Zombies
Zombies are one of the many kinds of monsters held in The Facility. On the whiteboard, the Chemical Department bets on their release. These kind of zombies generally refer to infected or reanimated dead humans of no particular quality and are separate from other monsters that are also undead such as the Reanimated, Deadites, the Mummy and the Buckner Family.
After the betting pool, one of the Chemical Department members complains about not winning, saying that she bet on "zombies" while the winner was the Buckner Family who were listed on the whiteboard as "Zombie Redneck Torture Family". Sitterson points out to her that the difference between them is like "the difference between an elephant and an elephant seal" mainly considering the Buckners have special qualities than the average zombie.
Appearances
The zombies are first seen briefly in their cubes during the elevator scene. If looked carefully, it appears that numerous cubes contain zombies, indicating that if they were summoned, they would be spawned throughout the cabin area in different places.
Zombies are seen during the beginning of the Purge overwhelming a guard in the first wave then later consuming what was left of the Security force, and later on chasing Dana and Marty after their encounter with the Dragonbat. They can be seen on monitors throughout the purge attacking and eating facility workers who are either crawling away from the zombies in terror or are already dead.
A chemical tank most likely summons them.
Physical Description & Attributes
A photo from the film's Visual Companion showing zombies overwhelming a member of the Demolition Department.
Depicted as reanimated human corpses that feed on the living, sometimes specifically their brains, flesh-eating zombies are nearly unstoppable, horde-oriented creatures controlled by an insatiable hunger. Like in most examples of modern zombie fiction, their status was likely triggered by a viral outbreak; the kind of which is often rooted in scientific or medical experimentation.
Flesh-eating zombies are surprisingly resilient and often very hard to defeat despite their decaying state. Destroying the brain is commonly the only way to stop an individual, but as they attack in hordes most of the time, they're extremely difficult to engage in battle up close. Typically, a living being that is exposed to their fluids by means of a bite or a scratch will eventually turn into a zombie itself sooner or later. It can be presumed that those who were attacked by zombies during the Purge would've later become zombies themselves.
Zombies are barely sentient, possessing very little to no cognition or memory of their former lives. They have no self-preservation or even a survival instinct, demonstrating instead a group demeanor towards eating every living thing in their path. Most of the zombies shown in the film are dressed in civilian clothing like T-shirts, jackets, sweaters and suits while some are seen wearing scientist lab coats and hospital gowns. They may also vary in speed from slow and shambling to incredibly fast, though the ones seen in film are more towards the former.
Inspiration
Zombies are said to have originated in Haitian and Caribbean folklore as reanimated corpses made subservient by Voodoo. While being inspired or adapted from literature and myth as it were, the contemporary reinvention of zombies are monsters that have their origin in film.
Zombies are considered one of the most common monsters in horror film making history. As a major staple of the genre, they're prominently featured in media with notable examples being Zack Snyder's 2004 Dawn of the Dead remake, 28 Days Later, Zombieland, the film adaptation of World War Z and AMC's acclaimed TV adaptation of The Walking Dead. Then there's of course venerable zombie video game franchises such as Resident Evil and Left 4 Dead.
One of the most celebrated icons of the modern zombie is George A. Romero's Dead series which began with his iconic 1968 independent horror film, Night of the Living Dead, taking loose inspiration from Voodoo beliefs. The specific summoning item may be a reference to The Return of the Living Dead, an unofficial sequel/homage to The Night of the Living Dead, where the plot of the movie is kicked off by the opening of a chemical drum containing a preserved zombie.
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