That’s got to be one of the oddest lines of reasoning I’ve encountered regarding horror movies and the MPAA ratings system. “Obviously a zombie movie is going to earn an X rating for its excessive gore and graphic violence-- oh, but these zombies don’t chew on your limbs and viscera, they only bite your skull open and feast on your living brains. Well, that’s all right then; Rated R!” Especially weird, considering everything else that ultimately wound up in Return of the Living Dead. I would have thought that the onscreen decapitating, head-impaling, eye-gouging, limb-amputating, self-immolating, split dog abusing, and necrophilia content would be considered at least as objectionable as your basic Romero-style cannibalism.
Double post. :smack: Speaking of a need for brains…
Maybe they’re not zombies.
Maybe they’re actually survivors thanking the things that’s kept them alive through the ordeal.
Yep, it was the O’Bannon film “ROTLD” that started the whole “Braaiiiiinnns!!” thing and it just sort of resonated with the zombie movie fans
the “Tarman” was the first Undead American (IIRC) to speak and show higher-reasoning abilities
I know you’re up there, Tina, because i can smell your BRAAAINNNS!!
–mainly because the list of quotable zombie lines up to that point consisted of “Uuurrrggghhh…”
Well I like sushi. It’s an aquired taste. Maybe zombies, in the beoming half dead prosess come to a taste for brains. Why overthink it? (Assuming a zombie hasn’t eaten your brain.)
I love you.
The only zombie I am aware of with an apparent master is the so-called “voodoo” zombie. In fact, these are not really zombies at all. Once again from the Zombie Survival Guide :
Really, for the next zombie outbreak, I can’t stress enough the Zombie Survival Guide as a usefull reference. Not only does it contain handy information on the biology of zombies, but it offers the best zombie defense scenerios of any reputable zombie text. Did you know that zombies can’t climb? If I were in The Night of the Living Dead, I would head upstairs and knock out the stairs. If only those people had The Guide.
I’d also suggest his new book World War Z. It’s about how a massive zombie attack first spread, the governments reaction, and then eventual defeat of the zombies. It is surprisingly good.
Spoilers ahead about how the military first reacts:
[Spoiler]At the first ‘major battle’ of the zombie war, the military higher ups had the grunts behind sandbags on the floor (disregarding the fact that zombies can’t climb), had them in full MOPP gear (if there was really a threat, the higher ups would have been in it also. For any who have never been in MOPP gear, let me tell you that it just plain sucks donkey’s balls. Not good donkey balls either, the nasty kind).
Yeah, the military lost that battle, to say the least.[/Spoiler]
A certain post on the Federal Vampire and Zombie Agency site (itself a great source of zombie data) provides a helpful list of some of the different know types of zombies from various places in fiction.
(They left out the “Plan 9” zombies, tho, I’m afraid.)
No Plan 9 Zombies!!! And they have Masters… and are actually dead!
(Take that Zombie Survival Guide!)
All you need is an electro ray gun a Fleet of 3 flying saucers a lemon shaped Mothership and the patience to take over the world three zombies at a time (actually every so often you have to turn one into a skeleton to prove your power so it takes a very loooooooooong time)
“Do you still believe it impossible we exist?
You didn’t actually think you were the only inhabited planet in the universe?
How can any race be so stupid?”
I’m not familiar with Invisible Invaders, but I would cite the 1964 low-budget Italian flick **The Last Man on Earth ** (based on a story by Richard Matheson and starring Vincent Price) as perhaps the first film to show cannibalistic/homicidal (Romero-esque) zombies. This film is included in the cheapo “The Living Dead” horror-movie box set.
I’d have to give that movie a second look to be sure, but I don’t think that Price’s zombies discriminated in favor of brains per se; they just wanted the flesh of the living.
Between those two stages, we have the old EC horror comics from the 1950s (ultimately shut down by the Comics Code Authority), wherein the dead often rose from their graves (from no adequately explained cause) for the single purpose of seeking vengeance on their murderers (against whom they could not defend themselves while alive, but against whom they somehow have greater powers while walking-dead; I would expect a resurrected cadaver to be feeble at best).
They’re lookin’ for prions.
They’re dead. They want to be mad too.
Invisible Invaders:
Of course, there are dyslexic zombies who want to eat your Brian.
(I’ll understand if you don’t laugh. Frankly, I’m not sure I understand it, either.)
Aw, have a heart! 
See now, The Guide strictly discusses terrestrial zombies. To be quite honest, the probability that anyone, much less zombies, has or ever will come from another planet is so low, that I must wonder what reality your living in 
. Real terrestrial zombies do not have masters.
Isn’t it obvious? Zombies are French.
Seconded, and not just for horror fans.