I recently had a dream in which the cast of ST:TNG and I were fighting off a zombie invasion in my picturesque Midwestern town. Some of the zombies were from the local nursing home. While I had no problem blasting them alternately with my phaser and shotgun, the dream did raise a few questions.
How effective would a horde of elderly zombies be in terrorizing the populace? Would they merely be able to gum the flesh of the living? Would they have the same shuffling walk in death as in life? Would anyone be afraid of them?
P.S. I have the same questions about Assisted Living Dracula.
Well, it all depends on which version of zombie you subscribe to.
If it’s the aimless, dense, shuffling zombies of Shaun of the Dead and Night of the Living Dead, then I think they’d be on par with your average zombie. I don’t think they’d shuffle any slower than the others since it doesn’t seem to be a arthritic shuffle, just a slackeresque apathy.
If you’re picturing the fast swarming zombies from the new Dawn of the Dead or 28 Days Later, then it’s pretty clear the sciatica and house slippers would slow them down.
Your dream raises a few questions for me as well:
Do elderly zombies still crave warm, human brains, or would they be content with an iced brain smoothie?
How useless was Deanna Troi since she likely couldn’t empathize with the undead?
Who got more kills, Captain Picard, or Number 2?
What the heck did you eat before bed that night?
To take a shot at your question: considering most zombie lore has them shuffling along at a breakneck 1/2 mph, I’d say that the elderly, walker-bound undead would be even easier to stay away from (not to mention hear coming).
If not warm, fresh brains, then I imagine they’d prefer their brains blenderized, but not iced. They don’t cotton to these new-fangled, fancy-pantsy ways of serving human brains.
Counselor Troi died pretty early on. And the peasants rejoiced.
Captain Picard led the whole dang thing, so he got more kills. But Data and I tied for most overall kills. Not that I remember the exact number, but that’s the way it seemed.
Cheetohs and a hostess cupcake.
And to answer Omniscient, the zombies in my dream were Romero zombies. Though you raise a good point about any elderly 28 Days Later zombies being pretty much useless.
Come to think of it, there should be a great proportion of elderly zombies in the Romero movies. In his movies, people who die for any reason, including natural causes, rise as the living dead; so all the old people dying of strokes, heart attacks and cancer every day should be out there, shuffling along in flannel nighties. Somehow, that’s kinda depressing.
<zombie type=elderly>
Creeeeamed braaaaaaiiiiiins on toooooooastttttt…
</zombie>
<Elderly Zombie>
Whaaat, you only going to eat the BRAAAAAIIINNN!, why back in my day, we used every gol-dang part of the human, dad-burned wasteful newfangled zombies, i tell 'ya the Unlife is going to hell in a handbasket…
could you pass me that leg, please, you’re not gonna eat it, hate to see it go to waste…
</Elderly Zombie>
<Elderly zombie rising from the grave>
YOU KIDS GET OFFA MY LAWN!