# How come in zombie novels and movies, when the virus outbreak occurs... **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 16, 2010, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-come-in-zombie-novels-and-movies-when-the-virus-outbreak-occurs/550377 "2010-08-16T01:48:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Wile\_E](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c37758/32.png) [@Wile\_E](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wile_E)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2010, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-come-in-zombie-novels-and-movies-when-the-virus-outbreak-occurs/550377/21 "2010-08-16T16:01:49Z")
> [@Merijeek](#): > > For the same reason that nobody ever says Vampire, either. **It’s all about trying to be different and fresh** while still reusing something that’s been around in popular mythology for hundreds or thousands of years. > > If it makes you feel better, “World War Z” uses the word Zombie all over the place. > > -Joe Yeah, it’s hard to keep zombies fresh. ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2010, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-come-in-zombie-novels-and-movies-when-the-virus-outbreak-occurs/550377/22 "2010-08-16T16:20:14Z")
> [@Chimera](#): > > How come it takes people so long (basically until there’s almost no one left) to figure out that you have to shoot them in the head? > > Oh wait, I know. BECAUSE IT WOULD BE OVER ON THE FIRST DAY. Honestly if I had zero knowledge about zombies and some shambling thing resembling a corpse is heading over to me I’m going to be shooting at center of mass until I run out of bullets. If I hit him in the head it would probably be on accident. ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2010, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-come-in-zombie-novels-and-movies-when-the-virus-outbreak-occurs/550377/23 "2010-08-16T16:34:48Z")
> [@Odesio](#): > > > [@Chimera](#): > > > > How come it takes people so long (basically until there’s almost no one left) to figure out that you have to shoot them in the head? > > > > Oh wait, I know. BECAUSE IT WOULD BE OVER ON THE FIRST DAY. > > Honestly if I had zero knowledge about zombies and some shambling thing resembling a corpse is heading over to me I’m going to be shooting at center of mass until I run out of bullets. If I hit him in the head it would probably be on accident. Perhaps, but SOMEONE is going to take a headshot (untrained people generally aim at the face precisely because that’s where you look when you look at other people) and when that works, that word will get transmitted to others rather rapidly. ---
**Author:** ![Merijeek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f05b48/32.png) [@Merijeek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merijeek)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2010, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-come-in-zombie-novels-and-movies-when-the-virus-outbreak-occurs/550377/24 "2010-08-16T16:40:24Z")
> [@Chimera](#): > > > [@Odesio](#): > > > > Honestly if I had zero knowledge about zombies and some shambling thing resembling a corpse is heading over to me I’m going to be shooting at center of mass until I run out of bullets. If I hit him in the head it would probably be on accident. > > Perhaps, but SOMEONE is going to take a headshot (untrained people generally aim at the face precisely because that’s where you look when you look at other people) and when that works, that word will get transmitted to others rather rapidly. Sure, until someone shoots one of the zombies in the head and it DOESN’T drop it. Then the panic really starts. Again, in WWZ. -Joe ---
**Author:** ![obfusciatrist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/4af34b/32.png) [@obfusciatrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/obfusciatrist)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2010, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-come-in-zombie-novels-and-movies-when-the-virus-outbreak-occurs/550377/25 "2010-08-16T17:35:46Z")
Doing a text search (just for a data point) shows that Guillermo del Toro uses “zombie” 7 times and “vampire” 26 times in _The Strain_. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2010, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-come-in-zombie-novels-and-movies-when-the-virus-outbreak-occurs/550377/26 "2010-08-16T17:48:50Z")
**alphaboi** nailed it. Simililarly, the Superman movies take place in a parallel universe in which Siegel & Schuster created a fictional character of that name; in fact, there’s probably no superhero comics or movies at all in that world. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Angel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d26b3c/32.png) [@Johnny\_Angel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Angel)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2010, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-come-in-zombie-novels-and-movies-when-the-virus-outbreak-occurs/550377/27 "2010-08-16T18:27:07Z")
The Night of the Living Dead uses the term ‘ghoul’ which would have been a more accurate adaptation of existing lore, for a given value of accurate, and for whatever such accuracy is worth. But ‘Zombie’ stuck. What the hell, it’s a fun word to say. ---
