by Gareth Hobbs

Created on: June 17, 2009   Last Updated: June 18, 2009

Are slow moving zombies more effective than fast moving ones. The fact that I am even considering this question is a good indication should be spending less time with the two-dimensional people and more time outside in the real world. But having spent such a large time observing the two-dimensional people, I feel that while I'm not necessarily in a unique position, I am at least in a fairly well-informed one.

Traditionally in an undead army there are no such things as fast moving zombies, unless they've been hit by a cannonball. Zombies shuffle along generally moaning "braaaaaaaiins". If you want fast moving you're looking at skeleton cavalry, vampires and ghouls but not zombies. Before you think this only makes them mobile meat shields, they are useful in the same way Russian infantry was effective. Throw enough bodies at the enemy and once they're exhausted destroy them with your elite forces. This is why zombies occur in hordes vampires are loners.

But why has this abomination that is the fast moving zombie ever seen the dark of night. Well, either film makers stopped paying attention to the rules of the Necronomicon. If they even know what the Necronomicon is or they forgot how to make the inexhaustible advance of unthinking eating machines inspire terror a lapse which is terrifying in its own right

Fast moving zombies are hardly terrifying, mainly because filmmakers tend not to show them in any great detail, focusing instead on fast moving cameras, blurs of motion and the hero turning around trying to figure out where the noise came from, which, unless you actually are the hero not being able to track your target isn't very scary while sitting in a cinema seat. All it does is cause motion sickness in those susceptible to it.

To get an idea of the effectiveness you have to compare zombies in specific movies. While "Shaun of the Dead" is a comedy, the vast hordes of zombies are no less terrifying. Whereas, in "I am Legend" the superfast superstrong zombies, which attack Will Smith are laughable. They even managed to have zombie dogs, a site guaranteed to provoke laughter in even the most naive of zombie film watchers.

Let the unimaginative film makers have their fast moving zombies when we all know that the real geniuses can make unstoppable creatures far more scary with a slow buildup. We can only hope that slow moving zombies make a comeback in horror movies after all. They're wasted in the comedies to which they have been relegated.

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