One of the key elements of the Zombie Apocalypse/Survival Horror resurgence in recent years is the simple fact that no matter how safe you are.. You are NOT safe. Death can come for any character at any time whatsoever. Part of the Zed horror is going to be just how quickly they multiply and swarm. Swarm may sound an odd adjective to describe walking corpses but it fits.
Say a handful followed the car alarm out of the city. Even after the alarm is no longer in range they will continue to stagger in that direction. And others will join along the way because Zombies are mob mentality personified. Once they get closer, it may be the smell of wild game attracts them. The show has done a good job of showing that humans aren't the only thing on the menu-so the smell of a cooking fire, or even just fresh killed game would attract them.
Also- the campers were not very careful about how noisy they were IN camp. OK- good job about making sure that fires were low.. but what about the 4 women laughing down in the quarry doing the wash? You don't think that will carry along the canyon walls as it were? Zombies are single-minded in the extreme. Any noise will attract them, they will zero in on it, or at least turn in that direction and go towards it.
I wouldn't read too much into HOW they got to the camp- zombie horror isn't big on the why.. it's all about the reaction of "oh thank god.. we're safe in this building.. OH $%^& they are in the closets! The basement! wherever! RUN!"
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Was watching at a bar with friends and pretty much the same thought hit me. "Why are zombies so damn hungry? Do they ever get full? Would they even know they *were* full, or, given enough food, would they simply eat until the remnants of their stomachs exploded? And would they then grab up all the food that just exploded out of them and try to re-eat it?" |
Originally Posted by Flarstux
It's been suggested that the zombies might be moving out of the cities due to lack of food...
How long does it take for a zombie to starve? How does eating keep them going, anyway? The bottomless zombie in the first episode - anything it ate would just come sliding right back out. So how was it still going? Yes, these things still ahem plague me in regard to this zombie invasion. I have no problem with *magical/supernatural* zombies (or even sword-weilding skeletons as seen in The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad) because, well, it's magic. But these guys... What makes them tick, so to speak? |
I managed to keep my musings to commercial breaks, somehow
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I forgot who said it in this thread (or even if it was in this thread), but they probably don't need to eat, but it is the one over-riding desire left that governs them. Like how the Mom/Wife returned to the house in the Pilot and tried to get in. Something in this particular set of zombies in this universe drives them, whether or not they actually need to do it.
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I think the only reason why zombies eat people in this story is because it's creepy for them to do so from a story point of view, not because they really need to for any kind of logical or biological reason. It's not like they specifically "neeeeeddd braaaainnnss" or anything clear-cut. The fact that this story has kept everything vague about them leaves us really nothing to "understand" about them. 
I think that's part of the reason I think zombie stories are for the most part fundamentally "dumb" from the get go. Their only purpose seems to be to scare humans on some primitive level. Primal fear only works so long in a story before it gets overused and boring. Again like I said I'm trying my best to overlook the obvious problems and "enjoy" it the best I can.
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I figure that hunger is a mechanism for spreading the contagion. Since they're slower than a healthy human, a zombie can bite someone who then escapes and survives to let the contagion incubate. Perhaps that person won't know that their injury is fatal, or they'll know what it is and conceal it, hoping against hope that there's some sort of cure. It's rather insidious, as it uses human nature as a safeguard for ensuring incubation.
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Originally Posted by BafflingBeerMan
I forgot who said it in this thread (or even if it was in this thread), but they probably don't need to eat, but it is the one over-riding desire left that governs them. Like how the Mom/Wife returned to the house in the Pilot and tried to get in. Something in this particular set of zombies in this universe drives them, whether or not they actually need to do it.
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That's also a possibility. Like the virus is almost self-aware and knows the human body is its mode of transportation, so it works the controls (movement, memories) without needing the body's usual fuel (real eating, breathing).
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One thing I noticed is that the hick with the crossbow re-uses his bolts after killing zombies. Then he shot one of the gang members in the butt with one of the bolts. It'd be interesting if the gangbanger zombified in the middle of the rest home sanctuary...
