone once brought in more than a ton of food for its community food bank.

The real 'zombie-ant fungus' forces an infected carpenter ant to do what shortly before it dies?

Clamp its jaws onto a leaf vein, then the fungus sprouts a stalk from the ant's head to rain spores on the colony below; the bite scars survive in the fossil record.

Roughly how old is the Messel pit fossil leaf bearing zombie-ant bite marks?

The Messel leaf is about 48 million years old (Eocene); its dumbbell-shaped scars match the death-grip bites of fungus-controlled ants, so the parasite predates humans by tens of millions of years.

Which sweet dessert topping stood in for blood in the black-and-white film Night of the Living Dead?

Chocolate syrup looked dark enough on monochrome film, so the crew drizzled the Bosco brand over cast members' bodies.

In Shaun of the Dead, survivors beat a zombie with pool cues in time to a jukebox hit by which band?

Queen recorded Don't Stop Me Now, which Edgar Wright picked for the joy of setting one of the happiest songs he knew against a scene of extreme violence.

The Zombie cocktail, invented at Hollywood's Don the Beachcomber restaurant, blends three kinds of which spirit?

Rum in three styles made the Zombie so potent that its inventor, Donn Beach, limited each customer to two.

The emerald jewel wasp stings which insect's brain, turning it into a docile 'zombie' host for its larva?

Cockroach victims lose the will to flee, so the far smaller wasp leads one to its burrow by an antenna, like a dog on a leash.

Which actor stars as former United Nations investigator Gerry Lane in the zombie film World War Z?

Brad Pitt also produced the film: his company Plan B won the screen rights to the novel in 2007 after a bidding war with a rival production company.

The zombie romance Warm Bodies, in which an undead boy falls for a living girl, echoes which Shakespeare play?

Romeo and Juliet is the model for R, a zombie, and Julie, a living girl from a walled-off human enclave. Falling for her slowly brings him back to life.

In Plants vs. Zombies, which plant generates the currency that a player spends on every other plant?

Sunflower costs were halved during development so that players would plant them before reaching for the attack-only Peashooter.

In the first episode of The Walking Dead, Rick Grimes rides a horse into which zombie-filled city?

Atlanta was rumoured to hold a refugee camp, which is why Rick heads there, only for a horde to kill his horse and trap him inside a tank.

Billy Butcherson, a zombie raised from the grave by the woman who poisoned him, appears in which film?

Hocus Pocus lets Billy turn on his killer: he cuts open his stitched mouth and tells the children he hates Winifred Sanderson and is on their side.

Which actor co-wrote Shaun of the Dead with its director and stars as the title character?

Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright wrote the screenplay in eight weeks, inspired by an episode of their sitcom Spaced in which his character hallucinates a zombie invasion.

Which Irish actor plays Jim, the bicycle courier who wakes from a coma in 28 Days Later?

Cillian Murphy had starred mainly in small independent films before this lead, and he returned to the series as an executive producer of 28 Years Later.

Which director made his feature debut with the 2004 remake of Dawn of the Dead, written by James Gunn?

Zack Snyder's remake opened at number one in the United States, ending the three-weekend run of The Passion of the Christ at the top.

In the heist film Army of the Dead, mercenaries raid a casino vault in which zombie-overrun city?

Las Vegas holds $200 million in a casino vault, and the crew must reach it before the military destroys the city with a tactical nuclear strike.

Which country made the 2016 zombie hit about a father and daughter trapped on a speeding express train?

South Korea took to Train to Busan at once: within three weeks of release it was the first Korean film of 2016 to pass 10 million cinemagoers.

Which actor plays Tallahassee, who gives Columbus a ride in his armoured Escalade, in Zombieland?

Woody Harrelson came back as Tallahassee a decade later in Zombieland: Double Tap, as did the three co-stars who make up the rest of the quartet.

Arnold Schwarzenegger plays a father caring for his infected daughter in which 2015 zombie drama?

Maggie gave the title role to Abigail Breslin, who had already survived one outbreak as Little Rock in the comedy Zombieland.

Which make-up artist, a combat photographer in Vietnam, created the gore for Dawn of the Dead (1978)?

Tom Savini also appears on screen as Blades, a menacing biker, and came back in zombie form for a cameo in Land of the Dead.

Which actress plays Sheila Hammond, an estate agent turned zombie, in Netflix's Santa Clarita Diet?

Drew Barrymore was also an executive producer of the comedy, with Timothy Olyphant as Joel, her husband and partner in the family real estate business.

Charlie Brooker's miniseries Dead Set traps the contestants of which reality show in a zombie outbreak?

Big Brother lent its real house in Elstree for filming, and the show's presenter Davina McCall appears as herself before turning into a zombie.

In Resident Evil, which pharmaceutical giant secretly develops the viruses that create zombies?

Umbrella sells medicines and consumer products in public while covertly developing viruses as biological weapons, tested on animals, plants and insects alike.

Which fictional Midwestern town is overrun by zombies and then levelled by a missile in Resident Evil?

Raccoon City is wiped out on the President's orders after Resident Evil 2 and 3, and the missile strike halts the outbreak completely.

In The Last of Us, a mutated form of which real genus of fungus turns people into the infected?

Cordyceps cannot take hold in Ellie, the immune teenager Joel escorts across the United States so that the Fireflies can try to make a cure.

Which studio, already known for Crash Bandicoot and Uncharted, developed The Last of Us?

Naughty Dog split into two teams for the first time to make it: one built The Last of Us while the other finished Uncharted 3.

In Minecraft, which variant of the ordinary zombie spawns in deserts and does not burn in sunlight?

Husk is the desert variant and the Drowned take over in oceans, two twists on a hostile mob that otherwise appears at night or in caves.

