"What's Causin' All This?!"

[SRP76]

It seems every "zombie flick" has its own take on what causes the outbreak, in the first place.

The Romero films, however, are famous for "never explaining" how the dead are able to rise. I think that's part of the appeal.

Now, I'm thinking each of us has a different "ideal" theory on what they think should have caused the outbreaks.

So, if you were making a zombie movie, and wanted to explain how it got started, what would be your scenario?

Personally, I would steer far clear of the "virus" routine. I HATE the "Virus Theory". Been done to death. Almost every damned one has some stupid "virus" causing everything. I'm sick of viruses.

So, what else can we do? Here's what:

We know something is reactivating the brain. The center of the nervous system. Now, that whole system is electrical in nature.

I'm thinking that some..."electrical disturbance" could be what causes the outbreak. Something (don't know what, though...) could have screwed up electromagnetic patterns worldwide, and a side-effect of this is that low-intensity electrical charges are partially reactivating the nervous systems of the dead.

......bring on your theories.

[AcesandEights]

Global Warming :lol:





I'm thinking that some..."electrical disturbance" could be what causes the outbreak. Something (don't know what, though...) could have screwed up electromagnetic patterns worldwide, and a side-effect of this is that low-intensity electrical charges are partially reactivating the nervous systems of the dead.


This is interesting, what if it were brought on by slightly atypical fluctuations that are present leading up to a geomagnetic reversal of the poles? We're almost due for one and some say there is evidence that we may be going into early onset of the process even now.

[bassman]

I would keep it as Romero has kept it with his series. It doesn't matter what started it....we have to deal with it and we wouldn't be able to. That's what it's about - dealing with it. F*ck the cause of it all.

If Dr. Frankenstein couldn't figure it out, I don't want to know.:p

[SRP76]

Where's the fun in that?




This is interesting, what if it were brought on by slightly atypical fluctuations that are present leading up to a geomagnetic reversal of the poles? We're almost due for one and some say there is evidence that we may be going into early onset of the process even now.

Didn't think of the pole-reversal. That could be reasonable.

[Yojimbo]

I like the pole reversal theory much better than a virus, or a stupid governmental bio-warfare accident.

That being said, I agree with bassman that the causes aren't as important as the effect. The dead are rising for whatever reason and the drama exists in the fact that our lives are at risk.

Really, with the Romero based universe, the fun in the films exists in the characters and how they survive, not in the nuts and bolts of why the phenomenon exists. The zombie crisis could just as easily be a hurricane, or an outbreak of a devastating illness, or an earthquake.

[millsaps05]

I personally like the idea from Dawn of the Dead; there is no more room in hell.

Radiation from some galactic body would be my favorite explanation.

[Tricky]

Sorry but the virus is the only one that makes any sense to me,i dont buy the radiation and falling satellites stuff!stephen kings "cell" was interesting though,even if they werent strictly zombies...

[Yojimbo]

Sorry but the virus is the only one that makes any sense to me,i dont buy the radiation and falling satellites stuff!stephen kings "cell" was interesting though,even if they werent strictly zombies...

Tricky, not familar with the S.King "cell" reference. Can you elaborate?

Thanks homeboy!

[DeadJonas190]

Global Warming :lol:




This is interesting, what if it were brought on by slightly atypical fluctuations that are present leading up to a geomagnetic reversal of the poles? We're almost due for one and some say there is evidence that we may be going into early onset of the process even now.

It's funny that you said that because that's the first thing that came to mind when I read the electrical disturbance theory. Then I scroll down to the next post and you post whats in my head. GET OUT OF MY HEAD!!! :p

[SRP76]

not familar with the S.King "cell" reference. Can you elaborate?



Read the book. Great stuff, until about halfway through. Then, it gets stupid for me.

Anyway:

Cell phone rings. Someone answers. Some mysterious signal ('The Pulse") comes through their phone, and erases their minds. They eqaute the brain to a computer hard drive, and "The Pulse" served to "system restore" their brains. So, none of the "software" (everything a person learns from birth) is there anymore.

Then....they head into the second half of the book, and I stop liking it.:lol:

[EvilFlyingCow]

I like the idea of a supernatural cause. If the cause of the phenomenon is supernatural, it cannot be explained through science.

