The zombie's look/appearance

[Blackdragon6]

Theres something that always bothered me when it comes to the look of zombies.I noticed that alot of zombies are hardly ever depicted as zombies.In terms of their looks i mean.They always looked like monsters and ghoulish instead of reanimated corpses.I guess thats why i appreciate NOTLD,and NOTLD 90's remake much more now.Especially tom savini's remake,I think tom's zombies was probably the most accurate depiction of what zombies might look like if they existed.Which is basically freshly dead people who shows small signs of decomposition but not completely decomposed either.

[Philly_SWAT]

I look at it like this. Most zombies movies are set at or near the beginning stages of a zombie outbreak. Therefore, most zombies wouldnt like that much different than a live person. Aside from some that died in a horrible car wreck, or had part of their body ripped off during a zombie attack, etc. those would look pretty bad. But it makes for a more boring movie is the zombies just looked a little white from lack of blood flow. Therefore, movie making techniques require the zombies to look more ghoulish, or like monsters. I love Tom Savini's SX work. But in Night 90, there was a zombie waling around with a needle in his arm (implying he had died from a drug overdose). Kind of funny, and just another interesting way to see how that particular zombie died, but how likely is that? Number one, even if you were getting an overdose, dont you think you would have ONE SECOND to pull the syringe out? And number 2, dont you think it would have fallen out as you were shambling off in the woods, rubbing up against trees, trying to attack the living, etc?

[Blackdragon6]

Aside from some that died in a horrible car wreck, or had part of their body ripped off during a zombie attack, etc. those would look pretty bad. those are understandable though and i don't mind them at all.in fact more of those would be great.


But it makes for a more boring movie is the zombies just looked a little white from lack of blood flow. Therefore, movie making techniques require the zombies to look more ghoulish, or like monsters.understandable,but i would prefer more of the kind you mentioned above over the ghouls look though.....but thats just my preference


I love Tom Savini's SX work. But in Night 90, there was a zombie waling around with a needle in his arm (implying he had died from a drug overdose). Kind of funny, and just another interesting way to see how that particular zombie died, but how likely is that? Number one, even if you were getting an overdose, dont you think you would have ONE SECOND to pull the syringe out? And number 2, dont you think it would have fallen out as you were shambling off in the woods, rubbing up against trees, trying to attack the living, etc?valid point but a lethal dose probably would stop them from pulling the needle out.having said that i thought that was a awesome way of bringing out small details about the zombies.:D kinda like a subtle obscure way of giving the zombie some history to speculate about.

[Mutineer]

I liked Day, the Night Remake and Dawn 04's zombies.

Dawn 78's zombies are a joke.

[MikePizzoff]

I liked Day, the Night Remake and Dawn 04's zombies.

Dawn 78's zombies are a joke.

You take that back!

[capncnut]

I think the best thing to do is just ignore it. :D

[Mutineer]

Alright. My bad.

These guys really are scary. :D

http://images.greencine.com/images/article/zombies_dawnofthedead.jpg

[Blackdragon6]

Alright. My bad.

These guys really are scary. :D

http://images.greencine.com/images/article/zombies_dawnofthedead.jpgeh they wasn't without their charm.but i think the zombies from the night flyer was pretty creepy in appearance.

[fartpants]

this picture reminds me of when my in-laws come to visit...

[coma]

Alright. My bad.

These guys really are scary. :D

http://images.greencine.com/images/article/zombies_dawnofthedead.jpg
That shot was in the trailer I saw at th Drive in in 1978. It scared the crap out of me and still does (in a way cause Im not 11 years old). So to me it's great and probably the single biggest reason for my almost lifelong obssession with Dawn of the Dead.
When people rudely run at me when Im in an elevator I still think of that shot,


So Im right and your wrong:lol:
Hardy Har har

[AcesandEights]

When people rudely run at me when Im in an elevator I still think of that shot,
Hardy Har har

Hehe, that's pretty cool to have that association, actually.

PS--It's rude to run towards the elevator doors? What if you just realized you left the iron on?

[DEAD BEAT]

Dawn's zombie make up some might see as a joke but something about the still face and gray make-up is an erie combination!:D

Tell you what i could do with out is the angry faces and screaming that takes away the creepyness of it all haven't you ever heard "silent but deadly"?

Now i say this with caution but Fulci's zombies are almost scarier,
"i said almost"!

And for god sakes as all you might have mentioned in the past...

"STOP THE FRICKEN RUNNING ZOMBIES"!!!
:mad:

[Cody]

hey blue paint is scary.

