The granddaddy of zombies, Bill Hinzeman, dies at 75 today

We would have sworn that he was dead already, but turns out Bill Hinzeman of the George Romero 1968 zombie classic Night of the Living Dead walked around for another 44 years before succumbing to cancer.

Although technically not the first big-screen zombie, Hinzeman’s zombie was the first modern rendition of the flesh-eating, slow-walking undead. Dubbed the Graveyard Zombie in the film’s credits, he makes an appearance early in the film, when a brother and sister are hanging out in a cemetery. The brother famously mocks his sister in an oft-quoted classic line, “They’re coming to get you, Barbara!” before being stalked by Hinzeman.

Romero’s film is a cult classic and clearly hit a collective nerve with its rendition of zombies, as it virtually gave rise to a whole new genre. Many film and television zombies have followed suit in the ensuing decades, but it was Hinzeman’s Graveyard Zombie that enshrined the zombie model.

The popularity of the zombie is an intriguing sociological phenomenon. Originally a West African and Haitian magical notion, the zombie denoted an animated corpse brought back to life by mystical means, such as witchcraft, and strictly under the control of the speller of the magic. The term acquired figurative meaning to describe a hypnotized person bereft of consciousness and self-awareness, yet ambulant and able to respond to surrounding stimuli.

Romero’s film, it might surprise readers, is loosely based on Richard Matheson’s 1954 book I Am Legend, which was made into a recent suspense thriller starring Will Smith. Romero’s film depicts zombies as hungry for human flesh, but some pop culture zombies are victims of a fictional pandemic illness causing the dead to reanimate or the living to behave this way. The 2002 film 28 Days Later and I Am Legend features this variation on the zombie theme.

Romero’s Night of the Living Dead, as well as I Am Legend and 28 Days Later, is a zombie apocalypse story, which has gained increasing popularity among viewers. The genre is a twist on the Armageddon theme, wherein a widespread rise of zombies hostile to human life engages in a general assault on civilization.

Bill Hinzeman maintained a good-natured attitude to the character that made him famous, often appearing in costume as the famed ghoul on the convention circuit. He later wrote, produced, edited, directed and starred in 1988's "Flesh Eater," in which he appears to play the same zombie from "Night of the Living Dead,” and continued to represent the film that made him famous.

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Image Source: Wikimedia Commons

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