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SRegan — Zombie Supercut - character design
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Published: 2018-05-17 19:56:36 +0000 UTC; Views: 28009; Favourites: 148; Downloads: 17
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Description
In the process of mulling over some monster design ideas for both Howl and DK, horror games I have had lying around for some time, I decided to sketch out what are to my mind some of the most significant zombie designs (and those of undead/revenant more generally) in the history of the sub-genre, throwing a couple of my own designs in there for comparison.
Crossed (Garth Ennis, 'Crossed', 2008-2010)
- Living human
- Fast-spreading virus removes inhibitions and self-control
- Can use weapons and talk, but no patience for any complex task
- Act as a tribe but can be tricked into attacking each other
- Distinctive rash
I started this project with one of the more original takes on the zombie in recent years; Ennis's 'Crossed' are fully intelligent but driven to the worst excesses of human behaviour - rape, torture, and mass murder. They behave tribally towards other Crossed, but can be tricked into attacking each other. The distinctive rash tips you off that this is the zombie-as-football-hooligan - personality submerged in the tribe, they are dehumanized and capable of acts of violence that they would have thought unthinkable. The Crossed appear tireless and are almost immune to extreme weather conditions (until they drop dead from hypothermia, that is) but are otherwise living humans.
Zombie (George Romero, 'Night Of The Living Dead', 1963)
- All dead bodies reanimate shortly after death if not destroyed, due to alien radiation
- Can pass for a living person from a distance; stagger, greyish skin and staring eyes give them away
- Will aggressively attack humans; only a blow or gunshot to the head will stop them
Romero's zombies form the basis for the popular modern interpretation of the hostile, undead, 'slow zombie' driven to attack the living - but surprisingly, Night Of The Living Dead's zombies are not as familiar as you might think; they are created by radiation, not a virus; all dead bodies reanimate, even those who were not infected; they largely appear undecayed (which makes sense; the freshest corpses are most likely to rise), merely appearing pale and staring.
Rage Zombie (Danny Boyle, '28 Days Later', 2002)
- Living human
- Rabies-like virus spreads by bodily fluids and renders the victim extremely violent
- Occasional infected retains some intelligence and can use simple weapons, ambush and choose targets
- Extremely fast and strong
Boyle's 'fast zombies' provide the chief competition to Romero's undead lurchers in the popular imagination - fast, strong, and brutal, they are living humans in the grip of a rabies-like disease which fills them with the desire to claw, bite, and spread the virus any way they can to the uninfected.
Walker (Robert Kirkman, 'The Walking Dead', 2003)
- Dead body re-animated by virus
- Virus is already endemic in the population; when you die, you become a 'walker'
- Will aggressively attack humans; only a blow or gunshot to the head will stop them
- Can remain active even with extreme levels of decay
The Walking Dead's walkers follow very much in Romero's footsteps, by way of Max Brooks (more on him later), but are distinguished by their extreme resilience to damage, and their ongoing decay over time. I based this Walker on a zombie who appears in the very first episode and appears very out of place next to the relatively fresh zombies we see in Season 1. As the seasons rolled by, however, the make-up artists upped their game to reflect increasingly mouldering walkers.
Clicker (Bruce Straley, 'The Last Of Us', 2013)
- Living human controlled by fungal parasite
- Fungal growth covers eyes, eventually forcing infected to navigate by sound
- Infection will eventually kill host, dispersing spores to infect others
The parasite-ridden humans in 'The Last Of Us' follow Boyle's model, albeit mixing in the detail that fungal growth over the eyes eventually changes them from fast Runners to slow, menacing Clickers. Based on Ophiocordyceps unilateralis, the fictional Cordyceps infection takes control of its host's brain, turning them into essentially vehicles for the fungus.
