How Did Movie Zombies Get So Fast?

[bassman]

Found this article that's a pretty interesting read about the fast/slow argument of the zed movies of late. The Running Dead How did movie zombies get so fast? By Josh Levin Will Smith's end-of-the-world flick I Am Legend took in $76.5 million to lead last weekend's box office tally. Described by one critic as " '28 Days Later' on steroids," I Am Legend continues the recent trend—seen in Danny Boyle's 2002 scare film, among many others—of movie zombies who zoom along at a clip that far outpaces the meandering gait of the monsters of yore. In 2004, after the release of a hyperkinetic remake of Dawn of the Dead, Josh Levin asked why zombies are in such a hurry these days. The article is reproduced below. It's not for nothing that zombies are called the walking dead. In George A. Romero's classic Night of the Living Dead (1968), a group of shut-ins sits in terror, watching television for the latest updates on the creeping undead menace. "Are they slow-moving, chief?" asks a reporter. "Yeah," the cop says wearily, "they're dead." Romero's canonical trilogy, which also includes Dawn of the Dead (1978) and Day of the Dead (1985), emphasizes the zombie's drag-ass nature. Corpses shuffle so slowly that a potential victim can fall, brush herself off, remove her pumps, and set off again without being touched by a necrotic finger. Max Brooks' book The Zombie Survival Guide, a tongue-in-cheek tutorial for surviving the living dead, notes, "Zombies appear to be incapable of running. The fastest have been observed to move at a rate of barely one step per 1.5 seconds." But in Zack Snyder's new Dawn of the Dead remake, the zombie has a newfound vigor. In the film's opening scene, a vacant-eyed zombie girl charges through a wooden door and into a couple's bedroom. After the zombie savagely bites her husband in the neck, Ana (Sarah Polley) escapes and drives away, only to have her recently deceased-and-undeceased husband keep chase with a full-out sprint that calls to mind Terminator 2's superhuman killing machine. It wasn't long ago that the cinematic undead obeyed the first law of corpse locomotion: A zombie might bleed on you, bite you, or rip out your ribcage, but wouldn't beat you in the 40-yard dash. Along with the Dawn remake, this new breed of souped-up zombie has appeared in recent movies like 28 Days Later (2002), Resident Evil (2002), and House of the Dead (2003). Why, all of a sudden, are the walking dead in such a rush? For years, the fast zombie was by definition an oxymoron. The word itself can be traced to Creole and West African Bantu and the legend that a voodoo priest could hypnotize a corpse to obey his commands. In Hollywood's not-so-culturally-sensitive early zombie flicks, magically induced catatonia was featured more prominently than reanimation. Bela Lugosi's evil sorcerer "Murder" Legendre hypnotizes Haitian sugar harvesters in White Zombie (1932) so that they grind cane into the wee hours without complaint. Jacques Tourneur's I Walked With a Zombie (1943) centers on a woman who's either the victim of island voodoo brainwashing or just really, really frigid and unresponsive. The zombie would soon stretch its legs beyond the Caribbean and become an all-purpose horror creature. But with very few exceptions (most notably 1980's Nightmare City), the undead were weighed down by rigor mortis. Lucio Fulci's Zombie (1979) has a fightin' corpse who attacks a shark, but the film ends with a long line of zombies walking ever so slowly across the Brooklyn Bridge. Sam Raimi's Evil Dead trilogy, Stuart Gordon's Re-Animator (1985), and Peter Jackson's Dead Alive (1992) brought over-the-top humor and splatter to the genre, but the zombies still walked. In Michael Jackson's long-form Thriller (1983) video, the zombies are walking when they're not line dancing. And just like in the Romero original, the heroine of the 1990 remake Night of the Living Dead is shocked by the pace of the undead hordes: "They're so slow. We could just walk right past them. I wouldn't even have to run." The oft-repeated image of a slow, walking line of zombies is the best representation of the zombie's place in the scary-movie food chain. In horror, zombies behave more like a creeping plague or a disease than singularly terrifying monsters like Dracula or the Wolfman. Zombies have no individual identity, but rather get their power from membership in a group: It's easy to kill one, but 1,000 indomitable flesh eaters may just overwhelm you. The creeping zombie column is an effective horror device both because it's a great visual and a good way to wring scares out of a low budget. But, as Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later proved, an independent film shot on digital video no longer needs the slow zombie crutch. When a sputtering, rage-filled priest chases Jim (Cillian Murphy) from a church, or when the survivors outrun a chasing cadre of pallid-looking sickies in a dark tunnel, the rapid-fire action feels authentic, not cheesy or far-fetched. (Some purists argue that the "infected" in 28 Days aren't technically zombies, but the mindless biting and bleeding out the mouth get them well over the bar.) Rapidly improving CGI technology has had a similar effect on high-budget zombie fare. For instance, the devilishly spry undead dogs who attack the jugular with quick bursts make Resident Evil look more like the video game it's based on than an old-school zombie flick. The effect of corpse-heavy video games is all over the nascent fast-zombie genre. In first-person shooter games, the undead's usual pack mentality is necessarily replaced by zombie exceptionalism: Each creature that jumps out from around the corner has to be an individual—fast, strong, and threatening. Even more so than Resident Evil, the movie version of House of the Dead follows this model, as filmed sequences of running, jumping, and swimming zombies are actually intercut with parallel scenes from the corpse shoot-'em-up video game. It will be ironic if Snyder's Dawn remake represents the tipping point that makes fast zombies the mainstream. George Romero's Dawn of the Dead, more than any other creature feature, hammered home the slow zombie's metaphorical possibilities. In the first Dawn, scores of shopping-mall-bound corpses ride escalators in an endless loop and wobble listlessly to Muzak. This new Dawn, though one of the best scare movies of the last few years, is far more concerned with zombie style than zombie substance: While Snyder's zombies may be mindless, they're less a consumerist mob than a bunch of high-strung car chasers. Maybe, as blogger Tim Hulsey argues, the obsolescence of the slow zombie signals the decline of "mobocratic" culture in favor of a modern taste for individualism. Or maybe his background as a commercial and music video director makes Snyder constitutionally incapable of creating slow monsters. Either way, the plague of the fast zombies is upon us. Beware!

