There are two Zombie Behaviour Paradigms: Fast and Slow.
The traditional is Slow: Zombies shamble about, perhaps with their arms held out (or is that mummies?). They are aimless and easily outrun (although impossible to outlast). Their strength lies in stamina and numbers, not in speed. They are completely mindless, and do not actively hunt until live human flesh has come close enough for them to see/smell/otherwise sense. This makes sense, as zombies are after all dead and rotting, and rotted muscles cannot very well propel rotting corpses at any particularly high rate of speed. Also, as noted by Master Wang-Ka in another thread, their shambling about allows you a period of uncertainty as to whether or not this thing is dangerous.
The new version of zombie behaviour, as shown in 28 Days Later and the new Dawn of the Dead, is Fast: Zombies move swiftly like feral animals, hunting down the brains or living flesh or whatever it is that they require for sustenance. They are easy to outsmart, but you can’t outrun them. This could make sense as well; the argument about rotted muscles can be countered with “dead things don’t move in the first place, so if you’re going to accept THAT premise, why not accept that they can be fast?” Plus, obviously their higher faculties have been compromised; they are reduced to their reptilian brains - the “fight or flight” response and the primal urge to feed.
I had this discussion with Gunslinger over dinner tonight (aren’t we a charming, well-socialized couple?), and he favors a combined view, with “fresh” zombies - still mostly intact - being capable of speed, with their abilities dropping off as they progress in decomposition.
Well, if I had to choose one over the other I would have to go with the Romero slow-zombie. What is key, to me, is the Romero aspect. Lesser zombie movies such as the Italian movie “Zombie” have slow movers too but the movie itself fails to capture the sadness/empathy that Romero does.
In addition, if we are talking real life scenarios, I certainly prefer slow-movers as well… MeanJoe can deke!
That said, I really do appreciate the new reinterpretation of the zombie genre, to date most notably 28 Days Later, and I hope the new DotD is going to be great too. We shall see tomorrow!
Keep in mind that the “zombies” in 28 Days Later aren’t exactly zombies, but humans/animals infected with a disease that causes them to go bloodthirsty and insane.
I myself prefer the slower zombies… I was raised on slow zombies and that’s the way I like it.
I’m not particulely averse to the fast-movers. I don’t see why they COULDN’T move fast. What I don’t like is when their abilities are downright Super-Human in speed or agility, or senses, or teleportation, say. Might as well make them Vampires, 'cause that’s what they are!
I dunno…I think, with a little work, you can make a zombie both fast moving and rotting. Remember “Tar Man” from Return of the Living Dead? He rocked. And he was also the first zombie ever to scream out “BRAINS!”
But maybe that only means that fast, rotting zombies only work if they have no eyelids and are played by a mime. I leave that up to you, the reader, to decide.
Ranchoth
("MORE…brains!")
The earliest example of fast zombies was in the low-budget cult flick Carnival of Souls (1962). Startling when I first saw it; it seemed like it was breaking some unwritten rule about zombies.
I like the idea of freshly killed being about as agile as a live human, but quickly slowing down as rigor mortis sets in and flesh starts to rot. Seems logical. At least, as logical as you could hope from a movie about zombies.
Fast and slow zombies are really beside the point because what most folks fail to grasp is that Romero’s zombie movies are not really about the zombies at all. The central conflict in Romero’s films is humans against humans, when people are destroyed by their own fear and greed. If Romero’s films had been mere zombie shoot’em ups, they would not now be remembered with such reverence. The profundity of Romero’s films derives, in William Falkner’s words, from “the human heart in conflict with itself,” not the zombies.
I think it breaks down to how you view the dangers in the world. With Slow Zombies, the dangers are well-known, you can look right out the window and see them. They’re slow but steady, the danger in sheer multiplying numbers. Lousy Reds, as the most immediate strained analogy to hand.
Fast Zombies: your world is complacent and sunlit and known. The dangers in them are remote, way the hell over there; your backyard and your neighbors’ backyards, and their neighbors’ backyards are perfectly fine. A long journey away, that’s got some dangerous things going on, but you don’t know much about those places. Then all of a sudden, WHAM, that entire safe little world is shattered, with sudden explosive speed. Not to be too high-falutin’ metaphorological about things, but I don’t think it’s really a coincidence that Fast Zombies have gained the limelight post 9-11.
Both types of zombies are fine by me; good zombie flicks will be about the human reaction to them, be it rising tide or jet fueled wrecking balls.
I’ve had a very incomplete zombie-apocalypse type story in various drafts for some time now, in drafts ranging from adolescent slam-bang to adolescent heavy-handed metaphor. But those flaws of laughable earlier drafts aside, I think the zombies are sound. The zombies in them start out slow and shambling and decomposing, then turn quick as the decomposition stops. Rotting being a large function of bacteria eating happily away–a state of life, not death. The faster they get, the more brittle and vulnerable they get, till they start breaking apart like mushrooms drying out and blowing away into spores.
I’m another one who prefers the old fashion slow movers. One of the huge key fears that zombie films instill in me is the feeling that, if this were to happen to me, I’d be this lifeless shell just kinda walking around. The thought of existing like that, with virtually no conciousness, just shambling about, really scares the hell out of me. Fast movers have a bit too much movtivation in what they do. They seem to always been on the hunt, always looking for the next meal, and still seem to “think” a bit too much. Maybe it’s my own fucked up imagination, but I can often imagine myself more as a feral beast-type than a slow, mindless corpse, and therefore, it’s the mindset of becoming the latter that truly terrifies me.
I do enjoy the movies with the fast movers so far (haven’t seen the new “Dawn”), but it gives a lot more immediacy to the situation, whereas with Romero’s movies in particular, the big fear comes from the fact that you are able to rectify the problem for a brief moment of time, but no matter how safe you feel, you’ve really got nowhere to go. I never got that from 28 Days Later or Return of the Living Dead. But even during the happy moments of the original Dawn, all I could think is “They’re just trapped in one big tomb.”
I gotta admit, though…in the remake of Resident Evil, when that first RedFace jumped up and started running after me…Sheeeeee-IT that scared the fuck out of me.
This, rather than speed or even cannibalism, is the principal element of zombihood.
Sadly, the term “zombie” has been so broadly used that it has come to mean little more than “Undead humanoid not otherwise specified.” Strictly speaking, it should be applied to reanimated corpses behaving in an automatonlike manner. The Classic Zombie is completely subject to the will of another (traditionally a witch doctor, although a mad scientist will do in a pinch). The New Zombie (“Night of the Living Dead” model) is driven by its own urges. It may function as a member of a maurauding horde, but this is no more proof of high-level intelligence than the schooling behavior of certain fish.
At least since the time of “Night of the Living Dead”, the term zombie has taken on “ghoulish” connotations. Ghouls are evil humanoid creatures that feast on the flesh of the living and dead. Not every ghoul is a zombie, and not every zombie is a ghoul.
Although “The Curse of the Black Pearl” has been widely referred to as a “zombie pirate” movie, true zombies do not display individual personalities, abstract thought and computational abilities like those of the accursed pirates. Those characters deserve a term of their own. “Accursed Pirates” comes to mind.
