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Of all the mythological creatures, zombies possibly suffer the most from hijacking. The modern Hollywood zombie is nothing like the original. This article compares both and favors the latter.

Hollywood zombies

Undead have featured in many Hollywood movies, zombies being no exception. They used to be quite dull and limited to minor roles. That changed in the 1968 CE movie from George Romero, "Night of the Living Dead". This featured flesh eating monsters that were properly called "ghouls", referring to Arabian "ghuls". Ghuls and ghulas eat flesh, and in many Arabian myths favor graveyards and other places littered with dead bodies.
It was the movie fans who confused all this and started calling the flesh eaters 'zombies'. Next, it was Romero who expanded on this. In a sequel movie, "Dawn of the dead", a central element to the plot was that some kind of plague erupted that slew people and reanimated them as flesh-craving zombies. This theme became so popular that it continues to be rehashed again and again. The resulting movies range from the original horror comedy to horror teen flicks, horror action, horror 'science' fiction or simply horror.
The plague concept was quickly morphed into a 'virus infection', which turns a human who is bitten by a zombie into a zombie him/herself. In some movies the process can take hours or days, in others less than a second! Some zombies eat not just flesh, but brains, though this does not seem to make them smarter. There are zombies walk with a slow stumbling gait, while others run around like fierce predators.
All of this shows that the sciene behind the concept of a zombie is really non-existing.

African zombies

Zombies came through America via HaÏti in the early 20th century CE, but they are older than that. Their origin lies in West Africa, in the early 19th century. African mythology, after French and christian influence, discerns body and soul as separate, though connected, entities. Some actually discern two different souls: the 'big' one, associated with life force and the 'small' one, the true soul, containing personality and character.
When a person dies, body and soul(s) are disjoined. This can also happen during sleep or during magical rituals. "Loa", gods or spirits, can sometimes take over bodies, though for a limited time. The most dangerous feat of all is when a "bokor", a voodoo priest specializing in black magic, captures the soul in a white bottle and then starts ordering the helpless body around. Others reanimate bodies that are alrady dead, so no longer house a soul of their own. All of this scares the shit out of ordinary people who meet zombies, though they do not have to fear for their brains being eaten.