R-Lee is well aware of my zombie phobia, so it will come off as odd that I have been thinking of a way to recreate the zombie concept.
The Concept: My brand of walking dead would not be caused by a meteor or toxic waste but rather government researchers’ attempt to cure cancer.
Symptoms: The infected will retain their intelligence and are effectively immortal (save a traumatic head injury). They are virtually indistinguishable from the living outside of the low body temperature, lack of a pulse, and brain activity. The remnants need to consume flesh in order to retain their intelligence, stave off decomposition, and trigger regeneration. They aren’t picky eaters, so anything with a pulse and enough meat is fine with them. If a zombie goes too long without feeding he or she will revert to a ravenous feral state. The “cure” is spread through bites or ingesting the original serum.
Premise: It will be I Am Legend meets the Fugitive. Patient Zero, the first zombie will be evading the government researchers and the cleaning units sent after him, sharing his gift, in addition to “cleaning up” the researchers’ other mistakes. Patient Zero would have all the tortured angst of Bill Compton, Spike, Louie etc with the zombie’s relentless quest to satisfy the never ending hunger.
Vampiric sophistication and control:
Images are courtesy of Marvel Comics (http://www.marvel.com)
Through the Shattered Lens 
This is interesting. I like the logical physiological principles that would govern the survival of these zombies. I wonder, though, about the retention of intellect. I addition to the biological viability issues, I think part of the horror generated by the archetypal movie zombie concept is their inexorable, automaton quest for flesh aspect. Though it may seem counterintuitive, imbuing them with normal cognitive function might somehow make them less frightening to some people. While, thinking logically, strategizing, perceptive flesh-eating creatures would be more dangerous, and therefore scarier, the unthinking (or barely-thinking), relentless anthropophagic monster aspect somehow seems more grim.
Obviously, you may not feel that way. But I wonder, given your stated phobia of these creatures, if your vampire/zombie amalgam concept is your (conscious or subconscious) way of humanizing them somewhat, thereby making a bit less terrifying. Then again, since I am effectively, psychoanalyzing someone I don’t know, maybe I’m full of crap. Either way…
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I don’t know which book, but it’s actually been done to a point. The closest example I could think of is Philip Nutman’s “Wetwork”.
It wasn’t caused by an attempt to cure cancer, but radiation from a passing comet. So, there’s one big difference there. It affects everyone in that just dying will cause one to return. Those returning come back with varying levels of intellect-retention. Some will keep everything while others are a bit more brain-damaged.
There was a particular sequence in the book where the last remnants of National Guard, police and firefighters are ambushed down a city thoroughfare by US military units that had died and returned with their intellect. They pretty acted and behaved the way they did when alive but now dead and needing to kill the last oppositions from the living before gathering the last living in the city to put into breeding pens.
I liked the idea, but I definitely prefer my zombies to be of the Romero that goes by intinct kind. Giving them the ability to retain their previous intelligence makes then much scarier, but definitely loses their force of nature appeal.
I always saw zombies as a force of nature that can’t be stopped, reasoned with and with just an instinctive need to feed. I will say that the idea you presented would make for a very good comic book, novel and/or film. 🙂
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KO and R-Lee, I was thinking of Patient Zero in a heroic setting rather than the classical horror setting. I can’t recall ever seeing a cannibalistic protagonist in any fiction i.e. a good guy that devours his enemies (excluding Ultimate Hulk). This idea was my attempt to create a setting where a heroic zombie could exist (I remember Bud, from Day of Dead but he is more like the classical type of zombies).
I already thought of the first few episodes, R-Lee.
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That’s good. It actually has been done, at least once. There was a Showtime series a few years ago called “Masters Of Horror”. That title also referred to a consortium of sorts of prominent horror writers and directors, who contributed the episodes for that aeries.
There was an episode called “Homecoming”, in which soldiers killed in Iraq rose as zombies to vote in the Presidential election, in order to stop the war and oust a corrupt administration. The soldiers cannot legally be disqualified simply because they are dead, so they are allowed to vote.
After the incumbent President wins through election fraud, soldiers from previous wars reanimate, as well to seek justice. These zombies do retain their intellect and self-awareness, though they are less conversant than they likely were in life. Not a zombie massacre story, but they get some kills in during their quest to stop war.
Cool concept, and despite a slightly over-the-top character or two, pretty well done. One of the better episodes that I saw from the series. Worth checking out, for sure.
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KO mention of Homecoming reminded me of one of my favorite zombie movies and one that never does quite get as much attention as it should — Bob Clark’s Deathdream from 1970 (this was also one of the first movies that Tom Savini — fresh from serving in Viet Nam — ever worked on).
In Deathdream, the main character is killed in Viet Nam but, the very next night, he shows up back in his hometown where his grieving family welcome him back home and are so relieved to see him that they rationalize away the fact that he can’t possibly be alive. He’s distant and obviously changed but everyone assumes it’s because he’s been in war. But, of course, he’s actually a zombie. It’s a good film, an effective mix of horror, social satire, and political subtext (much like Cannibal Apocalypse).
As for me, I like the idea of intelligent zombies and I also like the idea of the zombie protaganist, which is what I assume Patient Zero would be. How does one deal with not being dead but not being alive either? Then again, a lot of of people would suggest that’s a fair description of several segments of American society nowadays.
Still, the horror genre is one that is ideally suited to satire and subtext, the zombie subgenre in particular.
