Zombie Canon and Netflix Revisited
April 9th, 2007 by Brian
The ad I wrote about in a previous post is still running on the New York Times website. I’m actually surprised how many search engine hits I’ve been getting (people searching for “creepy netflix ad” or something similar) for that article.
The comments on that article have been fairly active (more than 3 comments is a lot for me, at this point!) Its definitely worth re-reading the post with the comments. Give it a look and join the discussion!
In my own reply to the other commenters I mention “zombie canon.” I thought I’d use this post to sum it up real quick for those who are unfamiliar with the undead. Most zombie movies stray from at least a few of these bullet points.
- Zombies have to be shot in the brain to be “killed”
- If a Zombie bites a person; that person will turn into a zombie eventually
- Zombies eat human flesh but will attack animals if no humans are available
- Zombies have no emotion or memory of their lives (Romero strayed from this one, big time)
- Zombies cannot run. They shamble along slowly.
- People who are already dead from causes other than zombies cannot turn into zombies
Obviously I could go on but those are the 6 key points.
Actually, that last bullet point is contested in the comic book “The Walking Dead”
It depends what the root cause of Zombification is. In the original Night of the Living Dead they actually do rise from the grave (the cause is radiation from an outer space probe.)
In the case of World War Z or Dead Rising (video game) the victim has to be alive to be infected, as the cause is a parasitic organism (a virus in the former, a wasp larva in the latter.)
Right, I am glad that you expounded on this, as I was wondering what you meant. Thanks for the explanation.