Zombie Research Society
Zombies are arguably the most popular and relevant monsters of the last fifty years, but they are also among the most misunderstood. Rumors and wild speculation have seeped into all aspects of zombie science, survival, and pop culture to the point of absurdity. Much of our time at ZRS headquarters is spent pulling our hair out about the bad information we constantly come across.
So we’ve compiled a list of the top six myths about zombies currently floating around:
#6) KATANA IS THE BEST ZOMBIE WEAPON
Famed samurai warrior Miyamoto Musashi wrote a classic treatise on military strategy called The Book of Five Rings in 1645. In it, he compared the traditional Japanese katana to a musical instrument, suggesting that it’s as illogical to believe you can pick up a sword just a few times and then engage in meaningful combat as it is to believe you can pick up a violin and play beautiful music. So, unless you’re a martial arts enthusiast who gets professional instruction on a regular basis, leave the trophy sword on its fancy black lacquer stand. Looking cool is cool, but staying alive is even cooler.
#5) I AM LEGEND IS A ZOMBIE MOVIE
I Am Legend is a film adaptation of Richard Matheson’s novel of the same name that provides a biological explanations for vampires. Though Legend’s filmmakers intentionally tried to cash in on the popularity of zombies by giving the vampires some of their qualities, make no mistake, it’s not a zombie movie. The creatures can leap over cars in a single bound. They magically climb on ceilings, they can scheme and strategize, and they sleep the days away in creepy clusters like bats. The plot pretends to hinge on a biological plague similar to Matheson’s, but repeated lapses in logic show little respect for that premise.
#4) BIG STORES ARE GOOD FOR LOOTING
Jdimytai Damour was a 270-pound Walmart worker who died on November 28, 2008, after being trampled by suburban Long Island shoppers looking to take advantage of early holiday discounts. Even the paramedics who unsuccessfully attempted to revive Damour were jostled by the aggressive crowd. If everyday citizens are killing one another just to get a better price on a flat-screen television, imagine what ugly behaviors will surface at big chain retailers when actual survival is at stake. If your zombie survival plan involves going to a place where you’ll likely run into other people, get a new plan.
#3) ZOMBIES ARE YOUR GREATEST THREAT
Humans are a much greater threat in a zombie plague than the undead horde itself. Zombies don’t possess a human’s ability to think, plan, plot, scheme, double-cross, negotiate, or cheat. Furthermore, zombies don’t know where you hide your essential supplies and wouldn’t be interested in stealing them even if they did. The seriousness of the human threat in a zombie outbreak cannot be overstated. We may not know exactly where the undead sickness will start or how it will spread, but one thing is certain–your fellow citizens will be the most dangerous thing you face in the early days of societal collapse.
#2) MODERN ZOMBIES EVOLVED FROM VOODOO
The modern flesh-eating zombie as we know it today evolved from vampires, not voodoo. From a factual, anthropological, dramatic, religious, or historic standpoint, there is no connection between the voodoo zombie and the modern zombie. It is as misguided as asserting that the protective cup that athletes stuff in their jocks when playing contact sports is closely related to a coffee cup because they share the same name. And then using that as justification to include a chapter on athletic equipment in an academic study of the history of the Peruvian coffee bean.
#1) ZOMBIES WILL EAT YOUR BRAINS
Despite popular belief, zombies don’t eat brains. Bite compression work done by researchers from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute found that the human mouth is both too flat and too weak to penetrate a human skull. So zombies may prefer brains, but unless they’re using a giant nutcracker to pop open your skull, they would not have access to your brains. Furthermore, because it’s commonly believed that zombies can only be stopped by destroying their brains, if the undead eat the brains of their victims, then they are eliminating their own reinforcements. Makes no sense.
What other myths have you heard about the coming zombie threat?
i believe the dumbest misconception about zombies is the “they can’t die if they’re already dead” idea, because because even if it’s an undead zombie, undead doesn’t mean dead. it can still be killed, because vampires are undead and you can kill them!
This is fascinating but it doesn’t help me
If a out brake did hapen then who is going to be stupid to go to a public place
Hey, I spoke to you guys about myth #1! Nice!
#4 is a good point
A myth I want to bring up is fast zombies I think that If zombies really decompose running would be impossible because of the decomposing muscle and skin, even if they didn’t decompose the very small amount of humans living during a zombie apocalypse would cause them to starve and there stomach to eat itself so they would never have enough energy or physical capability to run.
(Worlds longest run-on sentence)
Just wanted to refute #2 on your top 6 zombie myths. Patrick Lafcadio Hearn, a traveloguist and journalist visited Martinique where he heard locals talk of tales of “Comers back” and “the walking dead” in the late 1880’s. He wrote an essay in 1889 about it (Country of the Comers-back” which was the first publication of the study of zombies. It predated William Buehler Seabrook who visited Haiti who wanted to learn about zombies and their origin. Locals had coined the phrase from people who had “died” and were burried but were stolen from their graves and ressurrected only to be enslaved upon the sugar plantations. Turns out they were poisoned with a concoction using puffer fish to place the victim in a state similiar to death but only just long enough to bury them and exhume them, Once revived the “zombies” didn’t have much left of their brain function only enough to obey simple commands.
You are correct in your the history, but it’s not the full story.
Legendary filmmaker George Romero invented what we now know as the modern zombie with his 1968 classic film, Night of the Living Dead. The monster he created did not evolve from the zombies of Haitian voodoo tradition, but rather from vampires.
Inspired by Richard Matheson’s 1954 vampire novel, I Am Legend, Romero developed a creature grounded in modern science that he called a Flesh Eater. In fact, the term “zombie” wasn’t officially applied to Romero’s ghouls until ten years later when Italian producer Claudio Argento bought the international rights to Dawn of the Dead, and renamed it Zombi for European audiences.
The new label stuck, spreading around the world, causing endless confusion, and prompting countless long-winded academics to theorize about the complex evolution of the Haitian zombie into its current pop culture form.
But the modern zombie directly evolved from vampires, not the voodoo zombie.
Wow you could make your own website since you know a lot about zombies
i know right