[DjfunkmasterG]

Well Zack really wasn't the first to do it, but DAWN 04 was the most mainstream and most successful Zombie film of all time.

[bassman]

Well Zack really wasn't the first to do it, but DAWN 04 was the most mainstream and most successful Zombie film of all time. Are you defending him and thinking that the article is against him? I saw it as more of "he's doing his thing over there and the other guy is doing his thing over here". If that makes any sense. I didn't think they were attacking Snyder. But they did have some very interesting points.

[Legion2213]

28 Days Later: Not zombies I am Legend: Not zombies, vampires are traditionally strong and fast Dawn 04: sh!t your pants time...the most terrifying zombies ever seen on screen IMO

[ProfessorChaos]

i credit the fast-zombie epidemic's origins coinciding with the dawn of attention-deficit disorder....seriously, people these days are too moronic and impatient to sit through a good movie with shamblers, and filmmakers and studios are too concerned with pleasing audiences. hopefully when world war z drops it'll reintroduce the slow zombie.

[acealive1]

if snyders new movie does 300 numbers,zombies will be a forefront runner in genres and will be taken WAY more serious

[SRP76]

i credit the fast-zombie epidemic's origins coinciding with the dawn of attention-deficit disorder....seriously, people these days are too moronic and impatient to sit through a good movie with shamblers, and filmmakers and studios are too concerned with pleasing audiences. hopefully when world war z drops it'll reintroduce the slow zombie. I don't think it's the audience. I think it's the writers that have attention defecit disorder. Actually, I'll call it what it is: STUPIDITY. F*ck politcal correctness. The problem is that the writers don't know their ass from their elbow, and can't figure out how to make something slow be scary. Bt contrast, a monkey with a balloon can figure out that the fear comes with their numbers, not their speed. Therefore, monkey with a balloon > most zombie writers.

