As a classy zombie, his pipe contains only the most high-grade grey matter.
The term zombi originates in Voudoun beliefs in Haiti, though the etymological roots date back to West Africa. "Zombi" refers to people enslaved by the magic dealings of bokors, who have either not allowed them a peaceful death or have put them in trances to make them as well as the community think they are dead. The concept took form during the French colonial rule and mainly came to be known outside Haiti after the Haitian Revolution when its black population and their culture could spread out. Another important step for zombies into popular culture was the novel The Magic Island by William Seabrook in 1929, whose popularity influenced the creation of the first zombie film White Zombie, in 1932.
Zombies be interpreted as a Primal Fear as the enslaver who has taken everything from you even finds a way to deny you the freedom of death and continues exploiting you forever. Indeed, the concept of zombies may very well have been spread by owners to discourage their slaves from ending their own lives. In this context, the folkloric zombie was not perceived as frightening due to any particular threat posed by the zombie itself but rather due to the horror that a person could be reduced to such a state and the fear that it could happen to you as well.
Zombies based on this tradition are typically slaves to a bokor or other Evil Sorcerer. If living, they have been Brainwashed using drugs and/or More than Mind Control. If undead, they have been reanimated with blood, evil, or some other form of unholy magic. As such, they may be vulnerable to Revive Kills Zombie. In either case, one can easily see zombies of this breed as a Woobie Species for obvious reasons. Salt can often break the spell, freeing the living and allowing the dead to rest... or to go after their master in a vengeful rage.
The idea of a zombie slave has been largely replaced by masterless monsters out to kill and eat the living, as introduced in Night of the Living Dead (1968). However, voodoo zombies still show up a lot in fantasy — and in horror about Black Magic instead of a Zombie Apocalypse — as a villainous necromancer's standard mooks, albeit often revived through other varieties of The Dark Arts besides Hollywood Voodoo; in this context it's still common to frame zombies are pitiable and pathetic more than physically intimidating and as beings whose creation is an act of desecration and enslavement. Related is the concept of undead villains like liches, mummies, and vampires reanimating other dead people (often including their victims) as minions; such minions may be referred to as ghouls if a vampire reanimated them.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- Naruto: Summoning: Impure World Reincarnationnote brings back souls of the deceased to do the summoner's bidding. While the souls inhabit the bodies of living people, it's made pretty clear that the deceased are aware that they have been recalled to the land of the living, and virtually all of them are unhappy about it. The Second Hokage originally created the jutsu to bring back the souls of his deceased enemies and make them his slave warriors, but later realized the Power Perversion Potential and abandoned it. It comes back to bite him in the ass later; not only Orochimaru and Kabuto utilize the jutsu to attack Konoha, but Tobirama ends up becoming subjected to it twice (though he is only made to attack Konoha in the first case).
- One Piece: The zombies in the Thriller Bark Story Arc are a combination of Voodoo and Artificial Zombie. They're reanimated by villain Gecko Moria's Living Shadow-based Kage-Kage Devil Fruit. Through it, Moria can steal shadows off a living person and put them into dead bodies rebuilt by Doktor Hogback. The resulting zombies have the personality traits, fighting skills, etc. as whoever the shadow came from.
Comic Books
- Arrowsmith: Voodoo zombies are seen as part of the Gallian colonial troops, where their role is presumably to serve as cannon fodder.
- "Audition (1954)": Ethel Stark is turned into a zombie because that's the condition for anyone to be accepted into Phil Vitale's All-Girl Orchestra. The process comes down to being injected with a "greenish liquid". Phil Vitale has some in storage and might be the one who brews it in the first place. Other than the needle's sting, dying doesn't hurt and the newly created zombie is exactly the same as the previous human, just without a pulse and possibly limitations in their facial expressions.
- The Avengers (1963):
- In "Nightmare in New Orleans!", Wonder Man's body comes into possession of Black Talon, a voodoo priest of Damballa who operates from New Orleans. Black Talon turns Wonder Man into a zuvembie and ships him to New York in a crate for a mission, but he is discovered and captured by the Avengers. The Scarlet Witch discovers that Wonder Man is a zuvembie and that they can only help him by going to le Mort Bayou in New Orleans. As they near a voodoo ceremony held by Black Talon, they witness corpses rise from the ground as zuvembies and Wonder Man too is stirred into walking up to the voodoo priest. The Avengers decide to attack and win the battle, which returns the zuvembies to corpses, but don't get any answers.
- In "Home Is the Hero!", the Avengers take Wonder Man back to New York, where his condition slightly improves. There's still no mind to his body, but he no longer displays the traits of a zuvembie like stiff movement and muteness.
- The Beyond: In the story "Vengeance of the Possessed" from issue #25, Professor English is working on a collection of supernatural creatures that were once human and that he himself personally ensured got turned. He's only missing a zombie and for that he captures Karl Forth, the architect who built him the cages the creatures are kept in and who can't be trusted not to tell. He knocks the man unconscious and performs several rites to make him a zombie, the only of the collection who obeys. When two friends of Forth come look for him, they end up freeing the creatures, which go after English together. They perish when the building explodes.
- "Born in the Grave": A zombie may or may not be responsible for at least five murders in the village, but the possibility of a zombie being around is exploited by Aaron to make the villagers execute Karl on suspicion of him being the zombie. Aaron personally kills Karl's wife Lily and hides her corpse in Karl's grave. The injustice of their deaths manifests in the supernatural continuation of Lily's pregnancy until after nine months her and Karl's son Karoly is born as a zombie. He grows up eating the flesh of the animals at the cemetery and at eighteen is sufficiently prepared to avenge his parents. They were killed by Aaron's actions and so it is his body that provides Karoly with his first and only taste of human flesh. While zombies normally may be out for their own gain, Karoly's birth as a zombie was facilitated only by unfinished business, so when he has avenged his parents, he returns to their grave to rest for eternity. This might mean he stops being a zombie and becomes a regular corpse.
- Challengers of the Unknown: In the 1997 story "Undead", the Challengers deal with a man named Mustafa who uses a drug to kill the minds of people and make himself a crowd of servants. Kenn temporarily takes the zombies out with ultra-subsonic frequencies. Ultimately, it turns out that the decadent Mustafa is not the mastermind, but someone from the local government who believes that making something useful out of addicts is a defensible scheme.
- Death Rattle: In the story "The Potion" from issue #3, Pam wants to call upon the powers of voodoo to get her boyfriend Marquette back and her only access to a priestess is through her sister Doretha. Doretha is disgusted, which prompts Pam to clarify that she's not looking to turn Marquette into a zombie.
- Disney Ducks Comic Universe: Bombie the Zombie is the symbol of and retribution for the worst Scrooge McDuck is capable of.
- "Voodoo Hoodoo": Bombie the Zombie is a living person turned into a zombie by the African shaman Foola Zoola. As a zombie, he has no will of his own, needs no food or oxygen, and is borderline immortal and indestructible. When Scrooge tricks Foola Zoola's tribe into an unfair deal for their land, the shaman sends Bombie after him to hand him a doll that'll turn him into a shrunken dunk. Bombie loses track of Scrooge and when after decades he reaches Duckburg, he mistakes Donald for Scrooge in his younger days. Donald and the nephews return Bombie to Africa and make him the tribe's problem by tying rubber platforms under his feet and sending him bouncing.
