I actually like the 1990 remake.
When I saw the original movie, it occurred to me that a farmhouse like that would almost certainly have an attic. In the remake, Cooper eventually flees into the attic, and is safe there for the rest of the night.
It’s generally a good idea to seek the high ground. I definitely wouldn’t want to be holed up in a cellar. Taking everything upstairs and removing the risers sounds like a good compromise.
Also, don’t shoot a gasoline pump with a shotgun.
removing the stair risers ?
you guys ever built a staircase ? I guarantee you that it wouldn’t be a simple proposition to make one fall down. I’d have to suffer through the origninal movie again ( I doted over “most” of the remake series…) to see the design and construction of said staircase, but to through some real sawdust into the mix, most stairs are built very sturdily and rest on three 2 x 12 stringers, with the treads, risers, and rest of the house, built on top (kinda…), there’s no magic string to pull to make the stairs fall down.
Be that as it may, I’d still go for the upstairs, as long as I had an escape route plotted from it, build a barricade, and shoot for the head. Also hope for a lucky find of medieval two-handed swords to behead the zombs with, or maybe the Riders of Rohan will show up ? ? or just use the ring… wait, I’m getting confused.
nurse !!
I wouldn’t worry too much because most of the dead have their eyes glued shut and their jaws wired shut. In some states, e.g. Michigan, burial vaults are required, which means that the newly arisen zombie would have to claw through several inches of concrete to even start digging to the surface – and that’s if the family is cheap. I honestly can’t image the situation escalating to the point shown in the movies. Though, that doesn’t mean that Night of the Living Dead isn’t pretty much the only actually scary movie ever made – it is.
But hey! I don’t think we can judge the decision of the poor folks in the house without limiting our assumptions to their knowledge. Knowing what I know, I’d say leave the kid and the psycho woman and run for it fast enough to lose the slow walking zombies and hide in a wood until daylight.
But what did they have to go on?[ul]
[li]An unknown number of “assassins” are out killing and consuming people.[/li][li]They have no reason, until it is too late, to assume that gut-shooting one with a 30-30 wouldn’t take it down.[/li][li]They have no reason to think that barricading themselves and defending with gunfire won’t hold off the attackers.[/li][li]The attackers are physically weak but strong in numbers.[/li][li]They have a sick child and a deranged woman with them.[/li][li]They have no reason to assume that the assault will last longer than they can survive in the cellar.[/li][li]??[/ul][/li]So if I imagine that there are gangs of unarmed people out there lumbering around who are physically weak and attacking and beating to death every person they see, I have a 30-30 and two adult men and one adult woman with me, plus a sick child and a deranged woman…Damn, that’s a tough question.
Did they zombies know they were there when they first showed up?
Actually, the ones I’ve been to, they are usally only protected by a locked glass case. All you really need is a baseball bat or an axe, and you’ve got rifles/shotguns/handguns. Ammo is usually on the shelf behind the counter.
the roof is as good as it gets, but I think just wasting a bunch of the slow mutants and gunning for it would have worked too. Of course, now there would have been a bunch of protestors crying out for zombie rights and screaming about no blood for oil, or somethng.
You killed zombie Flanders!!
Er…He was a zombie?
What I learned in zombie training school:
-Kill or restrain anyone in your party who is hysterical or irrational otherwise they will endanger themselves or you.
-Anyone wounded by a zombie gets a double-tap to the head before they can turn into a zombie, probably at the most inconvenient time.
-Stay mobile! Help is not coming so baracading yourself into a basement or bunker is only delaying the inevitable.
-Get to high ground! Zombies can’t climb so if you can get to someplace where you can pull up the stairs, you should be okay.
-Only head shots count
-Avoid open spaces where zombies can come from multiple directions.
-Grrr!! Fire BAD!!
That doesn’t matter because bodies revive within a few minutes of death, so the zombies aren’t going to be buried. The immediate menace is to doctors and nurses in ERs, mortuary workers, paramedics (Send more paramedics!), cops, and firefighters. Given just a few people bitten and turned, who then bite and turn others, geometric progression dictates a zombie horde could be created within a very short time, even in Michigan.
Frankly, in the event of a zombie plague, the safest bet would be to find an enclosed space, like a courtyard, that would be suitable for growing crops and could be safely defended. You need a space where you can set up a reasonably self-contained environment, since forays outside offer too much risk of losing people or zombies getting inside.
