Fast zombies

[Witchyjoshy]

Fast zombies...

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

Because despite the fact that Twilight contains no actual werewolves, anything and everything that has werewolves will now be associated with Twilight.

[Igor]

Regarding I Am Legend, I liked it better when it was called The Last Man on Earth and starred Vincent Price.


...gods, that sounds douchey. Really though, they're both adaptations of the same book, and Price's version does it much better. Also I believe they were supposed to actually be vampires, not zombies at all, but the Will Smith movie doesn't do a good job of conveying that. On topic, I think the fast zombie trend is mostly prevalent because filmmakers figure audiences won't find anything slow moving to be all that scary, and they're often right. Not to say it can't be pulled off effectively, it's just that it's rather easy to screw up and fast zombies are easier to make scary.

[Søren]

I like both if done well. La horde and the 38 (technically not zombies, but same effect) did made them terrifying if theres just one running around. And in slow movies like land of the dead, the slow zombies emphasize the effect of a good ol slow steam roll

[Sleepy]

Halloween does a good job of pulling off the slow-moving antagonist. His agonizingly slow pace makes you want to scream at whoever's about to get sliced.

[chitoryu12]

I dunno, slow zombies seem to work fairly well for Walking Dead...

The Walking Dead is mostly a character drama that happens to have zombies. The zombies add action and a threat to the protagonist, but the actual deadliness of the creatures isn't what caused the apocalypse.

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That would be the fact that every single human on Earth is infected and will turn when dead.

[R. U. Sirius]

Halloween does a good job of pulling off the slow-moving antagonist. His agonizingly slow pace makes you want to scream at whoever's about to get sliced.

Myers' pace is what annoys me most whenever I stop for two seconds to think about it. TVTropes' "offscreen teleportation" may as well be named "Michael Myers Movement". The movies always seem to show him getting places much faster than his onscreen pace would indicate.

I agree that with chitoryu about what makes the Walking Dead zombies effectively scary. In fact, to my mind, that's the only way slow zombies would become a believable threat at all.

[wrightway]

I will say I have seen a lot of suspenseful, well done slow zombie movies. And a lot of trashy fast zombie movies. As well as there are bad slow and good fast depending on where you're looking. Speed does equal suspense, and I feel a lot of fast zombie movies traded their plot for cheap gore.

Again, fogie.

[Witchyjoshy]

I think slow zombies would be a lot scarier if they were nigh-invincible and nigh-unstoppable (in short, you can't really even do any damage to them without something specific, and very little can actually slow down their momentum.)

Basically, if you get even VAGUELY cornered, you're fucked.

[R. U. Sirius]

I'd like to see someone do something that I read about in the book "Zombie CSI". Whatever the vector, when the body first reanimates, it's a fast zombie, assuming it didn't die of something that caused massive muscle or bone trauma. Then, as time progresses, decomposition sets in, and it slows down more and more.

THAT, I think, could make a cool story and a plausible way to include both types in the same setting.

[chitoryu12]

I'd like to see someone do something that I read about in the book "Zombie CSI". Whatever the vector, when the body first reanimates, it's a fast zombie, assuming it didn't die of something that caused massive muscle or bone trauma. Then, as time progresses, decomposition sets in, and it slows down more and more.

THAT, I think, could make a cool story and a plausible way to include both types in the same setting.

The way I designed my GURPS virus is that it has multiple levels of infection that are determined based on near-innumerable factors at the time of infection and during the week-long incubation period. A full infection creates a shambler that's slow and downright idiotic, but extremely durable to damage (bodily damage can still kill it, but you'll want a headshot or decapitation to make it fast). A "fast zombie" is made when the infection only partially works, leaving the person with more of their human characteristics and giving them animalistic intelligence and their full speed and strength. However, they're also much more vulnerable to damage.

Scientifically, the 28 Days Later style is the most probable: a disease that simply drives the victim into a massive rage against every living thing they see. The problem with this kind of "zombie" is that the infected is not granted any special resilience. While they may have the classic resistance to pain that allows them to ignore otherwise fatal injuries until their body literally cannot operate any more, they're still vulnerable to infected wounds or disease, dehydration and starvation, blood loss, organ failure, hypothermia and heatstroke, and everything else that kills mundane humans. The dehydration is the biggest problem, as there's no guarantee that these infected will actually eat and drink. If they don't, they'll be dead within 3 days.

[Sleepy]

Halloween does a good job of pulling off the slow-moving antagonist. His agonizingly slow pace makes you want to scream at whoever's about to get sliced.

Myers' pace is what annoys me most whenever I stop for two seconds to think about it. TVTropes' "offscreen teleportation" may as well be named "Michael Myers Movement". The movies always seem to show him getting places much faster than his onscreen pace would indicate.

I think that happens a decent bit more in later movies, but I don't think it's in the first one, which is what I was referring to. Either way, people who watch a horror movie are looking for fear, not complete realism, and that delivers.

[Saturn500]

I'm more curious about what the deal is with our zombie obsession. I mean, come on, if it has zombies in it, it will sell by the truckload! What's up with that?

[R. U. Sirius]

Dude, it's obvious. The biggest religion in the country revolves around a guy who raised the dead, told his followers to eat his flesh and blood, then came back from the dead himself. Do the math!

Tangent: I once read a neat horror story about Lazarus post-resurrection. He was actually just a walking corpse...rotting and everything.

[Zygarde]

It probably stems from our weird fear of death and how the idea of the dead walking is bolth scary/cool also zombies tend to be easier to kill in droves since they are you know dead. (This is purely speculation of a 17 year old with no training in any filed except music and some minor forms of biology)

[Radiation]

Well, if zombies can dance...



Then they can move fast