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It is widely accepted that the first modern zombie movie is George A Romero's brilliant, low budget, Night Of The Living Dead.

But I'm sure zombies featured in Hammer Movies much earlier so Romero wasn't the first to feature them.

So what was the first ever appearance of zombies in a movie.

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    Define "zombie"? I guess a couple of things could be seen as zombies, when they're not - first thing that comes to mind is the various adaptations of I Am Legend – Jenayah Feb 4 '20 at 19:45
  • The things in "I am Legend" are zombies, at least their features are close to zombies than to vampires which they are also described as by some (and one commentator described Romero's innovation as making zombies more like the creatures in I Am Legend). I didn't think there was much debate about what zombies actually are. – matt_black Feb 4 '20 at 19:48
  • A zombie is someone in Haitian folklore that is allegedly a dead body reanimated by a voodoo priest to work as a slave. Cruel bosses don't need to pay dead workers with no free will anything. So zombies are the victims of a form of magical slavery. The Night of the Living Dead created the concept of dead people coming to life and killing and eating the living, and thus turning something desirable - resurrection of the dead -, into a nightmare. Latter movies where the living dead attacked called the living dead zombies, adding a new form of zombie to popular culture. – M. A. Golding Feb 5 '20 at 16:21
  • Actually the things in "I Am Legend" the novel are vampires and the movie depiction, while resembling a zombie, also clearly have vampiristic qualities. They are intelligent, only come out at night, etc. – sanpaco Feb 5 '20 at 17:29
  • Another film adaptation of "I Am Legend" from the 70's was called "Omega Man" and the monsters were mutants remaining after a nuclear holocaust. – sanpaco Feb 5 '20 at 17:34
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Victor Halperin's White Zombie was released in 1932 and is often cited as the first zombie film.

Wikipedia - List of Zombie films

White Zombie is considered to be the first feature length zombie film and has been described as the archetype and model of all zombie movies. Not many early horror films followed White Zombie's Haitian origins style. Other horror films from the 1930s borrowed themes from White Zombie, such as people returning from the dead and other elements of zombie mythology. These films include: The Ghost Breakers (1940), King of the Zombies (1941), I Walked with a Zombie (1943), and The Plague of the Zombies (1966). These films all contain elements from White Zombie including the blank-eyed stares, the voodoo drums, and zombies performing manual labor.

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  • I think you might be right, but I'm sure some context about that candidate would help. What were the zombies like and what was the move about? – matt_black Feb 4 '20 at 19:49
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    You shouldn't be demanding about an answer that you effectively could have Googled yourself. Now that you have the answer, go ahead and Google the rest of your queries. If you have more questions, feel free to open another question on the site. – Jason P Sallinger Feb 4 '20 at 22:21
  • I had originally intended to add a synopsis, copied from wikipedia, but was called afk for the night, so just quickly posted what I had. – Tetsujin Feb 5 '20 at 8:45
  • @JasonPSallinger This site has a lot (193 at last count) of "first appearance" questions and good answers often reveal facts that are not obvious or easy to find in Google searches. Plus it is a far better place for definitive answers for questions that might not be trivial. – matt_black Feb 5 '20 at 18:09
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I don't know about Hollywood. But, coming to Indian cinema "Go Goa Gone" is the first zombie movie in Bollywood. And, "Miruthan" is the first zombie movie in Tamil cinema.

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    The question isn't about Hollywood specifically, it's about what was the first zombie movie released anywhere ever. – F1Krazy Feb 9 '20 at 1:38

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