Flood (Jason Jones, 'Halo: Combat Evolved', 2001)
- Lifeform controlled by alien parasite; does not distinguish between living and dead hosts
- Host head is not used; instead a new sensory apparatus forms in the chest
- Constructs are intelligent enough to use guns, drive vehicles, and work in teams
- Sufficient Flood will eventually form a Gravemind, which is highly intelligent and can co-ordinate lesser Flood
The Flood are one of the more unique interpretations of the zombie - as well as one of the most potent menaces on this list, being literally a galactic-scale threat. Flood spores do not use the host's head, instead growing their own in the host's chests. The Flood does not operate by the usual living/dead distinction - as long as the spinal column is intact they can use a host body. Flood constructs are at least as intelligent as a human child and can work together to deadly effect. The 1975 Robert Neville book 'I Am Legend' depicts a familiar scenario - a pandemic has spread throughout the population, leaving a lone survivor. However, what it describes are unquestionably not zombies but vampires - they fear religious symbols and garlic, and are killed by a stake through the heart. 1964's 'The Last Man on Earth', starring Vincent Price, follows this formula faithfully; 1971's looser adaptation 'The Ωmega Man', with Charlton Heston, changes them into albino mutants. It would take until 2007's deeply flawed Will Smith adaptation before the protagonist's victims more closely approximate the zombie convention; altered living beings with pulsing veins and distorted jaws that recall the ghostly Marley from 'A Christmas Carol', the Darkseekers' only link to the book's vampires is their vulnerability to the sun. Fast and extremely agile, the released film gives the impression they are almost mindless, with only hints of greater intelligence (such as domesticating infected dogs). The original ending, however, restored in the Director's Cut, is truer to the book - the Will Smith character realises he has been killing and torturing fully sentient beings. Dead Space depicts an alien pathogen capable of transforming humans into corpses; and then into horrific, undead parodies of human life, with extra teeth, claws and eyes popping up out of nowhere. Some can even regenerate damage done to them. Uniquely, headshots will get you nowhere with necromorphs; the best way to put them down for good is to tear off their limbs one at a time. - Do not decay - Shows tendencies to move and attack in hordes; slow and shambling (book); extremely fast and aggressive, guided by sound and smell (film) Max Brooks' 2006 'World War Z', itself a follow-up to his tongue-in-cheek 2003 'The Zombie Survival Guide', depicts zombies as not merely a biological but also a military threat, able to overwhelm a dyed-in-the-wool military that insists on treating the hordes of shambling undead as a human enemy who can be shocked into retreat or suppressed with heavy firepower; only when Napoleonic unit tactics are revived and centre-of-mass shooting strategies abandoned in favour of all-or-nothing headshots is the global zombie threat neutralised. Brooks' solanum zombies are re-animated corpses, but do not decay beyond a certain point as the virus makes the zombie's flesh unpalatable to bacteria and wild animals alike. Marc Forster's 2013 movie abandons most of this, replacing them, uniquely, with undead fast zombies who communicate by clicking their teeth and who move in unstoppable, tide-like clawing masses who heap themselves up against obstacles to overcome them. Raimi's deadites have more in common with the daemoniacs of The Exorcist (1971) and other stories of demonic or ghostly possession; controlled by an evil force, their appearance changes into a threatening, distorted caricature of their former self and they manifest powers which can include telekinesis and shape-shifting. However, the fact that they can take hosts who are actually dead, and continue controlling their host after death, suggests significant crossover with zombie tropes. Slower (Andreas Rönnberg, 'Cry of Fear', 2012) For my money Cry of Fear is the most effective action-horror game of the 21st century; a free mod of Half-Life (1998), its enemies are distant descendants (code-wise) of that game's headcrab zombies (seen more vividly in the 'Twitchers' from the previous game by modmaker Andreas Rönnberg, 'Afraid of Monsters'). The most common enemy is the Slower, a (despite the name) surprisingly fast, undead-looking creature, typically armed with a hammer, but with variants that make use of chainsaws and even guns. Although the whole setup of the game is intended to make you think that these are reanimated humans, they are in fact an extremely rare variant on the zombie genre; the metafictional zombie. Created by a book protagonist Simon was writing to work through his issues after a hit-and-run left him crippled, you in fact play the protagonist of the book; your real self is the one creating and setting these creatures on you and the choices you make determine whether the real Simon will recover, kill himself, or kill others. While this may suggest the Slowers and other Cry of Fear monsters should not even be considered real enemies at all, the co-op mode, where two or more police fight their way through the book to Simon's real apartment to rescue him, strongly suggests that the creatures of the book, including the self-insert you play in Cry of Fear, do in fact manifest in the real world. Quake I (1996) featured a number of horrific monster enemies, spawned by the Lovecraftian (more on him later) beast Shub-Niggurath. The basic grunt-enemy is sometimes referred to incorrectly as a zombie, but is in fact a 'changeling', an extradimensional creature. Quake I also featured zombies as a minor enemy who needed explosives to put down for good. Quake II ditched the dimension-travelling setting of Quake I entirely (together with any reference to the title) and instead introduced the sci-fi Strogg who, clearly influenced by Star Trek's Borg (more on them later), abduct and convert the species they conquer into more Strogg, taking control of their minds with cybernetic implants. While Quake IV introduces the Strogg's own version of zombies - 'failed transfers' who, not entirely under Strogg control, are left to wander through toxic sewers, their bodies and minds falling apart - the Strogg themselves are a clear sci-fi variant on the zombie; the little clues in the environment such as fading, torn