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The whole allure and uniqueness of zombies is that they are unnatural. They are reanimated dead that shamble and shuffle along while trying to tear the flesh off of live people, and they are just not as fun when they are running while they do it.

The classic tried and true zombie is slow; they shamble, scuffle and groan while relentlessly pursuing their victims. Despite that fact that Hollywood has tried to reinvent the wheel by making several painful movies such as 28 Days Later, zombies are meant to be and have always been slow and methodical.

Normal people move fast, and since zombies are supposed to be unnatural, they should not be doing things that normal people are doing.

Fast zombies, quite frankly, are not as terrifying as slow zombies. Sure, they might be physically more frightening in the sense that you might not be able to outrun them, but physical fear is much easier to overcome than mental fatigue.

Fast zombies will probably catch you, and then you have to fight them off, but that's not the point of zombies. The point of zombies is the inexorable pursuit of a foe that does not die and does not stop. Fast zombies that can fall on humans without warning take away from the suspense and the take away a fundamental part of what a zombie is: a weapon of psychological terror.

There are many psychological reasons for slow moving zombies. While fending off an attack by lightning quick zombies might be a quick adrenaline jolt, the slow and steady grind of being pursued or hiding from a pack of slow moving and groaning zombies cannot be ignored. The tension level is far higher with slow zombies. Parties of humans trying to elude slow zombies will, at times, be forced to travel within sight and within earshot of the enemy, subjecting them to terrible stresses as they move so close to the zombies eager to rip them to pieces.

With fast zombies, the tension is over far too quickly. There's not enough time to build the fear, and certainly not enough time for the humans to really think about the situation they are in and really get that cold feeling in the pit of their stomachs.

Despite the fact that slow zombies have been around for years, I do not think they are worn out. On the contrary; zombies are meant to be slow. It's part of what makes them zombies. When zombies start moving fast and running around like normal people, they lose what makes them "zombies," and they become, instead, simply monsters, and who is scared of a couple of monsters?

Learn more about this author, Ian Essling.
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