RULES FOR ZOMBIES

Well, this is disconcerting...

I looked it up, and it says it may take between 5 to 10 years for the human brain to fully decompose!

However, since most zombies seem to "die" from a single bullet or knife to the brain, I don't think complete decomposition would be necessary to make the zombie brain useless... just enough decomposition to disconnect certain crucial synapses.

What say you?

Well, that's how it takes to turn to a brown dust-lump. How long does it take for synapses to degrade to the point to there they could never fire again? My guess is that the time-frame is much shorter, right?



I think the best quasi-scientific B.S. for the undead is to suppose the profound biochemical changes occur in the zombie. You are (somehow) degrading more slowly. You (somehow) have a nervous system working well-enough in some altered state that you are able to track prey and move muscles to attack. You (somehow) have muscles that are still working even though you are no longer metabolizing in the way that a living human does. All of this seems to require a radically different body-chemistry.

Rules for zombies? Do we have them? As I recall there was a distinct shift at the point of the Night of the Living Dead. As I also recall, the word zombie has never been used in WD, but those shuffling former humans became the prototype for the post-voodoo zombie. Since then, there's been no requirement for bongo drums, campfires, dark nights, exotic dances or voodoo princesses, no movies about voodoo set in the bayou, just some unnamed effect of some sort of non-specific plague that catches. I don't recall that there's ever been a term for the critters in The Walking Dead either. We just started calling them that, kinda like how any gun-toting man who wears one of those hats gets called a cowboy, even if he's a vegetarian who lives in New York.

What we may have here is a problem with semantics. A zombie used to be a voodoo curse, but now it's something else. Vampires and Werewolves have had fairly static meanings throughout movie history. We may need a better word for Walking Dead former-humans.

Regarding the whole fast vs. slow zombies issue, here's my two cents:

If I were to write and direct my own zombie movie, I would establish some sort of pecking order, based on how far gone they are:

1) RAGERS
These would be of the Zack Snyder 2004 Dawn variety. (Or perhaps a hybrid of the Snyder zombies and Dan O'Bannon's. See my BRAIN FOOTNOTE.) These are much more aggressive and vicious, and they can run really fast. However... they won't be able to keep that up indefinitely! The ragers are the "fresh," newly-minted zombies, and they haven't had a chance to deteriorate significantly. But as a character from Romero's 2007 Diary of the Dead points out, zombies would not be able to run very well once their Achilles tendons snap (partly due to inevitable decay, and mainly from the exertion of running itself)!

2) SHAMBLERS
These would be the classic, archetypal zombies as established by George Romero in 1968's Night of the Living Dead. They would be significantly far gone enough not to be able to run really fast. They would have to overwhelm their prey in larger numbers, as otherwise they would be relatively easy enough to bob and weave and run around. And these shamblers would be easily elbowed and pushed aside by the "fresher" ragers who would easily barge their way ahead of them!

3) SHUFFLERS
An even more advanced state of decay! The shufflers can do little more than perambulate about aimlessly like sleepwalking mental patients in some old snakepit melodrama. These movements are very reminiscent of the undead in the Italian zombie films directed by Lucio Fulci (Zombie, The Gates of Hell, The Beyond). However, Fulci's zombies seem imbued with weird supernatural abilities, including the ability to materialize and dematerialize at will. They're also really sneaky, in that they seem harmless enough until you get too close to them, at which point their arm abruptly juts upward and rips out whole chunks of your scalp! Depending upon whether or not the zombie apocalypse is of a supernatural origin, I think the shufflers would be as (relatively) harmless as they look. (But I wouldn't trust them to babysit an infant child! )

4) ROTTERS
The absolute rock-bottom end of the zombie "life" cycle. Rotters are completely and utterly useless at doing anything other than twitching and crawling about. I'm thinking of a scene from Romero's 2005 Land of the Dead where still-twitching zombie remains are disposed of in what looks like a dumping ground for the decayed, dismembered remains of the undead. From the point of disposal onward, I imagine that one day... eventually... they... would... simply... stop.

