Zombies: Your thoughts?

[Porygon-2000]

No one will argue that the zombie apocalypse has cemented itself in popular culture at present. From games, to literature and television and film, the horde has shambles its way into popular culture.
However, I want to know what everyone else thinks about this trend. How do you feel about, in a general way, zombies. Now, this could be in regards to anything, like common narrative characteristics, to how zombies are portrayed, or to how you feel about the plain old meta-cultural spread of the undead.

Personally, I don't care for zombies particularly. There are two main reasons for my own dislike. First, is the fact that, to me, each and every story follows the same narrative pattern with the same largely predictable outcome (zombies emerge, nom on civilization, despair and gloom for everything left, The End.)

The second point that turns me off is how zombies are almost always given certain, sue-ish qualities in order to maintain their own feasibility, which really gets jarring for me (I think the right term is suspension of disbelief or something). Why do the zombies go for the uninfected when they have all that yummy horde to feast on? They know better, because of their zombie urges. Why did the body that created the virus not have a containment plan, or an antidote if anything like an outbreak happened? They didn't and can't, 'cos they're zombies! How could the horde survive to traverse the planet, despite all the myriad ecological and environmental hazards to themselves? ZOMBIES! Really, this line of fundamental questions gets in the way for me, and outs me off the genre entirely.

But anyway, that's just my (unusually large) opinion. Thats not to say my mind is closed on it all. If anyone can recommend a good zombie story that looks at what I said above, I'd be happy to check it out.

And that's my piece. Now, what does everyone else think? Feel free to interpret and/or demolish my reasoning if you want.

 

[ott615]

I find zombies one of the most intresting "monsters" in games and movies. There is one thing that I hate about how they are portrayed: When will producers realize that zombies don't have any flowing blood? If you shoot a zombie, there shouldn't be a splash of blood.

 

[Flippincrazy]

Zombies are a great outlet for violent/psychopathic energy. Take Left4Dead. As a player you get to mow down hordes and hordes of ex-humans and call yourself actions moral and even heroic. Genius.

On a more serious note, I quite like zombie outbreaks as settings for games and the likes as I feel that they have a great capacity for emotional drama. Whilst in the majority of recent games this has not really occurred, that just means there's still a lot of evolution to be had in the genre. I do love games like Left 4 Dead, but a more story driven zombie game would be pretty cool.

 

[Phlakes]

When they're done right, they can be great movies/games/whatever. Just look at Shaun of the Dead, 28 Days Later, and both L4Ds.

EDIT: Also, GTA 5 needs zombie DLC.

 

[Porygon-2000]

Okay, judging by the responses so far, people like zombies because they make a pretty good target. Fair enough. Its just the ubiquitousness (ooh, look at my fancy words) of the premise, and the fact that i'm supposed to back the guy who chooses the most head-to-shotgun method of getting what he wants, against who is still (arguably) old man Jenkins, who gave him a dollar to mow lawns or something. I didn't say my reasons were the right reasons, just how I feel.

 

[Nickolai77]

I couple of years ago i loved the whole zombie thing, but now i am pretty bored and sick of it tbh. Can't we have some new monsters?

Aliens, robots, necromorphs perhaps?

 

[Sylocat]

Personally, I think zombies were fairly boring even BEFORE they got so ubiquitous that it is now pretty much mandatory to have zombie-related DLC in every fucking game on the planet.

Every fucking zombie game follows one of two formulas: Defend a very badly designed house from an onslaught that is conveniently just strong enough to break through some predetermined entry points, or mow down a horde that has conveniently placed itself in ascending order of strength. There is nothing more to be wrought from them. They are played out.

The only good zombie movies are ones that satirize the genre, such as Shaun of the Dead or Zombieland. Everything else is played out to the point of unbearable tedium.

 

[Raddra]

The second point that turns me off is how zombies are almost always given certain, sue-ish qualities

My favourite one of these is the 'omg they don't decay so we can keep zombie threat forever!'

I was discussing zombies elsewhere and when I brought up that the zombie threat would largely destroy itself over the course of a few years through natural decay and cellular damage, a few people jumped up in the thread saying 'zombies don't decay because of 'the virus' so you can't wait them out!' which I found fairly ridiculous.

Zombies are dead shambling corpses, they don't heal and they decay. To say that they don't decay over time is to deny the one of the principle fundamental laws of the universe: entropy.

Its one thing that I don't quite get about L4D, they aren't zombies and the infected evidently don't take care of themselves. They would all be dead within a few days from dehydration.