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If merle was the one who stole the truck, then he probably already knew his brother wasn't in camp, as he was probably following the sheriff and his gang, which included merles bro.|
Originally Posted by Chyll
As the attack started, my wife and I hypothesized that Merle loaded up the truck with walkers and drove them up there on purpose for vengeance. Rethought that some after realizing he would get his brother ate in the mess... unless he scouted camp first.
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Regardless, the guy is a lunatic, so maybe he's pissed at his brother too for not coming to help him right away.
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Yeah, I've seen stories about parasites that can force or induce the host to do things it normally would not do, for no other reason than to benefit the parasite. Eating sure doesnt' seem to provide much in the way of nutrition or sustenance for the decaying zombies, lol.
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Originally Posted by Demobot
I figure that hunger is a mechanism for spreading the contagion. Since they're slower than a healthy human, a zombie can bite someone who then escapes and survives to let the contagion incubate. Perhaps that person won't know that their injury is fatal, or they'll know what it is and conceal it, hoping against hope that there's some sort of cure. It's rather insidious, as it uses human nature as a safeguard for ensuring incubation.
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Toxoplasmosis. It causes mice to become less fearful of cats, leading to them frequenting cat-infested areas, leading to the mice being eaten and passing on the parasite to its preferred host, the cat.
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Originally Posted by Cyber_naut
Yeah, I've seen stories about parasites that can force or induce the host to do things it normally would not do, for no other reason than to benefit the parasite. Eating sure doesnt' seem to provide much in the way of nutrition or sustenance for the decaying zombies, lol.
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I forgot to watch it last night. Is there a site online I can catch up, I don't want to wait til next sunday (that is if they still show the last week episode at 9 then the new one at 10)
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Scooped!|
Originally Posted by Dark One
Toxoplasmosis. It causes mice to become less fearful of cats, leading to them frequenting cat-infested areas, leading to the mice being eaten and passing on the parasite to its preferred host, the cat.
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Schedule here: Clickify!
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Originally Posted by 2short2care
I forgot to watch it last night.
Is there a site online I can catch up, I don't want to wait til next sunday (that is if they still show the last week episode at 9 then the new one at 10) |
I've only watched the first episode on www.casttv.com so far. Was ok, typical zombie stuff....I'll watch the rest soon.
There's one thing that I've noticed in this series, actually haven't noticed. They haven't used the Z word. Reminds me of the British supernatural series Ultraviolet which never used the V word.
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It's the standard rule in zombie movies/series not to refer to the creatures as zombies. Shaun of the Dead is the only memorable film that broke this rule (and parodied it as well), but it was a comedy. For some reason every zombie production feels that it makes the dead more frightening and unknowable if the survivors don't refer to them with a familiar term.|
Originally Posted by Father Xmas
There's one thing that I've noticed in this series, actually haven't noticed. They haven't used the Z word. Reminds me of the British supernatural series Ultraviolet which never used the V word.
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Heck, I'm not even sure why we call them zombies in general. Night of the Living Dead, the progenitor of the modern "zombie", called them ghouls.
"Geeks" could be like a military-style usage of the letter "G" for "Ghouls". Kinda like WWZ used "Zeds".
I think it also separates their reality with our own. Since we are so familiar with "zombies" and how to deal with them through all those property that feature "zombies," if they don't call them zombies, maybe they didn't have any zombie fiction. And such do stupid stuff we have seen time and again never works!
And of course Shaun of the Dead parodied that, since Shaun pretty much knew what to do as soon as he realized what was going on. With the handy news broadcast to goad that epiphany on.
"Ben is short for Frank."
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Did they not use the "Z-word" in the comic as well? Curious if the TV show is following the lead of the comic as far as that goes.|
Originally Posted by Father Xmas
There's one thing that I've noticed in this series, actually haven't noticed. They haven't used the Z word. Reminds me of the British supernatural series Ultraviolet which never used the V word.