banners with alien symbols, strongly imply the Strogg were once an imperialistic empire before transforming themselves into vicious cyborgs. The Strogg are not entirely Borg-like; they are clearly autonomous and respond to audible alarms and announcements, but are united in purpose by the implants they receive. Note: After posting this I have been informed that the Q1 Grunts are actually very similar to the Strogg - humans who have been implanted with technology to make them kill in the service of Quake. I can only submit that this is contra to the in-game ending text, which says: "Congratulations and well done! You have beaten the hideous Shub-Niggurath, and her hundreds of ugly changelings and monsters. You have proven that your skill and your cunning are greater than all the powers of Quake. You are the master now. Id Software salutes you." No mention is made of any human ever serving Quake, as far as I know. However, I do tend to agree having read up on the matter that the Grunts are probably supposed to be your former comrades-in-arms; 'Strogg-lite', if you will. The manual describes them as "Goons with probes inserted into their pleasure centers; wired up so when they kill someone, they get paroxysms of ecstasy. In essence, customized serial killers" - I do note that it doesn't specifically call them human. - Will eventually combine into horrific, building-sized composite creatures The ZQN, from Kengo Hanazawa's horror manga (their name is justified in-universe as the Engrish phrase 'Zero Qualified Nucleus' - which I think is intended to mean 'insurgent cell' rather than, say, 'no detectable life' but is almost certainly a play on the Japanese slang 'DQN', or 'dokyun', a delinquent or worthless person), are a variant on the Rage Zombie - a living being driven insane by a virus - even if at times they seem to be closer to Romero zombies, crawling slowly and haphazardly towards their prey. Uniquely they retain some degree of muscle memory, allowing them to use any skill they specialised in before infection. Some carriers of the virus, such as antagonist Kurusu and, it seems, protagonist Hideo, display unique powers such as being able to control the infected, or superhuman strength and speed - but in most cases it seems to just be a lower degree of infection, making them 'slightly' deranged and 'slightly' mutated. Update: I gather more recent chapters have dropped a major bombshell; the ZQN's personalities are not entirely gone - rather they exist in a dream-like state, where they perceive themselves and each other to be normal, healthy people. They also seem to have a more sophisticated hive-like societal structure than previously suggested. - Directed by a hive mind created by the Terrorcortex taking over AI systems An example from my own work, the largely abandoned sci-fi setting Crystalmania, which focused on ancient alien crystals, which could be brought together to grant one wish before scattering again across the universe (you may notice an influence there). One unique feature was the Terrorcortex, a superweapon created long ago by the same extinct race that created the titular crystal tech (interestingly predating the Flood by two years). Uniquely, the 'zombies' created by the Terrorcortex are wholly inorganic, made of the flaking, 'rusting' orange crystal which characterises the lifeform. Any organic structure, living or dead, human or otherwise, can be subverted by the Terrorcortex, and even the slightest exposure to the substance triggers a rapid transformation, resulting in a single flake being able to rapidly terrorform (yes, I know, I was in primary school at the time) an entire world, including its topsoil. The only creature who showed immunity to the Terrorcortex was Sabotar, a seemingly human entity who was actually from a dimension with 'minus two dimensions' (you figure that out; basically when he revealed his true form he looked like a two-dimensional Quintesson from Transformers and acted like a black hole, destroying and sucking in everything around it). As such, Sabotar and the Terrorcortex (which had taken over his ship's systems and corrupted its AI into a budget pre-Gravemind Gravemind capable of controlling Terrorcortex constructs) formed a sinister alliance of convenience. For obvious reasons the Terrorcortex rarely fought our heroes directly, as that would mean instant infection; usually they got no further than clinging en masse to their spaceship and attempting to breach its shielded hull with tireless, steel-buckling punches as it tried to leave an infected world. Unquestionably a sci-fi zombie, the Borg are slow, shambling, once-human (or humanoid) creatures subverted by a sinister technology. They are pale, with prominent veins, and behave like mindless servants until they detect a non-Borg, who they attack with mostly hand-to-hand attacks. To allow them to capture you, or pierce your skin with their nanotubes (which leave a suspiciously vampiric double-injection mark) means conversion into one of them. Even a 'dead' drone can come back to life as long as their implants remain intact. As initially portrayed in 'Q Who', they were one of the most powerful forces in the universe, and even the nigh-omnipotent Q seemed afraid of them. As time went on, however, the zombie (rather than tech-user) aspects of their mythology became more prominent, and their combat capability declined to the point where Picard is able to take several drones out with a (admittedly hologram-projected) Tommy gun, leading to the absurd notion that their personal shields are incapable of dealing with kinetic projectiles. The Nazi zombies (!) of comedy Dead Snow have a lot of the traits of the classic Romero zombie - long-dead corpses rising to attack the living, but with an important twist that they are brought back to life by a specific purpose. This, combined with the unusual (for the genre) intelligence of Standartenführer Herzog, means they seem closer to the classic revenant than the zombie. Another of my creations, this time from a game design . Laggers, for all that they often look dead or decaying, are not the corpses of the living but constructs created by a powerful psychic. This results in some interesting visual effects - their name suggests their jerky, stop-start movement which makes it difficult to get a bead on them. Other variants can warp through walls to attack, fly, or move objects with their mind. The laggers would be threatening on their own, but are made truly malevolent by the fact that their soulless