BRAIN FOOTNOTE ALERT!
Another obvious question is: Should zombies eat brains? Or should they be more focused on general flesh-eating? If zombies should be afflicted with this fixation, the only time they would be able to penetrate the cranium would be in their stronger, more aggressive rager state. Also consider that their nerve endings would probably still have some vestigial - albeit fading - life left in them, and as the upper half of a female zombie once memorably put it in Dan O'Bannon's Return of the Living Dead (1985): "It hurts to be dead!" And the endorphins from the brain would (in theory) have a numbing effect on this pain. But I should think that in more advanced states of decomposition, this wouldn't matter so much as their nerves would probably be sufficiently deadened so as to eliminate this preoccupation. (Not to mention the fact that their choppers would not be able to penetrate the human skull in an advanced state of decay. The lower half of the jaw would probably end up dislodged!) From that point onward, they would confine their activity to the consumption of human flesh, which as Romero's 1985 Day of the Dead establishes, is not even a real necessity for sustenance.

Perhaps an analogy will help?

1) RAGERS These would be of rioters of the 2020 BLM/ANTIFA variety. These are much more aggressive and vicious, and they can run as fast as anyone else in America. However... they won't be able to keep that up indefinitely! They are, after all, Americans, so they're out of shape. The ragers are the "fresh," newly-minted in K-12 and the university, and they haven't had a chance to think independently. They are vulnerable to being confused by detailed chains of argument.


2) SHAMBLERS
These would be the classic, archetypal People of Walmart as satirized by George Romero in 1968's Night of the Living Dead and the Weeble-Wobble humans in Wall-E. They are older, significantly far gone enough not to be able to run really fast. They would have to overwhelm their prey in larger numbers, as otherwise they would be relatively easy enough to bob and weave and run around. And these shamblers would be easily elbowed and pushed aside by the "fresher" ragers who would easily barge their way ahead of them!

3) SCOOTERS
An even more advanced state of decay! Scooters ride around on "Rascals" and electric carts at the store can do little more than putt about aimlessly. These movements are very reminiscent of Jabba on his barge. They're also really sneaky, in that they seem harmless enough until you get too close to them. And sometimes they appear with regular automotive traffic on the street.

4) ROTTERS
The absolute rock-bottom end of the zombie "life" cycle. Rotters are doing that "van life" and a lot of meth and tranq and fentanyl. I'm thinking about scenes from L.A. and Portland where are drug-addicts are politely neglected as the merely, "homeless" dispossessed of spirit, and trying to score their next fix. Their tents and cardboard boxes are dumping grounds for people we refuse to seriously admit are in need of government assistance, because it's considered impolite to say that living on the street isn't a valid lifestyle choice.

I think you may be on to something there, Corax!

Well, is that all...?

You need both the New World and the Old World Vampire Legends and vampires and then the Vampire Bat. Old world is the vampire, New World is the vampire bat. Both necessary. Both necessary I believe to congeal that vampire mythos.
What if the Goths remained in France until the 18th century? How much of this vampire and zombie lore comes from them? I feel like a ton of it. The Sriz: "Opinions differ as to whether the Sriz is a vampire, ghost, demon or some other unidentified species of super natural creature. The Sriz is a ritualistic killer who climbs to the top of a church steeple and calls out the names of his victims. The victims invariably die, some from heart failure. Others in violent accidents, still others or various wasting disease.." Ok so whatever. It's holy water and holy music and a dose of Reverend Al Sharpton. But the department of zoology doesn't want anything to do with it.
Fascism is fascism in my belief. You don't change the wording to, Information theory or a Crusade.

Is Maitreya connected to the Technocrats. Satan is blooming to all kinds of new particulars. Did I see a Maitreya or did I cross into some DMZ. Hecate the goddess of Purrell. Ok sure I will buy that.

We're a foaming culture now. Some books that talk about vampires say that they aren't even sure if Vampires are even vampires, but if having your energy sucked out is like some natural process of the Universe.

There certainly doesn't seem to be as much supernatural stuff (or even stuff attributed to supernatural causes) these days as there used to be.

Today, science provides explanations for most phenomenon while it equally provides nightmare fuel for what it's potentially capable of in the wrong hands.

Sure, there's a bit of supernatural indulgence on the fringes or within quickly dwindling religious mysticism, but I think TV shows like those ghost-hunter ones have kind of had the opposite effect than intended: they demonstrate that there is no such thing as ghosts (just people who want to make money exploiting the idea). In a similar way I feel the TV show Finding Bigfoot kind of made people just stop looking for Bigfoot altogether.

This zombie concept goes back to at least 1400 BC. For whatever reason. You gotta wonder why the howling movies are so popular. They made like six of them. Most people say that they are all crap, but they have to have a following of some kind! I think that the God Zeus was based on some kind of shapeshifter concept. And the Yamnaya took that to a big harder level by wrapping themselves in wolve or dog skins.

