NationStates Jolt Archive

Why is it that in recent movies about zombies (28 days later, that one Dead remake, etc) zombies become little more than human-killers/infectors?

I suppose even in the original Night of the Living Dead they were... but then it wasn't so blatant. For example, in that classic it was shown that the zombies did in fact eat people. What's more, they were content to eat dead human flesh, like when that car exploded with the dude and his chick. We never saw zombies eating other zombies or other animals on screen, but I can't help but feel like that was a definite probability in that form of undead.

Now however, it's like not only do they prefer humans, they prefer live humans. And they're snobs. They won't eat dog (Day of the Dead? or was that a Dawn?) and will in fact avoid other zombies.

In 28 Days Later (I know, they're not 'real' zombies but whatever), they didn't seem to eat much of anything (hence them starving to death). In that case the explanation was that they were 'infected with rage,' but you know, when I'm mad, I don't just take it out on people! And what is the basis for them not "raging' Zombie-like against other zombies? Very strange.

For me it comes down to the basic concept of what a zombie is. I would say a zombie is a reanimated corpse retaining it's basic instincts (presumably warped a bit due to loss of brain functions). That seems to be consistent with the Living Dead universe. But if that's the case what motive would there be for a zombie to try and eat a human but not a dog? none at all!

Fuck the dog! I want to see a zombie movie where you could distract zombies with fire and big sounds, or even raw meat. I wanna see zombies eating dogs. Zombies eating other zombies.

But no. They've made a fake zombie species that only kills people. Not even eating them, just killing them. It seems as if the primary motive of zombies has changed from zombielike instincts, to people-infecting goal structures. Zombies coalesce into large groups and try to trap living people, with the apparent intention of only making more zombies. I guess I could look at it as a triumph for zombiehood (aww they wanna become daddies and mummies!), but I think it's just crappy filmmaking that has to resort to superhuman, inconsistent behaviors on the part of the bad guys in order to get box office draws.

Well, that's all for now.

Read the Zombie survival guide it has detailed explinations of differant types of Zombies the best wepons to kill them best ways to escape them all you would ever need to know about zombies

Where?

Hey you know what's funny... if there ever comes a day where the dead get up out of their graves and start walking around (that's ANOTHER thing they've dropped from the old school zombies - only fresh corpses seem to turn into zombies, again going with the pseudoscientific 'infection' theme - away from the undead theme - almost like they're trying to get us to fear biowarfare more than Revelation!), George Romero is going to get a bunch of phone calls and be expected to have some inside info or tricks to save the world! Haha, poor George.

Read the Zombie survival guide it has detailed explinations of differant types of Zombies the best wepons to kill them best ways to escape them all you would ever need to know about zombies
Damn! For a moment I thought that was a book telling zombies how to survive in a human infested world.

Where?

Hey you know what's funny... if there ever comes a day where the dead get up out of their graves and start walking around
(that's ANOTHER thing they've dropped from the old school zombies - only fresh corpses seem to turn into zombies, again going with the pseudoscientific 'infection' theme - away from the undead theme - almost like they're trying to get us to fear biowarfare more than Revelation!),
George Romero is going to get a bunch of phone calls and be expected to have some inside info or tricks to save the world! Haha, poor George.

Well After the dead aren't Fresh they are skeletons. Skeletons aren't zombiesso they aren't included. Skeletons are quick but stupid.
Zombies can't talk so in Night of the Living Dead that was Ghouls. Zombies are slow due to body slowly cramping up.

Ghouls eat flesh (don't care for killing just hungry) and can talk. Smart actually for a human.

I never really got how the whole zombie thing worked. The way to become a Zombie is to get bitten by one right? And as we all know Zombies eat brains, to relieve the pain they feel. But the way to kill a zombie is to shoot it in the head at least according to the Night of the living dead.

So if a zombie ate your brain how would you become a zombie? I would think you would just be dead.

Zombies want to eat your brain, but they are too dumb to open your scull. So they bite you, infect you, tore your flesh from your bones but can't manage to open your scull and get your brain. They will leave you eventually when you have become a zombie too, because zombies want fresh brains.

Did god create the zombies or did they evolve?