[Deadman_Deluxe]

Aside from NIGHT 90, no one has mentioned the other obvious choice, the first RESIDENT EVIL movie.

Don't fcuking laugh, just go and watch it again.

[Trencher]

Resident evil has great zombies the only problem being that they are all dressed in lab clothes. I think that the zombies in dawn 78 looked more creepy than the ones in dawn 04 because they were looked like evil hungry stupid humans not ugly freaks.

[darth los]

Theres something that always bothered me when it comes to the look of zombies.I noticed that alot of zombies are hardly ever depicted as zombies.In terms of their looks i mean.They always looked like monsters and ghoulish instead of reanimated corpses.I guess thats why i appreciate NOTLD,and NOTLD 90's remake much more now.Especially tom savini's remake,I think tom's zombies was probably the most accurate depiction of what zombies might look like if they existed.Which is basically freshly dead people who shows small signs of decomposition but not completely decomposed either.

Savini was actually a combat photographer in vietnam. This gave him a unique glimpse into what a dead body actually looked like.

[MissJacksonCA]

come to think of it.... I really enjoyed the zombies look in Dawn 04. they kinda had that sallow jaundiced look of a corpse that i like...

[Blackdragon6]

Savini was actually a combat photographer in vietnam. This gave him a unique glimpse into what a dead body actually looked like.which is why i like his modern take on zombies.

[RustyHicks]

Savini's zombies were the best, in Dawn they were freshly risen
and looked so.
In Day they were decompossing and he did good, just by looking
at the zombies you can tell that Dawn came before Day.
Well duh, Dawn does come before the day but..you know what I mean

[darth los]

Savini's zombies were the best, in Dawn they were freshly risen
and looked so.
In Day they were decompossing and he did good, just by looking
at the zombies you can tell that Dawn came before Day.
Well duh, Dawn does come before the day but..you know what I mean

Exactly. In NOTLD 68' the bodies looked extremely fresh to match with how long the plauge was actually going on. I also don't think he gets enough credit for making the ghoul's eyes in the remake milky. I thought that was a nice touch and from what i hear accurately depicts what happens to the eyes. It makes them look very souless and vacant as well.

[RustyHicks]

Those eyes were soulness. Made the zombies look more
terrifying. I don't think Savini gets much credit for Night 90
not as much as he should.

[Blackdragon6]

agrees.....

[darth los]

Those eyes were soulness. Made the zombies look more
terrifying. I don't think Savini gets much credit for Night 90
not as much as he should.

And to hear him tell it, he was severely hamstrung with what he could and couldn't do with that film. Imagine what it would have been like if savini's sick mind was given free reign. I think that whole experience had soured him to the whole directing thing. I'm sure he could do it again if he wanted to. People give the remake alot of flak but it's certainly light years ahead of most of the other offerings we get in the genre.

[Yojimbo]

And to hear him tell it, he was severely hamstrung with what he could and couldn't do with that film. Imagine what it would have been like if savini's sick mind was given free reign. I think that whole experience had soured him to the whole directing thing. I'm sure he could do it again if he wanted to. People give the remake alot of flak but it's certainly light years ahead of most of the other offerings we get in the genre.

He is not a bad director. I saw that whole movie and did not realize that I did not see one headshot.

[darth los]

He is not a bad director. I saw that whole movie and did not realize that I did not see one headshot.

I think you need to rewatch it then. I can remember 10 headshot off the top of my head. Now they might not have been as gory as savini would have liked but they were definitely in there. If anything the original was much more conservative about the headshots.

[RustyHicks]

I think you need to rewatch it then. I can remember 10 headshot off the top of my head. Now they might not have been as gory as savini would have liked but they were definitely in there. If anything the original was much more conservative about the headshots.


Even though the rating board cut out a lot of shots Sivini wanted
to use, he said in the making of the film on DVD, that in some way,
not showing the head being blown away worked, cause our imagination
could be more graphic than anything he could show.

I've always liked Savini's work in NOTLD90, he kept to the original,
fine tuned some things and gave it a whole new life.

[darth los]

Even though the rating board cut out a lot of shots Sivini wanted
to use, he said in the making of the film on DVD, that in some way,
not showing the head being blown away worked, cause our imagination
could be more graphic than anything he could show.

I've always liked Savini's work in NOTLD90, he kept to the original,
fine tuned some things and gave it a whole new life.

