Not a Zombie: Difference between revisions
m
clean up
mNo edit summary |
m (clean up) |
||
Line 1:
{{trope}}
[[File:
This is [[Real Life]]. Everyone knows zombies are make-believe creatures, they're only "real" in the movies. If you see a "zombie", odds are it's one of your friends with poor taste who insist on scaring you, or someone who has been in an accident of some kind. So when a [[Our Zombies Are Different|zombie outbreak]] starts, it's unsurprising that most people will chafe when confronted with something
[[Dying Like Animals|That]] is [[Plot Induced Stupidity|rarely]] the [[Apathy Killed the Cat|case]] here. There will always be one person who misidentifies the [[Not Using the Z Word|living-impaired]] as a regular, if badly hurt, human. There's two variants of this, with differing levels of [[Too Dumb to Live|idiocy involved]].
# Someone is walking through the deserted area, when they see a moaning, [[Undeathly Pallor|pale-looking body]] lying face down on the floor. Said body may already be bleeding or even missing large, fairly visible chunks of flesh, and may already be ghost white or putrefying green, but the character in question will never notice (or ignore it). Instead, they will run right up to the body, put aside whatever weapon they're carrying, and promptly try to hoist up the apparently distressed individual (often accompanied by dialogue like, "Are you alright?" or "Don't worry, I'll get you out of here."). [[Hilarity Ensues]] when the putrefying face of the obviously-a-zombie is revealed, and promptly tries to eat the character's head. This is generally (well, [[Too Dumb to Live|hopefully]]) [[Slept Through the Apocalypse|the first zombie that the character encounters,]] so they tend to survive.
# Someone (usually a law enforcement official), points a gun at a zombie and orders them to freeze, or threatens them with pepper spray or arrest or something if they come towards them. They usually fail to notice the fairly obvious fact that the shambling mess of entrails in front of them doesn't have anything like a rational mind left to respond to commands, and assume they're not threatened by the gun (technically true). In general, this is a situation somewhat peculiar to zombie movies involving both [[Genre Blind
::* Depending on the officer/character's learning curve, they might fire a warning shot, notice no effect, shoot the zombie, ''notice no effect'', then get [[Oh Crap|suitably freaked out]] and do one of three things: [[Screw This, I'm Outta Here|hightail it out of there]], use "lethal" force, or get eaten by refusing to believe it's a zombie. In real life, officers are rather constrained in this scenario by being trained to use "escalating force" when facing an "unarmed civilian."
:::* Bear in mind that even if they do go for the 'lethal force' option, they're extremely unlikely to go for [[Removing the Head or Destroying the Brain|the necessary head shot]] - aiming for the center of mass stops most humans just as well, and the risk of missing (potentially hitting a bystander) is greatly reduced. A shot to the center of mass will generally ''not'' stop a zombie, unless the officer in mind plans on using extreme cases of over kill and restocking on ammo.
Line 29:
{{quote|Stay down. I'm warning you, stay down! Come any closer, and I'll fire. I mean it! [shoots the zombie 5 times]}}
** ''[[Resident Evil: Apocalypse|Resident Evil Apocalypse]]'' takes it to its logical extreme. When the city itself finally gets its first wave of zombies, ''the cops start arresting them'' '''getting bitten repeatedly in the process!'''
* ''[[Resident Evil: Degeneration]]'' has both examples. Angela and the security guard in the airport at the beginning of the movie all try ordering the shambling corpses away from them to no avail. Before her stint at the "inefficient force" approach, the fantastically dimwitted Angela also slings a gray, moaning and clearly undead man over her shoulder to carry him to
** ''Degeneration'' also plays with the trope by prefacing it with an instance where the aggressor is just a man in a zombie mask.
* ''[[Shaun of the Dead]]'' has several examples [[Rule of Funny|before they catch on]]:
Line 41:
* Averted in ''[[Plan 9 from Outer Space]]''. Characters can somehow identify the zombies immediately, even though they don't look all that zombish.
* Averted in ''[[Return of the Living Dead]]''. The first group to encounter a zombie knew about the chemical, and the first animated corpse they encountered was one they already knew to be dead. The second group encounters a zombie so horrifically rotted, and screaming for brains, that there isn't much question.
* The ''[[Silent Hill (film)|Silent Hill]]'' movie contains an odd example. Cybil spends ''way'' too long waving her gun at a zombie in an effort to convince it to lie down on the ground. Keep in mind that it's a ''Silent Hill'' monster we're talking about
* The ''[[Dawn of the Dead 2004]]'' remake features
** In the original 1978 ''[[Dawn of the Dead (film)|Dawn of the Dead]]'', a woman encounters her dead husband while a SWAT raid is taking place. Believing he's still the man she'd fallen in love with, she rushes into his arms...and gets entire chunks pulled out of her by the briefly confused zombie.
* Most of the characters in ''[[Quarantine (film)|Quarantine]]'' do this. What makes it mind-boggling is that they ''[[Too Dumb to Live|keep doing it throughout the movie, even after being flat-out told what's happening by a CDC man.]]''
Line 87:
== Western Animation ==
* ''[[South Park]]''
{{quote|'''Doctor:''' Well, your temperature is only 55 degrees, you have no pulse, no heartbeat, and your eyes are all puffy and sticky...
'''Mortician:''' Oh no! You mean...?
'''Doctor:''' Yeah, I'm afraid the two of you have pinkeye. }}
** The episode "Marjorine" [[Subverted Trope|subverts]]
* ''[[The Simpsons]]'': "Homer, you shot the zombie Flanders!" "Flanders was a zombie?"
* In ''[[Scooby Doo on Zombie Island]]'', Fred at first assumes that the zombies are just people in costumes and rattles off potential suspects as he tries to pull off a captured zombie's "mask". In his defense, this was the case for every one of the dozens of other supernatural creatures he and the other ''[[Scooby-Doo]]'' characters have encountered over the years, so it was a reasonable assumption. However, once the zombie's head comes off in his hands, he insists that it must be animatronic and Velma and Daphne tell him he's in denial.
| |||