What I can never understand from those Zombie movies (Day/Dawn of the dead etc) is how the Zombies hang round for so long.
Look at it logically:
1. They're usually torn up a bit, with faces missing or limbs torn off etc. So surely infection and decomposition would start fairly rapidily. So all you'd have to do is lock yourself in somewhere safe with a couple of months supply of food and water and wait for bacteria to do it's work.
2. Even if the Zombie virus (or whatever it is) somehow delays the decomposition rate (yet they usually show the Zombies as rotting away in the movies), there's still the issue of energy. Where are they getting the energy from? All things that move need energy (a basic physic fact even I know). Obviously they can't starve to death, but if these Zombies aren't eating anything for weeks (like in the 'Dawn of the Dead' series), surely they'd just collapse unable to move. No energy left in their bodies to move their limbs. Unless their body starts devouring itself for energy (in which case a similar thing would happen and their bodies would waste away to a point where they'd have nothing left to move)
3. You mentioned how they don't attack the dog in the 'Dawn..' remake (I thought it odd too). But how come the dogs don't attack the Zombies? Surely after a few days of not getting fed, they'd turn feral and start hunting in packs and wahey! fresh meat wandering around all bleeding and pre-tenderised. Dogs to the rescue.

The movies never answer these questions.


Wee Spoiler alert below! About 'Shaun of the Dead'

One thing I liked in the movie, was at the end showing how the country had intergrated the zombies into society. Using them for cheap labour (returning shopping trolleys), zoo animals and contestants on crap game shows (having them try to grab a piece of meat while tethered). Classic stuff really.

Check out Barnes and Noble or the local library tust me its well worth the money if you want info on Zombies Its called The Zombie Survival guide and it is written by Max Brooks

Why is it that in recent movies about zombies (28 days later, that one Dead remake, etc) zombies become little more than human-killers/infectors?
Because those movies suck...or blow, I forget which.

I suppose even in the original Night of the Living Dead they were... but then it wasn't so blatant. For example, in that classic it was shown that the zombies did in fact eat people. What's more, they were content to eat dead human flesh, like when that car exploded with the dude and his chick. We never saw zombies eating other zombies or other animals on screen, but I can't help but feel like that was a definite probability in that form of undead.
We much prefer cornflakes.

Now however, it's like not only do they prefer humans, they prefer live humans. And they're snobs. They won't eat dog (Day of the Dead? or was that a Dawn?) and will in fact avoid other zombies.
First would YOU eat a dog, Yuck! Second zombies smell bad, you would do well to avoid zombies too.

And what is the basis for them not "raging' Zombie-like against other zombies? Very strange.
Professional courtesy

For me it comes down to the basic concept of what a zombie is. I would say a zombie is a reanimated corpse retaining it's basic instincts (presumably warped a bit due to loss of brain functions). That seems to be consistent with the Living Dead universe. But if that's the case what motive would there be for a zombie to try and eat a human but not a dog? none at all! Again, Dogs yuck, people yum. Plus I don't like picking the dog fur out of my teeth.

Fuck the dog! I want to see a zombie movie where you could distract zombies with fire and big sounds, or even raw meat. I wanna see zombies eating dogs. Zombies eating other zombies.What is it with you and the dog thing? Zombies are very focused and don't distract easily. We don't eat other zombies! Union Rules!

But no. They've made a fake zombie species that only kills people. Not even eating them, just killing them. It seems as if the primary motive of zombies has changed from zombielike instincts, to people-infecting goal structures. Zombies coalesce into large groups and try to trap living people, with the apparent intention of only making more zombies. I guess I could look at it as a triumph for zombiehood (aww they wanna become daddies and mummies!), but I think it's just crappy filmmaking that has to resort to superhuman, inconsistent behaviors on the part of the bad guys in order to get box office draws. Why are zombies always the bad guy. Why are there no heartwarming movies about a zombie and his dog. "I've fallen into the well. Lassie, go get Dracula and Frankenstein! Hurry girl!"

The best zombie movies I've seen always have a suprising amount of social wisecracking, like commentaries on mass culture. Night of the Living Dead was, in the end, a significant movie in it's time about mass fear, stereotypes and racism. Dawn of the Dead was an attack on consumer culture, set in a mall.
Return of the Living Dead was about out of control youth culture and human fallibility.

