Dear Growling, Running, Twitching Zombie...

[EvilNed]

But, they don't EAT their victims. The infected of "28 Days Later" are just mad (living) people driven insane by the RAGE virus. Zombies in popular folklore do not EAT their victims either. Yet both are zombies. However, dead people EATING live people weren't zombies until GAR made his first film. So there you go, the term evolves. Either the guys in 28 Days Later are zombies, or not even NOTLD is a zombie film.

[shootemindehead]

...Or to quote Danny Boyle... Q. 28 Days Later had a similar feel to the classic zombie film Night Of The Living Dead. Can you tell us which films in particular influenced you? Alex Lochrie A. The Romero films are obviously the most important zombie films, but 28 Days Later isn't really a zombie film. Other films like Cronenberg's Rabid and John Wyndham's The Day Of The Triffids are big influences for both Alex [Garland, the writer] and I. http://www.bbc.co.uk/films/webaccess..._boyle_1.shtml Zombies in popular folklore do not EAT their victims either. Yet both are zombies. However, dead people EATING live people weren't zombies until GAR made his first film. So there you go, the term evolves. Either the guys in 28 Days Later are zombies, or not even NOTLD is a zombie film. Yes, but my point above is to illustrate that the monsters of "28 Days Later" are not the same creature as in "Dawn of the Dead" as was alluded to earlier. This thread has gone off in several different tangents, it seems.

[EvilNed]

...Or to quote Danny Boyle... Yes, but my point above is to illustrate that the monsters of "28 Days Later" are not the same creature as in "Dawn of the Dead" as was alluded to earlier. This thread has gone off in several different tangents, it seems. First off, What Danny Boyle says isn't law. You know Andrei Tarkovsky said STALKER and Solyaris weren't sci-fi films? Does that mean they aren't sci-fi films? No, that just means Andrei Tarkovsky was full of himself. Directors often are when it comes to their own films. What Danny Boyle says off his own film holds little regard... AGAIN, if you'd READ the THREAD you'd have seen we already passed this subject. (I do hate repeating myself...) As for the monsters in 28 not being the same as those in Dawn, you'll see, again, if you read the thread that they are... With the keyphrase being "For all intents and purposes". EDIT: Infact, please do not make another post until you've read the entire thread or you will be ignored as you'll likely to bring something that's already been discussed.

[Trin]

To your first statement, I disagree. I made the point in an earlier post that in the film it is actually said that it is not known whether these beings are dead or alive. Society just fell apart too fast for there to be any significant research on these subjects and then for it to be relayed to the public. I believe you are referring to Dawn '04 whereas I was commenting on the undead in general. In the case of Dawn '04 I agree. It treats the whole phenomenon much more like Infected than like undead. In fact, Dawn '04 is extremely loose with the concept of dead, undead, infection, whatever. Rules seem to be about as important as plot or character development. What are you gonna do. It's an action flick. So booo on Dawn '04 for causing this problem. The whole "looks like a duck, walks like a duck, sounds like a duck" argument doesn't work for me. In my old guy worldview society has become too quick to judge a book by its cover when in truth the devil is in the details. If we look at the details the renimated dead and the infected have too many differences to ignore. Some have been cataloged and argued in this thread. I agree with most of them and won't rehash. But there's one crucial difference to me and it lies in why we embrace Horror movies. Horror plays on fear. Horror makes us scared. The undead play on people's fear of death and fears of what lies beyond death. Mess with that and you're upending thousands of years of who we are. People also fear contracting a deadly disease. Little invisible germs that invade our bodies and make us infirm, or crazy, or disabled. The infected play on that fear. The two fears are different. When I watch a "zombie" movie with undead it incites a whole different reaction in me than when I watch a "zombie" movie with infected. On a final note, if you're putting GAR's movies, Dawn '04, 28 Days/Weeks, and Legend into the same genre that's fine. They have commonalities. But calling it "zombie movies" is missing the resounding common theme. I think it's the whole world besieged by "creatures" which is the commonality. If McCammon's book "They Thirst" or F. Paul Wilson's book "Midnight Mass" became movies they'd likely fall into this same category because they are instances where the whole world is under siege - in these cases by vampires, but in the broader sense "evil creatures." Likewise a movie like Warning Sign doesn't really fit the "zombie movie" genre because it's such an isolated instance. It's NOT the whole world besieged. Yet the infected in Warning Sign are nearly identical to 28 Days. Just food for thought.

[Yojimbo]

But the zombies of George Romero's world are "infected" too. Shootemindehead, could you please clarify how you have come to the conclusion "ghouls" of George Romero's world (I will no longer refer to them as zombies) are "infected"? I do not believe that this was ever shown to be the case in any of GARs "- of the dead" films so I am interested as to how you came to this conclusion.