A generally good rule of thumb, but not foolproof. For instance, see Dellamorte Dellamore, wherein it’s demonstrated if you plug someone in the head before they’re actually a zombie, you’ll just have to repeat the shot later.
Also, remember the line from the movie: “This was an important place in their lives.”
And:
“They don’t know why, they just know they want to be in here.”
The zombies did love playing with the stuff in the mall, so it’s possible they’d hang around trying to get in even if no one was inside.
In general, the best tactic is to get away from the house and find other survivors. Can’t do that locked in the basement.
The secret is to find morons who can actuallty operate a gas pump without blowing themselves up.
Somebody explain this one to me: you are alive-a zombie catches you and starts chomping on your arm. You bleed to death (and die) then you become a zombie-and you start looking for other humans to devour-why didn’t the zombies just settle for eating the humans who just died?
Remember the truck that caught fire and burned?
(Fat Deputy Sheriff): “…somebody have a barbeque?”
See, that’s a big question about zombies…if they eat human flesh, why don’t they eat one another? They’ll eat a freshly dead person, why not one that’s been zombified?
My theory is that whatever it is that causes a person to turn into a zombie causes it to recognize others of the same infliction as “One of their own.” Say it’s caused by a virus (which tends to be the general reason in most movies). The virus infects a person, but doesn’t turn them into a virus till it mutates and causes the person to mutate as well. At this point, they’re no longer human, but something more (or less, depending no how you look at it). The virus then recognizes other hosts of the virus, and because it’s sole purpose is to survive as well, it makes sure the other hosts are left alone. The virus strives to spread, and does this by infecting other hosts, so it drives it’s current host to look for more. Of course, it’s own host has it’s own survival instincts, which are to feed, so unless the victim gets away, the zombie will consume the victim. That’s why the zombies eat the blowed up people, despite the fact they’re dead. There’s no virus, or whatever, in their bodies, so they’re fair game.
At least, that’s my theory.
Ooohhhh, I misunderstood your question there, ralph.
Um, the quick answer…zombies weren’t always around freshly dead bodies. But they did eat freshly dead corpses if they hadn’t turned into zombies. Remember the scene in Dawn of the Dead when they go down into the cellar? They mention how the people have been locking the dead up in there. The zombies are eating some bits, but they’re not eating other zombies. My guess is, those bodies that were just fresh were tossed into the cellar as well, and the zombies got them as soon as they were put in, preventing them from having the time to transform into zombies.
Day of the Dead shows they will eat raw flesh as well, even if it’s from a dead corpse that hasn’t been zombified. I assume it has to be fresh, but they also draw on the fact that the zombies just eat because, so who knows? But Dawn had plenty of bikers getting shot fataly, and then eaten immediately, and as you pointed out, they did eat the couple soon after they blew up. So, a zombie will eat a recently dead body so long as it hasn’t zombified, but due to the fact they generally don’t wake up right by one, they have to go hunting. It’s a matter of necessity.
Dummies!
Dummies!
Dummies ! I’m trying to teach you how to survive here!
This isn’t the Republicans versus the Democrats, where we’re in a hole economically or… or we’re in another war. This is more crucial than that. This is down to the line, folks, this is down to the line. There can be no more divisions among the living!
Normally, the first question is, “Are these cannibals?” No, they are not. Cannibalism in the truest sense of the word implies an interspecies activity. These creatures PREY on humans. They do not prey on each other, that’s the difference. They attack and they feed ONLY on warm flesh.
Intelligence? Seemingly little or no reasoning power, but some retain basic skills that they learned in their former life. These creatures are nothing but pure, motorized instinct. We must not be lulled by the concept that they are our family members or our friends. They are not. They will not respond to such emotion.
They MUST be destroyed in SIGHT!
sorry just channeling good old Dr Rausch!
Awww, zombies are so cuuuute when they get into FAO Schwarz and start chomping on Barbie and bashing into each other with the Big Wheels.
“Who’s a good zombie? Whoooo’s a goooood boy? Yooouu are, that’s who!”
The fact that Eve posted this has affected my brain so severely that an onlooker would assume my emotional distress and facial contortions could only be due to a tag team of ice dancing caterpillars up my nose.
It’s difficult enough attempting to wrap my brain around the very queen of SDMB society, genteely nibbling upon a platter of lady fingers while watching the living dead engage in anthropophagy. That she could do so while making baby talk to the zombies is enough to drive men mad.
[Eve is promptly shot in the head by kingpengvin]