Zombies are cautionary forms of humankind's most universally cherished ideal—life after death. Ragged, ill-spoken, rotting zombies (or the post-dead) seem socially awkward beside the more popular and aristocratic undead, like Count Dracula. The humble zombie remains, for the most part, unappreciated and unacknowledged—until now.

The first exhaustive historical overview of zombie films, this book's lengthy entries evaluate more than 200 movies from 16 countries over a 65-year period from the early 1930s to the late 1990s. It covers everything from large studio films to backyard videography, and touches on memorable television episodes and miscellaneous shorts. An introduction traces the evolution of the genre and interprets the broader significance of the zombie in contemporary Western mythology.