What I hate about zombie movies!

[cjefferys]

I've always been kinda confused about the definition of a "ghoul". In the old EC horror comics (which I've read A LOT of), they always made it seem like a ghoul was a person that ate human flesh. There didn't seem to be anything supernatural involved (unless the dietary choice was a type of physical need, not just a preference). So, I don't know, maybe EC just portrayed a ghoul as a being that needed human flesh as a vampire needs blood, rather than just a glorified cannibal?

I've always been a sucker for a good zombie film, ever since I had my brain warped by watching Dawn of the Dead when I was a teen. Of course, I've seen plenty of stinkers along the way ("Zombie Lake", I'm looking at you!). Sadly the bad far outweigh the good.

[palitoy]

I remember EC ghouls looking pale complected with rotten teeth, I could be wrong.

[cjefferys]

Well, to be fair, I've mostly been reading the stories from my B&W EC library collection rather than color comic versions over the past 10 years so I have no clue about the pale part at this point, I forget myself. I'll have to go back through some stories again some time and see if I can get any new illumination on the subject.

[palitoy]

Yeah I wonder if I'm not thinking the old "Tales from the Crypt" series, I just remember one of those was particularly "Ghoul Happy" and probably my first introduction to them.

[Earth 2 Chris]

Now you guys are going to make me look all of this up in that huge thick vampire encyclopedia I have...although I've learned it's far from authoritative.

Chris

[Werewolf]

A bit more Ghouls vs Vampires. Now, I'm going more by European folkore.

Ghouls feed on human flesh. Not just the living either. They are known for digging up graves and feasting on corpses too.

Vampires, as everyone knows, only drinks the blood of the living. Which causes sickness and slow withering death in their victims. The Vampires blamed were usually recently dead family members. To stop them you'd dig up their graves, stuff their mouths with garlic, behead them and cut out their hearts. The heart would then be burned and the powder would mixed with water and drank as a potion to cure the victims.

Lol, yeah, I know wayyy too much obscure Monster trivia. Yes, well, nevermind.

[cjefferys]

Ghouls feed on human flesh. Not just the living either. They are known for digging up graves and feasting on corpses too.

Yeah, that's right, I've read EC stories where ghouls were doing some grave robbing in order to eat human flesh.

The only EC ghoul story that really sticks out in my mind right now is the one where a male ghoul and female vampire fall in love (not knowing each other's true nature). I think they were both famous movie stars or something, and they end up taking a vacation in a secluded, remote cabin. A snow storm comes and they get stranded for weeks, end up starving to death. When the bodies were finally found, it was discovered that they were so much in love that rather than trying to feed on one another in desparation, the vampire ended up drinking her own blood and the ghoul started eating pieces of himself, in an unsuccessful attempt to survive.

[Earth 2 Chris]

Here is part of the description of Ghouls, according to J. Gordon Melton's "The Vampire Book":

[QUOTE]The ghoul, a traditional monster frequently associated with the vampire, originated as part of Arabic folklore. It played a part in several tales in the Arabian Nights. Ghouls represented a more demonci aspect of the world of jinns, the sprits of Arabic mythology. The Arabic ghul (masculine) and ghulah (feminine) lived near graves and attacked and ate human corpses. It was also believed that ghouls livied in desolate places there they would attack unsuspecting travelers who mistook the ghoul for a traveling companion and were led astry. -

The ghoul returned to popular culture in the twentieth-century thorugh a multitude of monster movies. New ghouls were similar to vampires in that they were reanimated dead people in humanoid form. The ghoul, hoewever, ate human flesh, while the vampire drank blood. The ghoul also acted with neither a will nor intellect, and seemed to have somewhat derived form the zombie - the figure in Haitian folklore reoportedly brought back to life by magic and destined to work in the service of the person who brought it back to "life"./QUOTE]

The entry goes on to describe a nineteenth-century reported case of a ghoul, Francois Bertrand, a noncommisioned officer in the French army who was arrested and convicted of desecrating tombs in Paris. His story was the basis for Guy Endore's novel, "The Werewolf of Paris", which was in turn the basis (apparently a very loose basis) of Universal's "Werewolf of London" film.

So sounds like you all were right. The Ghoul started out as mystical, evil genie, and became a vampire-like creature, with zombie-like qualities, and was even changed into a werewolf in fiction!!!

Chris

[Nostalgiabuff]

zombies are my fave monster.

that being said, even though I love Walking Dead and think it is one of the next shows on TV, sometimes they are so stupid it is sickening. I mean, come on, the zombie thing is spread by bodily fluid....blood, saliva, whatever, and here you have Shane and Rick cutting their hand to rub blood on the fence and then stabbing the zomie in the head with the same hand......blood squirting every where......or how about beating the **** out of each other and then pullnig freshly killed zombies on top of you to hide???? hello???
still love the show and the genera though

[ctc]

>Why are people so stupid in zombie movies?

To quote the Animaniacs: "Oh, we should run and we should flee, but then where would our story be?"

>I think in some Arabic folklore they were evil spirits that could shapeshift into animals.

Dybuks. (I'm not sure of the spelling though.)

>Ghouls feed on human flesh. Not just the living either.

Yup. There's some latitude as to wether they're undead, or retrograde humans who feed on the dead. (Except in Lovecraft stories, where they're kinda both....) Zombies proper were the reanimated bodies of the dead; organic robots, following the orders of their creator. The original "Night of the Living Dead" kinda squished the two together, and created what's now considered a zombie. (Although in the film they ARE called ghouls.)

....and sometimes ghouls engage in danerous displays of pyrotechnics:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmWrcSf64f8&feature=related

Don C.

[MysteryWho]

I think dybbuk is a Jewish evil spirit. A ghoul is a Jinn, an Arabic evil spirit. I always thought of traditional Arabic ghouls as their equivalent of the European vampire. The modern use of ghoul is not so easily defined. It basically depends on the movie you're watching. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpFgowS82JU

[Gorn Captain]

I'd be trying to find a dive shop and see if they have any of the chain mail they use to fend off shark bites.

Good idea for covering your neck and elbows. And american football or ice hockey gear for your arms and shoulders. I'd prefer sweating like a pig to getting bit any day...

[samurainoir]

Why are people so stupid in zombie movies?
They know they shouldn't get bit.
So why no protection?
I've just started watching The Walking Dead. Terrific show, I love it. But why is everyone walking around in T-shirts? They should print "bite me!" () on them...

If I were living in a zombie infested world, my first stop would be at the sports store to gear up with any kind of protective padding I can find....

They addressed this in the comic book, and I'd hazard a guess that since this season is set in the prison, this might be pulled into the show as well. The biggest consideration given the tropes of the zombie genre however... the greatest threats are never the zombies, but other human beings.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/The-Walking-Dead-28-NM-1st-print-2nd-Governor-/150895756142?pt=US_Comic_Books&hash=item232216836e

http://www.ebay.com/itm/The-Walking-Dead-26-NM-first-print-/150895753686?pt=US_Comic_Books&hash=item23221679d6

[StrangeVisitor]

A short clip from The Monster Club involving ghouls :

Art by John Bolton.

[MysteryWho]

I love that scene! The art is amazing! I used to think it was Bernie Wrightson but now I dunno who it was. Time to google.