[shootemindehead]

Shootemindehead, could you please clarify how you have come to the conclusion "ghouls" of George Romero's world (I will no longer refer to them as zombies) are "infected"? I do not believe that this was ever shown to be the case in any of GARs "- of the dead" films so I am interested as to how you came to this conclusion. Don't they say in one of the films that scientists are looking at the phenomenon "...from a viral infection point of view" ? I think it's in "Dawn of the Dead". Also, in "Night of the Living Dead", isn't there the Vinus Probe space virus idea? It's never explicit in GAR's zombie flicks, but it seems implied as a possible cause...no?

[Yojimbo]

Don't they say in one of the films that scientists are looking at the phenomenon "...from a viral infection point of view" ? I think it's in "Dawn of the Dead". Also, in "Night of the Living Dead", isn't there the Vinus Probe space virus idea? It's never explicit in GAR's zombie flicks, but it seems implied as a possible cause...no? Shootem, you are correct in that it is mentioned in DAWN 78 (background news broadcast) that they were looking at the phenomenon from a viral infection point of view - which makes sense since they were scrambling to figure out why this phenomenon was occuring in the first place - but in none of the movies did they ever conclude that it was in fact a virus. NOLD is a little different in that it was being speculated that the return of the Venus Probe and the raditation hitting the earth following it's subsequent destruction (since it fell out of orbit and had to be destroyed) MIGHT have something to do with the phenomenon. I don't believe that they mentioned that the probe had released a virus, per se, but I could be wrong. Perhaps someone here that has viewed their own copy recently (admittedly it's been a few months since I popped this one in my player) could clairfy whether or not "viruses" were mentioned in the NOLD news broadcasts. Since the radiation and the venus probe is never mentioned in any of the other films, I assume that is was just a theory that did not pan out, or was not shown to be a direct cause of the phenomenon. This all differs from Hack Snyder's rape of the concept, since he inserted a that scene in the DAWN 2004 where they find out that you do not ressurect after you die unless you have been bitten, which therefore points to a communicable disease of some sort (much like Cronenberg's RABID, or the 28 Days/Weeks scenarios) which is different from the GAR "of the Dead" universe of films where everybody, bitten or not, will come back after they die. So in the GAR universe, if you die of a heroin overdose and have not been bitten, for example, you will become a "Ghoul" whereas in Hack Snyder's ripoff if you die of a heroin overdose but have not received a bite from a "zombie" you will not return (I guess, unless that zombie used the needle before the poor dude overdoses!) So my interpretation - and I could be wrong - is that the "Ghouls" in GAR's "Of the Dead" series are not returning due to some sort of virus or infection, whereas it is explicitly shown in Snyder's reimagined piece of shit that the phenomena is the result of a communicable disease.

[Andy]

However much you pick at it and twist definations, it is generally accepted that a zombie is a reanimated corpse.. whether their runners or shamblers, flesh eating or brain eating, inteligent or not... their dead. Its one thing every zombie movie, tv series, comic, book.. everything... its one thing they all have in common. they are dead. 28 days/weeks are clearly NOT zombie movies as the plot is about a virus that infects people and makes them insane and attack others, and vomit blood on them, spreading the virus. its a film about a epidemic, the victims are insane and continue to attack until they starve to death, where they do not reanimate and they pose no more threat. No part of this is zombie or even similar to zombies.

[Trin]

...since he inserted a that scene in the DAWN 2004 where they find out that you do not ressurect after you die unless you have been bitten... I think Yojimbo that everything you said is accurate. I'd just like to add that the Dawn '04 reference to not being bitten = not coming back is so short and inconsequential that at first I wondered if Snyder just flubbed it up. Or maybe he never understood how a GAR ghoul works. Or just wanted to be different to be different. I wasn't even sure how the characters knew this to be true since they had so little experience with the phenomenon themselves. I would've had a shotgun pointed at that thing for ten minutes, and if it didn't reanimate by then I'd probably still secure it somewhere for observation. Long and short - GAR proved in Land with the hanging scene that no bite is required for a GAR dead body to reanimate. Dawn '04 proved with the dead guy not coming back that in Snyder's interpretation it was more of an infection base. However much you pick at it and twist definations, it is generally accepted that a zombie is a reanimated corpse.. whether their runners or shamblers, flesh eating or brain eating, inteligent or not... their dead. Its one thing every zombie movie, tv series, comic, book.. everything... its one thing they all have in common. they are dead. 28 days/weeks are clearly NOT zombie movies as the plot is about a virus that infects people and makes them insane and attack others, and vomit blood on them, spreading the virus. its a film about a epidemic, the victims are insane and continue to attack until they starve to death, where they do not reanimate and they pose no more threat. No part of this is zombie or even similar to zombies. Amen!!