- The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck: Back in the day, Scrooge changed his appearance back to confuse Bombie. However, the curse caused Bombie to keep tracking down Scrooge over the years until a different shaman in the Pacific Islands trapped Bombie there for some thirty years. Scrooge hoped Foola Zoola's magic would've worn off by the time Bombie could resume his mission, but this proved idle hope.
- Ghostbusters (IDW Comics): During the "Haunted America" arc where the Ghostbusters tackle out-of-state cases, the second stop is in New Orleans, where they are tasked with capturing the vengeful ghost of the daughter of historical voodoo priestess Marie Laveau, who practiced Black Magic voodoo. Part of the ghost's ritual to return involves dancing zombies.
- The Goon: The hordes of undead raised by the Zombie Priest are fairly standard, although a few are capable of speech and performing complex tasks. The Zombie Priest himself isn't actually a zombie, but rather a demon in disguise. There's also Willie Nagel, a friendly and intelligent zombie.
- Green Lantern (1941): Solomon Grundy was a mobster who was killed and thrown in a cursed swamp. The curse caused him to reanimate decades later as a soulless, grey monster.
- The Hand of Fate: In the story "Invitation to Your Wake" from issue #21, many monsters, among which zombies, attend a meeting on the dangers of horror writers because they expose too many of their secrets. The horror writer Walter Lawson is found snooping, but escapes them. When several attempts on his life fail, the zombies go to his fiancée's and with their voodoo spells and drums turn her into a cat to use as hostage. Walter turns them to dust with mandrake root powder.
- Hellblazer: The voodoo magician Papa Midnite employs zombies as a labor force.
- "Horror in the Graveyard": In the 1952 print, the Unholy Three are a trio of pale humanoids wrapped up in cloaks who reside in Grisdale Cemetery. No names are provided and each of them is instead identified by a distinct physical trait: one always has his mouth open, another always has his hand lifted, and the third has a forked tongue that's always sticking out. They feed on human blood and those they feed on become zombies like them. However, while their turned victims are for certain undead humans, whether the same is true for the Unholy Three is unclear because they don't quite look like they ever were human. Little is revealed about what powers any of them have, but the Unholy Three can levitate themselves and are capable of either teleporting to marked quarry or appearing to them by means of a mental or astral projection.
- DC Comics' House of Secrets story "Rest in Peace" from issue #100 features Philippe Lacroix, a well-versed juju-man whose powers mostly rely on exploiting superstition and enacting unrelenting cruelty. Among his actual powers is knowledge of a drug that paralyzes the will, which he reserves for those who don't believe in his powers. He sneaks some in the wine of Andre Mallard, the best cook in Haiti, after Mallard refuses to work for Lacroix. For three years, Lacroix forces Mallard to do his bidding, which at first is limited to cooking but as Mallard never relents, Lacroix also puts him to use terrorizing slaves. Only at Lacroix's death does Mallard regain himself.
- Marvel Two-in-One: In "Conjure Night!" (#40) and "Voodoo and Valor!" (#41), a vampire attacks the Ugandan village of the houngan W'Sulli, who traps his spirit in a govi. The vampire thus becomes a vampire zuvembie. W'Sulli uses him to secure power in the village, but Dr. Kinji Obatu thinks bigger and forms an alliance with W'Sulli. They send the vampire zuvembie to the United States to abduct ten prominent African-Americans, having to give up on one of them but capturing the Black Panther instead. Back in Uganda, Obatu and W'Sulli hand over the captives to the dictator Idi Amin to curry favor. W'Sulli takes the spirits of the captives and stores them in the same govi as the vampire's spirit is trapped in. Because Idi Amin only has need for the spirits, he considers destroying the bodies for sport. It doesn't get that far because the Thing and Brother Voodoo crash the ceremony and destroy the govi. All eleven zuvembies return to their normal state and the vampire, free and vengeful, kills his former masters before flying off.
- Mysterious Adventures: In the story "Two for the Money" from issue #22, a man two-times two wealthy women, one Hungarian and the other Romanian, and marries them each without knowledge of the other. A curiosity they share is that they both take to cooking and overfeed him. The man first tells his Hungarian wife he's going on a diet, which prompts her to reveal herself as a vampire who was fattening him up. He escapes her, only to find that his Romanian wife is a zombie also looking to fatten him up and she succeeds in eating him.
- Nosferature: "...The Name Is Sinner Cane... And the Name Means Evil!" (Scream #2) features a Haitian voodoo priest named Sinner Cane. When he loses the support of the people against the military state run by Papa General, Sinner Cane raises the dead as zombies to fight a final battle, using their hatred for Papa General to motivate them. They get far in their march, but Papa General has armed himself with a Voodoo Doll of Sinner Cane and with it cuts him off from the zombies, who without the support of voodoo return to being mere corpses. Sinner Cane is made to kill himself, but this ends the effect of the voodoo doll and leaves Sinner Cane's corpse exposed to the lingering voodoo. He returns as a self-made zombie and pushes Papa General out of the window.
- Out of the Night: In the story "Drum of Doom" from issue #2, a Witch Doctor from a village in Haiti owns a drum of a size that to play it it needs to be danced on. When it's sounded, no matter where it is, it summons the dead of the village from their graves and gives them flight if needed to close the distance. The American dancer Annette obtains the drum dishonestly for a performance imitating Haitian dances and thereby summons a legion of zombies to New York City. They try to make off with the drum, but stand still to clap along with the rhythm when the drum is danced on. While Annette keeps them entranced, her manager cuts the drum head, which returns the zombies to their graves. Humbled, the duo send the drum back to the witch doctor, who repairs it.
- Runaways: The Rock Zombies turn out to be not actually undead, but rather people deformed and controlled by magic. And then there's Dead George Pellham from the 1907 arc.
- Scooby-Doo! (DC Comics): In "Scooby Dooby Voodoo", Baron Samedi, the manager of the Skull and Hat club in New Orleans, hires a man to dress up as and pretend to be a zombie. He also spreads rumors about zombies roaming about in order to save the spirit of Mardi Gras.
- Scott Zombi:
- Scott himself is a zombie, but it's ambiguous what kind. Although he fits in more with post-70s zombie imagery, except that he retains his personality and appetite from his living days, he is acknowledged by a bokor to be like his own creations. It is unknown how Scott came to be other than the cryptic phrase that death didn't want him. Scott jokes it's because of his sense of humor.
- Debout les morts!: Years ago, five individuals made a deal with a bokor for success. In return, their souls were bound to a portrait of each of them and in due time, the bokor would destroy one painting, causing the individual it depicted to perish too. This individual would then rise from the dead as the bokor's servant and destroy the portrait of the next individual until all five would be zombies under the bokor's command and utilized in a special ritual. Because as per the agreement the five are highly successful in their careers, their deaths are a high profile situation that draws in detectives Etna and Scott. They unravel what's going on, but fail to save any of the five. Etna herself is almost turned into a zombie, but because Scott as a zombie of his own is outside of the bokor's grasp, he can save her and prevent the ritual's completion.
