Author Topic: Fast zombies  (Read 9967 times)

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wrightway

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Fast zombies
« on: June 20, 2013, 01:55:16 pm »
I know it's a tiny pet peeve, but what the fuck is up with fast zombies?! I'm trying to psyche myself up for World War Z and the fast, almost smart, zombies are pissing me off. Like the Dawn of the Dead remake. It's a good movie but something about fast zombies makes me want to flip the TV off.

Offline R. U. Sirius

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Re: Fast zombies
« Reply #1 on: June 20, 2013, 02:01:23 pm »
The problem with slow zombies is that they're only a real threat in large numbers. If you're faced with only one or two, there's no horror or challenge, because all you need is a baseball bat, or even to just walk away at a moderate pace. It's only when their numbers swell to the hundreds or thousands that they become a real threat, because then they can surround you, and their combined weight and force can overwhelm any barricades you put up.

Fast zombies, by contrast, are a threat even singly, even to groups of people. A single fast zombie can infect a small group of people all on its own, unless they're able to coordinate quickly and efficiently enough. Even then, it's likely that at least one or two will end up going down.

That being said, while I'm looking forward to World War Z, I really wish they had kept the format of the book, with slow zombies and telling different stories of the war in a series of flashbacks, as well as how people adapt to the new world where zombies, though greatly reduced in number, are still an ongoing threat.
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Offline Dakota Bob

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Re: Fast zombies
« Reply #2 on: June 20, 2013, 02:12:36 pm »
We've had decades of slow, easy to out-run zombies. The only way to keep them scary is teach them new tricks.

wrightway

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Re: Fast zombies
« Reply #3 on: June 20, 2013, 03:00:42 pm »
I think that's part of my problem. Fast zombies are an instant threat that is immediately treated as serious. I couldn't see fast zombies hitting epidemic level because no one would laugh them off or try to antropomorphize them. It's instant recognition of a dangerous predator, something humans are hardwired to deal with. An outbreak of fast zombies would be the two day wet dream of every gun nut in the infected area.

Slow zombies pacify us. They're instantly disregarded as a threat. Unless there's a herd of them the average person assumes a bat or crowbar is all you need. The calm before the Great Panic in World War Z? They're also easier to empathize with. A slow zombie brings up images of an uninfected, yet injured, human.

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Re: Fast zombies
« Reply #4 on: June 20, 2013, 03:48:48 pm »
WWZ spoilers ahead:

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Offline Old Viking

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Re: Fast zombies
« Reply #5 on: June 20, 2013, 05:49:15 pm »
I favor the traditional zombies.  They remind of my beer-drinking days in college.
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Re: Fast zombies
« Reply #6 on: June 20, 2013, 06:51:18 pm »
I think slow zombies work better in books than films nowadays, except in extremely campy films.
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Offline chitoryu12

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Re: Fast zombies
« Reply #7 on: June 20, 2013, 07:14:13 pm »
The problem is that slow zombies have lost believability. We need to believe that not only can the zombies be a threat (if only in numbers), but that the virus can spread in ways that make those huge numbers possible. The stereotypical zombie (spreads through bites or direct fluid contact, shambling, must be decapitated or suffer brain damage to kill) simply isn't a threat in a modern world, especially in a nation where millions have guns and are perfectly willing to use them. Not to mention that pop culture has inundated us with zombies so much that an actual, confirmed zombie apocalypse would likely be rather quickly squashed.

Fast zombies make for a better individual threat, both as a danger and as a vector for infection. However, I'm working on a GURPS campaign that aims for a very realistic take on the zombie apocalypse and involves multiple types of zombies. The vector I chose for the infection was a mass terrorist attack involving infecting blood banks, water supplies, and the like with the zombie virus in mass amounts so that there would be a near-simultaneous transformation of hundreds of millions of people into zombies with no warning. But the old setup of a Patient Zero that somehow spreads the virus rapidly just can't work today.
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QueenofHearts

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Re: Fast zombies
« Reply #8 on: June 20, 2013, 07:37:11 pm »
Don't forget about those zombie things in "I Am Legend." Those fuckers were running up walls.

Offline chitoryu12

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Re: Fast zombies
« Reply #9 on: June 20, 2013, 09:18:12 pm »
I'm an old fogie and I'm not even thirty. It happens.

The creatures in I Am Legend were more vampires than anything.

The creatures in the I Am Legend film were more EVERYTHING than anything. It's like they couldn't decide between vampires, zombies, and generic humanoid monsters/mutants and just slapped together some sort of vague creature.
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Re: Fast zombies
« Reply #10 on: June 20, 2013, 09:27:22 pm »
I'm an old fogie and I'm not even thirty. It happens.

The creatures in I Am Legend were more vampires than anything.

The creatures in the I Am Legend film were more EVERYTHING than anything. It's like they couldn't decide between vampires, zombies, and generic humanoid monsters/mutants and just slapped together some sort of vague creature.

I agree. This especially annoyed me at the end as they abandoned every pretense of intelligence the creatures had been showing, in favor of mindless zerg rush tactics.
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wrightway

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Re: Fast zombies
« Reply #11 on: June 20, 2013, 09:33:03 pm »
I'm an old fogie and I'm not even thirty. It happens.

The creatures in I Am Legend were more vampires than anything.

The creatures in the I Am Legend film were more EVERYTHING than anything. It's like they couldn't decide between vampires, zombies, and generic humanoid monsters/mutants and just slapped together some sort of vague creature.

I agree. This especially annoyed me at the end as they abandoned every pretense of intelligence the creatures had been showing, in favor of mindless zerg rush tactics.

The alternative ending  where the creature just wants the stolen female back made more sense.

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Re: Fast zombies
« Reply #12 on: June 21, 2013, 12:26:03 am »
I'm an old fogie and I'm not even thirty. It happens.

The creatures in I Am Legend were more vampires than anything.

The creatures in the I Am Legend film were more EVERYTHING than anything. It's like they couldn't decide between vampires, zombies, and generic humanoid monsters/mutants and just slapped together some sort of vague creature.

I agree. This especially annoyed me at the end as they abandoned every pretense of intelligence the creatures had been showing, in favor of mindless zerg rush tactics.

The most annoying part of that movie for me was the way Will Smith had his UV light defenses set up. Standing them away from the house and pointing them at the walls, well, we all saw how well that worked out for him. How the last remaining survivor on earth didn't think to have the lights right up against the walls of his house and pointing outwards is utterly beyond me.

Offline Askold

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Re: Fast zombies
« Reply #13 on: June 21, 2013, 01:57:23 am »
Fast zombies...

If you want humanlike monsters that move in swarms and rush at you from the darkness why not just use werewolves?

Or do like when 28days after had the "zombies" be merely living people made mindlessly enraged by a virus. Because, if you are going to have literally undead zombies then it better be because of "magic." Having a virus bring the dead back to life as rotting, moving, corpses is a bit too much for my suspension of disbelief. (I'm looking at you Resident evil.)
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Re: Fast zombies
« Reply #14 on: June 21, 2013, 03:41:26 am »
I dunno, slow zombies seem to work fairly well for Walking Dead...
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