In Telltale's game The Walking Dead, which young girl does convicted criminal Lee Everett protect?

Clementine is rescued by Lee at the start of the outbreak, and the pair join other survivors in Macon, Georgia, in a story told over five episodes.

In Undead Nightmare, former outlaw John Marston hunts a cure for a zombie plague in which Western game?

Red Dead Redemption's add-on is set in an alternate timeline in which the plague has infected Marston's wife and son, and it was named among the best downloadable content of 2010.

In the Half-Life games, which leaping alien parasite takes control of its victims, creating zombies?

Headcrab victims appear to keep their intelligence and emotions while losing control of their bodies, and Half-Life 2 added fast and poisonous breeds.

The 2015 zombie game Dying Light sets itself apart by building its movement around which athletic discipline?

Parkour pioneer David Belle was brought in as a consultant, and the game's quarantine zone is a fictional Middle Eastern city called Harran.

In the game Dead Rising, what is the job of Frank West, trapped in a zombie-filled shopping centre?

Photojournalist Frank West has 72 in-game hours, about six in real time, to uncover the truth before a helicopter comes back for him.

Which writer created The Walking Dead with artist Tony Moore, then ended it without warning at issue 193?

Robert Kirkman told readers in a letter inside that last issue that he feared running short of material and wanted to finish on his own terms.

On The Walking Dead, what name does Negan give the barbed-wire baseball bat he carries as a weapon?

Lucille was the name of Negan's late wife. In the comic's origin story he wraps the bat in barbed wire and names it at the same moment he names his gang the Saviors.

On The Walking Dead, which weapon does Michonne carry when she first appears with two chained walkers?

Katana in hand, Michonne keeps the two walkers harmless by removing their arms and lower jaws, and their scent hides her from the rest.

Fear the Walking Dead begins with a blended family at the start of the outbreak in which city?

Los Angeles is home to guidance counsellor Madison Clark and her fiancé Travis; the story later moves to Mexico, and the first three seasons work as a prequel to The Walking Dead.

Which actor plays Zed, the zombie who longs to join the football team, in Disney's Zombies films?

Milo Manheim's Zed falls for Addison, a human cheerleader played by Meg Donnelly, and the pair have to lead their two groups to live side by side.

In which Stephen King novel does a broadcast called the Pulse turn most people into zombie-like killers?

Cell opens in Boston, where struggling artist Clayton Riddell has just landed a graphic novel deal when the Pulse strikes, and follows him home to his son in Maine.

Which writer added the undead to Jane Austen's text for the 2009 mash-up Pride and Prejudice and Zombies?

Seth Grahame-Smith was handed the idea by a Quirk Books editor, who had matched a list of fan favourites such as ninjas, pirates and monkeys against classic titles.

Which lead singer wrote the Cranberries' 1994 protest hit Zombie and performs its video painted gold?

Dolores O'Riordan died in 2018, after which the song became an Irish stadium anthem, sung first for teams from her band's hometown of Limerick.

Which Afrobeat pioneer used his album Zombie to attack the methods of Nigeria's soldiers?

Fela Kuti paid dearly for it: a thousand soldiers stormed his Kalakuta Republic commune, burning it along with his studio, instruments and master tapes.

Which song by rock band the Zombies became a surprise US hit over a year after release, reaching number three?

Time of the Season was recorded at Abbey Road in 1967, and when it finally charted the original line-up declined to regroup for concerts.

In computing, what name is given to a network of hijacked 'zombie' machines used to send spam?

Botnet operators steer their zombie devices from afar and may rent the whole network out to others, who use it to knock websites offline or steal data.

Osedax, the deep-sea 'zombie worms', were discovered in Monterey Canyon feeding on what unusual meal?

Whale bones are dissolved with acid that the worms secrete from root-like tissue, and bacteria living inside them digest the fats and proteins within.

In the Icelandic sagas, which undead creature guards the treasure buried with it in its grave mound?

Draugr are walking corpses rather than ghosts, which is why modern fiction and games so often portray them as Norse zombies.

The 1985 film Re-Animator, about a medical student who revives the dead, adapts a story by which author?

H. P. Lovecraft published the tale as a serial in 1922; on screen, Jeffrey Combs plays Herbert West, whose home-made reagent restarts dead bodies.

In George Romero's Day of the Dead, what name does a scientist give the docile zombie he trains with rewards?

Bub remembers parts of his past life and behaves in rudimentary human ways, and he later uses his new intelligence to slip his chains.

Which actor starred as Ben in 1968's Night of the Living Dead, a lead role the script had not written as Black?

Duane Jones got the part, George Romero said, simply because he was the best actor they met; he went on to run the Black Theatre Alliance.

Which Pulitzer-winning author of The Underground Railroad wrote the New York zombie novel Zone One?

Colson Whitehead follows one survivor through three days with a team of sweepers clearing the city, and has said the book revisits his teenage fascination with Stephen King.

DayZ, the zombie survival hit, began as a mod made by a New Zealand soldier for which military shooter?

Arma 2 was three years old, yet the mod sent it back up the Steam sales chart as hundreds of thousands of people bought it just to play DayZ.

In philosophy, a 'zombie' is a being physically identical to a person but lacking which inner quality?

Consciousness is the one thing missing: poke a philosophical zombie with something sharp and it reacts exactly as a person would, yet feels no pain.

Which Japanese arcade giant released the 1997 light-gun zombie shooter The House of the Dead?

Sega spent more than a year building it on Model 2 arcade hardware, and it plays as a rail shooter that carries players along a fixed route.

Which Trainspotting director made 28 Days Later yet does not consider it a zombie film?

Danny Boyle doesn't count it as one, yet 28 Days Later is credited with reviving the zombie genre, thanks largely to its fast-running infected.