# When did zombies start eating brains? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [December 3, 2014, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-zombies-start-eating-brains/706217 "2014-12-03T13:05:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![marshmallow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@marshmallow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/marshmallow)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2014, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-zombies-start-eating-brains/706217/21 "2014-12-04T02:24:55Z")
> [@Disgruntled\_Penguin](#): > > Remember, we’re talking about the general public not genre fans and most of them don’t think brain eating is a joke meme about zombies. Not today anyway. Right, but it doesn’t make much sense to me. Aside from Return, I’m having trouble thinking of any zombie media where they eat brains and it’s played straight. Doesn’t happen in… Walking Dead series, games Resident Evil games, movies, live action or CG Dawn of the Dead remake, or anything else Romero World War Z book and movie 28 Days Later Zombieland Shaun of the Dead L4D series Killing Floor That covers most of the popular zombie stuff of the last decade or so. There’s lots of brain eating jokes in the Plants vs. Zombies games, but they’re super goofy. ---
**Author:** ![burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/burpo_the_wonder_mutt/32/365_2.png) [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/burpo_the_wonder_mutt)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2014, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-zombies-start-eating-brains/706217/22 "2014-12-04T02:45:36Z")
IIRC, in **Return of the Living Dead** , someone strapped down a zombie/walker/ghoul and asked it why they ate brains and it replied something like **It makes the pain slack off**. What pain? they asked. **The pain of being undead** , it says. 😕 Yeah, makes perfect sense. ---
**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:** [December 4, 2014, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-zombies-start-eating-brains/706217/23 "2014-12-04T02:50:29Z")
By **Return of the Living Dead III** the military has figured out zombies eat brains to ingest the endorphins. ---
**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:** [December 4, 2014, 5:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-zombies-start-eating-brains/706217/24 "2014-12-04T05:34:55Z")
I always thought eating brains was rather impractical since skulls are pretty hard and not easy to bite through. In the movie Warm Bodies they ate brains for the memories because it made them feel human again. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2014, 12:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-zombies-start-eating-brains/706217/25 "2014-12-04T12:57:21Z")
> [@Wile\_E](#): > > I always thought eating brains was rather impractical since skulls are pretty hard and not easy to bite through. > > In the movie Warm Bodies they ate brains for the memories because it made them feel human again. If you’re a zombie you don’t care about practical. Prehistoric man ate both brains and marrow – we’ve got the cracked bones to prove it. Both have the advantage of being pretty soft and eatable without having to cook it to make it easier to chew. (Things like the liver are that way, too, but you don’t have to crack a bone to get to it). I don’t think they ate brains in _Warm Bodies_ in order to feel more human – I got the impression that was a fortuitous side-effect of eating brains. The whole thing about eating brains is a cute touch, because it means the zombies vs. peo0ple are in an extreme adversarial situation. You absolutely cannot live without your brain, and the zombie absolutely needs it. It’s not like a zombie simply eating some muscle tissue, which you could, in principle, survive. Or a vampire simply drinking _some_ of your blood. Lucy Westenra lasted at least three nights of repeated feedings in Dracula, and would’ve survived if Drac had gone to another host. A related thing is your monster needing some other hard-to-access body part. For some reason, pituitary glands have served this purpose. In the 1950s movie _The Leech Woman_, the title femme fatale needed a pituitary to stay young, and got it by breaking into her victim’s skull with a specially-shaped ring. In Preston and Child’s _The Relic_ the unpronounceable beastie needed to eat pituitary glands, which meant killing his victims messily. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2014, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-zombies-start-eating-brains/706217/26 "2014-12-05T00:03:28Z")
I’m also pretty sure they want to eat brains because they are themselves effectively brainless. The loss of what makes you you is the main source of creepiness for zombies after all, and it applied both to the controlled and uncontrolled kind. ---
**Author:** ![neofishboy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/neofishboy/32/444_2.png) [@neofishboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/neofishboy)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2014, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-zombies-start-eating-brains/706217/27 "2014-12-05T01:14:33Z")
> [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](#): > > IIRC, in **Return of the Living Dead** , someone strapped down a zombie/walker/ghoul and asked it why they ate brains and it replied something like **It makes the pain slack off**. What pain? they asked. **The pain of being undead** , it says. 😕 > > Yeah, makes perfect sense. Actually, the line is “The pain of being **dead**.” They can literally feel themselves rot. And I could be wrong, but I’m pretty sure that The Simpsons’ 4th season _Treehouse of Horror_ segment “Dial Z for Zombies” was the first pop culture callback to the “brains” thing from _Return_. If so, that’s probably the beginning of the switch from brain-eating being “That’s something that the zombies in _Return of the Living Dead_ do” to “That’s something that zombies do.” ---
