How can zombies catch people?

vektarman

This is something that's bothered me for years, if zombies are so slow, how do they manage to catch and kill victims? even the most unfit and overweight person can outrun them quite easily.

javaboy

vektarman wrote: »

This is something that's bothered me for years, if zombies are so slow, how do they manage to catch and kill victims? even the most unfit and overweight person can outrun them quite easily.

You might notice that a lot of recent zombie movies etc. show a fast agile zombie as opposed to the ambling leadfooted undead of yesteryear. It's similar to how dinosaurs used to always be shown as very slow and dumb but now they are usually portrayed as fast and intelligent.

vektarman

Yes that's true, perhaps I've watched Night Of The Living dead etc. too much, although Shaun Of The Dead bucks the modern trend, actually SOTD probably isn't real life anyway....

Zarbon

Shaun of the Dead is good but I suggest watching a serious zombie flick like 28 days/weeks later to base things on.

c - 13

Its not soo much their spped that is the main factor but the sheer number of them will completely overwhelm you.

Alternatively people get over confident becasue of the zombies slow speed and make a stupid mistake that allow them to be caught (Trip, Damage leg etc).

Plus you have to sleep sometime, they dont.

BrokenArrows

its because they are like water. constantly coming till you make a mistake or run out of ammo. Let your guard down...

or as usually happens a woman ****s everything up and the guys try and save her and all die in the process.

robby^5

It's a little less obvious with the shufflers as to how they infect so many people at the beginning, I suppose it'd just depend on where and when the infection breaks out. The ideal situation for shufflers would probably be a large city with a large population on a weekend night (plenty of people out at night)

javaboy

robby^5 wrote: »

It's a little less obvious with the shufflers as to how they infect so many people at the beginning, I suppose it'd just depend on where and when the infection breaks out. The ideal situation for shufflers would probably be a large city with a large population on a weekend night (plenty of people out at night)

Well I'm sure there have been plenty of cases where the first shuffler didn't really do a good job infecting more and the zombification just fizzled out. But they're not likely to make a movie about that time a couple of zombies caused mild dismay in rural New England for about 15 minutes until police and disease control experts brought the situation under control.

Sure you probably don't even hear about 90% of zombie attacks because they come to nothing.

MarkHall

That makes a lot of Sense Javaboy.

Plus all it takes is a bite to end you. They don't even have to hold on to you for that long.
One of my pet peeves in land of the dead was all the mistakes the Zombie hunting team make to get themselfs taken out of it. I mean one even patted a dead man before he chewed on him.

My 2 Cents

This is explained brilliantly in 'World War Z' by Max Brookes. He tells of how infection was spread due to
1. Coming in contact with the infected
2.Black market trafficing of people, some of which were infected and hadn't turned yet
3.Black market trafficing of blood and illegal donor body parts from infected areas (before they knew about the infection)
So its not only down to the shufflers to do all the work.

gino85

sry for the bump

zombies should be slow, if only thier brain is re-animated then most likly thier blood will coagulate and make movment alot difficult for them, main reason for a mass outbrake would be a that we wont know its a zombie outbrake, some will get bitten by what they think is a ''crazy person'' some will just go home and later reanimate and most likly infect thier family, other will go to a hospital and perhaps infect people there, majorty of outbrakes will occure in police stations and hospitals so stay away from those

and most of the time the reason a zombie catches a person is because said person didnt check his/her corners

another think i noticed is i know too much about zombies and stuff

gino85

Zarbon wrote: »

Shaun of the Dead is good but I suggest watching a serious zombie flick like 28 days/weeks later to base things on.

the 28 days/weeks film aint a zombie flick(more like a wannabe flick), the people wee iinfected with the rage virus and went bat s**t insane but the died off in a couple months of starvation, zombies dont need to eat, its just a basic primal urge to feed on what ever they see moving

Doctor DooM

Runners vs lurchers again. Pray for the lurchers.

The above is right, one zombie is relatively easy to handle, a bajillion of them not so.

Roen

The reason they can catch people is that we have to rest and kip eventually.

The average Z can last 4-5 years before they basically erode away enough so that they are no longer a threat.
Try not sleep for 5 years!

Karl Hungus

I think people forget that in a lot of zombie fiction, anyone who dies, even from natural causes, becomes a zombie. Die from a gunshot? Zombie. Have a fatal heart attack? Zombie. Old age? Zombie. See the films of George A. Romero, or the Walking Dead comics for more on this. With that in mind, even if a zombie outbreak was eradicated, there are millions of potential zombies everywhere around the world.

gino85

Karl Hungus wrote: »

I think people forget that in a lot of zombie fiction, anyone who dies, even from natural causes, becomes a zombie. Die from a gunshot? Zombie. Have a fatal heart attack? Zombie. Old age? Zombie. See the films of George A. Romero, or the Walking Dead comics for more on this. With that in mind, even if a zombie outbreak was eradicated, there are millions of potential zombies everywhere around the world.

walking dead is a great comic, had up to issue 50 on my comp before it crash, i uploaded it for ''safe keeping'' so i think i still have the links

Reku

Karl has it bang on the nose, it's not just one zombie showing up and biting a few people, who bite a few more, etc..., it's a mass spawning:
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_world_death_rate_per_minute

107 humans per minute die around the world

1.78 per second
107 per minute
6390 per hour
153 thousand per day

So, although spread out, there will be some areas (e.g. third world or those with a high population density) that will have a more concentrated spawning of zombies, and due to the high concentration it may make it easier for them to catch and infect others.

Then there's also the whole monster shuffle chase effect you see in classic horrors, where the slow and lumbering creature keeps pace simply because the person is panicing and trying every door, making wrong turns and tripping over things.

dresden8

Plus, you have to remember that people have an awful habit of leaving arms and legs dangling out of car doors and windows, staring at a blank wall while there are 20 re-animating corpses rising verrrrrrrrrrrrrrrry slowly behind them and other such it's coming to the end of the movie nonsense.

Remember, keep your arms and legs inside the vehicle and never turn your back on a corpse until there is a very large hole in its head.