- The Simpsons: In the story "The Curse of the Mama Jama Voodoo Zombie Gumbo" from "The Simpsons Spin-Off Showcase: Quickly Cancelled Comic Book Cavalcade!!", Big Daddy wants to have his summer home in New Orleans fixed up and instead of simply hiring a competent crew, he decides on hiring mercenaries and paying Mama Jama, owner of the restaurant Mama Jama's, to provide him with zombie laborers to do the work. Mama Jama gets zombies by feeding her patrons zombie root gumbo. This causes their hearts to stop for two to three days and if around that time they smell zombie root gumbo, they rise from their stupor and obey whoever holds the gumbo. Zombies remain in this state until about a week after they've last eaten zombie root gumbo. While investigating the missing people, Wiggum falls victim to Mama Jama. Skinner, with the help of a zombie root gumbo expert of his own, Tofalinda Proudfoot, goes to save him and while taking down Big Daddy notes that the zombie's shoddy work can't possibly make them the more cost-effective option for the renovation.
- Strange Academy: Student Zoe Laveau turns out to be one of these underneath a magical appearance of a normal teenage girl given by an amulet, having died after carelessly using magic (which comes with a cost in the Marvel Universe) and needing to have been reanimated by her ancestor Marie Laveau.
- Strange Tales: In the story "March of the Dead" from issue #171, Baron Samedi and A.I.M. join forces to create an artificial zuvembie workforce by means of a machine that blanks the mind of anyone strapped to it. They build a base underneath a cemetery in Haiti and from there organize abductions to supply the machine. Baron Samedi leads the zuvembies into various attacks on government facilities to steal valuable tech, and Brother Voodoo is asked to investigate. Looking for a lead, Brother Voodoo patrols the cemeteries until he is accosted by the zuvembies rising from beneath the earth. Under the impression he's dealing with true zuvembies, he sends Daniel to possess one of the soulless bodies, but this doesn't work because the zuvembie machine targets the mind rather than the soul. The miscalculation gets Brother Voodoo captured, but once inside the underground base he frees himself and destroys the zuvembie machine, which in turn frees the captives from its zuvembifying effect.
- Tales of the Zombie:
- Simon Garth was cursed by a voodoo cult to shamble under the control of whoever came across the Amulet of Damballah. In the first story he appears in, "Zombie!" from Menace #5, whether his killer and his voodoo master are the same person goes unsaid, but his master is a cruel, selfish, and violent man. When he has no need for Garth, he leaves him standing out of sight in the swamp because Garth knows when he gets called, no matter the distance. One night, the master sends out Garth during Mardi Gras to get money, but Garth is interrupted during his robbery-murder. He has to return without money and the master becomes furious, uselessly hitting Garth with a whip he can't even feel before going for a more practical solution. He sends Garth out to bring him a woman who refuses to marry him so he can pretend to save her and earn her affection. He intends to kill Garth thereafter by destroying the devil-doll he uses to control him. As it turns out, the woman is Garth's own daughter, and for the first time in history, a zombie has the means — love — to turn against their master and kill them. Once the deed is done, Garth returns to his grave.
- In the story "The Resurrection of Papa Jambo" from issue #10, the houngan Dramabu raises the dead in a cemetery in Port-au-Prince, Haiti on his quest for power. Alternatingly called "zuvembies" and "zombies", the notable among them are Charles le Jeune, an old friend of Brother Voodoo whose widow, Sarah, contacts the superhero, and Papa Jambo, whose power as a houngan rejects Dramabu's call until he gives it his all. Dramabu has Charles murder Sarah to join his army and abduct his young daughter to be sacrificed to increase Dramabu's power. To do that right, Dramabu needs Papa Jambo to perform the ceremony. During Brother Voodoo's fight to stop the ceremony, Daniel possesses Papa Jambo, Charles, and Charles's unconscious daughter at critical moments to turn the tide in his brother's favor. Ultimately, Brother Voodoo sends Dramabu of a ledge and when the houngan dies, so do the zuvembies cease being.
- Tex Willer:
- Zombies can be killed with ease by taking away or destroying the charm they wear as a necklace because it's the thing keeping them reanimated.
- Before an actual zombie first showed up, a doctor at an insane asylum with knowledge of voodoo (one of his patients believed himself to be the earthly avatar of Baron Samedi, after all) declared that actual zombies did not exist, and the apparent ones were simply unfortunate people who had been drugged up to appear living dead.
- The Tomb of Dracula: In "Showdown of Blood!" (issue #34), Frank Drake is lured to Brazil and attacked by white zuvembies. Brother Voodoo saves him and together they learn it was a trap set by Dracula.
- Tragg and the Sky Gods: In "The Cult of the Cave Bear" from Mystery Comics Digest #9, the priest of the Cult of the Cave Bear uses fumes from magic herbs and a drum beat to raise zombies in the Stone Age equivalent of voodoo.
- In EC Comics' The Vault of Horror story "While the Cat's Away" from issue #34, the Crypt Keeper's house gets broken into by two crooks. They encounter lots of monsters, among which zombies.
- Web of Horror: In the story "Island of the Walking Dead" from issue #1, a strange man takes control of the island of Arbilla in the Caribbean. Using voodoo, he turns Doctor Lacrima and his daughter Maldita into zombies. This means that he cuts out their hearts and keeps them with him to control the owners, whose bodies cease to feel pain but also slowly rot. Only salt can block the link, leaving the bodies a writhing mess. The strange man has Doctor Lacrima take control of the island and turn hundreds of islanders into zombies. However, Maldita's kindness is stronger than the voodoo, and she escapes to form a resistance. It is into this setup that the strange man lures Toby and Jake Ussher, specialists in destroying the undead. With the help of the resistance and a shotgun loaded with salt, they break into Doctor Lacrima's fortress and destroy the hears. All of the zombies perish a second death and the strange man appears to the Ussher Brothers. He declares defeat and reveals that he was the one who had Doctor Lacrima's and Maldita's hearts. Both perish too, but unlike the other zombies Maldita goes peacefully.
- Werewolf by Night:
- In "Rebirth Also Kills" (issue #38), Raymond Coker seeks out the Haitian witch Jeesala for a zuvembie problem. She tells him to meet up with Brother Voodoo and Jack Russell.
- In "Some Are Born to the Night" (issue #39), Brother Voodoo, Raymond Coker, Jack Russell and entourage meet up. Coker tells about a zuvembie problem in Haiti, where the corpse of his own great-grandfather has killed his uncle and aunt. As they discuss what to do, a group of zuvembies attack them. They abduct Coker, but the rest of the group fights them off. Curiously, the zuvembies dissolve after defeat, which leads Brother Voodoo to conclude that they aren't true zombies. He, Jack, and Topaz form a group to go check out the situation at Devil's Grotto In Haiti, where they are attacked by true zuvembies. Brother Voodoo reasons that an extremely powerful houngan must be behind all this if they can both control true zuvembies and create simulacra of zuvembies. Exploring Devil's Grotto, the discover that the fake zuvembies are made from the grotto's rock wall through infusion with light, which is cast by none other than Dr. Glitternight.
- In "Souls in Darkness", Dr. Glitternight sics the fake zombies on the group, but has to escape when they're defeated. The heroes follow him to a large black egg inside of which is the answer why Dr. Glitternight works with both kinds of zuvembies. He can raise the true ones, but it takes long. So he got himself a good number of true ones and then easily made zuvembies of rock and light by using the true ones as templates.