**Author:** ![burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/burpo_the_wonder_mutt/32/365_2.png) [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/burpo_the_wonder_mutt)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2014, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-zombies-start-eating-brains/706217/28 "2014-12-05T01:47:34Z")
^ You mean where the zombies tap Homer on the noggin, looking for brains, then go on their way when they can’t find any? 😃 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2014, 5:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-zombies-start-eating-brains/706217/29 "2014-12-05T05:06:01Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > I’m also pretty sure they want to eat brains because they are themselves effectively brainless. The loss of what makes you you is the main source of creepiness for zombies after all, and it applied both to the controlled and uncontrolled kind. Except that, in the one movie that played this trope straight, the zombies were far from brainless. They could talk, plan ambushes, and in one of the later sequels, fall in love. (Although once you get up past four or five Roman numerals after your title, it’s questionsble wether it counts as “playing straight” any more.) I suspect brain eating was O’Bannon trying to invert Romero’s zombies. Instead of mindless shamblers who could only be killed by _destroying_ the brain, he had quick, intelligent, virtually indestructible zombies that _ate_ brains. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2014, 10:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-zombies-start-eating-brains/706217/30 "2014-12-05T10:41:33Z")
All I know is that when we revive an old thread around here, no comedians feel called upon to make a joke about _To-o-om-m-m Savri-i-in-i-i’s entra-a-ail-l-ls._ ---
**Author:** ![TBG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c89c15/32.png) [@TBG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TBG)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2014, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-zombies-start-eating-brains/706217/31 "2014-12-06T23:29:29Z")
> [@Disgruntled\_Penguin](#): > > Tom Savini being ripped from a blood pressure machine and deboweled alive was a cool scene especially if you know who Tom actually is I don’t think it’s the most remembered trait about zombies. That wasn’t Savini. Savini was the guy that was sort of the leader, he had the switchblade comb in the scene where the biker thugs see the helicopter. The blood pressure machine guy was the bandito looking thug with a sombrero. ---
**Author:** ![burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/burpo_the_wonder_mutt/32/365_2.png) [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/burpo_the_wonder_mutt)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2014, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-zombies-start-eating-brains/706217/32 "2014-12-07T00:19:49Z")
> [@TBG](#): > > That wasn’t Savini. Savini was the guy that was sort of the leader, he had the switchblade comb in the scene where the biker thugs see the helicopter. The blood pressure machine guy was the bandito looking thug with a sombrero. Savini’s character (Blades) got shot by Peter (Ken Foree), fell off the balcony and landed in the fountain. Then he has a (zombie) cameo in “Land of the Dead” as the same character. Don’t quote me, but I think the leader of the motorcycle gang in “Dawn…” was the dude with the Beatle haircut and the Thompson sub-machine gun\* (his name was “Butchie”) riding in the motorcycle sidecar. Peter wings him and he falls out of the sidecar and becomes zombie-brunch. \*IANAGunExpert. ---
**Author:** ![TBG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c89c15/32.png) [@TBG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TBG)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2014, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-zombies-start-eating-brains/706217/33 "2014-12-08T23:48:48Z")
> [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](#): > > Savini’s character (Blades) got shot by Peter (Ken Foree), fell off the balcony and landed in the fountain. Then he has a (zombie) cameo in “Land of the Dead” as the same character. Don’t quote me, but I think the leader of the motorcycle gang in “Dawn…” was the dude with the Beatle haircut and the Thompson sub-machine gun\* (his name was “Butchie”) riding in the motorcycle sidecar. Peter wings him and he falls out of the sidecar and becomes zombie-brunch. > > \*IANAGunExpert. Yeah, that’s why I said sort of leader. They kinda seemed like co-leaders or something. Point is, he wasn’t in the blood pressure scene. ---
**Author:** ![burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/burpo_the_wonder_mutt/32/365_2.png) [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/burpo_the_wonder_mutt)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2014, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-zombies-start-eating-brains/706217/34 "2014-12-09T00:37:59Z")
> [@TBG](#): > > Yeah, that’s why I said sort of leader. They kinda seemed like co-leaders or something. Point is, he wasn’t in the blood pressure scene. You are 100% correct re the blood pressure scene. I need to correct something or hordes of nitpickers will descend: The dude with the Beatle haircut and machine gun was Larry Vaira playing “Mousey.” William “Butchie” George was the guy driving the motorcycle. “Mousey” (despite the name) seemed to be Savini’s co-leader. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-zombies-start-eating-brains/706217.md?page=1)