Fast Zombies: Yay or Nay?

Necronomicon

What do you think of fast zombies? It's an issue that has been raised by the remake of Romero's Dawn of the Dead and 28 Days Later. Some people think they have no place in zombie folklore and prefer the traditional shuffling zombies.

Fast zombies, frankly, scare the bejesus out of me.

But is there a basis for their existence?

Kess73

Well you could argue that they could move at peak human speed until they rotted too much to do so. Plus they would not tire.

I think from a purist pov there is more of a sense of dread with the shufflers, as they slowly gain ground and just keep coming.



The fast buggers would be a problem. I loved the remake of Dawn Of The Dead though, and think that a strong case could be argued for either the shufflers or the sprinters.

Holsten

I'm banking on them being slow ****ers.

Rate of survival drops quite a bit when they can run and jump.

armour87

That is an excellent point Kess, zombies may start out fast but as there leprosy-ee bodies naturally crumble their speed decreases also.

Excellent work.

silvervixen84

deffo fast zombies are way worse. Then again, in the Res Evil movies, the slow fellas still chowed down no bother to them

Duff

Holsten wrote: »

I'm banking on them being slow ****ers.

Rate of survival drops quite a bit when they can run and jump.

QFT!

Kess73

Holsten wrote: »

I'm banking on them being slow ****ers.

Rate of survival drops quite a bit when they can run and jump.

Yeah would fancy my chances a lot more against the shufflers.

Duff

Also if you managed to get a ''shuffler'' on its own it could be fun poking it with sticks and such before you finally destroyed its brain where as if it was one of the ''runners'' you would be KIA!

Kess73

Duff wrote: »

Also if you managed to get a ''shuffler'' on its own it could be fun poking it with sticks and such before you finally destroyed its brain where as if it was one of the ''runners'' you would be KIA!

Yep, you could take the mick out of a shuffler, doing slow motion runs etc to mock it.

Not so good with a sprinter about.

Cravez

Kess73 wrote: »

Yep, you could take the mick out of a shuffler, doing slow motion runs etc to mock it.

Not so good with a sprinter about.

Haha just imagine doing all those mock slow motion runs as the zombie shuffles and then all of a sudden it bursts with speed towards you

Personally in movie and i guess if the event ever did arise of a zombie holocaust, i would prefer shambling zombies

miju

in a movie i prefer the slow and the fast. the slow shufflers en masse to show the end of world is nigh and the fast for the holy crap run or your fooked (as opposed to calmly walking away) moments in films

Doctor DooM

They both should be watched. Trust no zom.

minidazzler

I realise we all would prefer a Slow Zombie epidemic but the Fact of the Matter is here will also be Fast Zombies.

There are over 30 types of Zombies (Known to exist) There are at least 4 types of fast moving Zombies. 9 types are regular human walking speed and the rest are the Shufflers.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

minidazzler wrote: »

I realise we all would prefer a Slow Zombie epidemic but the Fact of the Matter is here will also be Fast Zombies.

There are over 30 types of Zombies (Known to exist) There are at least 4 types of fast moving Zombies. 9 types are regular human walking speed and the rest are the Shufflers.

Hang on, did I read that correctly? 30 types? "Known to exist"?" Are they mutating? All the world needs now is X-zombies? If the fast ones have adamantium claws and anger management problems, give me the slow ones any day, thank you very much.

minidazzler

It started out with a Virus Strain. That was the Original slow type of stupid Zombies.

The Strain many times as it touched different creatures which was a natural evolution.

Then in 1975 at the height of the Cold War, The Americans and the Russians were experimenting with the Strains and came up with new ones. (Hense the Now Fast Zombies.)

It was technically an accident by both of them but I feel it could have been avoided.

There are many strains but there are not too many actual zombies in the Western world. but the numbers are growing.

There are the Zombies that come about due to Parasites that enter the Blood and the spinal colume and many more types.

None have come to the level of Human yet let alone super human but I feel it may only be a matter of time before we have Sentient undead beings on our hands.

robby^5

The way I see it is that if it was a virus situation and not reanimated corpses, then for at least a few weeks they'd be able to move relatively fast... I'd assume that with time they're bodies would degrade.

Fast zombies certainly do make for an epic outbreak anyway.

rferguson

SDooM wrote: »

They both should be watched. Trust no zom.

damn straight!!!!

6th

Thread needs poll!

Roen

I have to go with fast zombies too....but slowing down with time.

