Zombie Gait: Difference between revisions

* Completely averted in ''[[Kore wa Zombie Desu ka?]]''. But then, [[Our Monsters Are Different|Their Zombies Are Different]].

** The zombies in ''[[Highschool of the Dead]]'' walk in this fashion. {{spoiler|Possibly because they are blind.}}

 

== Comic Books ==

* Similarly, ''[[Marvel Zombies]]''.

* Played straight in ''[[The Walking Dead]]'', where the zombies are fairly typical Romero-style walking corpses in various states of decay.

 

== Film ==

** Dr. Cockroach walks like this for a few seconds after his transformation in the General's video clip.

* Sometimes played straight, sometimes not in ''[[Zombie Bloodbath]]''. Some zombies can only stumble and shuffle around. Others can lightly jog, tackle people, and hop across small streams of water. Basically the zombies acted like average citizens of Kansas City, Minnesota.

 

== Literature ==

* [[Lampshade Hanging|Lampshaded]] in Max Brooks' novel ''[[World War Z]]'' - the groan of a zombie attracts other zombies to living humans - who, once they hear the groaning and sense the presence of living humans, also begin to groan, thus attracting more. This can have the effect of attracting hundreds, thousands or even ''millions'' of zombies to one position, depending how the chain-reaction of groaning travels and how many zombies are in the vicinity and able to pick up on it. Despite their traditional slow-moving walk, this also has the result of effectively destroying the morale of any defenders and causing complete panic; you might deal with the zombies right in front of you, but there could be the zombified converts of an ''entire city's population'' right behind them.

** The same applies in Mira Grants' ''Feed''. The "zombies" moan deliberately in order to draw more zombies to the "meal".

* Used with ''plant zombies'' in ''[[The Day of the Triffids]]'' by [[John Wyndham]]. The eponymous creepy, flesh-eating plants not only walk with a slow, shuffling movement, but have a sort of stick-and-drum arrangement capable of producing a rattling noise... which, you guessed it, calls hordes of other Triffids.

* Zombies in ''[[Can YOU Survive the Zombie Apocalypse?]]'' shuffle around until they sense food, at which point they start to sprint.

* ''[[Diario de un Zombi]]'' has this as both a good and bad thing. Good for the humans, but bad for Erico, a thinking zombie whose trying to ferry said humans out of Barcelona.

 

* Zombies in the horror/comedy series [[Death Valley]] move fast shortly after they've become infected, but they develop a slow gait the more their bodies decay. There are corpulent zombies in the series who shuffle at a snail's pace.

* In an episode of ''[[Mr. Meaty]]'', a horde of zombies advance on the eponymous fast food restaurant, substituting "meat" for "brains". The same scene also parodies this.

* In Deadliest Warrior [Vampire vs Zombie] the Zombie's slow speed [2 ft per second to 3 mph] was a serious disadvantage to the Vampire's superhuman speed [about 100 ft per second]. Because of this, the Zombies had to outnumber the Vampires 63-1 to make a fair fight. The fight scene showed that in lesser numbers, the Vampire would not be overwelmed by the Zombies and would kill them one at a time with great ease and speed.

* ''[[The Walking Dead]]'', being [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|a show about zombies]] plays with this. While an average zombie can only shuffle or, at most, break out at a disjointed jog, and therefore be outrun, the main problem is they ''do not get tired''. In late season 2, {{spoiler|Andrea}} is overcome with exhaustion and jumped by a single [[Not Using the Zed Word|walker]], after being forced to fight and flee for hours on end.

 

== Music Videos ==

* [[Fridge Brilliance]] on LMAFO's "Party Rock Anthem" video, which presents the band's song infecting people a la a zombie apocalypse. Every day, they ''are'' shufflin'!

* The dance for 2PM's song [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKtvDv7eykg "Heartbeat"] combines Zombie Gait with [[Marionette Motion]].

 

== [[Tabletop Games]] ==

* The zombies in [[House of the Dead]] both play this straight and completely subvert it. Most will move toward you slowly but shoot them in a way that isn't a headshot and they will rush up to you to attack.

* The ''Sonny'' games subvert this, at least with the player character and his party (with the obvious exception of Roald). They run and perform athletic feats just as well as living humans (though Sonny's speed during battle is dependent upon where the player allocates his/her stat points and what items are equipped).

 

== Web Comics ==

* Unity from [[Skin Horse]] (a frankensteinesque super-soldier) will occasionally lurch with her arms out moaning "Snaaaaaacks", but mostly she is perfectly mobile. She has also worked as a fundraiser for the "Lurch For Life" campaign...

* Played straight, [[Subverted Trope|subverted]] ''and'' [[Inverted Trope|inverted]] in ''[[The Zombie Hunters]]'', in which the typical groan-and-shamble zombie is just one of [[Our Zombies Are Different|seven possible classes]].[[Night of the Living Mooks|Crawlers]], [[Breath Weapon|Spitters]], [[Evil Eye|Basilisks]] and [[Make Me Wanna Shout|Howlers]] all shuffle about. [[Mercy Kill|Mercies]] move like particularly graceful [[Subverted Trope|humans]]. [[The Berserker|Berserkers]] and [[Super-Persistent Predator|Hunters]] however, are [[Super Speed|faster]] and [[Super Reflexes|more agile]] than humans, with the Berseker in particular [[Inverted Trope|outclassing human sprinters]].

 

== Web Original ==

* Mocked in ''[[Unskippable]]'' during the ''[[Left 4 Dead 2]]'' cutscenes

{{quote|I like that, just as in old zombie moves, the only way to make slow zombies viable is to pit them against the stupidest, most lethargic humans ever.}}

 

== Real Life ==

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Tropes of the Living Dead]]

[[Category:Body Language]]

[[Category:German Expressionism]]