zombies are very popular .....do we need to look at why?

With Halloween fast approaching ,zombies are in the news:

Zombie craze continues to infect popular culture

By John Sudworth BBC News

This weekend an estimated 3,000 people dressed as zombies took to the streets of Brighton. It's the latest proof, if any was needed, that the undead are really on the march - culturally at least. If the zombie craze has passed you by then you probably haven't been hanging out with any children lately.

In my own random poll, conducted outside a set of school gates not far from BBC HQ, every one of the little rascals I spoke to admitted playing one particularly popular zombie killing game, despite its 18-certificate rating.
Extract: After all, it's often been argued that the boom in sci-fi tales of alien attack in 1950s and 1960s America was in some way an expression of the fear of Soviet invasion. So what might the current zombie craze tell us about the world we're living in now? Dr Marcus Leaning, programme leader for media studies at the University of Winchester, believes the shambling mass of rotting flesh now colonising our cultural space is well worthy of academic attention.
Read whole thing here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-15418899

At times of stress in the world we often turn to the more esoteric for answers( the rise of spiritualism in war time for example) but not sure zombies can help lol . Would a zombie be a cryptid?