Decades after George A Romero scared the life out of cinemagoers with the classic zombie horror Night of the Living Dead (1968), the movie world has been plagued again with shambling corpses.

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To Hopi Indians they are sacred - tools through which the living can communicate with the spirits of the dead.

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Because the living dead resonate so strongly with the present cultural moment, it is no surprise that various promoters and policy entrepreneurs have used them as a "hook" for their own causes.

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"Night of the Living Dead is a cult classic with an embedded audience who will come to see it repeatedly, " says Bernstein.

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In Europe, though, he has been the accepted star, with no one, living or dead, to upstage him.

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