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It doesn't matter if it is Zombies or infection to me. We don;t get enough zombie flicks as it is, so I try my best to enjoy all of them even if a few are a bit stupid.

I really don't like it when a zombie crawls on a ceiling, but the fast movers don't bother me too much.

Some favorites:

Night of the Living Dead (1968)
White Zombie (1932) Started it all, needs respect!
Dawn of the Dead (1978) Romero at his best.
28 Days Later… (2002) Sure it is an infection, but it still sits next to my other zombie movies on my shelf.
Re-Animator (1985) (extra points for being a Lovecraft flick)
Zombie Lake (1981) (Precursor to Dead Snow)
Dead Snow (2009)
Day of the Dead (1985)
Army of Darkness (1993)
Dead Alive (a.k.a. Braindead , 1992) Five gallons of fake blood per scene? Nice!)

Heck I will stop there or I will end up listing all of them. It has to be really bad for me to not like them. "Zombie Strippers" bad.

Moopy wrote:

Sasori wrote:No one here liked 28 Days later? that was one of my favorite Zombie movies.

As stated in my first post, 28 Days later is NOT a zombie film, it's an infection film. The Rage virus drove people crazy, but they weren't dead. Hell, most of the infected starved to death in the end of the first film.

The only reason it got "zombie" attached to it was because marketers didn't know how to do their job.

Thats your definition, and its wrong. Most people include such as well.

Remember, real zombie cases are not caused by that whole death thing, but poisoning and permanent nerve damage.

Frazzled wrote:

Moopy wrote:

Sasori wrote:No one here liked 28 Days later? that was one of my favorite Zombie movies.

As stated in my first post, 28 Days later is NOT a zombie film, it's an infection film. The Rage virus drove people crazy, but they weren't dead. Hell, most of the infected starved to death in the end of the first film.

The only reason it got "zombie" attached to it was because marketers didn't know how to do their job.

Thats your definition, and its wrong. Most people include such as well.

Remember, real zombie cases are not caused by that whole death thing, but poisoning and permanent nerve damage.

That is pretty much why I consider it a zombie movie. Zombies don't have to be "undead". They can be mindless human beings or a person entranced state.

Lord Scythican wrote:

Frazzled wrote:

Moopy wrote:

Sasori wrote:No one here liked 28 Days later? that was one of my favorite Zombie movies.

As stated in my first post, 28 Days later is NOT a zombie film, it's an infection film. The Rage virus drove people crazy, but they weren't dead. Hell, most of the infected starved to death in the end of the first film.

The only reason it got "zombie" attached to it was because marketers didn't know how to do their job.

Thats your definition, and its wrong. Most people include such as well.

Remember, real zombie cases are not caused by that whole death thing, but poisoning and permanent nerve damage.

That is pretty much why I consider it a zombie movie. Zombies don't have to be "undead". They can be mindless human beings or a person entranced state.

Hmm..While I do make distinctions between Zombies ( Reanimated Dead who eat the living) and Infected ( Human who have contracted some sort of virus which causes them to behave in an insanely homicidal manner.),I do see many simalarites between the two types of films ( Human population dwindleing, Bite spreading infection,argueing/animosity amongst survivors causing eventual break down of structure,outside=Death..and so on) to consider both types f film very closely related...so much in fact that the diferances hardly matter once the blood starts to fly.

FITZZ wrote: very closely related...so much in fact that the differences hardly matter once the blood starts to fly.

That is the truth of it. Though I am having trouble coming up with something similar. Sort of like comparing Martians to Aliens maybe?. Even that isn't a good enough comparison.

Lord Scythican wrote:

FITZZ wrote: very closely related...so much in fact that the differences hardly matter once the blood starts to fly.

That is the truth of it. Though I am having trouble coming up with something similar. Sort of like comparing Martians to Aliens maybe?. Even that isn't a good enough comparison.

Vampires to Sucubi maybe?

This is better:
http://www.zombiepodcast.com/The_Zombie_Podcast/WereAliveEpisodes.html

FITZZ wrote:

Lord Scythican wrote:

FITZZ wrote: very closely related...so much in fact that the differences hardly matter once the blood starts to fly.