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Anyway I figure it's just this show's/story's attempt to make itself "different" from the run-of-the-mill zombie series. Nothing wrong with that. Just like BSG used the word "frak" as unique jargon to get away with saying, well, you know. In this case this show is -not- using the expected Z-word just to be different in it's own way.
BTW, the British Ultraviolet series was awesome. Good reference.
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In a previous episode I seem to recall the campers setting up a perimeter alert system with cans on wires to let them know if walkers were shambling through. They didn't hear anything, which could mean that the geeks somehow got through without raising the alarm, they found a hole in the fence, it failed to work, the campers were making too much damned noise to hear the alarm, or -- my favorite -- someone cut the wires and led the deaders through.
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Originally Posted by Lothic
3) While it's too bad the camp got attacked (and it's an interesting point to consider that there were too many zombies there at once to just be considered a "random" attack) it really was their own fault they got overrun. They already knew one zombie had stumbled into their campsite back in episode #3 - they should have been far more careful at that point.
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I'm looking forward to some kind of "twist" explanation (like your idea that the wires were cut) or that the zombies are actually smarter than they initially appear. Maybe we learn that at least a few of the zombies are like "leader zombies" that are smarter than most of the other "minion" level ones. Or maybe what's left of the government (a.k.a. the "helicopter guys") are directing them to kill leftover humans for some reason.|
Originally Posted by Rodion
In a previous episode I seem to recall the campers setting up a perimeter alert system with cans on wires to let them know if walkers were shambling through. They didn't hear anything, which could mean that the geeks somehow got through without raising the alarm, they found a hole in the fence, it failed to work, the campers were making too much damned noise to hear the alarm, or -- my favorite -- someone cut the wires and led the deaders through.
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There's a lot of ways this could develop into something interesting.
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Or, they simply didn't cover all possible access routes. After all, Rick & crew got there without setting off any alarms. They didn't, seemingly, alarm the road. Iirc, they started setting up those alarms AFTER Merle was already gone, so it's very conceivable he didn't even know about them.
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No, geeks as in the classic pre-70s/80s definition of a geek.|
Originally Posted by Dark One
"Geeks" could be like a military-style usage of the letter "G" for "Ghouls". Kinda like WWZ used "Zeds".
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I know these people in the camp are just "civilians" and not trained soldiers who would know how to set up a proper defensive perimeter around their camp. But if they seriously let their guard down so much that the zombies were able to just walk into camp via the unguarded road or some-such then they really all deserved to be killed right then and there. |
Originally Posted by Dark One
Or, they simply didn't cover all possible access routes. After all, Rick & crew got there without setting off any alarms. They didn't, seemingly, alarm the road. Iirc, they started setting up those alarms AFTER Merle was already gone, so it's very conceivable he didn't even know about them.
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I know people in this thread have been arguing the idea that after several weeks/months the campers would grow tired or complacent enough to let their guard down. But seriously folks they just saw a "geek" like a day before a few yards from their tents. If there was ever a time for them to "wake up" and get serious about being prepared it was then.
Basically I would feel better to learn there was some kind of "trick" as to why they were so easily attacked (like someone cut the wires) because if they were just totally stupid then I won't have much sympathy/empathy for them from now on.
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I still maintain enough suspension of disbelief to not really worry about the exact details of the workings of these zombies. We were given the hint in the first episode that it's perhaps some kind of weird virus that reanimates them. That's fine enough for me until we learn more about them through the story. I would very much like to know how they started appearing, but how they work doesn't bother me.
To be perfectly honest I always thought zombies were one of the most classically illogical versions of undead from the point of view of how plausible they are. Mindless flesh and bones maimed, rotting and useless? How could they possibly move/attack to begin with? Why does putting a crossbow bolt into their brains in this show 'kill' them regardless of what part of the brain it hits?
I guess I've purposefully decided to avoid figuring zombies out in general because they would "fall apart" (pun intended) under my electron microscope of scrutiny so quickly it'd make your head spin.
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