nature means they are easy prey for the glashan, disembodied spirits who can inhabit and control physical bodies - including mental constructs like the laggers. The glashan are highly intelligent and can communicate telepathically, making it appear as though they have a single shared will. To my mind one of the most revolting and terrifying zombie-like creatures portrayed in horror; the titular splinters are the infection vector of a mould or fungus-like creature; a single prick means infection. As with the Romero>Walking Dead archetype, the mould kills and then 'resurrects' its host, puppeteering its body in ways that pay very little regard to how the host 'worked' before. Severed hands will move like spiders; dead bodies drag themselves on their backs towards victims. As with the Thing from the franchise of the same name (which I have not included as it is typically presented as a changeling/body-copier, not body-assimilator), any part of the host will continue to move autonomously if severed from the whole, making the only viable strategy incineration. Zombie (Edgar Wright, 'Shaun of the Dead', 2004) The first of Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg's 'Three Flavours Cornetto Trilogy', 'Shaun of the Dead' is a lighthearted zombie comedy, and the extremely slow, incompetent zombies reflect this. As far as I know there is no clarity in the film itself whether the zombies are truly undead or simply infected, but the ease and glee with which they are dispatched by office workers strongly suggests the former, if only for thematic reasons. They are still threatening if they corner you and manage to land a bite, but characters freely splatter themselves in zombie blood with no ill effects (something we also see in 'The Walking Dead', though with some justification - in that franchise everyone is already infected and a bite kills through shock and sepsis). Phone-crazies/phoners/phonies (Stephen King, 'Cell', 2006) Stephen King's take on the zombie genre gives it a high-tech twist; the 'virus' is an electromagnetic signal, spread on the mobile phone network (insert hurr-hurr thinly-veiled commentary about the youth of today glued to their phones here). The resulting 'phone-crazies' or 'phonies' are living humans, but reduced to the most basic behaviours, such as hunting, fighting and eating. Later, they regain some intelligence, developing 'flocking' instincts and even psychic powers. As far as I know there's no indication in the book that they have crackling electric eyes - this was just a convention I used to suggest that what's behind their motivations is something technological. Hunger Gospel Infected Superhero (Robert Kirkman, 'Marvel Zombies', 2005) The Marvel Zombies series sees your favourite Marvel heroes turned into flesh-eating monsters. It's eventually revealed that the virus in question (called the Hunger Gospel by some) is actually a demonic force which propagates itself between universes by infecting superheroes (and villains). In initial issues it appeared as though it could even 'infect' robots and those with bodies made of energy, but later outings (which see the androids Machine Man and Jocasta as the only beings able to resist the zombie plague, while The Vision turns up alive after being apparently killed as a zombie in earlier issues) suggest this was simply an error on the artist's part. Day of the Dead saw Romero refine his zombie mythos into something much more recognisable than the radiation-fuelled, 'all bodies resurrect', minimal decomposition zombies of 'Night of the Living Dead'. This time the zombie outbreak is explicitly a pandemic, bites are infectious, and zombies appear much closer to the modern pop cultural depiction of the decomposed ghoul, with greenish, withered skin and patchy hair. However, that doesn't mean 'Day of the Dead' didn't introduce some unique elements - such as Dr Logan's experiments into taming zombies, which sees a zombie ('Bub') seemingly regain some of his old personality, enjoy music (though this may simply be a learned behaviour to get meat), and even shoot a gun. A 'zombie romance' based on Romeo and Juliet, Warm Bodies has a fairly unique take on the genre - the undead population wander their old haunts in a daze, with no memories of their past. They feel compelled to hunt and kill the living; eating their brains gives them fleeting glimpses into their victims' lives and makes them feel alive in turn, if only for a little while. Rather than decay gradually, it appears they reach a point at which they lose all hope, at which point they become a sinister Boney, a skeletal creature which seems to have considerable authority in zombie society. 'R', our protagonist, is already unusually alert and vocal for a zombie, but gradually regains personality to the point where, with make-up, he is able to pass for a living person. Eventually, he appears to return to life, the 'forbidden romance' between a human and zombie having ended his exile from humanity in a way that makes the contagion more reminiscent of a fairytale curse which can be 'broken' than a Rage Virus. The opponents the players face in the game 'Left 4 Dead' are, despite the game's name, overtly identified as humans, infected and mutated by a virus. Depicted is a 'Smoker', one of the 'Special' Infected who acquire dramatic new abilities with mutation; these range from the subtle (the 'Hunter' is highly agile, able to pounce on prey from a distance) to the dramatic (the 'Tank' is a huge mass of mutated muscle, able to barrel through an entire team and absorb absurd quantities of gunfire). While predated in film by the 1932 'White Zombie', 1943's 'I Walked With A Zombie' is far more recognisable as a modern zombie film, chiefly thanks to Darby Jones's performance as the towering zombie Carre-Four. The voodoo zombies in IWWAZ do not feel pain; are highly suggestible; and will attempt to carry out a task set for them indefatigably. It is left ambiguous in the film whether true magic is involved and it does appear its zombies are living humans, unlike 'White Zombie'. Dashner's 2009 novel 'The Maze Runner' gives us a subtle take on the zombie genre which I have included chiefly because of how it was handled in its film adaptation (below). The world is in the grip of a neuro-degenerative disease called the Flare, which eats away at its victims' sanity until they become raving, dangerous lunatics. There is no cure, despite experiments on the handful of immune people ('Munies'), and most countries confine those