The Great Zombie Food Debate
***Warning, this post contains a few spoilers for the film Survival of the Dead. You have been warned.***
Zombies are terrifying. Horrifically so. I've challenged you all before to take a moment and try to imagine your life during the zombie apocalypse. Picture having the undead swarming around you or your home. You don't know where they have come from, why they are reanimated, how they're walking around... the one thing that you do know is that they are thirsty for your blood and hungry for your flesh (or brains, for reasons listed last year). A zombie's only purpose or drive in life is to find living humans and eat them. How scary is that?! It's not like a vicious wild animal that *may* attack you and eat you if provoked. If you run into a bear or cougar in the woods or cross paths with a coyote (which is very common where I come from), it is highly likely you will walk away alive and well. Unless you do something to really make them nervous, they usually just want to get away from you. But there is still a bit of a threat of attack. But the attack is more to defend themselves and not to eat.
If you cross paths with a zombie it is a certainty that they will try to eat you. I think this reason is key in a zombie's horror factor. There are few worse deaths than being eaten alive, not to mention being eaten alive by a human-ish being! So, what exactly has been bothering me lately in zombie culture?
Zombies eating animals.
And, no, this annoyance has nothing to do with my vegetarianism. What bothers me about zombies eating other animals is that it removes some of their horror. If a zombie is equally attracted to eating a deer or cow as they are to eating humans, it makes the apocalypse seem less.... apocalyptic. If zombies were to go after other animals, why would they choose humans? Animals have a lot more meat and more eatable parts (which is a main reason why we breed them to slaughter and feed ourselves). Humans could just herd other animals towards zombies and be completely safe.
Boring!
A young girl riding her beloved horse
This concept is explored in the recent film, Survival of the Dead (latest chapter from Romero). A group of relatives decide not to shoot their undead kin in the head and instead think that eventually a "cure" will be found for the zombies. So in the meantime, they attempt to keep them locked up and alive while also trying to persuade them to eat meat other than humans. Throughout the film, the zombies resist! They only want people meat which causes all sorts of shenanigans for our human heroes. Until the end when (SPOILER ALERT), a group of angry and hungry zombies finally take down and eat a horse at the human's prompting.
Said young girl after she goes all zombie and decides to eat her horse
I just don't buy it. I can't buy it. I realize there is no reason scientifically that a zombie couldn't eat and survive off of another type of animal. Animals and humans are basically the same-- we are all edible. But it just isn't scary. At all! I want my zombies to creep me out, chase me, be horrifying! I don't want a zombie to bust into my apartment and decide my guinea pig is more appetizing than I! The really scary thing about zombies is that they were humans, but upon reanimation have seemingly lost all humanity. They don't reason, they don't feel remorse or a bond with their former friends. They eat. People. Period. What are all these writers and filmmakers thinking?
So on this Thanksgiving, what do you think about a zombie's diet?