On the dvd extras they actually show the portions of gore that were cut out. Pretty tame by today's standars. It's wierd because there were a few things from the original dawn that i found more shocking, like wooley blowing that dudes head off in the apartment building. There was a head shot in the night remake that was identical if not similar to that yet it was cut out. I think there was something else going on behind the scenes because that just doesn't make sense.

[RustyHicks]

Yeah neither did I.
1990, you could have Micheal Myers sticking a pitch fork up
someone back while they're having sex, Freedy Kruger torturing somone in their nightmares but heaven forbid you show a zombie being exterminated

[darth los]

It's not just the the film's contemporaries that i was talking about either. I explicitly chose dawn, a film made 11 years earlier and by the same person, to illustrate that ther's something fishy going on there.

[Yojimbo]

I think you need to rewatch it then. I can remember 10 headshot off the top of my head. Now they might not have been as gory as savini would have liked but they were definitely in there. If anything the original was much more conservative about the headshots.

I could be wrong and I will have to rewatch my copy to verify, but I recall that Savini's commentary mentioned that he felt the movie was more effective without headshots, which he had to leave out apparently. At the time, I was surprised because I thought I had seen headshots in the theater, however in watching the rest of the film after the comment I did not notice any headshots.

Again, I will have to review the film to be certain-- lack of headshots is not something I am swearing to just yet.

[darth los]

I could be wrong and I will have to rewatch my copy to verify, but I recall that Savini's commentary mentioned that he felt the movie was more effective without headshots, which he had to leave out apparently. At the time, I was surprised because I thought I had seen headshots in the theater, however in watching the rest of the film after the comment I did not notice any headshots.

Again, I will have to review the film to be certain-- lack of headshots is not something I am swearing to just yet.

Nor should you because they're definitely in there although not as gory as he would have liked them to be.

I remember when he talks about not showing the headshot as better because what he shows you could never be as frightening as what your imagination can cook up. I think he was just trying to rationalize to himself how they screwed him over. There expressly used the scene where they're trying to make it for the gas pump and a zombie creeps up on tom right when he climbs up into the back of the truck. In savivni's version you see the total decapitation with the shotgun, very reminiscent of the way wooley did that guy in the apartment building scene in dawn. In the final cut of the film that scene is shown but they just show tom firing at an off screen ghoul. The rest is left to the viewer to decide.

[RustyHicks]

Yeah I heard that in his commentary too about the veiwers imagination
would be more frightening than what he could show.
It sucks that this could never be the way he wanted it, and it's too
bad he got discouraged in making other movies by the hassels
he had to endure making this one

[darth los]

Yeah, one wonders the horrors he could have come up with if he was given free reign in this as well as subsequent films.

[flyboy]

Theres something that always bothered me when it comes to the look of zombies.I noticed that alot of zombies are hardly ever depicted as zombies.In terms of their looks i mean.They always looked like monsters and ghoulish instead of reanimated corpses.I guess thats why i appreciate NOTLD,and NOTLD 90's remake much more now.Especially tom savini's remake,I think tom's zombies was probably the most accurate depiction of what zombies might look like if they existed.Which is basically freshly dead people who shows small signs of decomposition but not completely decomposed either.





and also how come all zombies are dressed as if they have just woke up and got dressed? i thought when folk get buried,they are buried ina suit or even naked?

[darth los]

and also how come all zombies are dressed as if they have just woke up and got dressed? i thought when folk get buried,they are buried ina suit or even naked?

The ghouls that have become reanimated don't come up above the ground just the bodies of the recently deceased. As you saw at the cemetary scene there presumably are a few zombies who got "dressed up" prior to being buried but reanimated before they could be. However, i would imagine that the bulk of people who die aren't expecting to do so so it's kind of unpredictable as to what their attire might look like.

[RustyHicks]

I always thought the zombie with the needle sticking
out of his arm was kind of freaky.
Guess he blew his mind out and ODed
before he became a zombie. Think there was
a zombie with a knife in the back too,
kind looked like his wife got fed up with him
and they had a domestic fight

[Yojimbo]

and also how come all zombies are dressed as if they have just woke up and got dressed? i thought when folk get buried,they are buried ina suit or even naked?

People are rarely buried naked, and are more likely buried in a suit or special outfit. What is improbable, however is that a corpse that reanimates inside of an interred casket would be able to get out of the casket in the first place. Firstly, caskets are locked froum the outside and it would take a great amount of pressure to break those locks. Breaking the locks from the inside of the casket is unlikely as there would be insufficient leverage space to accomplish this. Secondly, in the unlikely event that one was actually able to get out of the casket it is unlikely that they would be able to get out of the vault that the casket is encased in. If a corpse prepared for a funeral were to get up at the mortuary, however, before the casket was sealed this would be a different story.