who begin to show symptoms to 'Crank Palaces', effectively unmonitored asylums where the 'Cranks' can run riot. They are living humans and uniquely are able to talk; when they finally go 'beyond the Gone' and lose all self-control they become completely incoherent and will simply mutter disturbing mantras ("Rose took my nose, I suppose..."). In the film adaptation, however, the Cranks are taken in a very different direction. This design blog shows how cranks were reimagined as more zombie-like creatures, whose vine-like veins which grow over nearby walls and objects and must be torn away when they wake from torpor, seem to owe a debt to the fungus-encrusted zombies from 'The Last Of Us'. The movie Cranks are fast, agile, and mute. This was toned back for the subsequent film,'Maze Runner: The Death Cure', which gave us somewhat more book-faithful Cranks. Although itself heavily inspired by Mary Shelley's 'Frankenstein' (see below), HP Lovecraft's 1921 'Herbert West: Reanimator' arguably did more to shape the modern perception of the zombie than even 'Night of the Living Dead', to the extent that I have stated that any zombie setting or film where people seem blissfully unaware of the tropes of the walking dead, must be an alternate history where HP Lovecraft did not author 'Herbert West', and perhaps other works (read on). Here we have true undead, reanimated through a blend of science and magic, breaking free of the control of their creator and turning against him, forming an ever-multiplying 'tomb legion' which plagues the living. Commanding this force is the resurrected corpse of Major Clapham-Lee, a Canadian officer. Uniquely however, here is a headless zombie who is nevertheless intelligent enough to duplicate his masters' work and create more of his kind (no infection here). His head has been replaced by a wax facsimile and it is hinted that he keeps his true head in a lockbox, making himself nearly indestructible. I produced a second version of this piece as I wanted to experiment with a much more macabre, horrific version of the Major, as he might look if designed by a film SFX artist today. I wanted it to be unclear what was wax and what was viscera; something organic seeps from the wax head's eye sockets and some of the original ruined jaw remains below the neck of the waxwork. On the other hand, if we look back further to 1818, we see already formed the idea of a living creature, made from the bodies of the dead, animated by a dark, forbidden science, which turns against its master and plots his downfall, and becomes obsessed with the idea of replicating itself. It should be noted that in the book no mention is made of the origins of the Monster's brain, which may even be entirely artificial; he is not a resurrected man but a new creature, with no memories or pre-existing personality. No film adaptation has faithfully replicated the eerie appearance Shelley gives the monster: designed to be 'beautiful', the result is instead hideous: “his yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of a pearly whiteness; but these luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes, that seemed almost of the same colour as the dun-white sockets in which they were set, his shrivelled complexion and straight black lips." Significantly no mention is made of stitches, bolts, or any other contrivance; his size (eight feet) would suggest a freakishly proportioned creature as it seems unlikely Frankenstein could source human body parts of the size he required. For my money the most successfully horrific adaptation of the novel has been Junji Ito's 'Frankenstein', though it still retains some vestiges of the Hammer Horror design. This was my effort. Predating 'Reanimator' by almost a year, 'The Outsider' may seem a stretch to place in a zombie genre - it's narrated by the titular Outsider, who seems a not entirely unlikeable fellow. And yet, here we have what is revealed to be a undead man, unleashed from his tomb, terrifying the living - he appears decayed though still physically capable, and in the summation abandons humanity altogether, flocking with other undead ("Now I ride with the mocking and friendly ghouls on the night-wind"). I was unhappy with the first version of this I created; I sought to bring to mind the mummified 'incorruptible saints' of Catholic catacombs, but he still looked too human; my second version almost removes the mouth (the character never speaks and it is mentioned he does not cry out even when he sees himself in a mirror), making him more of a 'creature' and less obviously an ancient corpse. After drawing this I realised I should have gone for the T-virus zombie, a true undead who in various incarnations has been controlled intermittently by science, but the unique look of the Plaga zombies of RE5 meant I pressed on. The Majini are humans controlled by a parasite which extends its tendrils through their mouths; the Majini hosts attempt to satiate their hunger, but anything they ingest goes directly into the mouth of the parasite, like a cross between a tapeworm and a cymothoa exigua, the tongue-eating louse. A bit of a cheat here - like the Flood, most Lambent are not human, but I chose to depict a Former, the term used in Gears of War for a human who has been taken over by Imulsion, the glowing, living substance that powers the planet Sera's industries in the Gears of War series but which is later revealed to be a sentient lifeform. Formers are fast and agile, and uniquely explode when killed as the glowing Imulsion within them ignites. And of course, we couldn't finish without one of the most recognisable zombies in gaming - Half-Life's headcrab zombies. Depicted as part of an entire Xen ecosystem, headcrabs leap on humanoid victims, latching onto their skulls with its beak, and somehow taking control of its body. The victim is still alive and can apparently feel pain - its screams contain garbled and reversed English phrases including 'Help God!' and 'Kill me!'. Half-Life Opposing Force introduced the Gonome, the next stage in headcrab zombie evolution, with even more extreme mutations. This was discarded in Half-Life 2 together with the skull faces on the headcrab's backs (I personally liked this; I suspect the intent was to suggest translucent skin but I read it more as a death's head moth, intended to discourage Xen predators); instead, we have the Fast Zombie, a wasted, skeletal looking creature whose host is presumably too weak (or perhaps deceased) to resist the parasite any longer, turning its staggering, uncontrolled lumber into a highly agile dash; and the Poison Zombie, a swollen, obese-looking host who has become prey to several poisonous headcrabs, latching all over his body. In the Xen portion of Half-Life 1 we saw the final stage of headcrab evolution - presumably after sucking its host dry, the headcrab grows into a titanic beast (the Gonarch), laying eggs which hatch into tiny, translucent new headcrabs. Think I missed something really significant? Think I didn't use the best example for one of these? Let me know! Some other ideas I had but didn't include for the sake of time: - T-virus zombie/Tyrant (Resident Evil)
