Topic: Episode #323

[PANTS!]

Surprised to be the first to mention this: the Italian movie they were trying to remember is the 1964 The Last Man on Earth, starring Vincent Price.  Although made on a small budget (and in Italy), it was actually the most faithful adaptation so far of Richard Matheson's seminal 1954 novel I am Legend.  The 1964 Italian movie was an obvious influence on George Romero (I believe he's acknowledged this).

Its a great movie, if you can live with the very different pacing that categorized movies from this time.  You can watch the whole movie on You Tube

But its not the first zombie movie.  There is White Zombie from 1932 with Bela Lugosi which is basically an adaptation of the original zombie legend as related to Americans in a newspaper article from 1929.

[Citizen Skeptic]

did any of you catch the two hour show on zombies on cable? i think it was discovery or history. they attribute the popularity of zombies to the cold war and night of the living dead. they also point out that what we call a zombie in pop culture is not the original zombie. they said the zombie originated in voodoo. the program also covered the history of our obsession with the dead rising and the origin of things like crypts and coffins, presumably so they could not rise.