Zombie Cliché Lookout: Explanations
Sometimes, people do some strange stuff. Actually, let me refine that. Frequently, people do strange things, but sometimes there’s actually an explanation, or at least a reason behind these actions. Granted, the explanation might not stand up to scrutiny, and the reasoning might not be entirely logically sound, but it’s better than nothing, right?
In zombie movies, the classic example is a character seemingly pointing a gun at another character, only to shoot a zombie in the background.
And then there are the more complicated misunderstandings and explanations. Take, for instance, Cooper attempting to move the TV in the original Night of the Living Dead. To Ben, and likely to the audience as a whole, Cooper appeared to be stealing the television so he could have it in the basement, but after it was smashed in a scuffle, Cooper screamed that the TV wouldn’t even work in the basement.
Was Cooper telling the truth, or was he just spinning lies in the face of conflict? It’s hard to say.
Discussion Question: Transmitting the Zombie Disease
Different zombie stories use different means to transmit zombitus. The two classic ways are:
- Everyone is infected, and will reanimate when they die unless their brain is destroyed
- Victims are infected by being bitten
Of course, there are other ways. In some stories, the disease is airborne and the only living people left have some sort of natural immunity. Others an be infected by something as minor as a scratch.
How do you like your zombie stories to spread the undead plague?
Other News
Since several of you guys said you’d be up for filling out a brief survey, I’ll be putting one together this week. You can expect the link pimped out on either Friday’s comic, or Monday’s, depending on how quickly I can get it done.
I like stories where the hero is immune to the virus, but all of his/her companions are prone to becoming part of the infected.
I like that convention for games, but in books and movies I think it robs some of the tension. If people can’t get infected at any time, there isn’t as much at stake.
Zombies dont just infect you they also eat you entirely. Example Shane and Otis in season 2 when getting the supplies from the school.
now, if only they made a game where once you were bitten/turned, your goals changed, like if you get the infection, you keep on killin the undead til you turn, then you try to kill you former team-mates that would be fun.
I like the traditional bite, but sometimes a bite will not transform someone who’s strong eough to fight it (though they will inevitably become a zombie before the end. This is especially useful sicne it means even the main hero could be infected but have fought it off until the very end, when someone needs to destroy his brain before he turns.
I tend to favor the traditional bite as well, although I also enjoy the “Everyone is already infected, the bite just kills them” angle. Either way works for me, really.
I like the “everyone is already infected” angle too. Death is only the beginning. lol
And to amp up the creep factor, make sure you say that last part in Latin.
Mors solum initium est! rawr!
There you go! Everything is creepier/more epic in Latin.
I like whichever one I can intellectually process without getting caught up in the contrived jumpiness and anxiety. That’s right: I’m just not someone for horror films. “Buffy” is as close as I’ve gotten, in all honesty.
Buffy is pretty damn awesome though, so at least you’ve got good taste.
+1 Buffy fan here!
If only Buffy had to fight zombies… btw, I heard there was a movie scheduled for 2012.
There’s an episode of Buffy where Xander dealt with some zombies/animated corpses. But they weren’t the shambling ones got bite everyone.
I’m leery on the movie, but will wait to see what it’s like.
Yeah I seem to remember the zombie episode. It wasn’t perfect, but it was zombies and it was Buffy, so I loved it.
I have heard nothing but good things about Buffy..
need to see if NF carries it streaming
I need to figure out a boiled-down rewatching schedule, if only because it’s so epic and there’s only so much time. I saw very little of the first three seasons, as it took until I married a Buffy fan before season four that I really got to watch it.
It was streaming on NF last time I checked.
We should rewatch it at some point. Perhaps skipping the last season or two.
Well, unless Sam can get turned into a zombie from bellybutton lint, he certainly doesn’t look as if he’s been bitten yet! 😀
I wonder how heavy that blow on his head was? Anything hard enough to knock him out has to leave some kind of bruising where he was hit. I wonder what their explanation for that will be? 😀
It was so heavy he doesn’t even realize the 48 hours are almost up.
48 Hours? This is going to be a long comic…
It already is a long comic!
Touche’!
Hey I think I actually found the comic playing your minigame on a free zombie game website and liked Legos and followed the link back to here lolz 😀
Neat! My Choose Your Own Adventure game brings in fans!
ok, I know the topic is how to get infected… but it got me thinking about virus progression:
I like a slow infection… the type that gives plenty of time to the infected to realize that they are screwed, it also gives people a chance to perform one last act of bravery… remember the camera guy in the comic, nobody remembers his name but we all enjoyed the “chainsaw finale”…
…
That being said, a fast virus is also cool – remember in “28 weeks later” how the guy gets infected when a drop of blood falls into his eye? That was a great moment.
I tend to prefer the slow-acting virus too. It builds tension, especially when the virus affects different people at different rates. One guy might turn in a day, another might last three, while the third is munching on his buddies inside an hour.
I love how you say “munching on his buddies” lolz 😛
That is my fav zombie movie even though they are not really zombies and they are fast. Scared the holy crap out of me and was the first one that really made me think about the ZA.
Both infection speeds are great. Slow gives you time to really think about what is going to happen to you. The fast gives you no time at all so you gotta be on your toes ALWAYS. No second chances.
28 Days Later is one of the few zombie flicks I can convince my wife to watch with me.
scares her?
Yeah. They freak her right out.
Hmmmm….. I think it all depends on the story being told and how plausible it comes across plus the author being consistent.
If I wrote a zombie story, I like the idea of a bite being what transmits the disease after of course say… radiation, virus spreading (the survivors of the initial wave were immune but now have to deal with the mutated form that is more virulent), bad food. The whole we don’t know how it started is a bit too nebulous. I’d like to know or have a sense the author knows even if they’re not telling or just are dropping clues so readers can figure out.
I seem to remember reading a story about people who were initially immune but not had to worry about mutated strains. It’s a really cool tweak on the way infection works.
Personally I kind of like the combo of the two. Something occurs to start raising those who are dead, the initial surge. I like this because there are dead people everywhere, in my immediate area there are roughly 3 cemetarys, lots of dead could rise then. Afterwards the idea of the bite carrying some virus/contagion element is great to me, because you get moments like Yatkuu mentioned, those heroic moments. You also get the flip-side, those moments where someone purposefully bites someone else while still coherent enough to know they are passing on this malady.
I think it gives for the ability to have crazy moments, or quiet deadly moments which just build on tension/drama.
That’s an interesting take, Tom. Thanks!
I might write a book one day about a guy surviving in the zombie apocalypse but he’s recently bitten and has very little time left.
That’s a great short story premise. Might be hard to stretch into novel length, but totally doable.
Makes me wonder, let yourself turn or kill yourself?
A very doable variation on that would be he has some kind of incurable disease which has very similar symptoms to the zombie outbreak, and for a while he is confusing the two! Could drag it on for quite a ways if done properly! 😀
And the liberal use of flashbacks and dream sequences.
Romero’s films and the Walking Dead comic use the “everyone is infected” approach while Max Brooks, the Dawn remake and the Walking Dead TV show (it would seem) use the “spread by a bite” approach. Much as I enjoy these more recent stories, I vastly prefer the classic Romero approach as it allows for the rising of the dead to be a non-localized event.
I loved the way The Walking Dead comic introduced the “everyone is infected” thing. It was awesome and unexpected.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ma8l5udOlvc&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZLDHmUexsI&feature=related
WWZ Coming along nicely, Zombies are runners though…