99 Fun Facts About Zombies

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

Bantu: dictionaries link the word to Kimbundu nzúmbi, 'ghost', and Kongo nzambi, 'god', and say it reached English by way of Haitian and Louisiana Creole zonbi.

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

The Magic Island sold so well that it inspired a 1932 New York stage play called Zombie, and Time magazine later credited the book with introducing 'zombi' into American speech.

Which 1932 Bela Lugosi film is generally considered the first feature-length zombie film?

White Zombie (1932), made independently by the Halperin brothers with Lugosi as a Haitian voodoo master, is usually counted as the first feature-length zombie film; Rob Zombie later named his metal band after it.

Clairvius Narcisse, buried in Haiti in 1962, said he was dug up to work where?

Sugar plantation: Narcisse said a sorcerer kept him there with other captives for two years; in 1980 he approached his sister and proved who he was with childhood details only he could know.

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

Pufferfish carry tetrodotoxin, which can leave a victim paralysed yet conscious; when chemists tested Davis's powder samples in 1986 they found only traces of it, and his theory is still disputed.

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

Attempted murder, and if the drugged victim is then buried the code calls it murder whatever follows; William Seabrook quoted the law in 1929 as proof that Haiti took zombies seriously.

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

A drug company: in Craven's film a Boston pharmaceutical firm pays anthropologist Dennis Alan to go to Haiti and bring back the zombie powder, hoping to sell it as a 'super anaesthetic'.

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

Ghouls is the word in Romero's script and the film's radio and TV bulletins; to him zombies were the voodoo slaves of Haitian lore, and it was film critics who pinned that name on his flesh-eaters.

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

The distributor omitted the copyright notice when it swapped the title Night of the Flesh Eaters for the final one, and under the law of the day that let anyone copy and sell the film freely.

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

Pittsburgh was where Romero made TV commercials before he tried horror; the opening scene's Evans City Cemetery became a landmark for fans, but the farmhouse was a condemned building rented to be wrecked.

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

Monroeville Mall stayed open for business, so the crew filmed from 11 pm to 7 am and stopped for three weeks in December rather than take down the Christmas decorations every night.

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?

A shark: the scene was producer Ugo Tucci's idea and was filmed off Mexico's Isla Mujeres by the make-up chief after Fulci had gone home, with a local shark trainer playing the zombie.

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

Trioxin, in full 2-4-5 Trioxin, leaks from army drums sent to a Louisville warehouse by mistake; the film is also credited with giving zombies their particular hunger for brains.

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

Peter Jackson shot Braindead in his native New Zealand; its hero finally clears a house of zombies with a lawnmower, 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 and walks across which deserted London bridge beside Parliament?

Westminster Bridge: Jim leaves St Thomas' Hospital and crosses it towards an empty Parliament; the crew shot just after dawn, with volunteers holding the traffic back for a minute or two at a time.

In Zombieland (2009), what snack does Tallahassee spend most of the road trip 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?

Cardio comes first because, as Columbus's narration puts it, the first to go when the virus struck were the unfit; 'Double tap' is rule two.

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 get about unmolested; when he sneaks up on Columbus as a prank, Columbus takes him for the real thing and shoots him dead.

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

Max Brooks, the son of Mel Brooks and Anne Bancroft, took zombie-proofing seriously enough to earn a fellowship at the Modern War Institute at West Point.

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

Mark Hamill reads Todd Wainio, a US Army veteran; the novel is written as a string of survivor interviews, so the audiobook gives each one a different actor, Alan Alda and John Turturro among them.

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

Jerusalem's wall holds until refugees celebrating inside make enough noise to draw the horde up and over it; the Brad Pitt film went on to gross about $540 million worldwide.

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

A KTX high-speed service: a father and daughter board KTX 101 at Seoul Station just as the outbreak begins, and the infection spreads from carriage to carriage on the run south to Busan.

In Warm Bodies (2013), what are the far-gone zombies who have shed their flesh called?

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

Which Jane Austen novel gained a zombie plague in Seth Grahame-Smith's 2009 mash-up?

Pride and Prejudice: the mash-up starts from Austen's own text, which is why she shares the byline, and within weeks of publication it stood at number three on the New York Times bestseller list.

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

The Winchester has a rifle of that name mounted over its bar; Shaun and Ed argue about whether it is real, and when the dead break in it turns out to work.

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

Halloween night, 31 October 2010: the pilot had leaked online almost two weeks earlier, yet 5.35 million people still tuned in, AMC's biggest series premiere to that point.

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

Andrew Lincoln, a Londoner born Andrew Clutterbuck, led the show as its Georgia lawman until season nine, then came back to the role in the 2024 spin-off The Ones Who Live, which he co-created.

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

Daryl Dixon was written for Norman Reedus after he impressed the producers reading Merle's lines at his audition; the crossbow-carrying survivor has no counterpart 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 all 193 issues from 2003 to 2019; Robert Kirkman ended the series with no warning, saying a comic built on surprise ought to surprise its readers one last time.

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 is immune to the show's plague, a mutated Cordyceps: the real fungus preys on insects, and the story imagines a strain that takes over people instead.

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.

In Plants vs. Zombies (2009), what resource must players collect to place new plants on the lawn?

Sun drifts down over the lawn or is made by certain plants, and pays for every defender; designer George Fan first imagined the game as a defensive sequel to his fish-tank game Insaniquarium.

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

The Director watches how well the players are coping and adds or removes enemies and supplies to keep the tension up, which is why no two runs through a level play out the same way.

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 was the very first Call of Duty Zombies map, set inside a wartime German 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 star narrates the spoken section of Michael Jackson's Thriller video?

Vincent Price recorded his spoken verse in just two takes; songwriter Rod Temperton had written the words in a taxi on the way to the studio that same day.

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?

US Strategic Command planners in Omaha chose zombies for the 2011 training document so that nobody could mistake a classroom exercise for a real war plan against a real country.

Which 1954 Richard Matheson novel did George A. Romero credit as the inspiration for Night of the Living Dead?

I Am Legend follows the last man alive in a world of vampire-like plague victims; Romero said he had 'basically ripped off' the book for the short story that grew into his film.

The real 'zombie-ant fungus' makes an infected ant do what just 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.

An ancient fossil showing the zombie-ant fungus at work comes from the Messel pit in which country?

Germany: the Messel pit near Frankfurt preserves a subtropical lakeside forest about 47 to 48 million years old, and scars on one of its fossils match the marks infected ants leave today.

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.