That is the truth of it. Though I am having trouble coming up with something similar. Sort of like comparing Martians to Aliens maybe?. Even that isn't a good enough comparison.

Vampires to Sucubi maybe?

That might be a good comparison. Even still a 28 Day Later freak has more in common with a Dawn of the Dead corpse than those (which is kind of the point of throwing them in the same boat). Maybe more like a draugr compared to a vampire? But regardless that is a good comparison.

Grakmar wrote:
28 Days Later is clearly a zombie film. Civilization has fallen. There's a huge horde of unthinking monsters. You can become one by being bitten by one. Our heros struggle to survive, find other humans, but then have to fight the other humans.

That's a plot line not a definition. I purposefully left the last part of your sentence off because you with what you have there, you could fill in the blank (the blank being the threat) with anything. Aliens, dinosaurs, dogs, Amish, etc... could all fit that plotline.

What makes it really a zombie film is if the danger is a zombie. A dead creatures who comes back to eat.

Are you so SURE I'm wrong Frazzled? Even the Wikipedia entry of zombie calls it, an undead creature OR a person in a control of a wizard. Nothing is mentioned about people flailing about with rabies.

Moopy wrote:

Grakmar wrote:
28 Days Later is clearly a zombie film. Civilization has fallen. There's a huge horde of unthinking monsters. You can become one by being bitten by one. Our heros struggle to survive, find other humans, but then have to fight the other humans.

That's a plot line not a definition. I purposefully left the last part of your sentence off because you with what you have here you could fill in the blank (the blank being the threat) with anything. Aliens, dinosaurs, etc... could all fit the bill here.

What makes it really a zombie film is if the danger is a zombie. A dead creatures who comes back to eat.

Are you so SURE I'm wrong Frazzled? Even the Wikipedia entry of zombie calls it an undead creature OR a person in a control of a wizard. Nothing is mentioned about people flailing about with rabies.

Now come on, the same wikipedia entry links to a list of zombie movies with 28 Days Later being at the very top...

"Scientifically" 28 Days Later is not strictly speaking a zombie film since the infected are not dead. However the influence of the zombie genre is impossible to ignore, so "artistically" it is considered a zombie film by fans of the genre.

They may not be considered zombies by many and are just "infected" but they are however very very close to zombies and in newer movies Zombies are changing a lot so instead of explaining the whole "infected" thing one can just say zombies.

I sort of compare it to that dreadful twilight vampire stuff. If edward can be called a vampire, then I can call the infected zombies.

Many movies don't tell of where the outbreak comes from. It's not an essential function of the plot.

Moopy wrote:Many movies don't tell of where the outbreak comes from. It's not an essential function of the plot.

What is essential for zombies is that they are dead and can only be killed by destroying the brain.

Infected however are just as frail as humans and can starve to death.

Lord Scythican wrote:
Now come on, the same wikipedia entry links to a list of zombie movies with 28 Days Later being at the very top..

Good catch, I'll ask them to remove it, since it doesn't fall into the definition they layout on the article.

Moopy wrote:
Good catch, I'll ask them to remove it, since it doesn't fall into the definition they layout on the article.

Now hold on a sec. Give this guy's article a read. It was originally what turned me to thinking 28 Days Later is a zombie movie. He makes a lot of good points which I will quote below the link:

http://www.denofgeek.com/movies/93153/zombies_can_run_why_28_days_later_is_a_zombie_movie_after_all.html

Whether any of this is true or not the key question I want to ask here is what resemblance, if any, do the majority of zombie stories – films, books, comics, TV, games etc. – bear to that original folk story? The answer is just about none. Whether you go with the story woven by Vodou folklore or the attempts to explain the idea in scientific terms, you don’t see many stories about the raised dead or the drugged living serving a reclusive sorcerer by tending to fields of sugarcane and doing oddjobs about the house (“Zombie slave, alphabetise my CDs. Vodou commands it!”).

