Surviving a Zombie Attack

I watched the original "Night of the Living Dead" for the zillionth time during the Halloween Film Festival. It spawned no less than a hundred spin-off movies like "Resident Evil," "Dawn of the Dead," and "28 Days Later," some of which are not technically zombie movies, but techno-zombie movies. Any movie in which zombies pursue and eat the living is okay in my book, though, at this point, movies have created a pattern in which rules are established. So I've attached a list of things to avoid if you are pursued by zombies from a cliche' movie:

#1. Don't get bitten. Zombies love to bite you, thus turning you into one of them. It doesn't make good sense if you're a zombie, though. Zombies like to eat living people. If they turn you into one of them, they can't eat you! So why do they do it? This question has led hundreds of bad movie scientists to rule #2.

#2. Don't allow bad movie scientists to study the zombies. There is no cure for the walking undead, so quit trying to save your staggering, blood sucking relatives. You wouldn't want them back anyway! If we've learned anything about scientists, we know they are all crazy men looking for the newest biological weapon they can sell to the highest bidder. Don't be fooled by their good intentions, you know they are lying. C'mon, they're scientists!

#3. Never hide in a house. Zombies have a heightened sense of smell. After several hours in a house, the front lawn will look like the day after Christmas at a shopping mall. You'll be stuck inside, most likely with minimal food. You have to eat. The zombies can merely wait outside for all eternity. Only they won't. Eventually, they'll find a way into your home and trap you inside the basement, until ultimately knocking down the door and feasting on your brain.

#4. Zombies are slow, except when you get real close to them. Then, for some reason-I'm guessing some sort of blood-lust trigger in the olfactory glands (that isn't lost in decomposition)- they spring at you with new-found agility. They smell your entrails. And like every zombie movie you've ever seen, they can't wait to pull out your intestines and twirl them around their fingers like spaghetti.

#5. Beware of old people. Old people are close to death. If you allow them into your group, it is only a matter of time before one dies in his sleep and becomes a reanimated flesh eating legion of the dead. Ostracize the old. Besides, old people are annoying anyway. All they do is complain about aches and pains, and they run slow! You don't need slow runners when you're being pursued by zombies.


I think the best scenario for handling the zombie crisis is to find a houseboat, stock it with canned food, and shove off for a deserted island never inhabited by people. Zombies are poor swimmers and would just get eaten by the sharks anyway. Now, zombie sharks might be a problem I haven't considered, but they haven't made that movie yet. Or have they?