Zombies and Men

edited December 2009 in General
I've always loved zombies. I've not seen too many movies, but I've seen the more recent ones, read the Max Brooks book, and always looked for more stuff. Unexpectedly, my stepmom brought home volumes 1 and 2 of "The Walking Dead," written by Robert Kirkman. It was quite a fun read, kinda like watching a great George Romero movie that doesn't stop after 2 hours, so it gets into the really gritty issues of humanity during crisis. The afterword was by Simon Pegg, who you may not know by his name but I'm sure you know (he was Shaun in Shaun of the Dead). He writes:
Metaphorically, this classic creature embodies a number of our greatest fears. Most obviously, it is our own death, personified. The physical manifestation of that thing we fear the most...Oddly, these rotten bastards also give us hope. The undead may be tenacious, single minded and as relentless as lava, but they are also stupid and slow; ineffectual and inept. You don't have to be Van Helsing, or even Peter Venkman to throw down with a zombie. Anyone with a pulse can step up. As long as you keep your head, defeating a zombie is not an insurmountable task...It is perhaps this combination of hope in the face of terror, that makes the zombie so attractive to us. The idea that we could, ourselves, beat death.

Very insightful. Also, this is just something out of my own curiosity, but which type of zombies do you prefer, the traditional slow or the Dawn of the Dead fast zombies? I used to prefer fast, but now I'm not so sure.
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Comments

  • edited November 2007
    After so many of the traditional slow-movie zombie movies, the fast ones were a nice change of pace (pause for laughter). But ultimately I think the faster zombies just made the fact that anyone was able to escape that much more far-fetched. At the very least, they could have had the zombies wear-out and die off because they use up all their energy moving fast.
  • edited November 2007
    I like pub zombies. They often give you a chance to beat them to catchy Queen music.
  • edited November 2007
    I hate. I HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE ZOMBIES.

    To me Zombies are more than death personified. They are an unrelenting mob. They don't need sleep. They don't need food. They don't lose moral. You can not stop Zombies by assassinating their leader. You can not stop Zombies by running into their capital, stomping on their parliament, and running out. Zombies betray our trust by turning our loved ones against us. Zombies can not be reasoned with. Zombies can not be satiated. Zombie begets more Zombie and this chain can not be stopped. Zombies eat us. I do not want to be eaten.
  • edited November 2007
    Hehe....Zombie Parliament.

    "My right rotten friend makes a good point, Thing Speaker"
  • edited November 2007
    Are there such things as smart Zombies? Or maybe a book or movie where the hero is a Zombie?

    Wait a minute there was this one thing on iTunes called "Zombie Prom" which is basically a musical about a 60's high-school where this guy and girl fall in love
    (And of course that makes them start to sing)
    (P.S. A LOT)

    And well she breaks up with him and he commits suicide at a nuclear plant
    (Which is strangle just behind there school)
    So he comes back as a Zombie and try’s to get her to go to the prom with him
    (by singing)

    OK well this is just a stupid FREE movie on iTunes. And if you do get it be prepared to be scared for life.
  • edited November 2007
    There've been a few comedy-romances where the main protagonist is a zombie. But to answer your first question; Land of the Dead has smart, organized zombies.
  • edited November 2007
    Well.... somewhat smart. Smarter than usual, but still somewhat dumb.

    In the Marvel Zombies story arc, the superheroes that turn into zombies retain all their intellect and memories, they just have an insatiable urge to eat human flesh.
  • edited November 2007
    The Return of the Living Dead zombies were also pretty smart, in addition to being able to run and being pretty much unkillable. If you blow one of their heads off the rest of the body (and any intact parts of the head) will still come after you. Burn it and anything that comes into contact with the ash and smoke gets zombiefied. They dropped a nuke on the zombies' heads at the end of the movie but that just made things worse. Romero zombies can be held off fairly easily if you're well-organised, even DotD remake zombies can be dealt with in theory, but if you've got an outbreak of RotLD-style zombies on your hands you're pretty much fucked.
  • edited November 2007
    Yeah I thought that was an interesting concept...but there's really no victory over those types of zombies, so they're not as fun. It's just that you're pretty much hosed, unless you can seal them all in some kind of chemical or frozen tub.
  • edited November 2007
    HaHa I guess Im a noob when it comes to Zombies because i dont know the meaning of the following

    Romero zombies:

    DotD zombies:

    RotLD-style zombies:

    HaHa I sould do some reacerch:D
  • edited November 2007
    I'm as confused as you are.
    I'm too lazy to care.
  • edited November 2007
    Hah, well they intrest me but ive never relly done any reading or stuff about them. =)
  • edited November 2007
    I started writing a big long thing about the different movies but then forgot which was which, so, the long and short of it is. Romero zombies take over everything and are easy to contend with, but Night of and Return of the Living dead zombies are super hard to kill, yet always stay contained to a local area due to military intervention. And everyone who's within the quarantined area is totally screwed and gets nuked.