I mean if the virus has had enough time to act, but not so much time as to actually start decomposition then surely the zombie would have enough muscle mass to be able to put in a burst of speed.
They all end up shambling messes after a while though whether they're fast in the beginning or no.

rferguson

Romero (the original zombie movie maker) states that zombies are and should be portrayed slow

Here is the link


"Horror director George A Romero reveals why he made his latest zombie film - and why the undead can't run.


Romero made the original Night of the Living Dead in 1968
When it comes to zombie movies, there is no man more revered than George A Romero.

Made for just $100,000 in black-and-white, his 1968 film Night of the Living Dead became a cult classic that spawned an entire genre.

It also generated four sequels, the latest of which, Diary of the Dead, is released in the UK this week.

Laden with gore, blood and apocalyptic doom, Romero's work is not for the faint-hearted.

Alongside the carnage, though, the 68-year-old director presents a telling and often satirical commentary on American society, culture and politics.

"All these films have been motivated by observations of what is happening out there in the world," he explains.

Paranoia

"If you look at the films in sequence, they reflect 40 years of what was happening in North America."

In 1978's Dawn of the Dead, for example, the shopping mall setting enabled Romero to allude to the dangers of rampant, soulless consumerism.


Diary of the Dead continues the series' tradition of gory horror
Land of the Dead's vision of a US metropolis under siege, meanwhile, can be read as a parable about America's post-9/11 isolationism and paranoia.

So what was the thinking behind Diary of the Dead, which follows a group of film students documenting a zombie attack?

"I wanted to do something about emerging media," says the director, citing the phenomenal success of video sharing website YouTube.

"All of a sudden we're all somehow electronically connected to one another."

Diary, of course, is not the only picture this year to present its escalating horror from the point of view of a camera-wielding observer.

Monopoly

Recent monster epic Cloverfield utilised a similar technique, while Brian De Palma's upcoming film Redacted - about US soldiers stationed in Iraq - is entirely made up of so-called "found footage".

"We thought we were going to be the first ones out there," says Romero.


The film follows a group of students filming a zombie outbreak
"But now we have to settle for being part of a trend. I guess there must be some sort of a collective subconscious."

Some critics have been less than kind about his latest effort, though that has not stopped the director putting a follow-up into development.

Suggest he has the artistic monopoly on this bleak horror sub-genre, though, and he is quick to demur.

"My work is my work, and I don't particularly care what other people are doing," he says.


"But I certainly don't think of my films as being more pure than the others."

On one matter, however, he is prepared to take a stand - the vexed question on whether zombies can run.

Stereotype

It all started with 2002 British movie 28 Days Later, in which a mystery virus turned people into shrieking, sprinting banshees.

The zombies in the Dawn of the Dead remake of 2004 were no less active - an acquired characteristic Romero, who did not direct the film, has strong opinions about.


Horror film Cloverfield employed a similar subjective technique
"Zombies don't run," he states firmly. "They can't! Their ankles would snap.

"What did they do - wake from the dead and immediately join a health club? I don't get it."

Aficionados will be happy to hear that the zombies in Diary of the Dead conform to the usual shuffling, stumbling stereotype.

It will also no doubt tickle them that Romero has taken pains to devise new and inventive ways of despatching them.

"Every time I do one of these, I spend all my time in the shower thinking how I'm going to knock these guys off," he laughs.

"That's where the applause comes from in my films - good zombie kills!" "

hotspur

Zombies that run fast are just slightly stupider British footballers out on a Saturday night. The real dread of zombies for me since I was scarred for life seeing by Dawn of the Dead when I was 12 is the sheer number of them. The horror comes from the slow overwhelming inevitability of their numbers getting you. If you're gonna make them fast you might as well just make them scumbags from Tallaght.

Beanstalk

'Fast zombies' don't sound right, zombies are supposed to be slow, but yeah the fast dudes in 28 days/weeks later and the new dawn on the dead freaked the hell outta me...

Maybe they just shouldn't be called zombies if they're fast....

Although, at least with fast zombies, if you were stuck at a dead end with a hoard of bearing down on you, it'd be over quickly......

passive

Hmm... The explanation in the zombie survival guide was that they *can* run when initially infected, but don't tire, prioritise when to run or know to stop when out of breath as we do, so tear the **** out of their muscles and after a couple of sprints are reduced to shuffling... Seems logical enough.

I too find the 28 days/weeks & new Dawn of the Dead zombies frightening as ****, but am always a little annoyed that they sprint psychotically faster than a random sample of humans who got infected with a disease could possibly run...