So zombies, as we understand them, are a fictional reinvention of an appropriated Caribbean myth, a reinvention made for both artistic and commercial purposes. From the popular reintroduction of zombies in Night of the Living Dead they have been reinvented and changed in countless ways, including films like I, Zombie (a tragi-comic biographical film about one man becoming "infected" and his slow conversion into the living dead) and other works in which new spins are put onto the basic zombie idea. Becoming capable of some level of coherent thought is a popular one, seen in Day of the Dead and Brighton’s independent Mixy / Our World comics, as is the granting of mystical powers, such as teleportation or levitation in City of the Living Dead. There’s a similar amount of variety in zombie origin stories: a virus, a meteorite, magic of some kind. In fact there are so many different explanations that the popular Shaun of the Dead satirised the whole notion by refusing to commit to a single complete theory throughout the entire film.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
In other words, in this day in age everything is all about reinvention. The zombie movies we all love and adore are nothing but reinvention. Vampires that sparkle are a (very dumb) reinvention, but they are still vampires right? Saying that a zombie has to be undead is like saying a vampire must turn into dust when he tries to get a tan. We can say it isn't so as much as we want, but we will all end up being blue in the face.

Shaun Green in that article spells the whole notion out pretty well for us. Heck if we go by tradition and the behind the scenes stuff that voodoo practitioners used to make people believe they were zombies, then all zombies should be alive covered in dirt and high as the sky.

I respectfully disagree with you and completely disagree with that article.

Allow me to sum up the article, "Zombies can run because I say so." and "Zombies can run because they're not dead yet." Huh. This attitude feels like he wants to make up whatever he wants "just because".

Booooo.

I'm tired of calling cats... well... cats. I want to call cats, pianos, because *I* think that people are missing the point about ca... errr... pianos. Big meowing pianos.

Huh again.

Then again I could be considered dismissive. So be it. As stated before, zombies have been popularly defined (by many not just me) as undead cannibalistic corpses, or drugged individuals under sway of a wizard.

At least you are honest about probably being dismissive.

However I think you are being very dismissive as well. He isn't making any of that up. That is what zombies were before Romero and others reinvented them. Like I said before in other threads. I don't think FF XIII should be considered a RPG, but there it is. It was reinvented. Edward as a vampire was reinvented no matter how much I cry about it. When I think all vampires should be like Kain, but it isn't happening.

BTW give that article a thorough read. Please, for the zombies? Don't be so dismissive this time.


ALSO it has been great debating this with you, but I have to let you know:

I'll say one more thing: Fast zombies were created by people who couldn't tell a good story and needed something to cover it up. Everyone else went, "OOOOHHHH!!! FAAAST" and it stuck. It's horrible idea since it's a crutch, and it's an easy crutch to use.

You can reinvent things and if you can put a clever spin on something then it becomes really good. FIDO for example put a spin on the shambling zombie and it's one of my favorite zombie films. But then again it was a great story and absolutely didn't need running. Brian King's "Dead Sea" novel had the virus spread to other species of animals, which was also fun.

I'm not saying don't be clever, and don't be innovative, but when you move away TOO far from the original idea, then you're trying to recreate a new monster, and giving up on an older one because you can't figure out how to use it wisely.

Moopy wrote:I'll say one more thing: Fast zombies were created by people who couldn't tell a good story and needed something to cover it up. Everyone else went, "OOOOHHHH!!! FAAAST" and it stuck. It's horrible idea since it's a crutch, and it's an easy crutch to use.

You can reinvent things and if you can put a clever spin on something then it becomes really good. FIDO for example put a spin on the shambling zombie and it's one of my favorite zombie films. But then again it was a great story and absolutely didn't need running. Brian King's "Dead Sea" novel had the virus spread to other species of animals, which was also fun.

I'm not saying don't be clever, and don't be innovative, but when you move away TOO far from the original idea, then you're trying to recreate a new monster, and giving up on an older one because you can't figure out how to use it wisely.

Fast zombies were created because the youngins get bored more easier than we did. Heck you remember toy commercials from back in the day? They had like maybe 8 shots over 30 seconds. Now these kids watch toy commercials with over 30 shots in 30 seconds. Its why D&D went the way they did in 4E. Everything has the be fast paced with the young ones.

Also I think I got a good comparison for zombies and infected. 28 Days later is kinda like splenda, made from real zombie movies....but no real zombies in it!

Also that last bit Moopy. Those are pretty wise words, but they fall on deft ears. People could care less about using something wisely anymore.