- In "And Death Shall Be the Change", Dr. Glitternight sics fake zombies and demon-things on the heroes and it's mostly thanks to Brother Voodoo's control of fire that they are destroyed. Dr. Glitternight is defeated and all that remains of what he had built up are the corpses that were once the zuvembies he commanded. Coker mourns what his great-grandfather's corpse has been put through.
- Witchcraft: In the story "Where Zombies Walk!" from issue #5, Jack Carney comes to island of Hondo in the Caribbean to meet his sister and mock the superstitions behind voodoo. His sister and her husband are believers and explain that the touch of a zombie to a believer is healing, but it brings death to a non-believer. Everything but convinced, Jack spies on a voodoo ceremony where the python god's priest has the zombies heal a woman. Still believing it all a farce, Jack takes no care in getting away unseen and gets surrounded by the zombies, who touch him and turn him into another zombie.
Comic Strips
- Doonesbury: Uncle Duke spent some time as a zombie after his Baby Doc med school scam got on the bad side of a deposed Haitian tyrant. His zombification appeared to be drug-induced; he'd been found dead and appeared some time later going by the name "Legume" with no memory of who he was, his name or whether he'd had hair, and an inability to resist the zombie serum. He was, however, non-violent and able to converse and even engage with other people.
Computing
- A computer that has been compromised by a hacker via malware is known as a zombie
. The hacker is able to command zombies to do their malicious bidding, such as send spam across the Internet and attack websites.
Fan Works
- The Savior King, the Master Tactician and the Queen of Liberation: Fodlan's ancient heroes, the Ten Elites, are revived in this state by the Agarthans. They retain their memories and personalities from life and are repulsed by the Agarthans and where they realized too late that their Crests and weapons actually came from, but they are kept under a Geas that forces them to fight their own descendants.
Film — Animated
- "Mad Monster Party?": By far most of Baron von Frankenstein's employees are black zombies. They have no will or much thought of their own and obey the doctor to the letter. For their lack of personability, they are looked down upon by everyone else with the possible exception of the doctor, to whom they remain loyal when the other monsters rebel.
- Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island: Zombies are brought back by magic that is implied to be of voodoo origin. The zombies have enough autonomy to try and save others from the fate that befell them.
Film — Live-Action
- Addams Family Values: At a talk show, a woman claims that her son was brainwashed by voodoo witch doctors and forced to recruit others.
- Big Tits Zombie: Zombies are summoned by the Necronomicon. They are also of the running variety (as well as sword-fighting variety).
- Cast a Deadly Spell: Zombies are used as cheap labor or as enforcers and bodyguards. Crime boss Harry Bordon in particular has an ever-present intimidating black zombie for a bodyguard.
- The Crawling Eye: The invading aliens have the ability to create voodoo-ish spies/fifth columnists from the bodies of their victims.
- Hocus Pocus (1993): After Billy Butcherson's death, the witch Winifred Sanderson condemns him to zombie servitude because he cheated on her with her sister.
- I Eat Your Skin: A playboy adventure novelist joins his publisher on an expedition to Voodoo Island in the Caribbean, where a cancer researcher is being forced to turn the tribes-people into zombies.
- I Walked with a Zombie: A zombie is a recently-dead or comatose person rendered into the slave of a master by voodoo magic.
- King of the Zombies: Dr. Sangre is a Nazi agent running a voodoo. He has his high priestess Tahama raise a group of zombies to act as servants and muscle. Lacking the ability to raise the dead himself, he hypnotises Jeff and Mac into believing they are zombies.
- Dawn of the Dead (1978): Peter brings up voodoo when explaining his theory about the zombies, saying "Something my granddaddy used to tell us. You know Macumba? Voodoo. Granddad was a priest in Trinidad. Used to tell us, "When there's no more room in hell, the dead will walk the Earth."
- Maniac Cop 3: Badge of Silence: Though his original means of resurrection are never specified, after Officer Matthew Cordell is blown up in Maniac Cop 2, he's brought back again via voodoo magic used by a wannabee witch doctor.
- Mythica: Zombies come back because Szorlok, an evil necromancer, raises them to serve him with the use of the Darkspore, an object which permits this. All those they kill are then raised as well and enthralled to him too.
- The Phantom Creeps: Dr. Zorka's giant robot is modeled after a zombie, with which it shares the trait of being a serving body.
- Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides: Blackbeard is a proficient voodoo practitioner. One of his abilities is resurrecting the dead men he kills, being his own crewmen or his enemies, and turning them into servant zombie warriors on his ship.
- The Plague of the Zombies: In a Cornish village in August 1860, corpses disappear as zombies slowly but surely rise in numbers. The mastermind behind this is Squire Clive Hamilton, a local nobleman who spent some time in Haiti and learned many voodoo secrets. He uses the zombies, whom he controls with voodoo dolls, to work his tin mine and kill his enemies. When he tries to zombify Sylvia, Dr. Peter and Sir James manage to stop him by burning his manor with all the voodoo dolls inside. The zombies go up in flames as a result and Hamilton can't escape their inferno.
- Psychomania: Zombies are willing participants in a ritual that grants eternal life. The ritual requires that they first die. On revival, they carry on as before; they are essentially their own creator.
- The Serpent and the Rainbow: Voodoo zombies are created using a special powder.
- Sugar Hill (1974): Sugar Hill sells her soul to Baron Samedi in return for him raising an undead army for her, which she then uses to avenge her boyfriend who was murdered by gangsters.
- Weapons (2025): The "Weapons" are mind-controlled victims of Gladys' dark magic, making them a Technically Living Zombie version of the Voodoo Zombie. The spell makes them more physically powerful and resistant than a regular person and only a bullet to the brain or getting completely run over by a vehicle can kill them.
- Weekend at Bernie's 2: Bernie is revived by a voodoo curse, but only partially because the two bad guys who were sent to perform the ritual screwed it up. As a result, Bernie is only ambulatory when music is playing.
- White Zombie: Zombie mill workers are created by voodoo.
- Zombie Island Massacre: A group of tourists visit the island of St Marie to sit in on a nighttime voodoo ritual and get to see a dead man being reanimated after he gets covered in freshly spilled goat's blood amidst chanting and dancing.
- Zombie Nightmare: A young man is brought back from the dead by a voodoo priestess to get revenge on the teenagers who killed him in a hit-and-run.
Literature
- Anita Blake: Zombies have to be animated by someone with the power to do so, which is the case for Anita Blake. They are obedient to the person who raised them, and have a varied amount of memory and personality depending on time passed since death, power level of the animator, and quality of blood sacrifice that raised them. Eating flesh prevents them from decaying as rapidly, but an ordinary competently raised zombie is unlikely to go on a rampage unless they are a murder victim or used to be an animator themselves.
- In The Boy Who Couldn't Die by William Sleator, the titular boy becomes a zombie due to a mix of "voodoo magic" and toxins used in real life hoodoo practices, who apparently did not have all the ingredients.
- Brown Girl in the Ring: The gang lord Rudy controls several zombies using a process taught to him by a Ioa, one of which is his own daughter, Mi-Jeanne.
- In Cold Kiss by Amy Garvey, Wren brings back her boyfriend Danny using Black Magic. Unfortunately, he has a Damaged Soul.
