Indeed, quite.

My take is that once you're zombified, you become a living organism again (to a certain extent) and stop decomposing -- or at least decompose much more slowly. I mean, if zombies aren't alive in some sense of the term, why do they need to eat?

And I completely agree that it's super annoying that characters in 99% of zombie movies have no idea what a zombie is or what they do. I'm pretty sure everyone in the western world has at least a basic understanding of what zombies are. It always takes me out of the movie a bit when the characters are learning about zombies for the first time, and never actually use the word "zombie."

@Sarzy - As has been explained in recent films, when the lower brain function proceeds (due to the virus running rampant there), the basic mammalian instincts continue. The need to feed is not driven by a need to survive hunger (depending on the movie; 28 Day Later is one exception) because if a zombie didn't eat for a hundred years, it'd still be walking around aimlessly with it's never-decomposing body intact. It's just the primitive drive to feed that urges them onward.

This makes me wonder why then that's the only basic instinctual behavior zombies carry out. It seems they should be doing other things like trying to make sex with one another.

According to Max Brooks' The Zombie Survival Guide, decomposition will continue to occur at a normal rate, even after infection, and this explains why zombie outbreaks in tropical environments are shorter lived than those in arid or frigid zones.

The "wait them out" approach is viable, perhaps taking care of 99%, but the possibility of a zombie frozen in ice would haunt your people for decades thereafter.

You actually read that book? Nice.

It's a great book, I actually got a little scared reading it. The presentation is thoroughly committed to the reality of zombie attacks occurring. It's not presented as "what if this happens" but instead "when this happens." It's fun to get so deeply absorbed into the mythos and the genre.>> ^lucky760:

You actually read that book? Nice.

>> ^lucky760:
This makes me wonder why then that's the only basic instinctual behavior zombies carry out. It seems they should be doing other things like trying to make sex with one another.


Because I think any media involving an army of undead rapists would probably have trouble getting made!

I would think that zombie would go thorough some kind of life cycle as they go through the 5 stages of decomposition (Fresh, Bloat, Active Decay, Advanced Decay, and Dry Remains) I don't think a zombie outbreak would last too long, it would just be a matter of waiting it out. Unless they are the zombie like things in I Am Legend where people are just sick with a mutated measles virus. That would be a tougher situation to deal with. Of course the repeated singular goal thing might just be a residual of when they were alive, Kinda like how Sean Hannity can't say anything more then two or three exaggerated right wing ideological sentences all day.

I never had a problem with the whole "fast zombie vs. slow zombie" debate, as technically you could have fast zombies in the first 6-12 hours, before rigor mortis set in. Then you'd start having the classic variety of zombie.

My biggest problem is figuring out how zeds move after death in the first place. Muscles require ATP (adenosine triphosphate) in order to move; it is the primary and only fuel that muscles use. ATP is broken down from glycogen; glycogen is produced by the liver from the carbs, fat and proteins in the food you eat. In order for glycogen to get from your liver to your muscles, your heart has to pump it through your circulatory system. But if our current clinical definition of death is no cardiac activity, then how do zombies move?

I say just hop on a boat, go to a nice little island and wait them out. Zombies aren't coordinated enough to swim long distances, and even if they commandeered a boat themselves, they wouldn't be able to figure out how to work the GPS. Sure, maybe there are zombies on the islands.. but there will be a limited quantity. A day or two of smashing skulls and you could sit back with a pineapple drink and relax. As Lucky suggests, it's only a matter of time before the mainland threat runs its course, like any explosive plague.
Now, how you seen the Internet recently? There seem to be a whole bunch of people, in the US mostly, who think zombies are real: Anti-zombie bullets, anti-zombie tomahawks, everyone and his mother has a 'bug out bag'. People are buying this shit up like hotcakes. Maybe the real virus is anti-zombie consumerism?

@grinter the problem with your island retreat might not be zombies, but other survivors. Your primary concern would be brigands and marauders, so you'd better be armed and prepared to defend your stake. Even if you work out a way to welcome new "recruits", inevitably someone shows up who's been infected and either doesn't know it, or knows and won't tell (until it's too late.)

It's also quite possible that the zombies would simply wander across the bottom of the lake and emerge on your shores, or be carried across by winds or current.

@KnivesOut . Yes. Just as today.. living people would be a problem. Some defense against pirates would be helpful, ala Swiss Family Robinson. The island would also have to be far enough from shore that any infected half dead would turn to full zombies before arriving.. the boat ride acts as a period of quarantine.
About zombies walking along the sea floor, or floating their bloated corpses across: Don't worry, the sharks, crabs, and hagfish would get them - microorganisms are not the only decomposers out there.