The Morning Watch: Where Zombies Come From, How 'The Blair Witch Project' Predicted YouTube Culture & More

Shaun of the Dead - Where Zombies Come From

By Ethan Anderton/Sept. 5, 2019 5:00 am EST

The Morning Watch is a recurring feature that highlights a handful of noteworthy videos from around the web. They could be video essays, fanmade productions, featurettes, short films, hilarious sketches, or just anything that has to do with our favorite movies and TV shows.

In this edition, find out where the horror pop culture sensation zombies first started fascinating audiences. Plus, watch a video essay showing how The Blair Witch Project inadvertently predicted the future of YouTube culture, and throw it back to 1994 with a look back at the silliest moments from the big screen adaptation of the video game Street Fighter from 1994.

First up, zombies are pretty much everywhere in pop culture now thanks to the television sensation of The Walking Dead, movies like Zombieland and Shaun of the Dead, and so much more. Though Night of the Living Dead is what really got audiences honed in to the horror of the dead rising from the grave, zombies have been around for a lot longer than that, and this video essay from Nerdwriter looks at their origins.

Next, it's been 20 years since The Blair Witch Project became an indie sensation after debuting at the Sundance Film Festival. That's mostly thanks to the viral craze surrounding the movie when the internet was just gaining steam with general audiences. Thanks to a faux documentary special and websites, the myth of The Blair Witch and three college kids who disappeared while looking into her legend spread like wildfire and audiences thought that the movie might be real. This video essay from The Take explores how it became the predecessor for YouTube fame.

Finally, we come to the cinematic masterpiece that is Street Fighter, the 1994 movie based on the fighting video game of the same name featuring Jean-Claude Van Damme, Raul Julia and...Kylie Minogue? Watch this assembly of the weirdest jokes and moments from the movie because it's much easier than watching the entire nonsensical thing all over again.