[DubiousComforts]

The problem is that the writers don't know their ass from their elbow, and can't figure out how to make something slow be scary. Bt contrast, a monkey with a balloon can figure out that the fear comes with their numbers, not their speed. Therefore, monkey with a balloon > most zombie writers. BINGO! Give this man a ceegar.

[MikePizzoff]

hopefully when world war z drops it'll reintroduce the slow zombie. I can see it now... all the MORONS saying "WTF? These aren't real zombies; they move far too slow!"

[kortick]

good point 28 days are not zombies even if the writer thinkes they are close enough I am legend they are vampires and vampires can be given extra abilities without ruining the genre as far as the fast moving zombies i wouldnt have minded if he didnt make them move quite so fast its a major thing to suspend reality long enough to believe the dead are getting up and coming at you trying to eat you but to think they are running at you like the olympic dash is a bit much a little faster, i could accept super speed is pushing it for me my opinion only

[C5NOTLD]

I don't think it's the audience. I think it's the writers that have attention defecit disorder. Actually, I'll call it what it is: STUPIDITY. F*ck politcal correctness. The problem is that the writers don't know their ass from their elbow, and can't figure out how to make something slow be scary. Bt contrast, a monkey with a balloon can figure out that the fear comes with their numbers, not their speed. Therefore, monkey with a balloon > most zombie writers. I agree. Slow zombies are better. I think the slowness is more unnatural which makes it creepy. Otherwise it's just crazy people running around. You could make a case if they just freshly died then they might be faster for a while but as rigamortis starts they should slow down. The faster zombies which seem to be featured more in current films don't do much for me.

[Trin]

I think the speed-up is a natural reflection of times changing and each generation trying to push the limits. In everything there's a constant need to take things to the next level. When GAR made Night the mere fact that he showed undead creatures feasting on human flesh was chilling and over-the-top. By today's standards of onscreen violence that's sedate. It's an obvious conclusion that to make zombies scary again, like they were when Night was released, something would have to change. However, running zombies are not scary - they're intense. I cannot applaud Dawn'04 in any way for taking the genre in this "new and exciting" direction. It's the same as applauding baseball players for taking steroids. It's not ingenuity when you break the rules to achieve the results. I agree that the writers have lost their edge. I'm not sure it's their fault. They are pandering to the idiot masses and the studios who have no desire to take a risk. They go where the money is. Land is a great example of why they would want to stay away from slow moving zombies and complex plot.

[Skippy911sc]

Dawn 04 did something a lot different than to just make the Zs fast...it took the terror or fear to the Zs instead of the fear and terror being from the inside fighting. I liked Dawn 04 and found the Zombies more frightening than GARs however I think GARs movies are better...I like the tension...the claustrophobia...the fear of Human behavior. Land took Gars Zs to a new level...and I did not like this direction... I like both types of Zs fast and slow however the story is the most important thing and I like Gars internal problems much more than the External issues.

[DubiousComforts]

When GAR made Night the mere fact that he showed undead creatures feasting on human flesh was chilling and over-the-top. By today's standards of onscreen violence that's sedate. It's an obvious conclusion that to make zombies scary again, like they were when Night was released, something would have to change. I agree 100% with everything but this. One reason that NIGHT was scary is because the ghouls were ordinary people. Also, not having the same extras each night for continuity's sake actually helped the film; it made the horde of ghouls seem endless and impossible to defeat. Zombies have since evolved into complicated exercises in special make-up effects. That's why, for example, the initial reveal in The Zombie Diaries is a let down given the suspenseful build up to it: the audience's first glimpse of the undead looks like an actor wearing a very nice make-up job. Now the pressure is on for each subsequent film to out-do the last one with massive armies of sprinting CGI zombies. Special effects are important for unbelievable movie monsters, but the undead are supposed to be people, not monsters. Technology should be enhance the illusion, not detract from it. I'll give DAWN '04 a few props in that the most effective zombies were those that looked like people. The Asian guy that just seems to be a regular guy walking until he turns around to reveal a missing limb--now that's what I'm talking about.