Ok. So. Oh and btw you can learn more about Ghosts by reading the story about Anne Moberly and Eleanor Jourdain in the Mysteries of the Unknown book Hauntings (than any ghost hunters episode.) Be a specific goon to the ghost hunters regime. Big time.

Most of what I call the "rules for ghosts" (or things we typically attribute to them) were placed in the public psyche by the con-people of the "Spiritualism" movement of the 19th century - which was nothing more than a very expansive hoax to rob the gullible of their money (yet which still preys on some gullible folks today).

I always found it funny that ghosts can allegedly vocalize, move objects, shake houses, be recorded on audio... yet they can never do something as simple as call you on the phone or send you an e-mail: things that would be equally as frightening but require far less energy than sending objects flying across a room or committing an ectoplasmic sexual assault.

I guaranty, as in gauran-fudging-tee, that if they actually found Bigfoot, the scientific world would make it a banal textbook fact in a year (e.g., Coelacanths). "Oh, no mystery here. We now know that Hominidi Giganticus are large woodland apes that are rather shy." People would correct you about Bigfoot NOT being a fiction as quickly as they would chide you that "Frankenstein" is the name of the scientist and NOT the monster (They know this. They've never read the book. But they know this). There would be buzz for a few months. And then it would have all the magic sucked out if as it was pressed into a beige Wikipedia entry.

We have lost our sense of the numinous.

For a few sheckels we can ride on a chair at 35,000 feet and travel across the world in a day, and all we can do is think to moan about elbow room and the snacks.

People now confidently proclaim "dopamine" as an explanation of human behavior as if this is a useful or insightful thing to say. One might as well say, "You did that because of determinism!" which is almost certainly true and entirely impoverished as an explanation. Yes, "X happened" because of "the state of the universe at time T." People lord scientific labels as deflationary devices, letting the air out of what little wonder is left in the world in exchange for a false sense of superiority and control. They think that to label a thing is to know a thing. They are Pinkman-variety apes (Dumbfoots) who just blurt "Science!" as a mindless emotive response to the world.

We shall remind them of why they fear the night! Why they were warned against traipsing into shawdowy wood! We'll bring them pain. We'll bring them horror. So that they may rise above it. So that they may appreciate what they have and once again be awed by creation. What is the point of living in a mundane world? And those who survive this reign of hell on Earth will be ruled by my race of Atomic Supermen!

Science horror has to push beyond the known into the unknown, the WTF. You have to get into 2001 and Solaris territory. You have to get to those bits of the universe that refuse to reduce, that refuse to map, that resist human understanding. That defiant weird universe that just is, which you can't understand, let alone control. This sort of thing. And this sort of thing. And NOT NOT NOT(!!!) Jeordi LaForge technobabble about tachyon beams emitted from navigational deflectors. The universe to which you submit, not master. Once again, approaching nature as a supplicant and not with the whip hand.

I hear you Captain Steel, I will believe whatever I believe, but I am not into this whole orientalization of the internet and the culture. I am not into Caca either, it's the fulfillment of the non apple eaters.. The one thing about the 19th century though, they knew how to make buildings. Today..we make glass. And cover it on top of Cathedrals that have burned down. But yeah I agree with you about spiritualism in the 1800s, and the whole roots of this Universalism. It's like I have to get rid of my Bill Cosby tokens, they are not helping me. Did Booker To Washington create the Covid virus that we are on today? That is when the Rapture cult started. I am watching a documentary called the AntiChrist that the history channel produced back in like 2004. Half of it is dedicated to the Millerites. Or to the phenomenon going on back in the 1800s of churches.

I say that the Coelacanth was a good discovery for its time. But I am ready to move on. There are beliefs in the 20th century that part of me wonders aren't pro 19th century. Such as Timur's Curse. Or Tamerlane's curse. Believed that if you opened his tomb then you were in for mega destruction. And that is pretty much what happened supposedly to the Russians, in 1941. German invaded and so forth.. Mumbo jumbo maybe, I like you to the presence of exceptional. If most of these curses and beliefs in ghosts come from the 19th century and such "great" people as William Miller and John Nelson Darby, uhh..Efendi on the historum forum says, "can a curse be real..hmm.." Its like yeah ok, you are acting like you are not sure what a United Nations covenant is