How Do Zombies Know That You’re Human?
We’ve all seen the scene in “Shaun of the Dead” where Shaun and his buddies are able to walk right through a huge horde of zombies by pretending that they’re members of the undead. If you’re anything like me, you immediately determined that this was bullshit and that if you tried to walk through a room full of zombies moaning and faking rigor mortis, it would only draw their attention to you more quickly.
So how does a zombie know that you’re human – and that they want to eat you?
We know that zombies don’t bother eating each other. This makes sense. Sharks are mean and hungry, but they don’t eat each other, and they don’t eat things that are already dead and rotting. A zombie is about as appetizing to a zombie as a rock is to a shark.
First of all, this ties in closely to the various theories about why zombies eat people. My favorite, which hypothesizes that zombies want to eat us because they’re trying to reclaim their brains and therefore their personalities and their humanness, would explain why a zombie would want to eat me and not the dead guy next to him. But the big mystery has always been how he could tell which was which.
Secondly, I’ve already declared that a freshly-deceased zombie will have about the same strengths, abilities, and senses as he did when he was alive. So he could see me, hear me, and taste me as well as I could see, hear, or taste him. But what about the zombies whose eyes and tongues have fallen out, and whose ears are full of mud?
It’s my belief that a zombie can sense a human, just like a human can sense someone looking at her, or a deer can sense danger. Since the urge to consume humans is the only thing driving a zombie, it makes sense that all of the ability he has left would be working together to find humans any way he could. I think if you were near a blind zombie, he would chomp on you. I think even if you were being perfectly quiet and still in a perfectly dark house, if a zombie could find his way in, he would head right towards you. I think they can just sense life.
HOWEVER. I do not think a zombie would bother waiting around outside this house if he couldn’t get in. If he actually heard or saw a human across the street, I think he would head towards the guaranteed bait instead of trying to get at you. This is what allows me to sleep at night.
November 10, 2010 at 1:50 pm
Actually — sharks of the same species have been known to eat each other in feeding frenzies. I guess you never seen shark week on the nature channel. And sharks of different species do hunt each other. The sixth sense you speak of is an attribute for the living to stay living. I don’t see the sense being transferred to the dead brain. Rather — as we predators of all kind — they are attracted to quick movement of prey animals. Run and the dog chases you — even if you are bigger and stronger — its instinct. That is why dogs chase moving cars and do not attack parked cars. Zombies would be attracted to noise and movement. You could possibly fake it — but that would require nerves of steel — one quick movment – one peep — and you are dinner.
December 23, 2010 at 11:55 am
Would disguising yourself like a zombie work, like they did in that new American Movie Classics show The Walking Dead did? If you haven’t seen that show or missed that episode they take a zombie corpse and hack it up and spread the blood and guts of the zombie on their clothing to camouflage them from the zombies in the town. It worked on the show, but would it work during the coming zombie apocalypse in real life.
January 24, 2011 at 9:27 pm
I mean my gut feeling (pun intended) is that it wouldn’t work. I think they could smell right through whatever dead flesh you covered yourself with – especially if you consider they’re smelling you through their own stench 24/7, so they’re used to filtering it out.
Also, I don’t think most humans could fake it convincingly for as long as they’d need to.
Also, probably not a good idea to rub zombie juices all over you? If you have an open wound or get it in your mouth or eyes, you won’t have to pretend for long.