How strong/fast are Zombies really?

[darth los]

How strong/fast are zombies really? What should be within the limits of their abilities and what shouldn't? We all know that GAR is not a stickler for detail and the inconsistencies in the dead films are numerous. But what's maddening to me is how fast zombies move sometimes as compared to others and how strong they become when the situation calls for it. Now I am well aware I'm geeking out over this but the reason consistency is important is that it allows us to more readily accept the premise of a world where the dead are returning to life and areattacking the living if there are rules. So, In order to do this GAR needs us to suspend disbelief and go with a few ground rules. 1) Anyone who dies will reanimate and atack the living to sate their instinct to feed. 2) These "beings" can be destroyed in only one known manner and that is by incapacitating the brain. 3) The ghouls are weak and uncoordinated but extremely dangerous when encountered in large numbers. 4) Their disease or condition is communicable. If a human is bitten and the area is not quickly removed or amputated the victim will surely die only to rise later. 5) Although they have seemingly little intelligence, some do have memory of activities from their former lives. This is the premise for the zombies in the shopping mall:- "what are they doing ? why do they come here ?", "somekind of instinct, memory, what they used to do, this was an important place in their lives." First we have the strength inconsistency. The weakest, slowest zombie that I can think of was the Hare Krishna zombie. The Strongest/agitated zombie is a tie between the fireman zombie from DAy (it seemed that if you ever encountered this guy he'd rip your balls off and toss them in a tall grass never to be seen again!! ) and big daddy ( who was able to lift a jack hammer and use it to break through some pretty thick glass to gain entrance to the green. That's a pretty wide spectrum if you ask me. This is not all. Even in the same movie, the original night, Cooper tells the story of how they came to be at the house. He says that a pack of ghouls turned over his car and bit his daughter on the arm. Knowing what we know about the mythology, doesn't this seem like an impossible feat? At the same time Ben is taking on 4-5 of them single handedly. Now we come to the speed issue. The three fastest ghouls i can recall are the first one we ever see, Hinzman, and the kids kids at the airport in dawn. In contrast I'll take you back to the Hare kriishna zombie. Could this guy be any slower? Fran could have gotten a pedicure in the time it took for kojack to get to her. Again this is occuring in the same film. So the argument that these are different zombies from different films with different traits doesn't fly. Now, I am a proponent of the point of view that the Zombies in each successive film are different and therefore exhibit different characteristics. But c'mon, we're talking about the same films here. While at the same time i do recognize their strength/speed is contingent on the situation and what GAR needs them for at that particular moment. You mean to tell me that those ghouls could have gotten to Peter in the loft? Especially while he was trying to make his escape. There's no way he should have been able to make it out of there alive. They should have swarmed him in an agitated frenzy like we have seen so many times before and since. We all know that happens when they're in a close proximity to food. So what happened there? Juxtapose that with the way they ambushed stephen in the elevator. They seemed much more frenzied, like a pack of jackals. He didn't stand a chance. All I'm saying is that some consistency within the same FILM would be nice, that's all. Any thoughts? Theories? BTW, Thanks Lee.

[bassman]

I agree with most of what you said. This may seem like a short cop out compared to your long and thought out post, but I just chalk it up to Romero and the crew doing what they had to do to progress the plot or to make it a little more frightening...

[darth los]

Another thing about the Hinzman ghoul. it's not just that he broke the car window with a rock. Look at his face. He tries to get in with his bare hands. After a couple of failed attempts it's as if he thinks to himself, " this is not working, I need something to smash this with". He then looks around, spots the rock and proceeds to use it. It's not even like the rock was in his face. He had a conscious thought and executed it. Remarkable.

[hadrian0117]

How fast/strong a zombie is depends on how fast/strong the person was when they were alive. Clearly a dead footballer is a bigger threat than grandma who needed someone to walk her to the toilet. Also a zombie will be weaker than they were alive, but won't tire or feel pain. It makes sense that a fresh one would be stronger than a rotted one.

[blind2d]

I think the kids were faster was because they were more fresh, and they're kids, so even in undeath they're just full of energy. Also, they didn't swarm Peter because of the dramatic music. It startled them, and they got confused.

[Doc]

If a zombie was alive and breathing a day ago I see no reason why it shouldn't have some speed and strength that the living being should had.

[darth los]

If a zombie was alive and breathing a day ago I see no reason why it shouldn't have some speed and strength that the living being should had. But if the films indeed are linked then there's a problem with that. The ghouls in night are much more listless than the ones in dawn and the ones in dawn more than day and so on. So they seem to be getting stronger, not weaker. The ones in land are as strong as humans, being able to lift jackhammesr and all and that should never be the case. However, it is another indicator that land does indeed come after day.