[sandrock74]

I HATE magic and the supernatural! Always have, always will. I never saw Romero's zombies as being supernatural in nature...I always felt there was a quasi-scientific cause for it, it just never got figured out because of how fast everything fell to hell.
A virus is the thing that probably makes the most sense. It spreads fast and would be undetectable for a while. If I had to go with one of the theories given in one of the movies, I guess I would have to go with the satellite returning from Venus. It's something (a virus perhaps?) that spreads thru the atmosphere. If you listen to the news reports in the background of Night, there is even a clear "dispersal pattern" to the epidemic in it's earliest stages. Sounds like a disease to me!
I like a scientific explanation for things...I just need one! The undead I could deal with, but Voodo and Hocus Pocus is just too "out there" for me.
Besides, how it happened isn't important. Surviving it is!

[ProfessorChaos]

i'd do something related to the meteorite hitting in peru a month or so ago and spewing all kinds of foreign gasses into the atmosphe....or a comet passing too close to the earth and giving off loads of radiation.

[Slain]

My list of likely candidates for generating zombies: nano-organism, artificial life form created in a lab, a fragment of alien technology, a mutation in humanity brought about a new disease, chemicals, microwave pollution, or who knows what.

[Danny]

i agree the virus deal is getting old and aside from romero david moodys the only other dude to even hint that it was somethign youll never find out, in the 3rd book they meet someone who thinks it was a virus, but its like y the last man, theres tons of theorys, and i think its best to leave it like that, just like the walking dead comics "the dead walk" is all you need to know really.

[Yojimbo]

Read the book. Great stuff, until about halfway through. Then, it gets stupid for me.

Anyway:

Cell phone rings. Someone answers. Some mysterious signal ('The Pulse") comes through their phone, and erases their minds. They eqaute the brain to a computer hard drive, and "The Pulse" served to "system restore" their brains. So, none of the "software" (everything a person learns from birth) is there anymore.

Then....they head into the second half of the book, and I stop liking it.:lol:

Sounds cool, I'll have to check this out.

Yeah, like the Stand, the first part of the book rocked, but once they got into the entire good vs. evil mystical magical religious battle he lost me. Stephen King does write a good half novel some of the time!

[hadrian0117]

Some very bored gods and/or space aliens.

[Chakobsa]

I rather like the fact that we're never told. I think that if we'd been spoon fed some corny reason like a virus or some sort of mysterious radiation the films would not have been as powerful or as enduring.
Zombies in this context, much as we love to speculate, are nothing more than a plot device enabling a talented storyteller to ask some uncomfortable questions about human nature in a popular mass medium.

[suicide22]

We Did!

[Legion2213]

Al Gore...:rockbrow:

Honestly though, I don't give a ****. They are butchering the neighbours and trying to smash down your front door....defend yourselves!!!

BTW, Yojimbo - Spot on, the first part of "The Stand" is excellent, but I also started losing interest once the initial die off/plague was done with and we got into "ma whatsername" and the cornfield crap.

[strayrider]

I would blame it on George Bush.

:D

-stray-

[C5NOTLD]

It seems every "zombie flick" has its own take on what causes the outbreak, in the first place.

The Romero films, however, are famous for "never explaining" how the dead are able to rise. I think that's part of the appeal.
.

Well a early press release from Walter Reade (distributor of NOTLD) stated that the reason was due to man's use of atomic power.

[MissJacksonCA]

My thing about zombie movies and horror flicks in general is that they're seemingly sparked by real events or creatures or folklore. So I deeply enjoy the possibility of something plausible... because it makes it a potential threat and that's kinda exciting to me...

Recently i've been working on a scenario on the dead coming back to life because of a muscular transplant... its really intriguing to me that they use parts from dead bodies and put them into living beings (possibly why i'm an organ donor) but also that they continue to try to recycle more and more parts from dead bodies to prolong the life of the living. And well from these expiraments who's to say that the host wont die from the dead transplant? I know organs can be rejected but instead of rejection I'm aiming for something more along the lines of a mutation to the dead cells rather than the dead cells mutating with the living parts.

[Publius]

Sorry but the virus is the only one that makes any sense to me,i dont buy the radiation and falling satellites stuff!stephen kings "cell" was interesting though,even if they werent strictly zombies...

Agree. Aside from supernatural explanations, a virus (or bacterium, maybe) makes the most sense. It's more difficult to imagine radiation or an electrical disturbance doing something as complicated as reanimating a dead corpse. Taking over another organism for its own purposes, on the other hand, is what a virus does.

[darth los]

I would keep it as Romero has kept it with his series. It doesn't matter what started it....we have to deal with it and we wouldn't be able to. That's what it's about - dealing with it. F*ck the cause of it all.

