#zombility

    ♚ “ I suppose since the scare time is over people will be just complaining about how colder it’s getting wont they? Typical humans. All the more fun to mess with I guess, right? “

Just finished watching Zombie Mania, a 2009 Starz presents documentary.

All the luminaries are here: George Romero, Tom Savini, Max Brooks, and more.  They talk about the emergence and evolution of the zombie and Romero is absolutely given his due.  Very worth watching and available to stream from Netflix.

It seems like a generally accepted theory that one of the hallmarks of being a zombie is coming back from the dead - being a reanimated corpse.  There are exceptions, of course (i.e. the rage virus), but plenty of zombie films so absolutely assume this as fact that it's reflected in their titles. (Night of the Living Dead, Deadgirl, and so on.)

It's also well-known and clearly stated that Frankenstein's monster is a reanimated corpse. 

So does this make him a zombie as well?

This leads to many more lines of inquiry.

If he is not a zombie, then what is he?

If he is a zombie, what does it mean that he eventually learned to be intelligent and articulate?  Does this mean that all zombies, on a long enough timeline, could also become literate and capable of reason?  Somehow, looking at, say, Resident Evil zombies, I am unconvinced that this is the case.

If FM is a zombie, does he struggle with craving for brains and/or human flesh?  It's never explicitly mentioned in Shelley's book as far as I can remember unless one wishes to count his desire to make Dr. Frankenstein suffer.  I, however, don't think this counts.  It had more to do with revenge than with sustenance.

What are the implications for the Frankensteinian characters utilized in other media? Lurch from the Aadam's family and Herman Munster both come to mind.  However, due to their supernatural surroundings (i.e. working for the Aadam's and being married to vampire respectively) encouraged them to stay in line.  Or, perhaps, due to the Frankensteinian Difference, flesh-eating rampages weren't something about which their families needed to be concerned.

So, since Lurch, Herman Munster, and ultimately Frankenstein's Monster were capable of, at least, integration with reasonably normal society without eating anyone, there must be something different about their beings/creation in order to make them different from other zombies.

My theory?

Working from the way Frankenstein's Monster was reanimated, I'd say that the difference is lightning. 

Yes, lightning.

Other zombies are typically infected in one way or another, and that's what results in their eventual zombification.  Frankenstein's monster, however, and by extension Lurch and Herman, started out as dead humans (a variety of them) who were then stitched together and thoroughly zapped back to unlife.