In almost every zombie story there is a moment when an infected character succumbs and rises again as a member of the walking dead. A horrorible moment when the audience and the characters realize that the person they knew is gone forever. That that person has been replaced by a monster that is as much a threat to them as the horde that circles outside. However, that isn't when the audience feels the most betrayed. It is in the moment after the infected slips away where the audience feels betrayed. The best zombie stories focus on the characters, making us love them and want them to get out alive due to their winning personalities and strong wills. In many ways, up until the end, these characters can seem invincible at times, able to overcome the Zombie Apocalypse through sheer force of will. Surely they are too clever, or too strong to fall to the slow, dumb threat of the zombies, right? Surely they have a way to resist such dull and brainless creatures?
However, the minute the infected character turns is the minute a greater betrayal takes place: the betrayal of the body over the mind. As humans, we define ourselves by our thoughts, our ideas, our words, as well as our physical body. In most cases, however, it is our personality that makes us who we are, our bodies serving merely as vessels for our minds. It is our minds that are in the driver seat, our minds that tell us where we go, what we do, and every other aspect of our lives. However, zombies do not just simply kill our minds. They kill our minds and take the one thing we control completly, our way of interacting with the outside world, and use it to hurt the ones around us. They force our body to act against our will, taking away our freedom of choice, thought, and our very personalities and make us nothing more than meat, shuffling to the beat of their drum. In doing so they show us that in the end, our bodies matter more than the minds that are attached to them. It is horrorifying to witness this betrayal of the body over the mind, especially when it is that of a loved one. This betrayal is depicted all too well in the movie Shaun of the Dead . Despite the fact that it is a parody of zombie movies, it still carries the emotional weight of this betrayal when the main character Shaun must witness the death and zombification of his mother(See Below).
So say what you will about how slow and stupid zombies appear: there aren't many monsters that can simultaneously kill the essence of what we are and turn our body against the ones we love with one simple act. Such a power is but one of the reasons that zombies are rightfully feared today.
