Zombie movies: Which are more effective, fast zombies or slow zombies?

Slow

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by Allen Alberson

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In the debate over slow zombies vs. fast zombies, the battle lines are fiercely drawn. Proponents of fast zombies like to point out that it is easy to outrun slow and in slow zombie films, most people are killed by their own stupidity. What could be faster than a undead creature moving at the speed of an Olympic gymnast? They have a point. Obviously if I walk outside my house and I see someone coming to kill me, I would rather he be a shambling rotting corpse than a speedy "hyper zombie." Why then do I consider slow zombie movies to be superior and scarier? Here is my argument.

First off, I find it unbelievable that a creature that is dead and rotting could ever move any faster than it did while it was alive. True it's unbelievable for the dead to walk at all but there has to be some point of suspension of disbelief. Despite all the recent films that have zombies being created by government weapons programs or rage disease I cannot buy "hyper zombies." I could buy that a disease or chemical could reanimate the dead and give them some degree of invulnerability but not super speed. At best they would be as fast as they were when living. I think the main reason fast zombies exist is that American audiences have gotten jaded by the MTV style of everything having to be bigger and faster. They have no patience and no willingness to accept a movie that isn't fast paced that requires some amount of thought. People can't enjoy a movie unless they can check their brain at the door and sit back and have the thinking done for them. The original and grand daddy of all zombie movies "Night of the Living Dead" never gave you a reason for zombies to exist. There were theories but there was never a concrete reason. It was up top the audience to figure it out and come up with their own assumptions. That just doesn't fly now.

But why are slow zombies even scary? Like I mentioned it's easy to run away from them. In fact in most slow movies that fact is pointed out and the characters do spend a lot of time running from them. They also hide in buildings that the "hyper zombies" could easily break into. People who say this makes slow zombies less scary are missing the point. In the fast zombie movies there is always hope. In the slow zombie movies hope is gone. In "Resident Evil" there was a vaccine, in 28 Days Later, there was the military and hope that the contagion was confined. There is hope because a reason for the zombies exists. There is a virus or a chemical and when you know the cause there can be a cure. In Romero's films there is not a "zombie virus." Don't zombies infect others with the zombie disease? No, watch the films again. The zombies' bite causes inevitable death, but it does not turn them into zombies. Death turns everyone into zombies. In the world of Romero, everyone who dies becomes a zombie. If you die in a car wreck you become a zombie, if you die of old age, you become a zombie All we know about the bite is it causes an infection that leads to death. We are never really told if the infection can be cured. It is hinted that amputation could prevent death if it is caught soon enough but we never know for sure. We do know that death leads to rising as a zombie unless the brain is destroyed. The world as we know it has changed forever. No longer do we rest in peace, no longer do we go to our promised reward. Now when we die we raise and kill our family. In Romero's movies God has turned his back on the world and there is no hope. We can outrun them, but we will never get away, because one day we will be them. How can we ever lie down next to someone and not fear that they might die in their sleep and devour us before we wake. Where can we go to escape from ourselves. So much of our society is based upon either life after death or resting when we die, what do we do when all this is proved false?

With all of the above I still like some fast zombie movies. The creatures in 28 days Later while not being dead were truly terrifying. However nothing will ever top that feeling of absolute abandonment I get when I watch the original Dawn of the Dead. Watching that film I have a hard time feeling that God is still watching over us.

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