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I looked up “Deathdream”. Released in 1974, and directed by the same guy (Clark) who directed “Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things” (1972), which I first saw a long time ago, and think is a pretty good low-budget film.
So I will check it out. From your story description and assessment, and the earlier film. it suspect I will like it.
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That’s right — it was ’74! After I typed my first reply, I was thinking that 1970 didn’t sound quite right. 🙂
Bob Clark later went on to direct A Christmas Story, which is guaranteed to be playing somewhere every hour of every day during the month of December.
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I love Darren McGavin – The Night Stalker! Loved that show, too. It comes back from Christmas right to horror again…
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I remember catching that episode of Masters of Horror, KO.
The series would touch on Patient Zero’s coping with his state of existence, Lisa Marie.
“Deathdream” and “Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things” sound like films I should check out. Thanks for mentioning them.
The feral zombies in my story will attack each other because it never made sense to me how mindless creatures could differentiate between themselves and the living. Flesh is all that is needed to sustain them so the source doesn’t matter
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Not flesh my young zombie padawan. It has to be flesh from a living human or, in the case of some writers, the flesh of a living being. The moment a body reanimates the zombies lose interest like their instinct knows the flesh is not whats for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
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One thing I’ve always been curious about — and this is something that only the Italians have really had the guts to go with (in the Beyond and Demons films) — is the idea of zombiefied animals. But why not? Seriously, what if the family dog comes back and goes all pit bull?
OR — if animals cannot be zombiefied, how about a story from the point-of-view of the animals, trying to survive in a world wheren the top of the food chain has suddenly been transformed into the living dead?
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Ahhh, its been done and done well but not in film. Brian Keene’s “The Rising”, “City of the Dead” and “Dead Sea”. The first two puts the cause of the zombie pandemic on demon possession of dead bodies both humans and animals (they also keep their hosts intelligence or enhance it if an animal is possessed). The third one the cause are undead rats whose bite causes the change on people. Keene’s one of the people credited with helping revive the zombie subgenre in the last decade.
You’d definitely like Keene’s vision of the zombie apocalypse since it’s so very nihilistic. At times even moreso than Romero’s.
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Animal zombification was addressed in film. Both “The Last Man On Earth” and the remake, “I Am Legend”, portrayed the concept, though not on a large scale, as Ms. Bowman may be envisioning.
In “The Last Man On Earth”, Vincent Price was at first happy to find a cat that had started hanging around after the plague had hit, but soon realized that the cat had also been infected and reanimated. The cat was not aggressive, though.
And in “I Am Legend”, remember when Will Smith and his dog were fighting off the pack of zombie hounds? And the heartbreaking scene in which he saw that she was turning, and had to kill her?
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I do remember the Last Man on Earth (not surprisingly, an Italian film despite starring the very non-Italian Vincent Price) now that you mention it. I didn’t see “I Am Legend” because, to be honest, I found the casting of Will Smith as Neville to be idiotic.
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But you would’ve seen the non-standard Hollywood trope of doggies not getting preferential treatment. 🙂
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Ha. Yes. I liked the film, actually. I thought Smith was quite good, despite the admittedly odd casting. A pretty engrossing film.
And if you haven’t seen it, check out “The Omega Man”, which came between “Last Man” and “Legend”. All three were adaptations of the book, “I Am Legend”.
Stars Charlton Heston. Not really zombies in this version – more mutants. But a good early 70’s sci fi.
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I’ve seen the Omega Man, believe it or not. I actually thought it worked quite well as long as you didn’t think of it as an adaptation of Matheson’s novel. I especially liked the way that the documnetary footage of Woodstock was incorporated because it drove home the fact that everyone — including the “real” hippies seen in the documentary — was now either dead or infected with the exception of Charlton Heston’s character.
Also thought that Anthony Zerbe did very well as Mathias.
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I remember that scene, with Heston in the otherwise empty theater, speaking Arlo Guthrie’s words along with him as the “Woodstock” film ran. I was a kid when I saw the movie. At that time, I interpreted the scene as simply showing his desperation for human contact – he was watching a film he had seen so many times that he knew every sentence spoken in the film. Factoring in your observation makes the scene even more effective.
And I liked Zerbe’s performance, as well. I think he is a very good, under-recognized actor.
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Oh wow, I actually did not realize that was Arlo Guthrie that Heston was speaking along with in Omega Man (this despite the fact that I love Alice’s Resteraunt). But that does lead back to something that I’ve always been very interested in and something that isn’t explored in that many zombie films — i.e., if there is a zombie apocalypse, both the famous and the unknown are going to be among the living dead. This concept was used for laughs in both the Dawn of the Dead remake and Zombieland but I always wonder if it could be handled seriously.
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I think celebrity/famous dead could be handled seriously but a skillful director needs to be involved in the project.
This discussion has led me to amend my zombie movie idea. I am abandoning the science explanation all together and calling upon my love of mythology for a solution. I will post it after my inception post.
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Like I look at it like this — what if the President of the United States — any President — became a zombie and was going around door-to-door eating people? I’m being totally serious here. Well, you wouldn’t do want to do a President though because everyone would automatically assume you were trying to do some sort of political allegory but still, its a legitimate issue.
Another idea — under most mythologies, once someone is a zombie, you’re pretty much allowed to do whatever you want to him. So, let’s say someone like Bin Laden turns up as a member of the Living Dead. Now, would the government shoot him in the head or would they imprison him so that they could allow citizens to come by and work out their frustrations by shooting him anywhere but in his head, like they would build some sort of bullet-proof cage around his head or something similar.
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