- Dead Beat: Harry Dresden questions why someone would go to the trouble of working intricate dark magics just to get something that shuffles like an arthritic grandmother and thinks of nothing but brains (not to mention that, say, a zombie dinosaur may well be a much better choice for the discerning wizard). The zombies of the Dresdenverse are pumped full of dark magic to the point that they're stronger and faster than the average human, as well as completely pliant to the will of the necromancer that raised them... provided they maintain the spell (by supplying a "heartbeat", usually via drumming), of course.
- Discworld:
- Reaper Man: There's a discussion of voodoo practices when the wizards get distracted from "Why is Windle Poons a zombie?" by the more interesting question "Is Windle Poons technically a zombie?"
- Witches Abroad: Mrs Googol is a voodoo priestess who says she only raises zombies when there ain't no alternative, like when the house needs repainting. She is accompanied by Saturday: "He was — or, technically, had been — a tall, handsome man. He still was, only now he looked like someone who had walked through a room full of cobwebs." He's also the late Baron of Genua — yes, Baron Saturday. It's mentioned that Discworld voodoo can't bring someone back from the dead unless they have serious Unfinished Business they want to come back for.
- Dream Park: Walking dead are sent by the Foré to attack the heroes/gamers in the South Seas Treasure game. Not voodoo, but same idea, although the Foré magic can animate any reasonably intact dead body, even ones that are missing limbs.
- Felix Castor: Zombies are ghosts who return in (mostly) their own bodies. One of them, Nicky Heath, plays a crucial and recurring role, as does his voodoo physical therapist Imelda.
- Harry Potter: The Inferi are corpses animated by dark magic.
- The Headless Horseman Rides Tonight: More Poems to Trouble Your Sleep: The zombie in "The Zombie" is the "spawn of voodoo's charms" and neither alive nor dead. It still senses, but no longer consciously and operates on a very limited set of behaviors. Such behavior includes a desire for living touch, but that desire is such that the zombie crushes its targets to death.
- Iron Dawn by Matt Stover has Chryseids — leathery-skinned, sentient zombie minions animated by Simi-Ascalon's corrupted Egyptian magic.
- Little Dracula: Slave is the regularly abused and belittled zombie assistant of Igor and a member of Dracula's household. His skin is purple and he wears only torn pants and shoes. He and Igor get married in the future if the fortune teller in Little Dracula at the Seaside is reliable.
- Malazan Book of the Fallen: The T'lan Imass are several tribes of undead Neanderthals who underwent a ritual many thousands of years ago to make themselves undead so that they'd be able to carry out the full extermination of the Jaghut, their former masters, making them closer to the "Voodoo" sort of zombie than the others. In the present day, they've mostly lost their way, with many tribes having been wiped out completely and others simply losing their will to exist, turning them to dust.
- The Monsters: Color the Creature Book: The zombie of "Zombie" is a corpse summoned to action by a drumbeat. His task is to kill a particular man, who probably did wrong to the zombie's summoner. The zombie only has the night to fulfill its quest because Voodoo fades by dawn and thus he needs to return to his grave then. But one night is all he needs to kill the man, who finds that normal weapons are useless to an undead creature.
- "Pigeons from Hell (1938)":
- A zombie is a creature that was once a human. Only a voodoo man is able to turn a human into a zombie and does so with the secrets granted to them by a god like Damballah.
- A zuvembie is a creature that was once a female human. Only a voodoo man is able to turn a human into a zuvembie by means of the Black Brew and it may be that only a voodoo man specifically in service of the snake god Damballah has this power. The zuvembie maker and the woman who is to become a zuvembie must each first have danced in the Black Ceremony, but the actual transformation occurs only when the woman drinks the Black Brew, which is a concoction that among other ingredients contains ground snake-bones, the blood of vampire bats, and the dew from a nighthawk's wings. A zuvembie is one with the people of the Black World and devoid of any and all traits she had as a human. The sole motivation to her existence is the pleasure derived from slaughtering humans and in-between there's only the wait. Time holds no meaning to a zuvembie, who is without age and without need for nourishment. Lead and steel are the only materials that can end her existence, but this does not mean that a zuvembie fears them. A zuvembie is physically strong and ruthless but her true power lies in her ability to control. Firstly, she commands owls, bats, snakes, and werewolves. Secondly, she can summon darkness to blot out small lights, which is useful for her to go undetected. Thirdly, despite being unable to speak human words and think human thoughts, a zuvembie may hypnotize the living by the sound of her voice, such as by whistling. Such hypnosis only works on those who are in a weakened state of mind and makes them see an illusion that combines their own experiences, those of the zuvembie, and new constructions that facilitate the illusion. The point of the hypnosis is to lure quarry to the zuvembie and the illusion makes it easier, but even if a prey breaks out of the illusion, they may still be stuck making their way to the zuvembie, only now aware of their peril. Fourthly, when a zuvembie kills a man, and a man only, she can command his lifeless body until the flesh is cold. In effect, this means a zuvembie can make her own if temporal zombie.
- Relativity: In "Mardi Gras", voodoo zombies are created by chemical means. Once the effects wear off, the victims return to normal with no memories of what happened.
- "The Scarlet Citadel": Pelias resurrects a jailer who was killed by Conan so that the two can be let out of their prison. This move creeps Conan the fuck out.
- In "Secret of the Zombies" (from House of Mystery issue #22), George Worthington meets two zombies during his stay in Haiti. He has no experience with the phenomenon and so asks around, learning that zombies are created by a bocor. A bocor fashions a doll in the likeness of their target and sticks pins into it to eliminate the will of the target. The target then becomes their zombie, enslaved to the bocor's will. Worthington feels pity for the zombies he met and grabs a chance to team up with the anthropologist Conrad Stark to help the zombies. Worthington and Stark follow one zombie around until he sits down and nibbles on the leaf of a kingo plant. Stark knows that the leaf is a powerful anesthetic, so the zombies are not the work of a bocor but the result of drug use. All the so-called zombies need is rehab.
- Seven Stars: In the chapter "The Trouble With Barrymore", the villain is a sorcerer who has travelled around the world studying different magical traditions. It's revealed that his unusually stoic bodyguards are both zombies, mementos of his study trip to Haiti.
- Warbreaker: The Lifeless are treated like robots that happen to be made from reanimated corpses instead of metal. Once created they are perfectly obedient (though most have passwords built into them so that only certain people can command them) and will follow any instruction to the letter, though like real-world computers this often needs to be very specific to avoid Literal Genie moments. They absolutely will not rampage or eat brains unless someone is stupid enough to tell them to. In the nation of Hallandren they are a widely accepted part of society, though in other parts of the world they are regarded as abominations.
- Worlds of Shadow: Fetches, who were dead people raised by Shadow with magic. They can't talk well, will mindlessly obey orders, are completely emotionless and have a slight smell to them, but that's it. None eats people, nor anything else. They thus have more in common with the original Haitian mythology.
- Xanth: The Zombie Master creates voodoo zombies. Neither the zombies nor their creator are threatening. Xanth zombies are mostly benign, although when called on to fight they make fearsome opponents. They are not contagious, although they deteriorate, and many suffer from brain-damage as their grey matter decomposes. They result either from the occasional person with unfinished business or from a corpse reanimated by the Zombie Master. Or, in one rather depressing case, the Zombie Master himself after he suicides.
- The Zombie Survival Guide: Voodoo zombies have a section explaining how to distinguish them from the deadlier "viral zombies".
