Image: Dawn of the Dead (1978)
Depends on what allegory the writer is going for, but I personally prefer the Night of the Living Dead, Romero Prime zombies.
Me too! :)
However the writer/director/producer/editor/whoever-is-in-charge wants. It really is that simple.
Here in the real world, the only “real” zombie is a human that’s been dosed with a mix of drugs and brainwashed (just to keep it simple), and it’s largely a thing of rumor rather than something you can just go around and find.
So, you are left with extant fictional examples, any new examples that come along, and then the zombie *meta" which attempts to classify and describe all of those so that they can be compared. Thing is, in order to do that, you have to accept that each type is as valid as any other within the world it is from, and not waste your time trying to adjudicate which worlds are “realistic” in the first place.
An example: the walking dead comics and shows. Both media formats show zombies in states of advanced decomposition. They are missing muscles, visibly. Muscles like the pectorals, but the zombies are making movements that require those muscles. So, in that regard, Walking Dead zombies are entirely impossible unless you say that magic or some other force is in play, despite that not ever being part of the series in either medium.
But you also can’t ignore that world if you really want to address zombies as a trope.
So, that’s what it comes down to. Zombies behave how their controlling human in the real world wants them to.
I always liked that little background joke in Shaun of the Dead where you hear a newsreader say:
“Claims that the virus was caused by rage-infected monkeys have now been dismissed as bull…”
Nice little dig at 28 Days Later :-)
Well they uhh… definitely shouldn’t have infinite energy to walk around forever. All I’m sayin.
The magic kind, like World of Warcraft or Game of Thrones can do anything, because they’re magic. The virus kind cannibalize their own muscle and brain tissue to fuel themselves. They’ll eventually die, but they can go a lot longer than a regular human. See cordiceps for a real life example.
That’s one thing I liked from 48 days later that the zombies would eventually starve to death
I mean, if we go back to the original Haitian term, they’d act like slaves who’ve been drugged up and/or made to really believe that they are “trapped” in their own bodies, mindlessly following orders. Here’s an article with some interesting journalism on zombies in Haiti in relatively recent years: https://www.harvardmagazine.com/2017/10/are-zombies-real
Pop-culture zombies though, I suppose they’d move as much and as well as they could before their muscles and bones can’t physically keep up with whatever is compelling them to move.
Fascinating read, thank you fir sharing!
Ophiocordyceps unilateralis
Leucochloridium paradoxumIn your head, in your head, they are fightin’,
With their tanks, and their bombs, and their bombs, and their guns,
In your head, in your head, they are cryin’.
Probably the way they’re described in World War Z/The Zombie Survival Guide. Basically a mix of shamblers and sprinters that have shitty eye sight, but amazing senses of smell and hearing. They consume flesh for no real reason, and if left to their own devices will eventually decompose to a point where they no longer are a threat. The global outbreak lasted, IIRC, just a few weeks before people were able to get it under control and return to normality (or as normal as a world where zombies now actually exist can be). Although, after COVID, I have my doubts about it being something that we would fix in just a month.
Covid showed us that there would be plenty of people going out and intentionally getting bit to own the libs.
i think slower, dumber, and weaker than on tv. i mean they’re literally dead and rotted, it shouldn’t be hard to take 1 or 2 in a fight.
Taking them out isn’t hard. Taking them out without a long weapon and without getting bit and becoming a zombie yourself sounds like odds I’d rather not bet on.
that is super fair. atp i guess my answer is just run.
Like the flood combat forms
They enact the will of the voudoun who enchanted them for a brief time, then are interred permanently in a grave.
Well, if they had any brains, I imagine they’d behave themselves…
Here is one way to find out: www.urbandead.com
Probably like this:
Yuck.
No joke! It was the basis for the infected in Last of Us.
Oooooh! Creepy 😬
“Zombies” are just an unconscious-mind metaphor for unreasoning ideological/prejudice mobarchy “rabies”.
Proletariat/populist ( left/right: they are equivalently-destructive ) dictatorship highjacked your country?
Rampaging mobs butchering & burning your books, your infrastructure ( shooting electrical substations, hospitals, school-lunch-programs, civil-rights protection ), & your citizenry?
That’s what real “zombies” are.