These are few though as there's lots of zombie movies basically existing just to show off the makeup and effects team's work. But there's some good films out there.

Well, in 28 days later the zombies weren't proper zombies, really. They were living, breathing human beings infected with a virus that warps their brain functions and causes them to act in a mindlessly aggressive fashion in order to spread their parasite. They can be killed just as a normal person could, hence why at the end they all starved to death.

So they're not zombies, properly, or even a new species of zombies, they're plague-ridden humans with zombie-like characteristics.

Read the Zombie survival guide it has detailed explinations of differant types of Zombies the best wepons to kill them best ways to escape them all you would ever need to know about zombies
Take for granted the easiest way to kill any zombies is a shotgun. if a shotgun isnt at hand, hit them with a car a few times

Okay, it breaks down like this.

Romero Canon(as evidenced in his films) is that a a mysterious radiation of some sort (it hints to the cause in Night of the Living Dead) causes the recently dead to get up and eat living flesh. Since humans are the easiest to catch, they make the most prevelant source of food. Also, it's a horror movie so what's more terrifying than your recently dead Aunt Maddie getting up and tearing your arm muscle off? Only the remake of Dawn of the Dead alludes to a biological vector for infection. In Romero films, if you were attacked and killed by a zombie, you became one. If you were bitten by a zombie and it was a bad enough bite that you died from it, then you came back to life. In Romero's Dawn of the Dead the blonde cop was bitten pretty badly, but not fatally. The subsequent infection is what killed him (humans have very dirty mouths, zombies even more so).

They do not eat brains to ease the pain, that was from Return of the Living of the Dead, which violates Romero's canon in so many ways it's not even funny. Zombie fans don't consider RotLD a true Zombie movie, more of a bad 80's horror flick.

Ostensibly Romero zombies would eat anything living, but a zombie chomping on Spot is not nearly as terrifying as chomping on cousin Bill.

As for the "why don't they fall apart?" aspect, remember that Romero films happen over a very short amount of time. It's about people who are caught off guard by the onset of the zombie hordes. And in bigger cities (like in Day of the Dead) they have a bunch of people to feed on, thereby making more zombies. Even if the first zombies were to fall apart there would be enough fresh kills to make life difficult for the living. So why don't they hole up for a couple of months you ask? As I stated earlier, those movies deal with people essesentially getting caught in the open. What your proposing Hamster is preparation for a disaster.
You'd have to know:
1. What was happening
2. Believe that it was happening
3. Where the worst of it is
4. Find and stock a suitable location that would allow you to hole up.

Besides, if people like us were in a zombie movie it would last all of 5 minutes.

Sorry for the long post but zombie movies are a favorite of mine so I have a plethora of information on the subject, both hypothetical and movie trivia.

Take for granted the easiest way to kill any zombies is a shotgun. if a shotgun isnt at hand, hit them with a car a few times

Actually its a crowbar because it needs no ammo and can crush a zombies skull in one blow :cool:

Sex monkey. :fluffle:

Sex monkey. :fluffle:

That is quite possibly the most random first post I have ever read. In a good way. :)

Did anyone ever see Braindead? If you want a zombie that just refuses to die, try these:

Zombies that have sechs and form zombie babies

Zombies that mutate into 60ft naked old women

Zombies that can act in parts (examples of half a head pulling itself along by its front teeth, and - the best one - the main character getting attacked by a zombie aliementary canal)

Rat-monkies, formed when european rats raped monkies

It's a classic!

Did anyone ever see Braindead? If you want a zombie that just refuses to die, try these:

-snip-

It's a classic!

Pah, the lawnmower pwns them all!

EDIT: except possibly the 60ft naked old woman zombie.

Pah, the lawnmower pwns them all!

EDIT: except possibly the 60ft naked old woman zombie.
That's how the teddy-boy's guts die!

Actually its a crowbar because it needs no ammo and can crush a zombies skull in one blow :cool:
pssh lies. crushing their skull does nothing, you must crush all of them, or blow holes in them. and a shotgun butt is much better than a shitty crowbar

pssh lies. crushing their skull does nothing, you must crush all of them, or blow holes in them. and a shotgun butt is much better than a shitty crowbar
Sod that. Cut your hand off, strap a chainsaw to the stump and have a sawn-off. No zombie will like the look of that.

