How a Living Dead manage to...

**The Alive Man** · 13-Nov-2006

... recognize an HUMAN from a similar Living Dead?

This question was inspired by the great 'SHAUN OF THE DEAD'.

How did they manage to recognize an Human? Did they somewhat "sense" the warm and living flesh? Is it something related to their altered smell (if they ever got one)?

**bassman** · 13-Nov-2006

I don't believe it's ever been officially covered. I know alot of people around here have theories, though.

I just look at it as "they just do".

**Philly_SWAT** · 13-Nov-2006

Originally Posted by bassman311

I don't believe it's ever been officially covered. I know alot of people around here have theories, though.

I just look at it as "they just do".

"They just do" is a good explanation. But as usual, I need to be a little more wordy than that.....

On multiple occasions in the series, in reference to the living dead, it is mentioned that "They're us". Which begs the question, how would you be able to tell the difference between a living person and a member of the living dead? You just could, using all the senses that you had at your disposal. Same with the undead. "They're you" after all.

**Gouldy** · 13-Nov-2006

like every animal or plant, they sense something about their prey and hunt it. It might not be the most sophisticated type of hunting but they hunt for what they need. Maybe through smell, sight or just a '6th sense' for zombies (

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**Adolf Kitler** · 13-Nov-2006

I think it's related to voodoo. Really.

**Philly_SWAT** · 13-Nov-2006

Originally Posted by Adolf Kitler

I think it's related to voodoo. Really.

When there's no more room in hell, the spirits there will inhabit cats.

**The Alive Man** · 13-Nov-2006

Meaow-calypse NOW!

capncnut · 14-Nov-2006

No one has ever died and come back to be able to tell us if the living can be differentiated from the dead. Maybe when you die, a lot of things show up different. Maybe the living have a bright orange glow in the eyes of the dead? How are we to know right? I just accept it as given and I don't question the unanswerable.

**Adolf Kitler** · 14-Nov-2006

Originally Posted by CapnSpaulding

No one has ever died and come back to be able to tell us if the living can be differentiated from the dead. Maybe when you die, a lot of things show up different. Maybe the living have bright orange glow in the eyes of the dead? How are we to know right? I just accept it as given and I don't question the unanswerable.

How would that pertain to zombies who are blind? Do they go by smell? Kinda hard to buy that, since the stink of death would be overpowering all other smells.

You can laugh at this idea, and it's not my favorite theory (I like the idea of it being a total mystery) but Romero alluded to it being of a mystical nature not only in Dawn: "Something my granddad used to tell us. You know Macumba? Vodoun. My granddad was a priest in Trinidad. He used to tell us, When there's no more room in hell, the dead will walk the earth", but also in Day, from the closest thing to the moral center of that film, the Jamaiican pilot John: "You want to put some kind of explanation on all this? Here's one as good as any other. We're bein' punished by the Creator. He visited a curse on us."

It may have not been by design, but the moral center of each of GAR's Dead films have been black men, who had ties to the caribean islands, or looked like they easily could have. GAR may say otherwise, but I doubt it was an accident that Big Daddy was black. As much as the stereotype of zombies have been changed with NOTLD, I strongly suspect that GAR, consciously or subconsciously, has the traditional lore of the voodoo zombies as part of his mindset.

At least thats my theory, for whatever it's worth, and is one possible explanation why zombies can differentiate living humans with dead ones.

**Danny** · 14-Nov-2006

well ive been thinking this over since i started working on a short zombei film, which is quickly turning into a litle zombiesode kinda thing what with the incredibly long script.
anyway u had to get around the eating thing, becuase i just dont think it works in my opinion, so i kinda tweaked it so they dont actually want to eat the humans theyll just fight tooth and whats left of there nails to kill them and theyll swarm em till they stop screaming and flailing, cus then there not different, they aint a threat anymore, i think i was inspired to do that from the autumn novels, which give the best explanation, the zombies have a little of there mind left, and they can tell were different to them, but what do humans do when we see something different and dengerous, normally it end sup with violence which is a sad thing but a good analagy for zombies, they know were different and they attack su and beat the life out of us just because they see us as a threat, when we aint living they stop attacking, but they dont eat us hence why there are more zombies than the origional amount, i never dug the whole flesh eating thing too much i just think that its the whole "differences" scenario.

that or the flying ones have sonar.

**The Alive Man** · 14-Nov-2006

Maybe it's not up to their "smell", for the reasons listed above. Maybe they recognize each other (and the Living) by "sensing", sort of that familiar "third eye" feeling that they can somehow catch. I don't wanna slide into the realm of spirituality or, even worse, religion. I just think they are structured to do so. I think it could involve the (scientific) cause which generated them in the first place.

I think their "sensing" is a sort of "biological sensibility", wherever you assume that the origin of the phenomenon is either radiation or a virus.

**Philly_SWAT** · 14-Nov-2006

Originally Posted by Adolf Kitler

As much as the stereotype of zombies have been changed with NOTLD, I strongly suspect that GAR, consciously or subconsciously, has the traditional lore of the voodoo zombies as part of his mindset.

At least thats my theory, for whatever it's worth, and is one possible explanation why zombies can differentiate living humans with dead ones.

I dont think so. Have you ever read and/or seen the movie of "I Am Legend"? This is where Romero got his idea from, and in that, they were more "vampire creatures" than zombies, and there is nothing "voodoo"-like in I Am Legend. If you havent seen it, you should, it is an interesting movie.