Blood, gore, and the living dead, what could make a better movie? George A. Romero’s 1968 The Night of the Living Dead plowed the way for more modern horror films. It was the beginning of a new genre of horror, where fears became more realistic and modern. Zombie movies before Night of the Living Dead portrayed zombies a mindless slaves brought back from the dead and focused on voodoo magic. Romero’s adaptation kept folk lore and added his own touch creating the modern concept of what we consider a zombie. This movie was the birth to the modern zombie; and brought its monstrosity to the next level through the use of categorical contamination. A major factor to success of the movie was categorical contamination. Not everything in our world is always as it seems. Monsters are more than just fiendish appearances but also the evil within oneself. Their monstrosity symbolizes the characteristics that define mankind and our innermost fears. Categorical contaminations are things that are considered to be anything that does not…show more content… Zombies are Categorical contaminations because they are living but dead. In the film we discover the zombies are dead bodies returning back to life from radioactive chemicals from an exploded space probe exploring the planet Venus. Another categorical contamination is that the zombies have animalistic traits but are still human such as cannibalism. One of the best scenes in the movie that exemplifies this is right after the car blows up after being set on fire. Once the fire dies down all the creatures move to the car and begin to eat the man and women that were burned alive in the explosion. The scenes are very graphic showing the monsters eating arms and hands. This is a categorical contamination because humans do not eat other humans. This particular scene really shows the monstrosity of the living
