Who's who in zombies

Another slightly late post. Today I am not reviewing a movie but doing a discussion. We have often looked at zombies and clumped them together as one type of creature, just something that comes back from the grave and kills. This is the one assumption that pisses me off to no end. Some people try to say they are all the same and that when you have seen one zombie movie you have seen them all. They could not be more wrong.

First let me talk about the feel of some of the movies. Some zombie movies have the horror feel where you would say "no, don't open the door!" or maybe you would be thinking of how shocking it was that the dead were rising from the grave. Some movies are just based around the feeling of horror and don't focus on any other factors. There are some zombie movies that focus on only gore and blood. These are fun and all but never very deep in story or feel, we see this in Dead Alive (A.K.A. Braindead). We have action zombie movies like House of the Dead where they seem to be slowly moving targets with very squishy and jelly filled heads. This kind of movie is purely for fun and often has zombies that can somehow die from anything you throw at them in any way. And then we have zomedys like Shaun of the Dead and Zombieland where they have the traditional Romero style zombie but add in a touch of humor to the situations the people go through. I left out some but these are the most popular and well known.

The first kind of zombie that I want to throw out there is the first kind that was ever talked about in the media and was put into practice supposedly in various places in the world, the voodoo zombie. These are not flesh craving creatures in any way. Instead they are human beings that look much as they did during their life. They are victims of a type of mind control from brain damage to a certain extent despite the claims of magic controlling them. We first see these in the 1932 White Zombie (maybe I'll review that next week so I have an excuse to watch it ^_^).



Next, in no particular order, is the brain eating zombie of Return of the Living Dead. These zombies are very special in regards to their craving. They want brains. Not flesh, not blood, just brains. And they are smart enough to set traps in order to get them. They can run and move as quickly as they need. And they are appearently stronger than normal humans as we see in some cases where they can simply rip people apart effortlessly. Probably the most dangerous kind of zombie because they are smart enough to learn. Sure some zombies are faster but none are smarter than these. And nothing can really kill them short of a bomb. A shot to the head only makes them cry and a little more hungry, chopping off their legs will make them run toward you separate from the body in a Monty Python scenario. Perfect yet funny killing machines.



And of course the moment you have been waiting for. The flesh eating zombie that we all know and love that makes us giddy with joy and laughter every time we see a chunk of flesh peel away from a bite. Since 1968 these have been the most commonly used zombies in horror movies. They come in all shapes and sizes but they have a couple of things in common with one another regardless of physical abilities. They are dead...ish, they crave any kind of warm human flesh, they are stupid and live on that basic instinct to feed, they burn well, their bites are contagious(you get bitten you turn into one of them), one shot in the head will kill them, and nothing can ever stop them because they feel no pain or emotion. These are sometimes slow or sometimes fast so its really a hit or miss on how dangerous they are, but a bite is ALWAYS deadly. Thank you to George A. Romero for perfecting them.