**Author:** ![Enterprise](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/76d3ee/32.png) [@Enterprise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enterprise)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2010, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-come-in-zombie-novels-and-movies-when-the-virus-outbreak-occurs/550377/28 "2010-08-16T18:43:21Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > You’d have a radically different world history if zombies had always existed. No, you wouldn’t. See the appendix of _Zombie Survival Guide_ and _ZSG: Recorded Attacks_…it seems that only the advent of air travel, combined with an outbreak in one of the most populous areas of the world, made sure the global pandemic which eventually came to be called World War Z could happen, while otherwise, zombie outbreaks were easily contained. Oh, the humanity! If only we had learned! ---
**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2010, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-come-in-zombie-novels-and-movies-when-the-virus-outbreak-occurs/550377/29 "2010-08-16T18:56:26Z")
Speaking of headshots v. center of mass; aren’t military & law enforcement being trained to go for headshots because of the greater prevalence of body armor? Also one of the things I liked about the Romero/Savini remake of NotLD was how subtle some of the zombie makeup was. It was the start of the outbreak and most of the zombies were extremely “fresh”; only undead a few hours (or days at most). Other than odd wound most of them just looked like disoriented sick people with severe cataracts, not rotting corpses. ---
**Author:** ![Omar\_Little](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omar_little/32/269_2.png) [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2010, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-come-in-zombie-novels-and-movies-when-the-virus-outbreak-occurs/550377/30 "2010-08-16T19:13:01Z")
> [@alphaboi867](#): > > I tend to assume that most zombie fiction takes place in a parallel universe where George Romero never made **Night of the Living Dead** and thus the modern horror concept of a zombie as a reanimated corpse that eats human flesh (as opposed to voodoo slave) never existed. It would explain the almost complete lack of genre savy most characters demonstrate. And some films (like **Return of the Living Dead** do have genre savy characters only to use different zombie rules (“You mean the movie _lied_!”). > [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > **alphaboi** nailed it. Simililarly, the Superman movies take place in a parallel universe in which Siegel & Schuster created a fictional character of that name; in fact, there’s probably no superhero comics or movies at all in that world. I think that for most writers, this is probably the explanation of my question in the OP. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2010, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-come-in-zombie-novels-and-movies-when-the-virus-outbreak-occurs/550377/31 "2010-08-16T20:08:06Z")
> [@Wilbo523](#): > > > [@alphaboi867](#): > > > > I tend to assume that most zombie fiction takes place in a parallel universe where George Romero never made **Night of the Living Dead** and thus the modern horror concept of a zombie as a reanimated corpse that eats human flesh (as opposed to voodoo slave) never existed. It would explain the almost complete lack of genre savy most characters demonstrate. And some films (like **Return of the Living Dead** do have genre savy characters only to use different zombie rules (“You mean the movie _lied_!”). > > > [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > > > **alphaboi** nailed it. Simililarly, the Superman movies take place in a parallel universe in which Siegel & Schuster created a fictional character of that name; in fact, there’s probably no superhero comics or movies at all in that world. > > I think that for most writers, this is probably the explanation of my question in the OP. Of course it goes a little further than that. Most horror movies take place in a universe in which horror movies do not exist. Star Trek – at least The Original Series – takes place in a universe without a long history of time travel fiction. For many shows and movies, it doesn’t matter, though. There’s plenty of medical soap operas in the House universe, for instance. ---
**Author:** ![GHO57](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/df788c/32.png) [@GHO57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GHO57)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2010, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-come-in-zombie-novels-and-movies-when-the-virus-outbreak-occurs/550377/32 "2010-08-16T20:38:44Z")
> [@alphaboi867](#): > > Speaking of headshots v. center of mass; aren’t military & law enforcement being trained to go for headshots because of the greater prevalence of body armor? Cops, I don’t think so. There’s all kinds of paperwork to fill if you kill someone, and cops hate paperwork. They much rather just shoot to stop, not to kill. In the army…where I served we were taught to use the Mozambique drill when applicable, but in general headshots are discouraged just because the target is smaller and more mobile; there’s always time to put one in the brainstem afterward if you manage to knock him down with a center-mass shot. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2010, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-come-in-zombie-novels-and-movies-when-the-virus-outbreak-occurs/550377/33 "2010-08-16T22:03:14Z")
> [@](#): > > Cops, I don’t think so. There’s all kinds of paperwork to fill if you kill someone, and cops hate paperwork. They much rather just shoot to stop, not to kill. Shooting to stop _is_ shooting to kill. Shooting at all, for a cop, is shooting to kill. A cop who shoots the bad guy in the kneecaps is going to face all the same paperwork, and is also going to get called onto the carpet for showing off stupidly instead of going for the sensible center-body shot. ---
