In voodoun theology, the soul has two parts, the gros bon ange and ti bon ange, or big good angel and little good angel. The big good angel is your soul portion of the overall spirit of the universe. This returns to the universe when you die. The little good angel is your will, your energy, your own individual soul. This travels in dreams and after death and momentarily leaves your body during extreme fear and/or pleasure. The little good angel can be lost or captured and you must constantly guard it from evil. But nothing can harm the big good angel, because the big good angel is God’s. A zombie is one whose little good angel has in fact been lost or captured, thus they lack any individuality or will. If it weren’t for that portion of God inside them, the big good angel, they’d have no soul at all.
Cinema simulates the dreaming experience. The little good angel travels in dreams. Violent and/or erotic imagery is common in films. The little good angel leaves the body during extreme pleasure and/or fright. Does this mean you could lose your will and individuality while watching a movie? According to voudoun theology, yes.
Wade Davis, a Harvard scientist who studied the ethnobiology of zombies in the early 1980s (known for his memoir "The Serpent & the Rainbow," the source material for the fictional Wes Craven film), attended one of the first screenings of "Raiders of the Lost Ark" in Haiti. According to his account, the climactic scene where spirits shoot out of the ark triggered pandemonium in the little crowded theater. One person screamed out a warning to all pregnant women and another advised people to quickly tie a ribbon around their left arm. There were repeated shouts of “Loup garou!” (This is usually translated into English as werewolf, but refers to a more complex idea of a shapeshifter to Haitians.) While images of freed spirits were projected before them, these viewers feared actual bodily possession.
The confidence game works not when you put your faith in con men, but when you allow con men to put their faith in you. Perhaps, then, movies borrow our traveling soul, shift its shape, then show it back to us, fostering the illusion that the film itself has a soul, while we watch the entire spectacle soulless, without will, generalized, easily conned into letting the film put its faith into us. In voudoun terms, a film might be likened to a canari, the clay jar used to shelter or capture the little good angel during rituals. The movie ends, the jar breaks, and the priests let us go on living, our souls restored. •
Glow-in-the-Dark Flesh-Eating Zombies Playset from Archie McPhee.
Zombie vs. Shark! Film stills from Lucio Fulci's "Zombie 2." Which is not a sequel. The idea was to confuse people into thinking it was. In 1978, George Romero's "Dawn of the Dead" achieved worldwide success and spawned a wave of Italian zombie films. In Europe, "Dawn of the Dead" was released under the title "Zombie." The following year, Fulci released "Zombie 2." Such titling tricks were common among Italian filmmakers of the era, the most famous example being Joe D'Amoto's series of one-m "Emanuelle" films starring Laura Gemser following the success of the French two-m "Emmanuelle" films starring Sylvia Kristel. Confusing the issue, some dvd versions of Fulci's film have taken the 2 off and just call it "Zombie" (which is the version available at Vidiots, for example). Buyer beware. Lucio Fulci's "Zombie" and "Zombie 2" are the same movie -- and I don't mean in the way "Evil Dead" and "Evil Dead 2" could be called the same movie, I mean the same exact movie. To see an even stranger zombie versus shark scenario featuring scuba-diving nazi zombies, see 1977's Shock Waves starring Peter Cushing.
Zombiewalk.com is a forum for organizing annual public gatherings where people dress like zombies. Similar to Santacons, Zombie Walks are becoming increasingly popular. Last Halloween, Pittsburgh's Zombie Walk broke its own Guinness World Record of 894 zombies, established the previous year, when over 1,100 zombies walked through the Monroeville Mall (the mall that served as the set for Romero's "Dawn of the Dead"). To celebrate the screening of "The Zombie Diaries" at Film4 Fright Fest, London tried to break the record but failed. I have not yet attended a Zombie Walk. I was in Portland, however, for last year's Santacon. On three separate occasions in one evening, other onlookers -- locals, strangers -- asked if I'd read the essay about Portland's Santacon by Chuck Palahniuk.
That same week, I was telling someone about this cool vacuum cleaner museum I'd found in the back of a vacuum shop, and again was asked if I'd read the Chuck Palahniuk essay about it. I'd read his novels ("Fight Club," "Choke," etc.), but not his essays. In his hometown, that apparently meant I hadn't read enough. Don't let this happen to you. Read "Fugitives and Refugees: A Walk in Portland, Oregon" by Chuck Palahniuk before you go there. And if you see dogs in Portland parks chewing on what appear to be the bloody stumps of severed limbs, they're not flesh-eating zombie dogs. Palahniuk passes out plastic toys like the Gory Arm to dog owners at some of his readings.I found this picture at a blog called Blonde Zombie.
Read selections here from "The Zombie Survival Guide" by Max Brooks. I sent a copy to my friend Mustache Pete (who no longer has a mustache now that he lives in L.A. because "they just think it's ironic"). Pete actually has a zombie phobia. I didn't believe it at first, but his girlfriend concurred that he jolts awake in sweaty terror after zombie nightmares and has made her promise that if he ever becomes one, she'll shoot him. Max Brooks used to write for Saturday Night Live. What makes this book funny is how seriously it's presented. Mustache Pete, however, didn't think it was funny. His girlfriend later told me that he took the book at face value and has been debating its assertions. So, when you read it, know that there's at least one guy out there who thinks it's real.
Further reading:"Raise the Dead" by Leah Moore & John Reppion. Hardcover edition of the 4-issue comic. Cover art by Arthur Suydam, introduction by Max Brooks.
"Book of the Dead: The Complete History of Zombie Cinema" by Jamie Russell
"Eaten Alive!: Italian Cannibal and Zombie Movies" by Jay Slater
"Divine Horsemen: The Living Gods of Haiti" by Maya Deren
"Passage of Darkness: The Ethnobiology of the Haitian Zombie" by Wade Davis
And while you're reading, you can listen to this record I found. Comprised of the only four songs of a planned LP completed before his death in 1954 at the age of 70, Papa Celestin's "Golden Wedding" turned out to be Papa's farewell. The Louisiana legend made a hell of an exit, though, with his last words on wax being this cult classic cut about New Orleans' most infamous voodoo queen.
Marie La Veau (MP3) by Oscar "Papa" Celestin
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