Kinemortophobia

Zombies aren’t real. You know that. But maybe you still can’t watch the trailers, or you lie awake planning which door you’d barricade first.

Kinemortophobia is an informal name for a fear of zombies. It turns up mostly in lists of unusual phobias. A 2015 Psychology Today list of rare phobias included it and guessed that all the zombie shows and movies might be making it more common. Psychology Today That was a guess, not a finding. We couldn’t find any study that measures how many people fear zombies.

It isn’t a formal diagnosis. A clinician would look at the person’s actual symptoms. A strong, lasting fear of a specific object or situation, out of proportion to the danger, can fit a specific phobia. APA Dictionary of Psychology

Where zombies came from

The zombie didn’t start in Hollywood. The word comes from Haitian folklore, where a zombie is a dead body brought back to life by a sorcerer called a bokor. The English word was first recorded in the 1700s, and dictionaries trace it to Bantu languages, such as the Kimbundu word nzumbi, meaning ghost or spirit. Wikipedia: Zombie

A 2013 article in the CDC journal Emerging Infectious Diseases traced zombie folklore to West Africa and explained how it traveled to the Caribbean with enslaved people. Some scholars see the old zombie, a worker with no will of its own, as a reflection of slavery. Emerging Infectious Diseases

The flesh-eating zombie most of us picture is much newer. It comes largely from George A. Romero’s 1968 film Night of the Living Dead. The film never actually uses the word “zombie.” Fans applied it later. Wikipedia: Zombie The idea of a “zombie apocalypse,” where society falls apart under a global outbreak, became a staple through video games, films, and The Walking Dead. Wikipedia: Zombie

Why zombies can feel so unsettling

Nobody has studied zombie fear directly, so we can only point to what the stories themselves contain. A zombie looks like a person but isn’t one. It might be a neighbor or a family member. It spreads like an illness. And in many stories, it brings down the systems people rely on, from hospitals to police to the power grid.

The CDC article leaned into that last point. It compared fictional zombie outbreaks with rabies, noting that both spread mainly through bites, and used the comparison to teach about infectious disease. Emerging Infectious Diseases

So for some people, the fear may be less about rotting monsters and more about what they stand for: disease, chaos, or losing the people you love.

There’s an older idea that may fit too. In 1970, the Japanese robotics professor Masahiro Mori described the “uncanny valley,” the drop into unease people feel when something looks almost human but not quite. He placed a corpse at the bottom of that valley and wrote that we might be glad the path leads to the stillness of a corpse, “and not the valley animated by the living dead!” IEEE Spectrum: The Uncanny Valley The same feeling sits behind fears of mannequins and robots, covered on our page about automatonophobia.

Yes, the CDC once posted zombie tips

In May 2011, the CDC published a blog post called “Preparedness 101: Zombie Apocalypse.” It gave tips for surviving a zombie invasion, as a lighthearted way to get people ready for real emergencies like hurricanes or pandemics. Wikipedia: Zombie apocalypse

If you’re scared of zombies, that might sound alarming. It was a joke with a serious purpose. The supplies you’d want for a zombie movie are the same ones you’d want for a storm.

Can zombie movies help?

This one surprises people. During the COVID-19 pandemic, researchers surveyed 310 people about their movie habits and how they were coping. Fans of horror films showed more resilience. Fans of “prepper” genres, which included zombie, alien-invasion, and apocalyptic films, showed both more resilience and more preparedness. Personality and Individual Differences

The researchers suggest frightening stories may let people practice coping in a safe setting. It was a survey, so it can’t prove the movies caused the resilience. It also says nothing about people who fear zombies. If zombie films leave you panicking for days, you don’t need to watch them to prove anything.

What it might feel like

Here’s a made-up example. Imagine a teenager who watched a zombie movie at a sleepover a year ago. Since then, they check the locks several times a night, can’t walk past a dark window without looking away, and leave the room when friends start a zombie video game. They know it’s fiction. The fear shows up anyway.

People with a phobia may worry a lot about running into the thing they fear, take active steps to avoid it, and feel intense anxiety right away when they face it. NIMH

Fear versus phobia

Getting scared during a zombie film is the point of the film. Having a nightmare afterward is common too.

It may be more than an ordinary scare when:

• the fear lasts for months, not just a night or two
• you skip things you’d otherwise enjoy, like hanging out with friends who play certain games
• intrusive images keep coming back even when nothing reminded you
• it’s keeping you up at night or hurting your schoolwork

Our fear versus phobia guide covers this in more detail.

Why might it happen?

Research points to a mix of genetic and environmental factors. Phobias are more likely in people who were nervous in new situations as children, in people who had a frightening experience, and in people whose relatives have anxiety. NIMH

For zombies, a scary movie seen too young is one possible starting point, but nobody has studied this. A fear of zombies can also overlap with other worries, such as a fear of death, of illness, or of the dark. If it’s really about dying, our page on thanatophobia may help.

What can help?

Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is a well-established, effective treatment for phobias. Exposure therapy, a type of CBT where you face the fear in planned steps, works particularly well for phobias. NIMH

For a zombie fear, a therapist might start with something very mild, like reading about the history of the zombie in Haitian folklore. Only later, and only with your agreement, might they move toward cartoon zombies or movie clips. You set the pace.

On your own, you can:

• avoid horror content close to bedtime
• remind yourself that zombies are a story device with a known history
• notice whether the fear is really about something else, like illness or chaos
• talk about the fear with someone you trust instead of keeping it secret

Helping someone who fears zombies

Don’t jump out at them in a costume, hide zombie props in their room, or pressure them to watch a film to “get over it.” Pranks can make a fear worse. Ask what they’re comfortable with, warn them before zombie content comes on, and take the fear seriously even if it seems silly to you. Our guide on supporting someone with a phobia has more ideas.

When to talk to a professional

Talk to a doctor or therapist if the fear has lasted for months, is disrupting your sleep, or is making you avoid friends, games, or places. Children who seem very frightened after a movie should have a trusted adult to talk with, and a health professional if it doesn’t fade. Our appointment preparation tool can help you plan what to say, and our find help page lists places to start.