[darth los]

What's the purpose behind locking a casket anyway? If a person is intent on robbing a grave breaking a lock seems like the easy part.

[MissJacksonCA]

Yeah right? The lock would be the least of any concerns.

D'ya think reanimated ashes would come to live? Like maybe dance in the air or something? Or maybe they'd swarm around the living and cover them and burn into them and then take over the body of whomever. Hmm...

[darth los]

Now you're just being silly. :rolleyes:

[MissJacksonCA]

hey these are valid concerns!

[Yojimbo]

What's the purpose behind locking a casket anyway? If a person is intent on robbing a grave breaking a lock seems like the easy part.

You are right that if a person is intent on getting in then they will. The casket lock is primarily used to prevent people from opening the casket easily at the graveside. Most cemeteries have policies against having the casket opened at the graveside for various reasons and a funeral director can only do so much to prevent relatives from lifting the lid. The lock works in that respect making it more difficult to open the lid.

People can get very emotional at a funeral and having the lid locked down is a good idea just in case someone decides to throw themselves onto the casket (how bad would it be if the casket falls over and the body tumbles out) or open the lid to jump inside and join their loved one. <--- This happens more than you would think!

[darth los]

I'm sure it does. I don't know anyone who hasn't atleast heard of a mother or other loved one throwing themselves on top of the body. When you factor the likelyhood of that happenning then It makes sense. Have there ever been any bodies to actually fall outside of the casket and if so what was people's reaction to it?

[MissJacksonCA]

dont you ever watch Jackass? they did a bit on it... driving the hearse... opening up the back door... uh oh there goes the casket...

[Blackdragon6]

The ghouls that have become reanimated don't come up above the ground just the bodies of the recently deceased. As you saw at the cemetary scene there presumably are a few zombies who got "dressed up" prior to being buried but reanimated before they could be. However, i would imagine that the bulk of people who die aren't expecting to do so so it's kind of unpredictable as to what their attire might look like.at least thats my conclusion.

[darth los]

dont you ever watch Jackass? they did a bit on it... driving the hearse... opening up the back door... uh oh there goes the casket...

I'D BUY THAT FOR A DOLLAR!! HAH !! :lol:

[Yojimbo]

I'm sure it does. I don't know anyone who hasn't atleast heard of a mother or other loved one throwing themselves on top of the body. When you factor the likelyhood of that happenning then It makes sense. Have there ever been any bodies to actually fall outside of the casket and if so what was people's reaction to it?

I have not personally seen a body tumble out of a casket, but have heard of this happening. Once, a clumsy pallbearer tripped while moving the casket to the graveside, causing his side of the casket to drop to the ground and while the remains did not tumble out the mere fact that the casket was dropped was horrifically upsetting to the family. Luckily, the casket had been locked prior to arrival at the cemetery. I can only imagine how much more upset the family would have been had the remains tumbled out.

[darth los]

I have not personally seen a body tumble out of a casket, but have heard of this happening. Once, a clumsy pallbearer tripped while moving the casket to the graveside, causing his side of the casket to drop to the ground and while the remains did not tumble out the mere fact that the casket was dropped was horrifically upsetting to the family. Luckily, the casket had been locked prior to arrival at the cemetery. I can only imagine how much more upset the family would have been had the remains tumbled out.

I know that it's morbid but i would love to see that happen. It would be totally priceless. I never understood people's fixation with a lifeless corpse anyway. Presuming that most people who require funeral services are religious why would they care about a body knowing that it's only and earthly shell and at that point insignificant?

[Yojimbo]

I know that it's morbid but i would love to see that happen. It would be totally priceless. I never understood people's fixation with a lifeless corpse anyway. Presuming that most people who require funeral services are religious why would they care about a body knowing that it's only and earthly shell and at that point insignificant?

People who have a funeral usually realize that the remains are only the "shell" of their loved one, however they still have an attachment to their loved one's body. Understandably, the remains are much more tangible than their memories and for this reason many want to view the remains before burial or cremation as a chance to say their final farewell. Some religions actually consider cremation to be improper -- Catholics primarily -- as they believe to do so would be tantamount to desecration.

Funny thing is a great number of people come in who consider themselves to be atheist actually plan rather elaborate funerals. They may choose to have a non-denominational service, or they may opt to have religous service to honor their loved one's wishes.