Darkseeker (Francis Lawrence, 'I Am Legend', 2007)
- Living human re-engineered by manmade virus, virus spreads via bites and open wounds
- Can infect animals - human darkseekers are intelligent enough to domesticate infected dogs
- Extremely vulnerable to sunlight; begin to burn within moments
- Distinctive alopecia totalis - all body hair falls out
Necromorph (Bret Robbins, 'Dead Space', 2008)
- Dead body reanimated and altered by alien pathogen
- Can vary dramatically in size and ability, including fast regenerating varieties
- Head and body shots are generally ineffective; they can only be disabled by severing limbs
Zack (Max Brooks, 'World War Z', 2006 and Marc Forster, 'World War Z', 2013)
- Dead body reanimated by solanum virus
- Chitters teeth to 'communicate' with other zombies (film only)
- Only a blow or gunshot to the head will stop them
Deadite (Sam Raimi, 'The Evil Dead', 1981)
- Living or dead body possessed and altered by demonic forces
- Has a shared consciousness with other deadites and is intelligent enough to talk
- Numerous supernatural powers including ability to change its appearance, fly, and become intangible
- Meta-fictional entity created by Simon Henriksson through his book
- Cannot infect others
- Can vary dramatically in appearance and ability, including flying, gigantic, and psychic variants
- Intelligent enough to use hammers, chainsaws, and guns
Strogg (Kevin Cloud, 'Quake II', 1997)
- Living human subverted by cybernetic implants
- Captures and 'processes' other living beings into Strogg in a lengthy, painful surgical process
- Can vary dramatically in size and appearance, including close combat, heavy weapons and armoured variants
- Intelligent enough to use guns; collectively has intelligence of a high industrial civilisation including starships and EMP cannons
ZQN (Kengo Hanazawa, 'I Am A Hero', 2009-2017)
- Living human infected by virus
- Virus makes them highly aggressive and spreads via saliva or other bodily fluids
- Retain some skills (e.g. professional athlete can pole-vault)
Terrorcortex (Simon Regan, 'Crystalmania', 1998)
- Living or dead body reanimated and altered by self-reproducing crystalline structure
- Wholly inorganic; cells replaced in seconds by catalytic reaction
- Largely immune to firearms, lasers and explosives; requires heavy KE impact to break them apart
Borg (Gene Roddenberry, 'Star Trek: The Next Generation', 1988-1994)
- Living being subverted by nanobots and cybernetic implants
- Can convert other living beings into Borg with nanobot injection or surgical procedures
- Acquire the technology of every species they assimilate
- Extremely strong and can be fitted with energy weapons; shields adapt to any weapon they encounter
- Collectively has intelligence of a sci-fi civilisation including huge space-based hubs and starships
Nazi Zombie (Tommy Wirkola, 'Dead Snow', 2009)
- Revenant brought back to life by desire to fulfil its former purpose (destroy a village, guard gold)
- Can turn others into zombies with a bite but not by blood
- Intelligent enough to talk, fight as a military unit and drive a tank
Lagger Glashan (Simon Regan, 'Howl', 2012)
- Psychical construct possessed by demonic entity
- Cannot infect or convert others
- Can vary dramatically in appearance and power, including flying, teleporting, and telekinetic varieties
- Intelligent enough to use weapons such as a hammer
- Led by the demonic entity Howl; once on the throne of God he can alter reality to create more glashan
Host (Toby Wilkins, 'Splinter', 2008)
- Dead body reanimated by alien parasite
- Controls body in clumsy, unnatural ways (e.g. crawling on back)
- Heat-seeking; a single splinter will infect any living thing
- Any severed part will continue to operate; can only be destroyed by burning
- Dead body reanimated by a virus
- Extremely slow; only a threat if they can surround you
- Only a blow or gunshot to the head or electricity will stop them, but relatively weak to blunt force trauma (e.g. ashtray, cricket bat)
- Spreads via saliva
- Living human whose brain has been overwritten by an electromagnetic signal (the Pulse), making them mute and psychotic
- Can infect others by playing them the Pulse on their phone
- Fast and aggressive; will use whatever weapons they can find to kill crazy and non-crazy alike
- Will later develop 'flocking' instincts with other crazies, levitation and telepathy
- Dead body reanimated by a demonic force which operates like a virus
- Spreads by a bite and prefers superhuman hosts; spreads between universes by infecting superhumans who can break the dimensional barrier
- Hosts retain their superhuman powers but are not protected from decay
- When well-fed, hosts have intelligence approaching that which they knew in life, albeit with little self-control; when hungry they become near-mindless beasts
- Can remain active even with extreme levels of decay; only a blow or gunshot to the head will stop them
Zombie (George Romero, 'Day of the Dead', 1985)
- Dead body reanimated by a contagious disease
- Driven to eat fresh flesh but seemingly do not need it to remain active
- Virus spreads via bite
- Can be somewhat domesticated and can regain some measure of their personality
Zombie (Isaac Marion, 'Warm Bodies', 2010)
- Dead body reanimated by a contagious disease
- Gripped by the need to eat the flesh and particularly brains of the living
- Can see the memories of the living by eating their brains
- Decay slowly if at all, but will eventually transform into a skeletal Boney (if they lose hope) or return to life
- Retain some personality and speech, but have short attention spans and no long-term memories
Infected (Mike Booth, 'Left4Dead', 2008)
- Living human infected and modified by the Green Flu virus
- Spreads by bites, saliva, bile, and possibly the smoke created by Smokers. A handful of people are asymptomatic carriers.
