Zombie Prom is set in the “Nuclear 50s”: a time when everyday life in the United States was wrought with uncertainty and fear that an atomic bomb would fly over the United States at any given moment and detonate. The start of the year 1950 brought with it then president: Harry Truman’s declaration that the United States would continue its research and development of “all forms of atomic weapons” despite the events surrounding the tragic Hiroshima/Nagasaki atomic bomb drops. Nuclear power plants like the one we see in Zombie Prom were common throughout the United States This launched the start of a nuclear “club” amongst many of the developed countries in the world, including Russia. The 1950s were home to the race for the development of the atomic bomb: a preempt to the 1960s’ cold war.
Francis Gary Powers, namesake of the aforementioned nuclear power plant, was an American pilot whose 2 spy plane was shot down during a secret mission over soviet Union airspace. This incident (which happened after the time in which Zombie Prom is set gave Russia sufficient ground for accusing the United States of spying. Powers was later exchanged for two KGB spies.
Prom in the 1950s placed heavy emphasis on dates. It was traditional for the young man to pick the girl up from her house, give her a corsage, meet her parents, and take her out to dinner. Prom was normally held in the gym of the high school and supervised by teachers and principals. Unlike nowadays, however, it was highly uncommon for a girl to go without a date and highly uncommon to go in a group of any kind. Despite all the undead, the prom scene Zombie Prom is very typical of Prom in 1950s America.
