HAULING ASS OR DRAGGING FOOT: A ZOMBIE DISCUSSION
I don’t know about you but, personally, there’s 2 things in life I love: My family and Zombies!!!
I happen to be completely obsessed with the genre. With both the good submissions and the bad. Today, I want to address a conversation that has arisen, and grown more heated, in the Zombie loving community over the last 6 years… ever since Zach Snyder’s awesome remake of the much loved cult classic Dawn of the Dead. The question is this: Which Zombie is better… the Romero creeper? Or the Snyder sprinter? To help me out, Marc from Go, See, Talk ( a great blog, by the way) has come on to help me debate the issue.
Romero: The man, the myth, the legend.
Before we dive in, I’d like to sidetrack for a moment and address which we would be more likely to encounter should a real Zombie attack ever actually take place. The genesis behind Romero’s idea for his Zombies, that move at turtle speed, was that they would move like that due to the onset of rigor mortis. The definition of which is a chemical change in the muscles after death, causing the limbs of the corpse to become stiff (Latin rigor) and difficult to move or manipulate.
The flaw in this logic is that rigor mortis commences after about 3 hours, reaches maximum stiffness after 12 hours, and gradually dissipates until approximately 72 hours after death. So, should a Zombie outbreak ever actually occur, the amount of stiffening taking place in the corpse would vary depending on time of death… not to mention that the level of decomposition that had overtaken the corpse would have a profound effect as well. So, the truth of the matter is, in the real world, we would probably encounter both.
However, that’s not our concern here today. We only care which one is more awesome. To present one half of this argument, I present Marc from Go, See, Talk with his half of the argument. Here it is…
THE PURIST:
THE TRENDY CHOICE:
[YAWN] I would like to thank Marc for basically winning my argument for me. 🙂
Here’s what I think:
First off, I’ll just say that Night of the Living Dead (which, don’t get me wrong, I absolutely loved) never made much sense to me. If Zombies move so slow and are so weak that you could just run by them or knock them to the ground when they got close, why the hell would you hole up in a house??? I mean, the only way they pose a threat by moving like turtles is if a couple thousand of them surround you… which is exactly what will happen if you HOLE UP IN A HOUSE!!! Why not get with a group, find an RV, drive in shifts and stay on the move… this, of course, being just one of countless other options open to you if you’re trying to survive an attack from SMZ’s (as my opponent would have you call them). An option you do not have when facing Sprinters!
To further prove why the SMZ’s, are so lame, let’s stick with Night of the Living Dead. Sure, to make Dawn of the Dead, Romero conveniently kept the outbreak alive and thriving. However, at the end of Night, the threat had basically been contained… by a small militia of rednecks with their own personal fire arms, no less. How lame is that? That’s not scary… and when I watch a Zombie flick, I want to be scared!
Enter Zack Snyder with balls to the wall, hit the bricks, hauling ass Zombie. Now, these things are frackin’ scary! They also gave the long beloved genre a much needed shot in the arm… inspiring countless imitators just like the original did. The only bad thing is this brought all the purists, like my boy Marc, out of the woodwork screaming, “BLASPHEMY!!!” A charge, I say, that comes with falsely fueled fervor.
It comes down to this… if Snyder had remained true to Romero’s vision of Zombies, the purists and non-fans alike would be yelling, “BORING!!!” Assuming, of course, they force the word out through the might of their collective yawn. Let’s be honest, we have all become ADD. Video Games, GPS, iTunes, Tivo, Porn readily available at the click of a mouse (Thank You, God)… we have become immune as a society to the building of tension and the “slow burn” (Please don’t leave comments about this last sentence to show that you’re the exception that proves the rule). We need everything these days fast, hard, loud and in our faces. And that is exactly what the modern day “Hauling Ass” Zombie provides.
Admit it… the Zombie you want to see in your movies is the Zombie you hope you’d never see in real life. Not the one that stumbles around like me after a sixer of Stone Ruination India Pale Ale… ooh… I need a drink… let’s wrap this up!
So, dear readers, I leave it you. Which is better? You can leave your comments below. I’d also highly recommend stopping by Marc‘s site where he has a poll set up on the matter at hand. You can find it by clicking on the banner below!
That’s it for now, Z-Heads.
Please feel free to leave your comments below. Feel free to rip me a new one! I never edit any of the comments. Remember, this was meant to be an interactive site, as much as I love the sound of my own voice.
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Check back Thursday when our new post will be up. I’m also going to try and keep the mid-week (Wednesday) posts going in the future so stay tuned. Have a great week and remember… SHOOT FOR THE HEAD!!!
May 10, 2010 at 7:29 am
Do I even need to post? SMZ are the best. And I’ll take Bela Lugosi over any of those Twilight kids.
May 10, 2010 at 9:43 am
should’ve known you’d choose something before circa ’95….older is not better, wayne!!! osz all the way!!
May 10, 2010 at 7:35 am
[…] at The List. Kai and I have recently collaborated on a post together about this very subject (go check it out, it is really quite good!), so I don’t want to get into our battle very much here. But like I noted in my recent post, […]
May 10, 2010 at 8:01 am
SMZ’s all the way. Not a whole lot else to say is there. Even Shaun of the Dead has SMZ’s. Game Set Match.
