my treatise on zombie biology.

In case you can't tell by the entries written in this journal thus far (and I'm sure this won't be the last tome written on the subject), I'm something of a Zombie Connoisseur. As such, it bothers me when people who have seen a few zombie movies start speaking on the matter as experts when, in reality, they couldn't tell a Romero zombie from a Return of the Living Dead zombie. Please, allow me to drop a knowledge bomb on you:

It's widely accepted that, when referring to zombies, the Romero variety are de facto. That is to say, the zombies that are sluggish, unintelligent (if you're discounting Romero's later zombie movies, which you rightfully should), and dangerous in groups. Contrary to popular belief, you become a zombie if your brain is intact when you die (regardless of if you were killed by one), and they can only be killed by destroying the brain.

Return of the Living Dead-style zombies are the ones that run fast and can maybe utter a sentence or two. They confront you head-on with their zombieness. These are the zombies that don't fuck around about being zombies. The zombie plague spreads via infection with the chemical 2-4-5 Trioxin. In the first few Return of the Living Dead movies, the only way to kill them was via electrocution; a fact which wasn't even learned until the second movie in the series. I think they only managed to kill one zombie in the first movie, and that was by dismembering him and putting all the parts into a cremation oven, and even that only served to form some crazy zombie-cloud that rained onto a graveyard and created even more zombies. Seriously, if confronted by a horde of Return of the Living Dead zombies in the Zombie Apocalypse, just put a shotgun in your mouth.

Now, here's what irks me: the Return of the Living Dead zombies are the only ones who eat brains. They say that eating brains is the only thing to numb the pain of being dead. Romero zombies are strictly flesh-eaters. I mean, they may eventually get around to eating your brains, but only incidentally. Each movie has it's own set of rules, and they're internally consistent, but they end up getting mixed up when brought up in conversation by novices in the field of Zombie Biology.

Let's set up a scenario. Stay with me now, I'm about to drop some science on your plebeian ass.

The common perception of the zombie plague is that it's spread via bite. So, you get bitten by a zombie, you die, then you return to un-life in your new zombie form.

 You immediately hunger for... brains?

 Alright, fine, brains. 

You saunter out to a safehouse and, with a little elbow grease, get in through a previously boarded-up window, perhaps with the help of some of your zombie brethren.

 You make your way to the first ripe melon you see, and then, after a brief struggle, om nom nom nom, brains!

 Satiated, you slump into a corner and groan to yourself, joined by your newly-created zombie friend, but not for long because uh-oh, here comes the redneck militia! You take a few shotgun blasts to the chest before finally being ended by a clean shot to the brain.

  fin.

Here's the problem with the above scenario: this is the way that you would think zombies work if you were to listen to dudes and ladies speaking of them in casual conversation, and you would all be wrong, because it makes no sense from a Darwinian standpoint. If zombies had a hunger for brains, but could only become zombies if their brains remained intact, then the Zombie Apocalypse would be more like a Minor Zombie Inconvenience. How would the zombie plague spread if all potential candidates were rendered unzombifiable in the process of conversion? George Romero thought this shit out. He's a smart dude.

So, in closing, leave the zombie talk to the guy with the PhD in Zombie Biology. Who's that? This guy right here.