[AcesandEights]

However much you pick at it and twist definations, it is generally accepted that a zombie is a reanimated corpse.. whether their runners or shamblers, flesh eating or brain eating, inteligent or not... their dead. Gotta disagree with you, Andy. The definition of the word zombie and what it can applied to is broader than that and with all the other thematic elements being so similar in the 28DL/28WL...well...you probably know my opinion on the matter (assuming you've read the last 6 or so pages of posts).

[Yojimbo]

Forgive me for the digression, but this is the best...thread...ever! Intelligent and well composed arguments, clashing of ideas without degenerating into a petty name calling flame fest, various interpretations of minutae that only true believer fans would participate in without the residual dorkiness that accompanies Trekker/Trekkie groups - all of these things are reasons why I continue to come back here as often as I can to visit with all of you, my extended family. And now, back to the firefight.

[Andy]

I Have and i see what your doing, but i do think your picking at the defination, and i think there is a clear difference between the factual defination of zombie which your using and the movie defination which many people here are using. Lets take a look at the defination as it stands on dictionary.com zom⋅bie   /ˈzɒmbi/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [zom-bee] Show IPA –noun 1. (in voodoo) a. the body of a dead person given the semblance of life, but mute and will-less, by a supernatural force, usually for some evil purpose. b. the supernatural force itself. 2. Informal. a. a person whose behavior or responses are wooden, listless, or seemingly rote; automaton. b. an eccentric or peculiar person. 3. a snake god worshiped in West Indian and Brazilian religious practices of African origin. 4. a tall drink made typically with several kinds of rum, citrus juice, and often apricot liqueur. 5. Canadian Slang. an army conscript assigned to home defense during World War II. -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Origin: 1810–20; appar. < Kongo or Kimbundu nzambi god Related forms: zom⋅bi⋅ism, noun lets break it down. Number one, firstly, mentions that is a dead person. 28 days later does not apply, it neither has anything to do with voodoo or supernatural forces. definatly does not fit. Number two, Victims of "rage" are not exactly wooden, listless or seemingly rote are they? sure they are enraged and insane, but definatly not the behaviour of a automaton or eccentric person, for a start rage is a emotion and zombies by this defination do not feel emotion. 28 days does not fit. Number three, 28 days has nothing to do with West Indian and Brazilian religious practices of African origin. does not fit. Number four, 28 days is not a tasty drink. Number five, again, 28 days has nothing to do with this. Defination number 1 is the most relevant to this argument, and the one most people will immediatly use, the defination states a dead person so 28 days is excluded there.. but it also refers exclusively to voodoo or supernatural which modern Z movies dont really use.. so by using the exact defination of zombie, which is what i think your trying to do, your excluding almost every zombie we know and love unless your a huge fan of white zombie.. which is why we have the movie defination. So whats our conclusion? if you want to pick the defination of Zombie apart, which i have, 28 days doesnt fit it in any shape. it is not a zombie movie. fact.

[EvilNed]

No part of this is zombie or even similar to zombies. Infact, I think you'll mind many a people who disagree. I for one. I find them very similar to zombies, and I have a hard time thinking even you can't find it very similar to zombies. A zombie does not have to be dead. A braindead person can also be a zombie. Infact, this is just as a correct usage of the term. Mindlessly doing whatever you're programmed to do (like, for instance, the infected victims of the 28 films?) is a genuine definition of being a zombie. So, I fail to see how they cannot be even remotely similar? Or, why 28 Days Later cannot be a zombiefilm, when it DOES infact, feature... dun dun dun... Zombies! so by using the exact defination of zombie, which is what i think your trying to do, your excluding almost every zombie we know and love unless your a huge fan of white zombie.. which is why we have the movie defination. You do realize, however, that the modern movie definition evolved from NOTLD? In much the same way it has now evolved further, as from 28 Days Later? Right? Because how can we accept one "evolvement" of the phrase, yet deny any further evolving? How... conservative...

[Yojimbo]

I would've had a shotgun pointed at that thing for ten minutes, and if it didn't reanimate by then I'd probably still secure it somewhere for observation. Long and short - GAR proved in Land with the hanging scene that no bite is required for a GAR dead body to reanimate. Dawn '04 proved with the dead guy not coming back that in Snyder's interpretation it was more of an infection base. Amen!! In agreement with Trin- if in the DAWN 04 universe, I wouldn't take any chances with an unbitten, unrevived corpse and would either secure it, or sever the head from the body if I had the guts. I had forgotten about the hanging scene in LAND - Thanks Trin- which does in fact prove that an unbitten corpse in the GAR universe will rise.

[AcesandEights]

so by using the exact defination of zombie Since when do words have exact definitions and when does one online source constitute it? I've already explained how words are slippery things. You've never referred or heard reference to a living person as a zombie, or acting like a zombie? I've seen it used in such cases going back prior way prior to 28DL/28WL. This is just going to be something we disagree on.