- Will usually but not always recognise other infected and spare them
- Can mutate into 'Special' types which may have superior strength, speed or toughness, including the gigantic Tank
Zombie (Jacques Tourneur, 'I Walked With A Zombie', 1943)
- Living human placed in an altered state by voodoo ritual
- Highly suggestible and can be controlled by a voodoo practitioner
- Does not bleed if injured
- Cannot infect or convert others
Crank (James Dashner, 'The Maze Runner', 2009)
- Living human infected by a degenerative disease (the Flare virus) which makes them unpredictable and violent
- All but a handful of the human race ('Munies') are already infected; those who begin to show symptoms are confined to 'Crank Palaces'
- Able to talk; once 'beyond the Gone' they become incoherent and simply vocalise their disturbing thoughts
- Often horrific injuries from self-mutilation and fights with other cranks
Crank (Wes Ball, 'Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials', 2015)
- Living human infected by a virus (the Flare virus) which controls their actions
- Spreads from bites or scratches
- Can move fast once woken from torpor but is uncoordinated
- Veins grow over nearby objects like vines, eventually immobilising them
Major Clapham-Lee (HP Lovecraft, 'Herbert West: Reanimator', 1921)
- Dead body reanimated by science
- Headless; head replaced with a wax facsimile
- Highly intelligent though mute; capable of raising more zombies through scientific means
The Monster (Mary Bysshe Shelley, 'Frankenstein: Or, The New Prometheus', 1818)
- Artificial human created from dead bodies and animated by science
- Highly intelligent and capable of talking, bearing grudges, and executing involved plans
- Eight feet tall and superhumanly strong
- Cannot infect or convert others but can reproduce with another of his kind if provided a 'bride'
The Outsider (HP Lovecraft, 'The Outsider', 1921)
- Dead body kept animate and possibly altered by sorcery
- Cannot infect or convert others
- Can apparently go for centuries without sustenance
- Retains full human intelligence and is physically capable despite apparent advanced decay
Majini (Kenichi Ueda, 'Biohazard/Resident Evil 5', 2009)
- Living being controlled by Plaga parasite
- Communicates with other plaga via ultrafrequency sound waves, giving them a 'hive mind'
- Plaga feed through the mouth of the host and eventually replace their head
Lambent Former (Cliff Bleszinski, 'Gears of War 3', 2011)
- Living mutated human controlled by alien substance (Imulsion)
- Extremely fast and agile
- Explode upon death
Headcrab Zombie (Marc Laidlaw, 'Half-Life', 1998)
- Living human controlled by alien parasite (headcrab) which has attached itself to its head, using the body as a puppet
- Can only create more zombies via a headcrab growing into a Gonarch and birthing more headcrabs, which latch onto new hosts
- Develops secondary 'mouth' in the chest to feed and extended claw-like hands
- Initially slow and uncoordinated, they become faster as the host wastes away and is more fully controlled by the headcrab
- Bobblehead Nurse (Silent Hill)
- Troll (Stand Still Stay Silent)
- Ghoul (Hellsing)
- Zombie (Slither)
- Boney (Warm Bodies)
- Titan (Attack on Titan)
- Volatile (Dying Light)
- Draugr (Skyrim)
- The Undertaker (WWE)
- Destiny Hive
- Undead (Dark Souls)
- Cie'th (Final Fantasy XIII)
- Reaver (Firefly)
Related content
Comments: 20
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You forgot the Tar Man from Return of The Living Dead.
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OK which one is the ugliest goes from the ugly to the uglier
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One thing I actually noticed that the very concept of the "Zombie" is actually a very recent development compared to Vampires.....