Live-Action TV
- American Horror Story: Coven: Zombies are summoned by Marie Laveau. The first time to deal with racists who had killed the son of one of her employees in the 1970s, the second time to attack the witches school. Less literal but still cases of resurrection by magic are Kyle and Madison.
- Brand New Cherry Flavor: The witch Boro's undead servants still possess enough rudimentary intelligence to perform tasks and maintain a slight vestige of their old selves.
- Buffyverse:
- Buffy the Vampire Slayer: In "Dead Man's Party", zombies are magically revived by a Nigerian demon. As Giles explains it, zombies actually do not eat human flesh and there's no indication that they can be killed by hitting the head.
- Angel: In "The Thin Dead Line", a police captain raises murdered cops as voodoo zombies to continue patrolling the streets, which causes problems due to their tendency to unprovoked Police Brutality.
- The Cape (2011): In "The Lich (Part 1)", a group of people are turned into voodoo zombies by The Lich through TTX poisoning.
- Grimm: The Wesen known as Baron Samedi, a ghede from Haitian folklore, can turn people into living zombies by affecting them with his own toxin (as he is a pufferfish Wesen).
- Kolchak: The Night Stalker: In "The Zombie", the titular zombie takes orders from its voodoo priestess mother, kills mainly by snapping the spine, moves rather fast, and is finally put down by having rock salt poured into its mouth when dormant followed by sewing the mouth shut.
- Lost: The Man in Black resurrects the recently-dead Sayid, who becomes his psychotic recruit. He also "claims" Claire and most of Danielle's team, all of whom are strongly implied to have been killed (or at the very least, badly hurt) prior to turning evil. Sayid and Claire both fight out of this, though, and remain alive — well, until a bomb goes off soon after, in Sayid's case.
- MacGyver (1985): In "Walking Dead", the bad guy attempts to turn MacGyver into the "drugged into a deathlike trance and mind-controlled" variant, but the hero is able to shake off the effects.
- Once Upon a Time (2011): Cora resurrects several people whom she killed by ripping out their hearts using their hearts which she magically preserved.
- Supernatural: In "Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things", a girl killed in a car crash is brought back as a zombie by a guy who had a crush on her using an ancient spell. She's actually pretty normal, apart from being completely psychotic.
- The X-Files: In "Millennium", corpses are brought back to life using necromancy. They attack anyone in the vicinity who is not protected by a ring of blood or salt. They can be killed by a bullet to the head.
Music
- Love It to Death: Raised in "Black Juju":
Bodies need rest, we all need our rest
Sleep an easy sleep, rest, rest
Bodies need their rest, all need our rest
Sleep an easy sleep, rest, rest, rest, rest
But come back in the morning
Come back hard.'' - "Spirit Got Lost" by Mental as Anything:
I was lying in bed when I woke up dead
Cool, but not too calm
Must've stolen my soul through a photograph
Or a jungle voodoo charm - Fela Kuti wrote a satirical song titled "Zombie" which criticises Nigeria's military dictatorship that existed at the time by comparing them to zombies with no free will.
Zombie no go go, unless you tell am to go
Zombie no go stop, unless you tell am to stop
Zombie no go turn, unless you tell am to turn
Zombie no go think, unless you tell am to think
Attention (zombie), quick march
Slow march (zombie), left turn
Right turn (zombie), about turn
Double up (zombie), salute
Professional Wrestling
- Winter drugged Angelina Love into an obedient zombie like state on TNA Impact. In this case the long term goal wasn't to make Love a slave or convince anyone she had died but rather to make Angelina love her. It worked, as Angelina stayed loyal to Winter even after breaking out of the trance.
- In 2014, UltraMantis Black resurrected his old nemesis Blind Rage to serve him in Chikara. This backfired when Hallowicked turned Rage on Mantis instead.
Radio
- The Heart of Harkun: Shaznir raises an army of this sort in order to sack the citadel of Feinas Korryn.
Tabletop Games
- Chronicles of Darkness:
- This is a recurring power, possessed by a variety of supernaturals.
- Mage: The Awakening features the Bokor Legacy — who, as you'd imagine by their name, kinda make this their stock and trade.
- Dragon Dice: As the basic melee unit of the undead faction, zombies are the core of any undead army with a focus on melee combat. Can be assembled into a shambling horde, some overlap with Flesh-Eating Zombie.
- Dungeons & Dragons: As common low-level monsters, zombies (and skeletons) are nearly always mindless Mooks animated by necromancy... unless you've run into a juju zombie from early editions, which are smarter. Or one of the variant zombies from 4th Edition, which can have un-mooklike powers. Or your DM owns Van Richten's Guide to the Walking Dead, in which case all bets are off.
- GURPS:
- GURPS Warriors: An American marine is betrayed and killed by his squad-mates while stationed in Haiti. Currently looking for revenge as an undead, he has a number of tricks up his sleeve, including burying himself over night to heal. It's not clear what brought him back, but his own belief is it was voodoo magic.
- GURPS Monster Hunters: The "Know The Enemy" for zombies includes Theology (Voodoo).
- Heroes Unlimited (Palladium Books): Evil magic users can animate the dead to serve as loyal zombie thralls. Zombies are dim-witted but quite tough, as they possess superhuman strength and cannot be harmed by any weapon that is not holy, magical, or made of silver. And if a zombie is killed, it will reanimate within two days unless it gets exorcised or has its head removed and buried separately from the rest of its body.
- Scion: Children of the Loa can create or recruit zombie servants. In fact, so can all Scions with access to a birthright that grants the Death domain.
- Unhallowed Metropolis: What reports have come back of the state of Central Africa have invariably come from people driven insane from what they witnessed there, but they tend to include references to unholy empires where zombie and human alike answer to witch doctors who demand living sacrifices to placate their dark gods. If there's any truth to these stories, it seems very likely that the zombies there are voodoo, or something akin to it.
Theme Parks
- Howl-O-Scream: The "Icon" of the 2003 event was the "Death Spirit" — a zombie that was brought back to life via African voodoo means.
Toys
- LEGO Monster Fighters: The secluded Voodoo Doctor is the one responsible for raising the zombies from the graveyard by means of a magic spell. He has at least three zombies to his name: the Zombie Groom, the Zombie Bride, and the Zombie Driver. When not hanging with the other zombies or heading out on his own, the Zombie Driver serves in the employ of Lord Vampyre.
- Monster in My Pocket: Zombie is #31 of the 2006 series. The living corpse was brought back to life by means of voodoo magic. Without a will of its own, the zombie only does what the sorcerer that raised him commands. Zombies can't be killed, but fire can drive them away.
Video Games
- Ben Jordan: Paranormal Investigator: In Case 5: Land of the Rising Dead, Ben Jordan goes to Osaka, where he investigates a series of murders which are apparently being committed by these, even hearing about sightings of them accompanied by mysterious men in cultist robes. He later investigates a rural village where the men have been mysteriously dying and later appearing outside their graves. Eventually, he has a close encounter with a zombie, which is sicced on him by an unseen party and can lead to one of the few death scenes in the series. It's eventually revealed that the men from the village were being drugged with the tetrodotoxin cocktail mentioned in the Real Life folder below, then made to commit the murders in the city, whose victims were the culprit's corporate rivals.
