Is Frankenstein's Monster a Zombie????

[radiokill]

I just thought about drawing comparisons between Bub, Big Daddy, and Frankenstein's Monster, but I'm really tired and have to get to class. So, do the work for me.

[Deadman_Deluxe]

No, IMO Frankenstein's monster is NOT a zombie

[Svengoolie]

I would say yes and no. A "zombie" technically is a figure of voo-doo lore...a corpse brought back to life by magic to perform slave labor on a plantation or in a bakery. In recent years, the term has come to describe the monsters we all know and love at this site...although that interpretation has been changing as well due to flicks like Dawn 04 and 28 Days Later. GAR himself used the term "zombie" sparingly in his films. In the original NOTLD, the newscaster called the zombies "ghouls", which is actually a more accurate term. I would say that the Frankenstein monster could be classifed as a form of a ghoul--it was a bunch of corpses stitched together and brought back to life. It's not technically a zombie, but it shares some similarites.

[Guru ofthe Dead]

Sven buddy I must agree. Franky is a yes and no. Lets go to voodoo. Zombies are people that are dead or presumed dead and then are dug up and walk around in a dazed state. Franky is put together with dead parts and brought back to life. He stumbles around not know what is what. He learns. He also knows that he is dead. So yes and no.

[TheWalkingDude]

Frankenstien was brought back from other body parts but he did have somewhat of a self awareness to him too. He didnt try and eat people, in fact he was kinda kind and gentle towards the little girl. So i wouldnt classify his has zombie or ghoul.

[Danny]

tehcnically hes a lot closer to zombie than the ghouls in the movies romero makes, THERE GHOULS DAMMIT! use wikipedia! but yeah zombies are traditionally serpent and the rainbow type automatons, and if you havent seen that film check it out it rocks.

[Philly_SWAT]

I would say that Frankenstein's monter is definately not a zombie, neither in the Romero sense, or the voodoo sense. He was brought to life by science and electricity, not voodoo. He did have a self awareness, and was not actly totally on instinct, and did not try to eat people. I think that he stands alone in his own classification. There is only one Frankenstein's monster.

[Dawg]

tehcnically hes a lot closer to zombie than the ghouls in the movies romero makes, THERE GHOULS DAMMIT! use wikipedia! but yeah zombies are traditionally serpent and the rainbow type automatons, and if you havent seen that film check it out it rocks. Wikipedia is written by anyone and therefore may not be 100% accurate. (I know there are admins that monitor, but that doesn't mean somethings don't get misrepresented there.) Romero's movies are zombies, not ghouls. There are different forms of zombies. There is the Haitian zombie, which in myth would be a dead person brought back to life to do his master's bidding, but in reality that person is not really dead, but in a sub-conscious like state due to a poison that lowers their brain activity, etc. The flesh-eating zombie is a fantasy movie version that is a corpse brought back to a state that resembles living, but they are more undead than alive or dead. In Romero's films they will only die from a shot to the head, or brain area or blunt trauma. In the Return series, they will continue to move around regardless of being hit in the head, because the whole being is reanimated. (Sometimes in Romero's films parts of zombies are still active as evidenced by the shovel zombie in Day of the Dead and whose eyes kept moving as well as Greg N.'s head being reanimated after being killed, but that may be due to the brain still being intant.) Reanimation is provided by many means in different films. It can be a virus, a spore, religion, chemicals, magic, etc. Ghouls on the otherhand are traditionally a creature or even person who lurks around graveyards, digs up corpses and devours them as food. They are a living being, either demonic in nature by either religion or another form or unclassified being as evidenced by a Tales from the Crypt episode in which they had formed a society and ate the recently dead. Of course this post is my own observation, and may not be completely accurate, but in my opinion, it pretty much sums up the terms. Dawg

[Chakobsa]

Dawg is right about the ghoul thing, the term is of Arabic derivation and refers to creatures that feed on corpses. The Wikipedia article on the subject is reliable on this and makes the interesting comment that Romeros creatures seem to be a combination of the traditional walking dead and the flesh eating "ghul" of Arabian folklore. Interesting links to Britannica and others on the subject at the foot of the article. Frankensteins Monster in my view isn't a zombie, he's more of biological robot albeit one that is self aware and there's the big difference, I don't think that the Romero zombies are self aware, not even Bub or Big Daddy. Btw, back to the ghouls, the above mentioned Britannica article says that despite being a shape-shifting demon the ghoul always has the hooves of an ass, this reminded me of the awesome Hannes Bok illustration for the Lovecraft story "Pickman's Model"

[kar98k]

I'm gonna say yes he is, just like The Flood from Halo. I posted a thread on this subject a while back and a pic of the flood is actually on the wikipedia page for zombie. My definition of a zombie is a reanimated corpse, so yes in my opinion Frankenstein is a zombie.

[Mister Chrome]

What is a zombie? A zombie is a reanimated corpse. Is Frankenstein not a reanimated corpse? Technically, yes, he is...although he is made of multiple body parts/organs, he is nonetheless a reanimated corpse. Does it matter how a corpse is reanimated? No, it doesn't. Whether it be science, voodoo, chemicals, gamma rays, cosmic debris, necromancy, biological organisms, alien parasites, or the dreams-come-true of Mister Chrome, a zombie is still a reanimated corpse. Now, if you happen to be a D&D nerd (which I am) you might want to establish a difference between Frankenstein (clearly a Flesh Golem in D&D terms) and Bub (clearly a zombie in D&D terms). However, since movies and literature are the media about which we are debating this topic, I'll leave the D&D discepancies aside. In short, I largely agree with my old friend Svengoolie. There you have it. M.C.

[Svengoolie]

What I find fascinating about the whole zombie/ghoul/infected debate is how people hail GAR for "inventing the concept of the modern zombie"...when all he really did was update the old vampire mythos when he ripped off "I Am Legend" and The Last Man On Earth. In the early 1800s, the woman who brought us Frankenstein--the most beloved Mary Shelly, used to party with Lord Byron and his personal "physician", Dr John Palidori. They'd go to Lake Geneva in Switzerland...they'd load up, they'd party...and spend their time swapping stories and bodily fluids at Byron's pimp palace. Anyways, what we commonly think of as a "vampire" was actually created by Lord Byron and John Palidori...and NOT by Bram Stoker. What they did was bring the vampire mythos into a more sexual, "modern" state...creating the "baroque vampire"--you know, the suave mother-phucker in a cape that we're all familiar with. Before that, vampires actually had more in common with what we consider a zombie than Dracula--they were rotting, shambling, malevolent corpses that had to dig their way out of their own graves every night in search of blood. The firm of Byron and Polidori made them pretty and smart...and Mattheson made them ugly again--and updated the creatures a bit himself, having them reflect more science than superstition. GAR ripped off that concept, but took it a step further--in the old days, vamps drank blood (which was often called "life's blood") because it was believed that blood carried a person's vitality. They were killed by a stake through the heart because the heart was connected to the blood, and was considered the most important part of the body. In GAR's day, we knew better--that the brain was the most important organ...so he switched the heart thing to a brain thing, and to make it more gruesome (probably) had the corpses eat the entire person's flesh instead of just having them drink blood. Hence, a new monster, and a new genre, was born.

[TheWalkingDude]

Speaking of Frankenstien then what the heck was Jason exsactly?? He came back from the dead many times.....didnt eat people.. well at least i dont think so maybe off camera or something lol...but you certainly couldnt kill the bugger lol