    EDIT: I just found this and this.
  • edited November 2007
    Night of the Living Dead Zombies ARE Romero Zombies.

    And I totally agree with DI about Return of the Living Dead (RotLD) Zombies; if an outbreak of them occurs, you are fucked. Also, that movie had some of the nicest breasts you'll ever see on an undead chick (NSFW).

    I put up those hyperlinks to assist with those forum members who seem to be less-well-versed on Zombology than the rest of the forum. Please note that NSFW stands for "Not Safe For Work", and you should also mentally extend this potential unsafitude to school and more prudish family members. The particular thing I linked to is a pair of STONKING GREAT TITS.
  • edited November 2007
    Yes.... so what do the RotLDZ's do??? sry
  • edited November 2007
    George Romero is the director of Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead and Land of the Dead. He pretty much invented the zombie movie and his zombies are the standard against which all others are measured. They're your typical slow-moving flesh-eaters and can be killed by cutting off their heads or destroying their brains. One unique aspect of these zombies that doesn't tend to show up in their imitators is the fact that, in a Romero zombie outbreak, everyone who dies for any reason becomes a zombie if their brain is left intact (although being bitten speeds up the process.)

    RotLD is short for Return of the Living Dead, a zombie horror/comedy movie made in the 1980s. They're the ones I was talking about in my previous post, and they also originated the brain-eating trope that zombies have become associated with (before Return of the Living Dead, zombies just ate people without expressing a preference for their brains.)

    DotD is short of Dawn of the Dead, which was the sequel to Night of the Living Dead and involved more typical Romero zombies. However, a few years ago Dawn of the Dead was remade (without any association with Night of the Living Dead) and the zombies in the new version were unusual in the fact that they were able to run quite quickly rather than shambling around in typical zombie-style. Another change was that, in the remake, you only become a zombie if you're bitten by one, rather than everyone who dies becoming one as in the Romero original.
  • edited November 2007
    Yaaa I now am more Zombie Knowlegable. Hmmm.... wonder if there would be a way to make an even stronger zombie....

    P.S. I just found out i won the silent bid for a Samurai sword for 30$. so im gona go pick it up at 8:00(5:30 now) I hope it dosent end up like brandons
    (his are all now Serrated from messing around with them, lol)
  • edited November 2007
    Which one had the kids steal a truck of frozen brains to lure the zombies somewhere? I'm getting all mixed up with my movie titles. I can distinguish the movies in my head (mostly). the titles just get switched around.
  • edited November 2007
    Behemoth wrote: »
    Which one had the kids steal a truck of frozen brains to lure the zombies somewhere?

    Where do you find a truck of frozen brains?
  • edited November 2007
    EDIT OF: This post originally was posted before I knew Behemoth (above) made his post. This would have been hilarious if he didn't post, but he did, so mine's not as funny anymore. Just imagine it is. Please. I need the credibility.

    McDonalds.

    GOODNIGHT EVERYBODY!
  • edited November 2007
    how about we come up with our own super zombie idea???
    It could be the TOB Zombie:rolleyes:
  • edited November 2007
    GOODNIGHT
  • edited November 2007
    OK. Ignore me. I'm all straightened out now. I didn't realize how many of the movies I was thinking of were a part of the RotLD series. I thought Night of the Living Dead was the first of that series. I haven't seen those movies in years. I'm gonna go rent them.
  • edited November 2007
    Return of the Living Dead does have a fairly weak connection with Night of the Living Dead, in that, according to one of the characters in RotLD, Night of the Living Dead was based on an actual zombie outbreak (although substantially altered from the "true" events) and it was one of those zombies that started the RotLD outbreak.
  • edited November 2007
    All this discussion, people. You're forgetting something. Something that applies to all zombie types:

    They're all awesome! So let's stop discussing the intricacies of various different zombies and just bask in the wonder that is undead humans devouring the living!
  • edited November 2007
    Night Lord wrote: »
    ] So let's stop discussing the intricacies of various different zombies and just bask in the wonder that is undead humans devouring the living!

    Would Vampiers count for that???? o wait nvm they dont unless you count blood drinking the same as devouring.

    I guess the question is can you devour a liquid.

    or can you have Zombie Vampiers, or Vampire Zombies
  • edited November 2007
    Zlamzambo wrote: »
    Where do you find a truck of frozen brains?

    I know a guy...
  • edited November 2007
    But in hind site Zombies are AWSOME
  • edited November 2007
    Zlamzambo wrote: »
    or can you have Zombie Vampiers, or Vampire Zombies

    The real question here... is can you have Vampire Pirates? Yeah! You could call them Vampirates!!! That sounds totally awesome!

    Why not add something else? How about Werevampirates? Werevikampirates? There's no ceiling on this!!
  • godgod
    edited November 2007
    Nah, vampiraborgs and vampirabi, plural of vampirabus, are the ones you watch out for. And don't get me started on vampirataur.