In its portrayal of zombies Buffy the Vampire Slayer draws on a wealth of (predominantly) cinematic material. Essentially, the cinematic zombie falls into three categories:

1) The Haitian Zombie: The classic depiction. The Haitian Zombie is an individual who has either been brought back from the dead or revived from a drug-induced death-like trance by a Voodoo priest. The revived individual lacks free-will and is used by the priest as a slave. This traditional type was pretty much the standard in early cinematic depictions of zombification, and was (perhaps) best used in Val Lewton / Jacques Tourneur’s excellent I Walked with a Zombie (1943). Though the zombies of The Zeppo (and Buffy herself) may initially seem to fit the bill (they were all revived by occult means) they are quite distinct, as they obviously have free will, a sense of self and do not have a ‘Master’. The (never seen) ‘Zombie Joyce’ from Forever may be closer to the mark, as it was suggested that she would be a mindless shell. I guess the lumbering, subservient zombies of Dead Man’s Party are the closest we get to Haitian lore in Buffy. They respond to their master and are clearly little more then slaves. Having said that, they owe much (at least visually) to the ‘Romero Zombie’ (see below).

2) The ‘Frankenstein’s Monster’ Zombie: Obviously this type of zombie share’s little with its Haitian variant as it is a product of science/medicine and not magic. In addition, since it is a composite (made up of parts from different individuals, beings etc), its identity is necessarily a bit muddled. Depictions of such creatures therefore tend to focus on its quest for a sense of self. Adam is an obvious enough Buffyverse example, and (as is common for such creatures) was concerned with understanding himself and the world around him. The ‘bride’ that was being built for Daryl in Some Assembly Required, is typically ‘Frankensteinian’ and is a clear nod to James Whale’s seminal Bride of Frankenstein (1935).

3) The ‘Romero Zombie’: While it may be a simplification to credit George Romero with the (sole) creation of the stereotypical modern cinematic zombie, using his name is a handy way of explaining the type, and Night of the Living Dead (1968) may be the first depiction of the kind . This type gets reanimated through a variety of (often ludicrous) means and is the one we are probably most familiar as we’ve seen it everywhere from Dawn of the Dead (1978) to Michael Jackson’s Thriller. They lumber about, they wear the torn outfits they were buried in, they are often badly decomposed, they travel in packs, they eat human flesh or brains, they seem to have only rudimentary cognitive skills etc. I think the wanting Braaaaaaaiiiinnnnsss thing originated with Dan O’Bannon’s hilarious 1985 effort Return of the Living Dead, but it’s become an accepted zombie characteristic by now. In terms of the overall aesthetic of the zombies, nearly all of the Buffy examples owe a debt to this type (Forrest and Walsh, the Dead Man’s Party gang, Jack O’Toole’s buddies etc). None wanted brains though, how disappointing.