May 10, 2010 at 8:51 am
Fantastic post Kai! Seriously, anyone who has played some zombie (or any monster shooting) video games know the fast one are the scary and dangerous ones. Not only can one be dangerous, be a group of them seriously reduces your chances of survival.
The slow ones are virtually harmless unless there is massive amount of them and you are surrounded. By themselves, they are easy or (potentially) fun to dispose of. (Crowbar anyone?)
May 10, 2010 at 6:43 pm
Thank you very much… lose the nostalgia, people. The SMZ’s don’t hold up in modern cinema. I have a place for them in my heart too but come on!
May 10, 2010 at 9:55 am
p.s. why ya always gotta talk about porn?!
May 10, 2010 at 7:19 pm
YEAH!!! Like sex being on my mind constantly is news to you!!! 😉
May 10, 2010 at 2:44 pm
If I was in a Zombie survival situation I’d obviously love the slow-moving creepers… But if I’m watching a Zombie flick it’s all about the runners, 100%. The Dawn re-make is one of the best zombie films made… Even Maddox says so! http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=dawn_rules
May 10, 2010 at 6:45 pm
That link is classic!
May 12, 2010 at 1:38 am
On a slightly related note, the new-age Romero films are pretty sweet. Below’s my review of Diary of the Dead, which I really liked – thought it would be dump. Still as relevant and has as much to say about the media / consumerism as the originals. Well worth hunting down.
May 10, 2010 at 4:23 pm
Hauling Ass. That is all.
May 10, 2010 at 8:46 pm
SMZ’s for sure….its just not right any other way..
I never thought I could read so much on how fast Zombies move…Loving the site Kai-Great job!
May 10, 2010 at 8:50 pm
Thanks, Aimee… love that you’re reading… even though you picked wrong!!! 😉
May 11, 2010 at 4:05 am
The Hauling Ass version certainly makes them a lot more scarier, cause you know you probably won’t be able to get away from them. The slow zombie is just the old-school zombie, that to be brutally honest, just doesn’t add much to films nowadays.
May 11, 2010 at 4:40 am
great post guys, and i dont even like Zombie movies..
i thought Synder did a good job with Dawn of the Dead though. his best movie.
May 11, 2010 at 6:06 am
Ditto that McG!
May 11, 2010 at 6:04 am
I have grown to fear and feel as though my life is slightly oppressed by an oncoming zombie nation. I was never afraid of zombies until the revamped Dawn Of The Dead (I was pregnant and alone watching it, made me a little wonky), 28 Days Later, and a growing obsession with playing games like Left 4 Dead and Resident Evil. I’ve read Zombies Survival Guide and have just started World War Z. We’ve made plans to use my house as our central location to hold up and battle down, because I know these zombies will be effing fast. Just makes more sense, otherwise we could blow those fuckers up.
Sometimes when I wake up alone at two or three in the morning to get a drink or do a onesie I want to turn my lights all off in case I make a shadow and a zombie burst threw the window. I also mentally prepare in the middle of the night how I’m going barricade and save my kids if zombies or aliens attack at night. I sleep with a 9mm next to me and a shotgun in my closet, nun chucks, samurai swords, a machete, and sai’s all in my bedroom. I haven’t even started with the athletic equipment that could be utilized as weaponry. I’m ready for battle.
*sigh*
Sorry, it’s your fault you made me read this when I woke up and think about it too much.
May 11, 2010 at 6:59 pm
haha… I’m the same way. I have hole up plans for not only my house but all my friend’s and the businesses we frequent and can often be caught sizing up a new location the second we walk in… it all stemmed from that movie scaring the shit out of me too… and I’m a big guy and was like 26 at the time… WTF.
By the way, what’s a “onesie” and why are you doing them in the middle of the nite? hmmm…
May 12, 2010 at 11:22 am
A onsie is going tinkle, as opposed to a twosie, where you are taking a poo. 🙂
May 12, 2010 at 6:42 pm
Thank you… haha… for being so detailed! Though I like to think I could’ve deducted the poo part with the information given up to that point! 🙂
May 11, 2010 at 9:25 am
First off- OSZ & SMZ (too funny). I’m going with OSZ. Besides the obvious arguments left for us to ponder, let’s face it: we love bigger/badder/faster/freakier and the Sprinters deliver that.
Watching the remade Dawn (preggo) with Kai’s all-things-zombie enthusiasm clutching at my arm made me a modern zombie fan for life.
May 11, 2010 at 7:01 pm
FYI… Emily is my sister-in-law and she went and saw the remake with me and we were scared for a month… that, among other things, is why she’s awesome… she was there, man!!!
Love ya, Em.
May 11, 2010 at 2:46 pm
Well thanks for letting me participate (and lead off the post) Kai…had tons of fun crafting it and think this all came out awesome!
Thinking about OSZs, I’m sure their knees would give out after constant sprinting. That would cause them to buckle over without the ability to stand anymore. Next, they’d have to crawl toward their prey scraping away their hands and elbows til they were non existent.