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Perhaps more accurate to say that a lot of the older legends of the European vampire adopted the Haitian (originally Afro-Brazilian) term 'zombie' while the later, more sophisticated takes on the vampire continued under the original name. The early vampires of Europe look very much like what we today call a 'zombie' - a corpse that rises from the dead, animated by its desire to attack the living (though as I mention in the Vampire Supercut biting came later and the first Eastern European 'vampires' were thought to use a knife to get at the blood of cattle and sleeping humans). Onto this framework were laid the various more recognisable 'vampire' elements - that the corpse will return to its grave during daytime, that it can *only* drink blood, that it needs special means to ward away or kill, etc. Norse myth has the draugar or aptrgangr ('after-walker'), whose shape-changing abilities and occasional blood-drinking attributes are reminiscent of Eastern European vampires - and the original 'dwarf' in Norse myth, before it became a figure of fun, was said to be a dead spirit.
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Some of my early thoughts:
Lord Ruthven (The Vampyre, 1819)
Count Dracula (Dracula, 1897)
Count Orlok (Nosferatu, 1922) - noteable because it invents the 'extreme' version of the sunlight weakness
Salt Vampire (Star Trek, 1966)
Blade (Marvel Comics, 1973)
Morbius the Living Vampire (Marvel Comics, 1975) - noteable because his unique traits were brought about by censorship
Lestat de Lioncourt (Interview with the Vampire, 1976)
Meier Link or D (Vampire Hunter D, 1983)
Pillar Men (JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, 1987) - JoJo vampires may be worth including in their own right because of their unique creation, but their creators are more visually distinct
Buffy Vampire (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, 1992) - noteable because of codifying 'Game Face', which has been used in many works since
Alucard (Hellsing, 1997) - show in partial shadow form
Raziel or future vampire (Soul Reaver, 1999)
Red Court vampire (Dresden Files, 2000)
Black Court vampire (Dresden Files, 2000)
Marlow (30 Days of Night, 2002)
Karin (Karin, 2003)
Eli (Let The Right One In, 2004)
Edward Cullen or generic Twilight vampire (Twilight, 2005)
Mandrakk (Marvel Comics, 2006) - arguably the most powerful recognisable 'vampire' depicted in mainstream fiction?
Either businessman or soldier vamp (Daybreakers, 2009)
Subsider (Daybreakers, 2009)
Igor (First Bite, 2008) - to be included partially for lulz and partially because of the little-utilised element that even the prophecied 'vampire messiah' can convert and be cured of vampirism.
Strigoi (The Strain, 2009)
Charlie Manx or one of the Christmasland children (NOS4A2, 2013)
True Knot (Doctor Sleep, 2013) - to be included because of the unique feature that their 'vampiric' form, only visible to those with the Shining, has a single large tooth
Crimson Court (Darkest Dungeon, 2015) - noteable because of the mosquito theme
Special mentions from mythology:
Obour (Bulgaria)
Jiangshi (China)
Penanggalan (Malaysia)
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Funny you should mention! I've been making on-and-off a list of possible entrants I might use for a Vampire Supercut piece. I've recently moved into a new apartment so haven't quite got all my stuff back together in terms of doing art. Please feel free to make any suggestions - remembering I'm mostly going for ones that are distinct 'types' rather than a comprehensive list.
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There's also Simon Garth, the Marvel character known as the Zombie www.marvunapp.com/Appendix2/zo…
Also, would you count the nazi zombies created from green alien goo in the video game South Park: the Stick of Truth?
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Simon Garth also has regeneration (up to a point), which makes him pretty unique. Physically he seems to owe quite a bit to the book version of Frankenstein's Monster.
I'm unfamiliar with South Park lore in general, but providing they were originally living humans who were transmuted by the goo I don't see why they wouldn't count. There's also Plan 9 From Outer Space zombies, who are corpses under the control of aliens.
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Dead Space was the Best for modern/futuristic age... was...
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Something that bothered me about the Crossed series is, if they do not attack other Crossed and are otherwise regular humans, why not just infect everyone?
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Well, as with zombie viruses more generally, rabies logic works up to a point - rhinoviruses use coughing and sneezing to spread, but rabies spreads in the saliva, so it stimulates production of saliva and alters the brain chemistry to make the host more aggressive and likely to bite.
However, if the host is too effective, their victims will die rather than becoming new hosts, so the strains that hamper their host tend to succeed. In the real world, rabid dogs, cats and raccoons have balance issues and will eventually become paralytic - in fiction, it's easy to see how strains that blind the host or inflame their joints are more successful, as the staggering, rabid 'zombie' is more likely to inflict infectious wounds but then for the victim to get away. So in many ways the 'slow zombie' is more realistic.
In Crossed, bodily fluids in general seem to be infectious - we see blood splatter from a headshot hitting a survivor's eye and it infects him in seconds. So the most successful strains will be ones that a.) get the host up close and personal with victims, fighting, biting, or otherwise sharing bodily fluids (Ennis's Crossed also have a taste for rape) b.) hamper the host in some way (obvious cross rash acts like a warning, disease makes the host incapable of sophisticated planning and rational thinking, so at least some victims get away) c.) do not waste resources on trying to 'infect' the already infected (the cross works for this). The real issue is that diseases we see in the wild that control the behaviour of their host have spent millennia evolving to be able to do this (e.g. cordyceps is part of an involved ecosystem and relies on its one host species).
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