Here is a question for you:

Would you rather call Edward Cullen a vampire or one of the infected from 28 Days Later a Zombie?

Lord Scythican wrote:

Fast zombies were created because the youngins get bored more easier than we did.

And those are bad children who will grow up into bad people, making bad choices which will end in divorces, binge drinking and passing out on the lawn. MY LAWN and I won't tolerate it. This is why I argue so passionately about this and try and save the few than I can. From jail... or worse...

Lord Scythican wrote:Would you rather call Edward Cullen a vampire or one of the infected from 28 Days Later a Zombie?

I don't think of Edward Cullen at all. If I had to, I'd call him a 28 Days Later "vampire". Again, like taking away slow from the zombie, the story teller took a MAJOR WEAKNESS of the monster and tossed it out the window- in effect, making an entirely new type of monster that isn't nearly as interesting as the original one. Any time you take away a weakness or flaw a creature/villian/whatever you make it less interesting because you've taken the tension out of the situation. If a vampire is running down the hall at us and we know we can win if we can JUST get to the window and let the daylight in, then that scene has lots of tension in it. Can we do it? Are we fast enough? If the vampire isn't hurt by sunlight then there's nothing for the viewer because the victims are helpless. DULL DULL DULL. You start turning them into Superman, and the only time you or I could ever kick the snot out of Superman is by having Kryptonite. Take that away and there's no point to him- he can do anything. So by making sparkling jail bait hearth throb vampires, that character and the situation he finds himself in, becomes far less interesting and flat.

There are minor divergences and major divergences of an idea, and a major one often creates a new subject, instead of just modifying it.

Moopy wrote:

Lord Scythican wrote:

Fast zombies were created because the youngins get bored more easier than we did.

And those are bad children who will grow up into bad people, making bad choices which will end in divorces, binge drinking and passing out on the lawn. MY LAWN and I won't tolerate it. This is why I argue so passionately about this and try and save the few than I can. From jail... or worse...

Lord Scythican wrote:Would you rather call Edward Cullen a vampire or one of the infected from 28 Days Later a Zombie?

I don't think of Edward Cullen at all. If I had to, I'd call him a 28 Days Later "vampire". Again, like taking away slow from the zombie, the story teller took a MAJOR WEAKNESS of the monster and tossed it out the window- in effect, making an entirely new type of monster that isn't nearly as interesting as the original one. Any time you take away a weakness or flaw a creature/villian/whatever you make it less interesting because you've taken the tension out of the situation. If a vampire is running down the hall at us and we know we can win if we can JUST get to the window and let the daylight in, then that scene has lots of tension in it. Can we do it? Are we fast enough? If the vampire isn't hurt by sunlight then there's nothing for the viewer because the victims are helpless. DULL DULL DULL. You start turning them into Superman, and the only time you or I could ever kick the snot out of Superman is by having Kryptonite. Take that away and there's no point to him- he can do anything. So by making sparkling jail bait hearth throb vampires, that character and the situation he finds himself in, becomes far less interesting and flat.

There are minor divergences and major divergences of an idea, and a major one often creates a new subject, instead of just modifying it.

Vampires are very different to zombies though in that what is currently thought of as a zombie is totally different to the original folklore (compare shambling reanimated corpses only killable by destroying the brain to brainwashed voodoo slaves) whereas today's vampires aren't too different to the original stories (compare bloodsucking undead outsider embodying the darker side of human sexuality to pretty much the same thing but less beastial in appearance) which is important when you consider what is canon with modern audiences.

For most people romero zombies, not the voodoo zombies are the canon original zombies and thus when people deviate from that they are not zombies in the romero sense of the word.

Vampires on the other hand don't really have an origin and taken as many forms as you can shake a stick at, from being dead werewolves to those returned to their body after death by the devil to being users of unholy magic to having some kind of disease, with weaknesses just as varied (silver, garlic, holy symbols, crossing running water, wolfs bane, wooden stake to the heart, sunlight, fire etc...).

My point being that zombies as we know them are a recent invention and thus deviations from the romero are less accepted whereas vampires can be shaped to fit almost any role as long as some factors remain (normally the blood drinking aspect).

This article from the escapist also talks about the matter http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/issues/issue_293/8642-Zombies-Rule-Vampires-Drool