**Author:** ![GHO57](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/df788c/32.png) [@GHO57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GHO57)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2010, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-come-in-zombie-novels-and-movies-when-the-virus-outbreak-occurs/550377/34 "2010-08-16T22:26:13Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > > [@](#): > > > > Cops, I don’t think so. There’s all kinds of paperwork to fill if you kill someone, and cops hate paperwork. They much rather just shoot to stop, not to kill. > > Shooting to stop _is_ shooting to kill. Shooting at all, for a cop, is shooting to kill. A cop who shoots the bad guy in the kneecaps is going to face all the same paperwork, and is also going to get called onto the carpet for showing off stupidly instead of going for the sensible center-body shot. Well, true. The difference I was going for is; once the guy is on the ground and not moving, we were taught to walk over and put one in the brainstem to make sure, whereas I believe the cops are taught to call an ambulance. They still do that, right? I’m not too familiar with the US regulations post 9/11. And true, I’m only assuming that the paperwork required for, “forced to return fire” is somewhat less than “shot him in the back of the head after he was unconscious and cuffed”… I could be wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Wile\_E](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c37758/32.png) [@Wile\_E](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wile_E)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2010, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-come-in-zombie-novels-and-movies-when-the-virus-outbreak-occurs/550377/35 "2010-08-17T01:16:17Z")
> [@Johnny\_Angel](#): > > The Night of the Living Dead uses the term ‘ghoul’ which would have been a more accurate adaptation of existing lore, for a given value of accurate, and for whatever such accuracy is worth. But ‘Zombie’ stuck. What the hell, it’s a fun word to say. I like to call the fast zombies, “zoombies”, that’s even more fun to say. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Slant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c57346/32.png) [@Mr.Slant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Slant)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2010, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-come-in-zombie-novels-and-movies-when-the-virus-outbreak-occurs/550377/36 "2010-08-17T03:40:24Z")
> [@alphaboi867](#): > > Speaking of headshots v. center of mass; aren’t military & law enforcement being trained to go for headshots because of the greater prevalence of body armor? > SNIP Some agencies train for headshots due to the concern you mentioned, but based on previous threads we’ve had with CopDopers, current doctrine is to shoot for center of mass. I’m thinking they train for headshots in case they run into a subject who is obviously wearing armor or one who is evidently armored due to resisting center of mass shots. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Slant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c57346/32.png) [@Mr.Slant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Slant)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2010, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-come-in-zombie-novels-and-movies-when-the-virus-outbreak-occurs/550377/37 "2010-08-17T03:42:12Z")
> [@GHO57](#): > > > [@Chronos](#): > > > > Shooting to stop _is_ shooting to kill. Shooting at all, for a cop, is shooting to kill. A cop who shoots the bad guy in the kneecaps is going to face all the same paperwork, and is also going to get called onto the carpet for showing off stupidly instead of going for the sensible center-body shot. > > SNIP And true, I’m only assuming that the paperwork required for, “forced to return fire” is somewhat less than “shot him in the back of the head after he was unconscious and cuffed”… I could be wrong. The paperwork for [what you just described](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BART_Police_shooting_of_Oscar_Grant) involves losing your job, and possibly your career. ---
**Author:** ![Wile\_E](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c37758/32.png) [@Wile\_E](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wile_E)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2010, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-come-in-zombie-novels-and-movies-when-the-virus-outbreak-occurs/550377/38 "2010-08-17T04:41:16Z")
I just realized that Mr. Slant is posting in a thread about zombies. Perfect! ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Slant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c57346/32.png) [@Mr.Slant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Slant)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2010, 4:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-come-in-zombie-novels-and-movies-when-the-virus-outbreak-occurs/550377/39 "2010-08-17T04:46:47Z")
> [@Wile\_E](#): > > I just realized that Mr. Slant is posting in a thread about zombies. Perfect! Would you believe that you noticed the irony before me? ---
**Author:** ![mr.jp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/48db29/32.png) [@mr.jp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mr.jp)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2010, 9:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-come-in-zombie-novels-and-movies-when-the-virus-outbreak-occurs/550377/40 "2010-08-17T09:09:33Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > **alphaboi** nailed it. Simililarly, the Superman movies take place in a parallel universe in which Siegel & Schuster created a fictional character of that name; in fact, there’s probably no superhero comics or movies at all in that world. I agree with this. Like movies take place in another universe where none of the actors exist. One thing this reminds me of that really bothers me is Bridget Jones Diary. Here her love interest is called Mr Darcy. He has a character and they have a story very similar to that of Pride and Prejudice. The book exists in this universe. Yet this isn’t commented on at all, if I recall correctly. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-come-in-zombie-novels-and-movies-when-the-virus-outbreak-occurs/550377.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-come-in-zombie-novels-and-movies-when-the-virus-outbreak-occurs/550377.md?page=3)