- City of Heroes: The Banished Pantheon is a voodoo cult who's lowest ranking minions are zombies. They even have Adamastor, a zombie as tall as a skyscraper.
- Dead Head Fred: Zombies and other variants of undead are in the employ of the ambitious mob boss Ulysses S. Pitt. He gets them from the voodoo witch Juju Judy.
- Diablo: Various undead are often of this kind, with powerful undead such as the Skeleton King being a result of Diablo's direct influence. The Zombie Apocalypse that goes down in the first act of Diablo III, however, is a result of Tyrael renouncing his angelic title and Justice leaving the High Heavens, resulting in all those who died unjustly being brought back from their graves.
- Dragon Age: Zombies and other undead are usually the result of demons from the Fade inhabiting corpses, either naturally (in areas where the Veil that separates the material world from the Fade is weak) or through the actions of mages or other powerful forces. Most such undead are best suited as foot soldiers, being fast and strong and tough, though rarely a possessed corpse will become something far more powerful such as a Revenant or Arcane Horror.
- Dungeon Crawl: Zombies are sometimes, though not always, allies of a necromancer.
- Dwarf Fortress: Necromancers can raise any piece of a corpse that has a grasping limb to be their servant.
- The Elder Scrolls:
- The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion has zombies that are extremely dangerous foes: super-strong and super-tough, and somehow capable of finding and attacking even when they don't have a head.
- The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim: Forsworn Briarhearts are essentially very strong individuals brought back from the dead to fight once more. The Hagravens accomplish this with an advanced magical ritual that includes replacing the heart with a 'Briar Heart'. There are also the Draugr, who are mostly normal zombies but have been brought back to semi-life by the Dragon Priests or Draugr Deathlords that more often than not own the tombs.
- Eternal Darkness has corpses reanimated by the magic of the Ancients. Note that the player can also command zombies with the right spell.
- Final Fantasy XII took delight in bringing extensive backgrounds to all the classic enemies from the franchise and the undead were not an exception. All of them fall onto this category albeit by different means and to different ends: the vanilla zombies are unearthed corpses enslaved by magick to do menial tasks, both the zombie warriors and zombie knights are soldiers who fell in battle that are forced to continue to fight from beyond the grave through magickal glyphs branded into their bodies, the zombie magicians are spell casters who employed forbidden magicks to expand their natural lifespans through unnatural means, etc.
- Fire Emblem:
- Fire Emblem: Awakening: Grima uses resurrected corpses called "Risen" as foot soldiers.
- Fire Emblem Fates: Anankos uses resurrected corpses as foot soldiers. The rank and file show no particular higher thought processes beyond killing, but his commanders seem to have some degree of sentience, retain some of their personality traits from when they were still alive, and usually manage Dying as Yourself. Fates: Conquest's Takumi occupies a strange middle ground: he shows more sentience than the mooks, but is only capable of expressing one thought (murdering Corrin and Nohr); he is also far more powerful than any of Anankos' other minions.
- Fire Emblem Engage: Sombron uses resurrected corpses called "Corrupted" as foot soldiers. The rank and file don't show any personality, Corrupted Morion is able to at least manage Dying as Yourself, other Corrupted commanders resemble themselves in life and retain some basic personality traits (although twisted to suit the Fell Dragon's aims), and Corrupted Alear is a fully sentient Revenant Zombie brought back by Sombron's Bad Powers, Good People daughter Veyle.
- Gabriel Knight: Rather than being seen in the New Orleans setting that most of Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers takes place in and which the colonial voodoo religion is strongly associated with, they only make an appearance late in the game when Gabriel travels to West Africa in order to locate the villain's tomb in Benin, and discovers that it has been enchanted to reanimate the corpses within as ravenous monsters for as long as the door to its inner sanctum remains open.
- Ghost Pirates of Vooju Island: The zombies are cheap laborers. They are basically harmless, but tend to turn against each other.
- The Legend of Zelda: ReDeads sometimes have shades of these. In their first appearance, Ocarina of Time, they drop magic bottles whenever defeated, suggesting that they're animated by a spell (and may even be made of clay), and their Wind Waker design is more tribal, with large pointy ears and earrings, and tall screaming heads like tiki faces.
- Monkey Island:
- Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge: LeChuck is resurrected using voodoo magic involving his still-living beard from when he was a ghost.
- Tales of Monkey Island: Guybrush comes back as a zombie using the locket's Hour of Voodoo Power which, when almost used up, may cause Soul Pains and Resurrection Sickness, resulting in a dispossession; that power can be made permanent if he finds the Spirit Gum.
- Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare: All dead bodies are reanimated at the time of the curse, the zombie plague can be spread through biting, and only headshots kill. Holy water kills them as well. However, returning the cursed Aztec mask causes all zombies who haven't been headshot to return to normal life and intelligence.
- Saints Row: Played for Laughs in the first two games, where, after the cutscene death of two characters (Lin in Saints Row 1 and Carlos in Saints Row 2, respectively), you can call a Voodoo service called "Eye for an Eye" and you can call them back as zombie homies. Saints Row: The Third instead opts for Plague Zombie instead.
- Super Robot Wars X: Due to Ende's success in devouring away his goodness and amplifying his ambition, Celric, post death, became Ende's proudest backup vessel, and would to be used as Ende's new body once Ende's current form is of no use. X-Cross prevented this from happening.
- Voodoo Island: Sharleen, Bob, and Randall once were tourists who came to Voodoo Island to enjoy their vacation, but they were turned into zombies by Doctor Beauvais. More zombies are alluded to, but the protagonist has little to do with them. The details of how zombies are made are left vague, but they are truly dead and the process of making a zombie occurs on an operating table in Beauvais' penthouse. Beauvais has Bob and Randall out and about as field agents, but he keeps the curvaceous Sharleen as company in his penthouse. In order to defeat Beauvais, Sharleen, Bob, and Randall need to be properly laid to rest. Because they have a paralyzing gaze and a death touch, a linen shirt made by the witch Moma must be worn to ensure safety and then hitting them with a stick, picking them up, and depositing them in a grave or coffin ensures their zombie days are over.
- Voodoo Nightmare: On his adventure dealing with a bocor that has him enchanted, Boots meets two groups of zombies. The first group are friendly and run Romero's Supply Hut. They appear to be independent. The second group serves the bocor and resides in his lair. Four times does Boots have to outrun three skeletons in order to summon one zombie, whom he then has to trap in one of the four holes surrounding the gate to the bocor in order to open it.
- Warcraft and World of Warcraft have voodoo zombies which also have aspects of flesh-eating (as they can feed on humanoids) and plague-bearing (as they were created by a plague).
- The undead really fit into all these categories. The trolls have voodoo zombies, which seem to have free will. Abominations and Flesh Golems are constructs, ghouls eat flesh, and there's a plague going around... though it's not infectious in the traditional manner. WMG seems to point to a fungal agent that has to be eaten, or straight necromancy (voodoo go!) which can have some strange results.
- There are also creatures literally named Revenants who are undead creatures bonded to elemental spirits.
Webcomics
- El Goonish Shive: "mass mind control magic" is mentioned as one of the possible ways "zombies" could be created.
- Last Res0rt: If you shatter your soul but don't become a Djinn-si before you die, you become one of these. About the only thing it really seems to do is give you one Get-Out-Of-Death-Free card — you keep your brains, you keep your strength, and your free will. The scary part is when someone uses this as a tactical advantage!
