zombies have changed
Before 1968, there was nothing scary about the West Indian concept of the zombie. In movies like "I walked with a zombie," the zombie itself is not threatening, just the idea that somebody wants to turn you into one. that, of course, can be pretty scary, as in "The serpent and the rainbow":
"Don't let them bury me. I'm not dead!"
But the zombie itself was just a guy who had been raised from the dead so he could work in the canefields, from the employer's point of view the perfect employee: You don't pay him, he doesn't eat much, he doesn't go on strike. Let's see...I think the idea was that if the zombie gets any meat to eat, he remembers that he's dead, and goes back and lies back down in his grave.
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