Bites?

[Doc]

I've seen all 4 dead films and am confused by this. Night: I don't think they reveal how long the Coopers were down in the basement ,but I guess it took Karen a few hours to turn. Dawn: Peter said that he had seen half of the guys in his squad get bitten and they all only lasted 3 days. Day: Nothing to say about Day since no one ever dies out of a bite in this one. Land: Riley said his brother turned in 1 hour. Can someone explain?

[AcesandEights]

If you want a straight, absolutely correct answer you will be disappointed because one does not exist. Some people will say that a bite is 100% going to turn you into a ghoul, while others just say it will 100% kill you, thus turning you into a ghoul, anyway. Others will claim that it might be possible to survive a bite and it's just the virulent nature of the bacteria that the human mouth (now even worse, as the person is dead) carries that makes infection almost inevitable. In any event, the differing lengths of time it takes for someone to turn just probably correlates to how long it takes them to succumb to the bite and/or ensuing infection(s) and any other wounds or contributing factors that might lead to their death. That's just an opinion, though.

[Legion2213]

Nobody was with Coopers kid when she turned, she could have just died from loss of blood, shock etc...and then risen as yer common or garden zombie.

[SRP76]

It was made clear several times. The guru on the tube in Night flat-out stated that "it's only a matter of minutes" before a dead body gets up. After that, every "rising" we see happens just a few minutes after the person croaks. Where's the controversy? Die, wait a few minutes, get back up. That's the process.

[Danny]

in the dead films its not a "virus" like msot rip offs its all dead, and a live humans mouth contains awy more bacteria than a dogs, imagine a corpse's then it bites you, you die of infection, since you cant reach mdeical help, and like every other body you get up, though the whole flesh eating thing still bugs me, if they ate them all how would new ones be made?

[SRP76]

though the whole flesh eating thing still bugs me, if they ate them all how would new ones be made? There wouldn't be. Problem is, they rarely eat whole people. The Dawn script goes more into this than the movie itself. The scientist that's always on TV at the mall goes on about "waste", talking about how the dead tend to only eat about 5% of the meat on the human body, which allows those bodies to get up and join them. He suggests taking up dead bodies, and "preparing" them, and then feeding them to the dead, hoping that they will eat that, and leave live people alone. In the actual film, most of that gets drowned out by the background music and so forth. It's when Peter is watching over Roger, preparing to blow his head off.

[Doc]

It was made clear several times. The guru on the tube in Night flat-out stated that "it's only a matter of minutes" before a dead body gets up. After that, every "rising" we see happens just a few minutes after the person croaks. Where's the controversy? Die, wait a few minutes, get back up. That's the process. NO what I meant was why did it take Roger like about 2 or3 days to finally die and turn, while in Land Riley said his brother died in one hour and turned. But I think AcesandEights probably has the right idea.

[Yojimbo]

Agree that there exists no controversy regarding how long after death a body will revive, since this is consistently been portrayed as a matter of minutes. As far as how long it takes to die from a bite, I would venture to guess that just like a venomous snake bite this would be a variable which would be determined by the person's intial physical condition, where the bite is located, how many bites, how deep, etc. The idea that a virus is causing it is an invention of the wannabes. Screw them!

[Mike70]

As far as how long it takes to die from a bite, I would venture to guess that just like a venomous snake bite this would be a variable which would be determined by the person's intial physical condition, where the bite is located, how many bites, how deep, etc. damn you i had this whole spiel on bite location. guess i'll save it for the inevitable return of this subject at some time in the future.

[7734]

NO what I meant was why did it take Roger like about 2 or3 days to finally die and turn, while in Land Riley said his brother died in one hour and turned. But I think AcesandEights probably has the right idea. Probably becasue Roger was nursed and medicated and fed delicious kumquats and salvaged to the best of Fran's abilities while Riley's poor little bro was torn halfway open.

[Trin]

Peter says (from the script) "I've seen half a dozen guys get bitten by those things...none of them lasted more than thirty six hours." We have to assume during the initial few days/weeks that the military and police were receiving medical care. Cholo died in under an hour with only a minor bite wound. He was healthy and young yet he knew it was a death sentence. I'd think that he'd have known if there was any chance for survival. The most aggressive infections on record don't kill that fast and aren't 100% fatal if caught early. Your basic "in the mouth" stuff is even more likely to be treatable. And there's no chance of something that aggressive being in every dead mouth out there. My opinion is that it was something new and unique to the Romero Dead.

[Danny]

well lands way after dawn, so they would be more rotten adn therefore there bites would be fare more toxic.

[Trin]

With so few deaths purely by zombie bite it's hard to really put together a theory. Cholo died fast. Roger died slow. I agree that it's a valid theory that a longer dead zombie produces a faster acting infection, assuming we're still talking about a Romero created, fictional infection. Another theory is that Romero needed Cholo to die fast because he wanted Cholo to confront Kaufman zombified. So he did what he needed to do to satisfy his current plot twist regardless as to whether it was consistent.

[clanglee]

Wasn't Cholo also gut-shot? He could have bled to death on the way to the city.

[Yojimbo]

damn you i had this whole spiel on bite location. guess i'll save it for the inevitable return of this subject at some time in the future. GMTA! With so few deaths purely by zombie bite it's hard to really put together a theory. Cholo died fast. Roger died slow. I agree that it's a valid theory that a longer dead zombie produces a faster acting infection, assuming we're still talking about a Romero created, fictional infection. Another theory is that Romero needed Cholo to die fast because he wanted Cholo to confront Kaufman zombified. So he did what he needed to do to satisfy his current plot twist regardless as to whether it was consistent. We are assuming that Cholo died from the bite that we saw onscreen. Maybe he shot up some smack in an artery to ease his pain, OD'd and went that way. Or maybe he stabbed himself in the heart with one of his harpoon bolts to more quickly see how the other half lived. Perhaps he had a massive coronary brought on by the stress of the situation, or maybe he was attacked by other zombies, or he suffered from previously undiagnosed early onset diabetes and he found a massive cream pie and ate it, or maybe a UFO came down and crushed him by accident. It is all pure conjecture, but I agree that the fact he was bitten and later died from something and became a zombie is consistent with Romero's Rules.