Sod that. Cut your hand off, strap a chainsaw to the stump and have a sawn-off. No zombie will like the look of that.

The Evil Dead 2.

i saw that for the first time on saturday it made me laugh so much!!!! :D :D :D

The Evil Dead 2.

i saw that for the first time on saturday it made me laugh so much!!!! :D :D :D
Good good, but I implore you - NEVER WATCH MEDIEVAL DEAD!

I was so dissapointed by the zombies in 28 days later. The zombies were almost scientifically possible, but not quite. Here is a small dissertation:

1) Rage virus
Technically possible I suppose with the genetic engineering we have today. First, you would have to study the brain chemistry of the enraged chimps to find out what made them so angry (to use an understatement). Then you would have to find/design a virus that would produce that same brain chemistry. Far-fetched, but still possible. The tranmission is realistic enough - sharing blood with a person infected with most any disease will transfer it. Main problem with the virus: the fact that its insulation period is only 10 seconds. Not even possible for it to circulate throughout the body/reproduce that quickly, even without human immune reaction.

2) Zombie behavior and physiology
Zombie behavior was poorly portrayed. If these zombies were so enraged, why did they only bite their victims once and move on? Wouldn't truly enraged zombies beat their victims to a bloody pulp with an iron pipe and gouge their eyeballs out until the body was no longer recognizable? Furthermore, why did they never vent their rage on fellow zombies? Did they somehow know who was infected and who was not? If so, that leads us to an interesting set of questions regarding zombie intellect. (Even if they did know, would their primary goal have been to hurt the other zombies rather than cooperate with them regardless of whether they knew they were infected?) Is the zombie's primary goal to kill, or to create more zombies? If their primary goal is to produce more zombies, then why the enragement? If their primary goal is to vent their rage, the zombie population should destroy itself; by default any infected individuals would be closest to each other and thus would be each other's first targets, meaning both parent and offspring are destroyed without passing on the virus. If the zombies are enraged to the point that they could no longer remember who they were, indeed become a zombie rather than a human, then why do they possess advanced skills in stalking and killing others, even cooperating with other zombies, when they didn't even possess these skills as humans? Furthermore, how could the zombies a)be physically active when struck by such a devastating virus and b)possess superhuman qualities such as super-fast running and ability to survive without water or food for 8 weeks?

Sigh. The pointlessness of it all...

As for the "why don't they fall apart?" aspect, remember that Romero films happen over a very short amount of time. It's about people who are caught off guard by the onset of the zombie hordes. And in bigger cities (like in Day of the Dead) they have a bunch of people to feed on, thereby making more zombies. Even if the first zombies were to fall apart there would be enough fresh kills to make life difficult for the living. So why don't they hole up for a couple of months you ask? As I stated earlier, those movies deal with people essesentially getting caught in the open. What your proposing Hamster is preparation for a disaster.
You'd have to know:
1. What was happening
2. Believe that it was happening
3. Where the worst of it is
4. Find and stock a suitable location that would allow you to hole up.
True, but from what I remember about the Romero Trilogy, is that it shows the days and weeks and even months ahead after the initial attacks.
"Dawn of..." is the following days and weeks. They're in the Mall for several weeks. In 'Day of...' it felt like it was set weeks, maybe months later.

As I said, you need energy to move. So after the Zombies had eaten everyone and were wandering aimless looking for new flesh, surely after a few weeks they'd collapse from lack of energy. No blood's getting to their muscles, so their muscles can only use the energy immediately stored around it. An average man is 75 kgs and 20% bodyfat - 15kg of fat, 135 000 calories. Just lying down and not moving, we need 1 calorie for every kg of bodywgt per hour (thus the average man burns up 75 Calories p/hour at least). Now Zombies hearts and internal organs aren't working, so that's less. But they are usually staggering around 24/7. So I think 50 calories p/hour is a reasonable estimate - 1200 calories p/day. That's my lowest estimate.
So after (135000/1200) 112.5 days (16 weeks, 4 months) maximum your average Zombie would have used up ever bit of fat in his body for energy and should then fall over unable to move. In fact it would be much earlier than that, as they're unable to get the energy from other parts to their legs.

As you said, it is a horror movie, so I shouldn't get too logical about it.