- NIMONA: It is implied that Balthasar has attempted to raise a zombie army like this at least once. However, this is subverted because, as he points out, zombies don't make for good minions — they're incapable of speech, they don't possess human-level intelligence and they eventually fall apart.
- Skin Horse: Voodoo priest Remy explains that zombies aren't dead people but victims of TTX poisoning (pufferfish venom). He does acknowledge that the dead variant does exist too.
- Unsounded: The "plods" are dead bodies, reanimated by magic to do manual labor.
Web Originals
- Tales of Ubernorden features this type of zombies in The Killing Field that also demonstrate a few revenant traits.
Western Animation
- The Angry Beavers: In "Open Wide for Zombies", the beavers come upon a hut in the swamp owner by the voodoo witch Edgar. They walk in on her holding a hoedown with her zombies, some of whose movement she controls by means of voodoo dolls. The zombies are huge and muscular yet corpse-like men who are neither fast nor bright, but at least some of them know how to play an instrument. Because Edgar needs beaver teeth for the ultimate voodoo potion, she sends her zombies after the beavers, but they outrun them and use the voodoo dolls against them.
- Genndy Tartakovsky's Primal: In the first episode of season 3, a shaman performs a necromantic ritual to reanimate Spear as a zombie under his complete control. He then sends Spear to slaughter the cannibal tribe that butchered the shaman's village. However, the shaman is killed in the ensuing battle, freeing Spear of the shaman's control and turning him into a Revenant Zombie driven by vague memories of his mortal life.
- Gravedale High: Blanche is a post-1970s zombie, but as an ambiguously black zombie who is implied to hail from New Orleans, among others because in "Monster Gumbo", the gumbo is her family recipe, she falls in with Louisiana voodoo zombies.
- Jonny Quest: In "The Dreadful Doll", the planters on Tonago Island are all scared off by the voodoo practiced by the native Korbai. His modus operandi is to leave a doll in the likeness of his intended victim and if that person doesn't leave the island within twenty-four hours, he shoots them with a small, drug-laced dart that leaves the victim wide-eyed, stiff, and comatose. The dart is easily missed and along with an incessant nightly drumming, Korbai has everyone convinced he's turning people into zombies with his voodoo powers. Benton Quest figures out the zombification is due to a drug and finds an antidote, while Race Bannon figures out that the whole voodoo threat is a ruse to cover up an illegal mining operation.
- Little Dracula:
- Deadwood is the regularly abused and belittled zombie assistant of Igor and a member of Dracula's household. His skin is purple, he wears only torn pants and shoes, and he's got a biting sense of sarcasm.
- There's a row of singing zombies that marches through the cemetery on the Dracula property. Only in "Bat Boys" do two of them leave the grounds to support Little Dracula during a baseball match. In "Little D's Surprise", the zombies sing "Boom shakalakalaka boom shakalakalaka boom shakalakalaka", in "Little D's Halloween" they sing "Shaboom shaboom na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na shaboom shaboom", and in "Little D Goes Hawaiian" it's "Aloha Oe".
- Mighty Max: Mother Zomboid from "The Mother of All Adventures" is an ammonoid-like monstrosity that resides in a temple in Africa but also has a temple dedicated to her in Haiti. She is the source of all zomboids, which on Haiti are called loa and are miniature versions of her that attach themselves to the necks of humans. They don't seem to be interested in animals. Once attached, the human becomes a zombie, a lifeless yet mobile body subservient to the will of the zomboids. Although dangerous in numbers, individuals are easily squashed and this frees the human from their zombie state without side-effects. Possibly in preparation for Max's arrival, the zomboids turn entire villages near the Haitian temple into a zombie army. They're easily removed and killed, but a souvenir from the adventure brings another batch to Max's hometown. Rather than saving the civilians like they did in Haiti, Max goes directly after Mother Zomboid in Africa, although he does save some zombified Africans along the way.
- Milton the Monster: Zombies look like apes and are primarily associated with Professor Fruitcake. However, his zombie Abercrombie leaves him to work for Fangenstein, usually in pursuit of treasure.
- "Zelda the Zombie": To create peace between them Professor Weirdo and Professor Fruitcake agree to a marriage between Fruitcake's monster Zelda, a zombie, and one of Weirdo's three monsters. Although each of Weirdo's monsters fancies her, she ultimately picks Count Kook, who does not want to get involved.
- "Abercrombie the Zombie": Professor Fruitcake is proud of his latest monster, the zombie Abercrombie. Professor Weirdo plots to steal Abercrombie so that Professor Fruitcake will be desperate for a replacement and might be convinced to buy Milton. He makes Heebie and Jeebie keep an eye on Abercrombie, but when the latter is caught cheating in a game of cards they send him home.
- "Fort Fangenstein": Fangenstein builds a fort so he, the zombie Abercrombie, and the motorcycle Baby have a place to store the mummies he's planning to steal. The three end up in a showdown with Milton, Heebie, and Jeebie over the mummies, which the latter group wins.
- "Dunkin' Treasure": Abercrombie the zombie gets called over by Fangenstein to find a sunken treasure before Professor Weirdo and his crew do. The two groups end up fighting over the treasure before they even find it.
- "The Mummy's Thumb": Abercrombie the zombie is knitting a cobweb when Fangenstein calls him to steal the mummy's thumb from professor Weirdo and his crew. They utilize a mobile fort and win, but the mummy reclaims its thumb from all parties involved.
- Scooby-Doo:
- Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!: The zombie in "Which Witch is Which?" has apparently been raised from the dead by a witch using magic.
- The Scooby-Doo Show: In "Mamba Wamba and the Voodoo Hoodoo", the members of the Alex Super Experience are targeted by a shaman who wants them to give up on their song "Mamba Wamba" because it's based on a voodoo chant. To make good on his threats, he abducts Lila and turns her into a zombie. She and another zombie henchman terrorize the rest of the band and Mystery Inc. until they are revealed to have been faking it and in league with the fake shaman to get their hands on the guaranteed hit that is "Mamba Wamba".
- The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo: Zomba's head resembles a shrunken head, an artifact at the time commonly if incorrectly associated with voodoo.
- Stroker and Hoop: In "Just Voodoo It (a.k.a. For Whom the Bear Tolls)", a New Hampshire Teddy Bear-type corporation uses voodoo to turn people into zombies to work in their factories.
Real Life
- Wasps are infamous for practicing this in one form or another. The most infamous of these is the parasitoid wasp, which is known to lobotomize their prey by injecting a special venom that puts the victim in a mindless state straight into their brain before pulling a Face Full of Alien Wing-Wong into them. The brainwashed arthropod will then proceed to protect the young with their lives, even though they're literally, or already has killed them from the inside.
- While no cases of magic being performed have been confirmed, there are cocktails of drugs involving puffer fish poison and hallucinogenic plants, one of which known as the "zombie cucumber", that can make a person temporarily appear dead, cause trances, and even cause amnesia. They have been used to create docile slaves.
- The American Serial Killer Jeffrey Dahmer attempted to create voodoo-style zombies for use as sex slaves by means of lobotomy. He drilled holes in their skulls and injected either hydrochloric acid or boiling water into their frontal lobes. By his own admission, "it never worked"; all it generally did was painfully kill them.