[Publius]

Even in the same movie, the original night, Cooper tells the story of how they came to be at the house. He says that a pack of ghouls turned over his car and bit his daughter on the arm. Knowing what we know about the mythology, doesn't this seem like an impossible feat? If he had a small enough car and there were enough zombies it's plausible. Maybe he drove a VW Beetle or (better yet) a Fiat 500. Doesn't strike me as the kind of car Cooper would be driving, though. More likely something big and domestic. I agree with you generally. Zombies should get weaker over time, and Peter should not have gotten out of that loft (or he should have had to move with a greater sense of urgency). Conversely, it's odd that so many zombies were able to climb a ladder so quickly to get up on the roof. Ladder-climbing seems to me like something that should be on the outer fringe of a zombie's ability.

[sandrock74]

If he had a small enough car and there were enough zombies it's plausible. Maybe he drove a VW Beetle or (better yet) a Fiat 500. Doesn't strike me as the kind of car Cooper would be driving, though. More likely something big and domestic. I agree with you generally. Zombies should get weaker over time, and Peter should not have gotten out of that loft (or he should have had to move with a greater sense of urgency). Conversely, it's odd that so many zombies were able to climb a ladder so quickly to get up on the roof. Ladder-climbing seems to me like something that should be on the outer fringe of a zombie's ability. Maybe it was a gremlin? The ladder climbing zombies at the end of Dawn always bothered me! They all knew how to climb a ladder AND even wait in single file for their turn AND even held the ladder still for the zombies ahead of them!!! Huh?!?

[darth los]

Maybe it was a gremlin? The ladder climbing zombies at the end of Dawn always bothered me! They all knew how to climb a ladder AND even wait in single file for their turn AND even held the ladder still for the zombies ahead of them!!! Huh?!? What? The living dead can't be well mannered? That's a deadist statement sir and that's not how we conduct ourselves around here!! If he had a small enough car and there were enough zombies it's plausible. Maybe he drove a VW Beetle or (better yet) a Fiat 500. Doesn't strike me as the kind of car Cooper would be driving, though. More likely something big and domestic. I agree with you generally. Zombies should get weaker over time, and Peter should not have gotten out of that loft (or he should have had to move with a greater sense of urgency). Conversely, it's odd that so many zombies were able to climb a ladder so quickly to get up on the roof. Ladder-climbing seems to me like something that should be on the outer fringe of a zombie's ability. We must also remember that the automobiles of that period weren't made of the paper mache' that they are today. They were solid steel. So even a car of that size would weigh what, one or two tons?

[Publius]

Maybe it was a gremlin? Gremlin was my first thought, but it wasn't produced till the early '70s. We must also remember that the automobiles of that period weren't made of the paper mache' that they are today. They were solid steel. So even a car of that size would weigh what, one or two tons? That's why I suggested a couple of specific smaller cars. The VW Beetle was the first really popular "subcompact" car in the U.S., and NotLD '68 is perfectly timed for it. It weighs about 1650 pounds. The new Beetle actually weighs a lot more than the original. The Fiat 500 is only about 1100 pounds and was produced since the late 1950s, though it was less popular in the U.S. than in Europe. The Vespa 400 weighed less than 900 pounds, but was even rarer in the U.S. And like I said, Cooper does strike me as the kind of guy who would prefer the big domestic gas-guzzlers that dominated the American market in that era.

[Yojimbo]

I keep hearing folks saying the the ghouls in NOLD were not as strong as those in the later films, but gotta say that Hinzman's zombie looked like he was holding his own against poor Johnny-boy in the cemetery. Maybe they are slower than the average human, but in a grappling match they seem to be able to be a pretty serious threat. I also recall a line in the film about Cooper's car being turned over. Ben, I believe, stated that any group of regular humans could easily manage to do that. Don't really know if it is true that five or six guys could manage to lift one of those late '60's clunkers, but if it is true then if there were enough ghouls it would seem at least to be feasable. Actually, yeah: How many regular humans would it take to turn over a late 60's Olds or equivalent?

[sandrock74]

How many regular humans would it take to turn over a late 60's Olds or equivalent? Now that sounds like a joke zombies tell each other about us when no normal humans are around! LMAO!!

[EvilNed]

Maybe a zombies fierceness is directly related to how agitated it is, and how "baited" it has been. The zombies jumping at Stephen had been outside that elevator waiting and anticipating him. Whereas the zombies going after Peter were more like "Oh, look there's food.".

[ZombieGrrL]

I think the kids were faster was because they were The kids in DOTD always annoyed me. It ruined the flow of the movie temporarily for me, luckily it was at the beginning. I put their fastness down to the actors not being able to sufficiently act like zombies & due to the time restraints of children on movie sets they took the best take they could. Just a guess.