He Was Never Alive: Pre-Romero Zombie Films

A work perpetually in progress.

I will knock down the Gates of the Netherworld,
I will smash the door posts, and leave the doors flat down,
and will let the dead go up to eat the living!
And the dead will outnumber the living!
-The Goddess Ishtar in ‘The Epic of Gilgamesh’

Many people seem to think that George Romero essentially created the zombie film in 1968 with his Night of the Living Dead. To some extent, of course, this is true. To what extent that is I will leave vague, but suffice it to say that we would not have anything approaching the rich genre we have today were it not for...