Zombie Trivia Quiz Questions With Answers

Trivia quiz questions with answers about zombies

Zombie Trivia Quiz Questions With Answers

What is a zombie?
A: A zombie is a fictional undead being created through the reanimation of a human corpse.

Where are zombies most commonly found?
A: In horror and fantasy genre works.

Where does the term come from?
A: Haitian folklore, where a zombie is a dead body reanimated through various methods, most commonly magic.

Modern depictions of the reanimation of the dead do not necessarily involve magic but often invoke science fictional methods such as what?
A: Carriers, radiation, mental diseases, vectors, pathogens, scientific accidents, etc.

When was the English word "zombie" first recorded?
A: In 1819, in a history of Brazil by the poet Robert Southey, in the form of "zombi".

The Oxford English Dictionary gives the origin of the word as what?
A: West African, and compares it to the Kongo words nzambi (god) and zumbi (fetish).

A Kimbundu-to -Portuguese dictionary from 1903 defines the related word nzumbi as what?
A: Soul.

A later Kimbundu–Portuguese dictionary defines it as being a what?
A: A spirit that is supposed to wander the earth to torment the living.

What was one of the first books to expose Western culture to the concept of the voodoo zombie?
A: It was The Magic Island by W. B. Seabrook in 1929.

Zombies have a complex literary heritage, with antecedents ranging from Richard Matheson and H. P. Lovecraft to Mary Shelley's what?
A: Frankenstein.

In 1932, Victor Halperin directed White Zombie, a horror film starring whom?
A: Bela Lugosi.

Here zombies are depicted as what?
A: Mindless, unthinking henchmen under the spell of an evil magician.

A new version of the zombie, distinct from that described in Haitian folklore is taken largely from where?
A: George A. Romero's seminal film Night of the Living Dead, which was in turn partly inspired by Richard Matheson's 1954 novel I Am Legend.

The word zombie is not used in Night of the Living Dead but was what?
A: Applied later by fans.

The monsters in the film and its sequels, such as Dawn of the Dead and Day of the Dead, as well as its many inspired works, such as Return of the Living Dead and Zombi 2, are usually hungry for what?
A: Human flesh.

Return of the Living Dead introduced the popular concept of zombies eating what?
A: Brains.

The "zombie apocalypse" concept, in which the civilized world is brought low by a global zombie infestation, became what?
A: A staple of modern popular art.

In Haitian folklore what is a zombie?
A: A zombie is an animated corpse raised by magical means, such as witchcraft.

The concept has been popularly associated with what religion?
A: The religion of voodoo, but it plays no part in that faith's formal practices.

How the creatures in contemporary zombie films came to be called "zombies" is not what?
A: Fully clear.

Although George Romero used the term "ghoul" in his original scripts, in later interviews he used what term?
A: "zombie".

The word "zombie" is used exclusively by Romero in his 1978 script for what?
A: His sequel Dawn of the Dead, including once in dialog.

According to George Romero, film critics were influential in associating the term "zombie" to his creatures, and especially what French magazine?
A: "Cahiers du Cinéma".

He eventually accepted this linkage, even though he remained convinced at the time that "zombies" corresponded to what?
A: The undead slaves of Haitian voodoo as depicted in Bela Lugosi's White Zombie.

Zombies are featured widely in Haitian rural folklore as dead persons physically revived by what?
A: The act of necromancy of a bokor, a sorcerer or witch.

The bokor is opposed by whom?
A: The houngan or priest and the mambo or priestess of the formal voodoo religion.

A zombie remains under the control of the bokor as a what?
A: A personal slave, having no will of its own.

The Haitian tradition also includes an incorporeal type of zombie, the "zombie astral", which is a part of what?
A: The human soul.

A bokor can capture a zombie astral to what?
A: Enhance his spiritual power.

A zombie astral can also be sealed inside a specially decorated bottle by a bokor and sold to a client to bring what?
A: Luck, healing, or business success.

It is believed that God eventually will reclaim the zombie's soul, so the zombie is a what?
A: A temporary spiritual entity.

The zombie belief has its roots in traditions brought to Haiti by whom?
A: Enslaved Africans, and their subsequent experiences in the New World.

It was thought that the voodoo deity Baron Samedi would gather them from their grave to bring them to what?
A: A heavenly afterlife in Africa ("Guinea"), unless they had offended him in some way.

A zombie could also be saved by feeding them what?
A: Salt.

Slave drivers on the plantations, who were usually slaves themselves and sometimes Voodoo priests, used the fear of zombification to discourage slaves from doing what?
A: Committing suicide.

When did the Haitian zombie phenomenon first attracted widespread international attention?
A: During the United States occupation of Haiti (1915–1934), when a number of case histories of purported "zombies" began to emerge.

What was the first popular book covering the topic?
A: William Seabrook's The Magic Island.

Seabrooke cited Article 246 of the Haitian criminal code which was passed in 1864, asserting what?
A: That it was an official recognition of zombies.

This passage was later used in promotional materials for what film?
A: The 1932 film White Zombie.

In some communities, it is believed that a dead person can be zombified by what?
A: A small child.

It is also believed in some areas of South Africa that witches can zombify a person by what?
A: Killing and possessing the victim's body in order to force it into slave labor.

In the 1920s and early 1930s, what American horror author wrote several novella that explored the undead theme?
A: H. P. Lovecraft.

Avenging zombies would feature prominently in what in the early 1950s?
A: EC Comics, which George A. Romero would later claim as an influence.

The comics, including Tales from the Crypt, Vault of Horror and Weird Science, featured what?
A: Avenging undead in the Gothic tradition quite regularly, including adaptations of Lovecraft's stories, which included "In the Vault", "Cool Air" and Herbert West–Reanimator.

With George A. Romero's Night of the Living Dead (1968), the zombie trope began to be increasingly linked to what?
A: Consumerism and consumer culture.

Today, zombie films are released with such regularity (at least 55 titles were released in 2014 alone) that they can be viewed as a what?
A: A separate subgenre of Horror film.

Voodoo-related zombie themes have also appeared in what?
A: Espionage or adventure themed works outside the horror genre.

For example, the original "Jonny Quest" series (1964) and the James Bond novel and movie Live and Let Die both feature what?
A: Caribbean villains who falsely claim the voodoo power of zombification in order to keep others in fear of them.

The modern conception of the zombie owes itself almost entirely to what?
A: George A. Romero's 1968 film Night of the Living Dead.

Night was the first of how many films in Romero's Living Dead series?
A: Six.

When was its first sequel, Dawn of the Dead, released?
A: In 1978.

The 1981 film Hell of the Living Dead referenced a mutagenic gas as a source of what?
A: Zombie contagion: an idea also used in Dan O'Bannon's 1985 film Return of the Living Dead.

Return of the Living Dead featured zombies that hungered specifically for what?
A: Brains.