 

[DragonFae]

I never really got the whole zombie thing. First, they always seem to be brainless, so how can they move around? And why do they go after people? Why not plants or animals? And what's with the whole wanting to eat brains thing? And the shuffling walk they do. Most zombies are shown to have fairly intact bodies, so shouldn't they walk normally?

 

[loodmoney]

Fun thought before I dive into theoretical rubbish: ever notice how, when people plan for the zombie apocalypse, they only plan to be human--despite the assumption that the chances of being a zombie are much greater? Shouldn't it be the other way around?

I find the zombie fascination strange, if not disturbing. Science fiction monsters are most interesting if they can be used to say something about us. See Frankenstein's monster, werewolves, &c. Zombies, on the other hand, rarely have this quality any more (Dawn of the Dead being one of the exceptional cases). So that is disappointing, given the potential of zombies to be used to reflect on society.

On the other hand, our fascination with zombies does say something about us. Namely, that we are disgusting. We feel the need to kill things that are human-like, yet (through no fault of their own) have had their humanity taken from them. We are punishing creatures for things they could not be held accountable for (and "punish" is the right word, if you look at what you do to them in the Dead Rising games). We are incredibly closed-minded, as we find zombies to be horrible, despite not knowing anything about them. We think that the best solution to resource problems is to kill the weak, diseased, disempowered, or homeless (South Park got this last one right) before they drag us down to become one of them.

Or not, this is all very much an interpretation. It does seem that we are not using zombies deliberately though, which is a damn shame.

 

[Not PvP Flagged]

Meh, all I know is that we need a zombie apocalypse to get rid of a good chunk of dumbasses.
Of course saying that I'd probably be one of the first to be zombified.

 

[Neverhoodian]

I don't care for the movies, but zombies are fine in games where they're little more than squishy targets to shoot/stab/bludgeon/etc. Nothing says stress relief like bashing your way through a sea of zombies in Dead Rising 2.

I do think the premise is rather silly though, mostly for reasons stated already in the previous posts. If they're the "shambling corpse" variety, they'd eventually fall apart on their own due to decomposition. If they're the "insane viral infection" variety, their inability to attend to basic physical needs would end up killing them anyway. Of course I'm willing to suspend my disbelief, but the sheer implausibility factor does hit me from time to time.

 

[Tortoiseloz]

If zombies were real, what would stop them remembering that they were once human?
No game has ever touched on that and all my friends are like "When the zombie apocalypse happens lets all get trucks, guns, food and a couple of girls" and Im just there like "Dude, if the dead rose 1. they would remember stuff and 2. they would be underground." "No Im talking disease zombies."
How come disease zombies are different from necromantic zombies or just the pissed off dead people zombies
and why are they all hungry? wouldn't they need a working belly to do that?

oh and in a zombie apocalypse I would go crazy and probably end up killing myself because thats what a lot of people would do
unless they're realistic zombies, then I would wonder if zomies fight eachother because murder victims will kill they're murderers and then the zombie victim would come back as a zombie and try to kill that zombie

Head hurts from zombie talk, must eat brains...

 

[DropHouse]

Well given my close proximity to a graveyard, zomibies are not so much a cool part of game and film culture (although the ones from I am Legend were seriously groovy!) they are a constant threat and one that we have to take particularly seriously especially during full moons, thunderstorms and other arcane days. We are the ones that will be sacrificing ourselves holding back the initial hordes with are bare fists and teeth while you all have time to prepare and grab your torches, pitchforks, chainsaws and all other fun zombie shredding tools.

All we ask is that when humanity is reduced to naught but a fraction of what it is today you will remember us

 

[Layz92]

I really don't like zombies, they are just dull. That being said other undead would be cool to replace. Wights, Shades, Skeletons and Wraiths would be acceptable replacements (vampires used to be an option).

 

[Dorkamongus]

I think that many of the characteristics of zombies originated from when people thought that they were magically animated and controlled. Back then, the only way to kill them was you couldn't, just chop them to bits so they couldn't do anything. Or burn them... I suppose that's one way to kill them. It's also where you get the fact that they don't decompose, move slowly, and only target alive humans: Because of magic, and someone else is controlling them. Then, to make it more "realistic", many people now think of zombies as being created by some virus or the like. Some things change, like you CAN kill them IF you target the brain, but many characteristics that make them "zombies" were just carried over from the "Magic" phase to the "Virus" phase, with little to no explanations other than, "because they're zombies". Personally, If they really were changed by a virus, and not a human, I would believe that they would decompose, they'd be able to move somewhat faster, and they'd go after each other as much as anything else that moved.