Then, all you’d have to do is walk around (still carefully) and shoot the rolling torsos. War would be over in about 2 weeks:P
Great pictures by the way…even thought you fluffed your argument with more photos than text;)
May 11, 2010 at 7:03 pm
HEY!!! You ran long so I had to compensate by being short and to the point! 🙂
You are always welcome to come on and talk about stuff I love Marc… You made a compelling argument but I still say you cheated for enlisting Romero’s help… You are so lucky I lost Zach Snyder’s cell phone number or it woulda been on! 😉
May 13, 2010 at 12:14 pm
Aside from a simply nostalgic or hard core purist point of view, loving and defending SMZs in the wake of OSZs is like defending land lines over cell phones…it’s an uphill battle all the way:(
So yeah I cheated by calling on the big guns but I had to. It’s like asking a child what he wants for dinner, broccoli or candy?…of course it’s candy because it’s more desirable (though not necessarily good for you). For most people, OSZ over SMZ is a no-brainer (yes, pun was intended) 😛
May 13, 2010 at 7:14 pm
hahahaha!!!!
May 12, 2010 at 1:19 am
In fairness, the fact that it took a local militia to temporarily contain the zombies is terrifying to me. Seriously, think about it – the only thing between you and zombies are rednecks.
I’m a purist at heart. The whole appeal of zombies is the inevitable certainty. You see them coming. You can’t escape. They simply overwhelm you because they never stop – like nature itself, a glacier of terror. And there’s nothing scarier than knowing what’s coming and you can’t stop it.
As for sprinters, you’re like “Ahh!” and it’s over.
May 12, 2010 at 6:07 pm
It’s like choosing between a marathon or a sprint. Personally, I hate long distance running so I’d rather die quickly if death is certain 🙂
May 13, 2010 at 12:21 pm
No question…slow-movers. The fact they gather in massive numbers and are hungry for my flesh is scary enough for me!
May 13, 2010 at 1:14 pm
If it wasn’t for 28 DAYS LATER, the whole haul-ass zombie wouldn’t exist. I know they are ‘the infected’ in 28 DAYS, but they were close enough [and many the average person thought they were] to zombies that the world held a collective ‘hmmm, what if?’.
So don’t blame Snyder for the change, because he only saw the financial opportunity and dove in head-first. Instead, blame the idiotic misconceptions the average american had about 28 DAYS LATER. I cannot count how many times i heard ‘jesus tits! those ZOMBIES move fast!’. God damn, i hate people.
Oh yeah, slow movers all the way. Fast ‘zombies’ are just humans that are INFECTED.
May 13, 2010 at 7:15 pm
Fair enough… who cares if they’re zombies or infected though… technically Zombies are infected dead people… hmm???
June 9, 2010 at 12:06 pm
Oh, the Zombie debate. I watched one Zombie movie (can’t remember the name though) late at night and couldn’t stop thinking about Zombies and the whole physics with it. I say infect zombies with a virus which makes them eat other zombies, not live humans, and have the population kill itself with these more high tech zombie movies. I have other ideas and questions with zombies, like how the heck can they eat people when I would think they’re teeth would have fallen out within a short amount of time with their chomping?
….And, how can they chew into people’s flesh when our teeth aren’t that sharp and the whole set-up of them just chewing isn’t right. They’d have to bite, and then tear their heads to the side to do any damage. Not just sit there and gnaw, unless if once you turn into a zombie your teeth get sharper but then wouldn’t you be borderline Vampire?
Uh, yeah, I’ve spent way too much thought on it since I saw that one Zombie movie and have subjected loved ones to my questions. They could careless. But, to answer your question, I see slow moving zombies pretty scary but fast moving ones are crazy scary. But, if it was one fast mover or a bunch of slow movers I’d give it to the mob of slow movers any day.
June 18, 2010 at 8:02 am
[…] List – This goes out to Kai, my Zombie loving friend at The List. Let me elaborate, he loves Zombie films…not necrophilia. Just wanted to clear […]
July 20, 2010 at 9:59 am
[…] List – This goes out to Kai, my Zombie loving friend at The List. Let me elaborate, he loves Zombie films…not necrophilia. Just wanted to clear […]
August 25, 2010 at 8:37 am
[…] with that I’ll ask all you Zead Heads. Do you like the look of this…or does anyone, Kai included, think this is just another zombie property (read snore-fest) to add to the pile?? The Walking […]
September 28, 2010 at 10:35 am
Hey Kai, I know you’re an OSZ fan but I saw this and had to tell you…
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1512222/
This one looks to be the third remake and the second in 3D…wow that’s 2 many numb3rs 4 just 1 sentenc3:) Had you heard about it? Might be fun although repetitive and borderline unnecessary.
September 28, 2010 at 1:08 pm
Why not? I’ll watch every incarnation of that film… at least they got Tony Todd! 🙂
October 7, 2010 at 5:04 am
[…] have this powerhouse ‘zead’ film? Kai, this is one time I’ll side with you on the OSZ variety. Plus when you have long-time Romero collaborator/effects god Tom Savini plus the original cast […]