Note that the short timespan argues against zombie-ism being an infection - the same issue with virulence remains a potential issue whether the infection from the bite merely kills the victim, or kills and reanimates them, and there’s the issue of how the hell it turned into a nationwide plague in a span of hours.
Yeah, that was clearly an influence - although I don’t recall any of the Return of the… films featuring zombie penguins.
But in that one, didn’t bites actually spread the infection? The joke in this comic is that the bite was no more dangerous than any other animal bite. The guy just chopped off his hand because he assumed the zombies were like the ones in the movies he’d seen.
That’s actually typical of Russo (or O’Bannon as they’re often called) zombies in all three* of the Return of the Living Dead movies. They retain full intelligence, but have intense pain which can only be alleviated by eating BRAIIIIIINNSSSSSSSSSS
*Yes, there were two more sequels made for SciFi/direct to video, but they’re pretty bad and don’t keep all the rules the first three had, so I don’t recall if those zombies retained intelligence or not
I THINK he’s talking about Children of the Living Dead, a direct sequel to Russo’s cut of Night, not one of the Return movies. (It was direct-to-DVD, and generally considered awful. I’ve not seen it, myself, so this is second-hand.) No Dan O’Bannon involved at all.
Actually, from what I could gather of the broadcasts (I know there was some background radio stuff we missed) it was only happening on the eastern seaboard.
I don’t think they were fully intelligent (e.g. couldn’t open doors and stuff) but they were intelligent enough to deliver comedic lines, e.g. the infamous “send more paramedics” line.
Romero’s never been all that consistant on how long it takes to go from death to reanimation. Some zombies come back withing minutes (especially if it’s a main character that died onscreen) others remained “dead” long enough for an autopsy to be start (several hours minimum). In the remake of Night (which Romero wrote) one zombie was dead long enough to be autopsied, embalmed, dressed & preped for burial, gone through an open casket funeral, only to reanimate as it was about to be buried at the cemetary. That’s at least 3/4 days.
Oh, is there an intelligent zombie in that? I only ask because I couldn’t make it more than a few minutes through that one it was so bad. And I watched Uwe Bol’s House of the Dead in it’s entirety. 
They were able to have conversations and stuff, like when they interrogated the rotted away half corpse woman on the table, and the guys that took the gas directly still seem to know what they’re doing even as they start wanting to snack on brains, so I still gotta go with retaining intelligence.
I don’t recall them being unable to work doors, at least not any unbarricaded doors. Pretty much the pound on doors because people lock them and hide behind them with their sweet… juicy… BRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAINS
Yeah. Abbot Hayes. He doesn’t seem to talk, from what little I’ve seen of the movie (while researching this… And, yep…it’s awful.), but he thinks, and plans, and reacts.
The one trapped in the original canister is smart enough to use a chain and a ratchet-crank to winch open a locked door someone’s hiding behind.
I know others have addressed this, but I’ll address it more strongly: it is explicitly false in NotLD. Harry (Karl Hardman) was killed by Ben (.22 in the gut, but a critical hit), and rose a few minutes later.
Well, that’s unclear - he may or may not have been dead when his daughter started eating him.
Hmm, even more fuel to add to the controversy: according to the same wikipedia article, there are 4 different versions of the original 1968 production and 2 remakes, meaning we could be misremembering 6 different versions cobbled together.
The version I watched was in black and white and on VHS, iirc.
I’m not sure it’s that many - looks to only be 4 distinct versions - the original cut, Russo’s cut, the first remake, and the 3d version. The other versions seem to be minor revisions to the presentation that wouldn’t effect the story…
3D version isn’t even a remake, really, just a fairly lame zombie movie with some of the characters with the same names as in the original. IIRC, at one point someone in the movie is actually watching the original Romero NOTLD on TV.
Don’t say that; it’s insulting to lame zombie movies. I saw it in 2D, but I can’t imagine it’s any better in 3D. Maybe watching it while stoned would improve it, but I doubt it. It was so ban it actually manged to make Survival of the Dead look good. :eek:
Weekend homework: everybody grab a copy of NotLD and note the clues about how the zombie virus/radiation works. Try to grab any information about version as well.
I also saw a 2D version, and can’t argue with your assessment. Still, not the worst I’ve seen, sadly.
What’s the context of the line “Send more paramedics?”