If Dr. Frankenstein couldn't figure it out, I don't want to know.:p

In the event that "it" ever did happen it's highly unlikely that the average citizen would have any clue as to what was causing it anyway. There would be too much widespread anarchy. You' have to watch your ass on multiple sides. From the zombies as well as other humans looking to survive even if it means killing you. Day is arguably 3-5 years into it and the scientists still didn't know what the hell was going on.

[MissJacksonCA]

Yeah but with todays advanced technology and education you'd imagine that they'd be able to find out whats causing the zombie stuff and making it happen.

[AcesandEights]

In the event that "it" ever did happen it's highly unlikely that the average citizen would have any clue as to what was causing it anyway. There would be too much widespread anarchy. You' have to watch your ass on multiple sides. From the zombies as well as other humans looking to survive even if it means killing you. Day is arguably 3-5 years into it and the scientists still didn't know what the hell was going on.

It really would depend on the cause and how quickly things are happening with the infection and the fall of civilization. If it were a virus though, it would probably be easily detectable by modern medical research, though understanding it would be the difficult part.

[SRP76]

It really would depend on the cause and how quickly things are happening with the infection and the fall of civilization. If it were a virus though, it would probably be easily detectable by modern medical research, though understanding it would be the difficult part.

Viruses don't use dead flesh, though.

Anyway, under some theories (like the pole-reversal thing) civilization would fall in 1 day. Reason being, ALL the dead would rise, EVERYWHERE, all at once, worldwide. There would be no "spreading". Just BOOM, here it is, in every backwater on the planet.

[AcesandEights]

Viruses don't use dead flesh, though.


I wasn't one of the people arguing for a viral cause, just pointing out that were it to be a virus it could be discerned relatively easily.

[SRP76]

I wasn't one of the people arguing for a viral cause, just pointing out that were it to be a virus it could be discerned relatively easily.

Oh, yes, it certainly could...

Wait.

If it were a virus, and viruses don't attack dead flesh, it could get tricky: This virus could do...well, something...to the victim, to cause them to die, then reanimate. After death, the virus flees the body, since it has no more use for it.

That would make detection all kinds of difficult. You'd have to have someone who is infected, but not dead yet. And if they aren't dead yet, how do you know they're infected?

Bad news.....

[Danny]

^ now theres one other theory right there.

in some amatuer films ive seen, and the autumn novels, the "whatever" kills living people, then there bodies rise, not those allready dead, thats way freakier, and a little more believeable, though not by much.

[Wyldwraith]

The virus/micro-organism theory endures because it works,
The storyteller wants it to spread, viruses spread. They want it to convert the living to the enemy, infection converts living matter for its own uses. The parallels continue but the bottom line is simple. You just don't see another theory which so neatly bundles together every trait we've come to know and love from the Romero-esque zombie.

Like a previous poster mentioned, plausibility is key if its to feel like a real potential threat and bring maximum creep-factor to bear on the audience. Almost every other theory leaves that hole: Why arent all the dead everywhere rising en masse, thus extinguishing humanity in hours?

Every single attempt at a zombie story I've ever read that had the long dead and all dead just get up at once and start killing without a reason you could even speculate about quickly became boring.

There's another reason the virus theory has charm. Humanity is beginning to get a grip on microbiology. A lethal virus threatening humanity is something we both fear, yet feel there's a chance we could struggle against.

*Potential* extinction can be thrilling. *Inevitable* extinction is boring, repetitive and depressing. Would you want to watch characters you were absolutely positive were going to die, knowing that humanity as a whole was soon to follow....without the least hope of survival?

I think there are ways to complicate the virus sub-plot that isn't normally explored, and that's a shame.

For example, anyone familiar with the anime Trinity Blood knows the global nuclear holocaust caused mutation and is the central facet of their vampire creation myth...something similar would work for zombies...and thats just one complication.

[darth los]

I wasn't one of the people arguing for a viral cause, just pointing out that were it to be a virus it could be discerned relatively easily.

A virus does seem to make the most sense. But as your man Dennis Hopper said, In a world where the dead are returning to life the word "sense" loses much of it's meaing.:rockbrow:

[AcesandEights]

A virus does seem to make the most sense. But as your man Dennis Hopper said, In a world where the dead are returning to life the word "sense" loses much of it's meaing.:rockbrow:

Eloquently written, Darth :D