Abstract

Supernatural fans often associate Season 3's popular “Jus in Bello” episode with the world's quintessential zombie movie, George Romero's Night of the Living Dead. Romero's zombie films, beginning with Night, fill the survival space with multiple, diverse survivalists who are forced to work through personal differences stemming from jealousy and petty annoyance to racism and bigotry, issues of morality, theology, and other social and cultural differences. Indeed, the setting is the first link to Romero's Night, whose cramped Pennsylvanian farmhouse is little different than the poorly fortified police station holding Sam and Dean. The demons congregate listlessly around the jail. This is an obvious visual homage to the isolated Pennsylvanian farmhouse in Night. The work of the demons in “Jus in Bello” like the zombies in Night and Dawn, is ceaseless and instinctual.