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Surely, there would be a lot of them... do you like to read them a lot, or would you rather something else? If so, what?

It depends on what kind of zombie story. I am honestly sick of traditional zombie apocalypse stories, but I wouldn't mind being a zombie. I also wouldn't mind being a necromancer (neither does anyone else here, apparently, as everyone loves Endmaster's take on it.) I don't mind fighting zombie goons in fantasy / sci-fi settings, but the concept of zombies themselves being the end of humanity has kind of been done to death at this point. (It's also ridiculously unrealistic if you're talking traditional zombie hordes, because they're essentially just really stupid, really slow, rapidly deteriorating hunks of meat.)

"Beat to death"...I see what you did there!

If the shock value of something goes away, it's either because it's been done too many times, or it didn't have much shock value in the beginning. For me, zombie stories have lost it's shock value. When The Walking Dead video game came out, i loved it, I loved it so much, I would replay the whole game just because I liked it so much. Same for The Last of Us. At first, it's like "oh mur gurd, zombies munching on people, oh mur gurd," but then the reader or player gets used to the zombies and they just become some mindless derps running around eating people just for the lolz, and it becomes alot more about the characters, and the zombies are just...like there, in the way. And sometimes i feel as if  the world can continue on just as before because the zombies are so easy to kill and aren't much of a challenge. I read World War Z, and I liked it because it was a different, it's journal like structure gave me a different view in the whole zombie thing.  But now, it's just eh, nah mean? I would rather like it if it wasn't zombies, but people infected with a disease that made them angry as fuck and smarter and stronger than the average joe, and not just some mindless derps with their limps falling off.   

I agree with you. Kind of like the disease from the movie Quarantine 2. I've only seen the second one, but it pretty much meets up to your description 

I haven't seen any, might check it out though. Did you like the movie?

It's good. I don't watch that many movies, at all... but I liked it. I got told it was scary and all by a friend, probably about 2 years ago lol It probably won't scare you, but it is good, in my opinion

Cool beans. I'll check it out. I don't watch a lot of movies either, but I do enjoy a masterpiece once in a while. 

Zombie stories are mostly about the character development. It is literally what makes these types of stories so good. That's why stories like The Walking Dead game are so good. You get a genuine feel for the characters you interact with. I agree that zombies just aren't that scary anymore. If you make them too dumb and the generic zombie, they aren't fun at all. You know what will happen. If they are the fast runners or even the acid spitting abominations, it doesn't help much.

The apocalypse theme still has some life to it though, as well as the infection theme. Good zombie stories are a rarity now.

Yup, exactly. If the characters are eh, then you lose readers, but if there is some good characters with good development, then you got something going for ya. But having some super mothers zooming around does add that, oh shit, are they going to make it element that most zombie stories lack now, but even super mothers teleporting would get kinda boring if you constantly are putting the character in harms way and he or she always manages to pull something outta his or her ass and get away all the time. 

So there are lots of spins you can use to make zombies seem less boring. Being a zombie (i think this was mentioned before) A pretty good book I read was like f*** yeah super heroes and then zombies came and the super heroes were like f*** zombies and then the super heroes and zombies pretty much went to war and it was good. You could also be stuck on a space ship and then zombies. What you can't do is just say "zombies" you have to do something awesome and then zombies. If the story wouldn't work well without zombies its generally not a very good story.

People keep mentioning The Walking Dead in this thread, and honestly, when I think of good zombie games, the first thing I think about is the Walking Dead. Here's the thing though... Walking Dead isn't really about the zombies. It's about the characters and their relationships with the other characters and how they react to the situation and stuff. The zombies just sort of pop up every now and then to say hello. It can be really scary in places, but for me the scariest bit by far was the second episode and that didn't have anything to do with zombies. That's 'cos the people were so fucking creepy.

Hey, that's an idea! Instead of using zombies, make the story about cannibals! Say there's something wrong with the world where plants and vegetables no longer grow or all the animals die out or something, and in order to survive, people turn to cannibalism! Cannibals are way creepier than zombies! ^_^

That's a great idea, yet very disturbing; depending on how vivid the author makes the cannibal scenes, I would probably not read it.  

That's kind of funny. The idea of a human being eating another human being makes people go "Urgh! Too disturbing! I don't wanna read it!" But the idea of a zombie eating a person just makes them go, "... Meh. Shit happens." 

lol, yea! It's because zombies are dead and can't think, but living humans can think and know what they're doing. Just imagine, waking up to the smell of someone's newborn baby being prepared and cooked. 

Well there's always the chance that the upcoming Green Inferno movie jump starts the cannibal genre that was more popular in the late 70s early 80s.

They should make snuff films. 

Lol, one of those types of movies did back in the day.

Cannibal Holocaust got accused of being a snuff film and the director had to go to court to prove how he only made it look like the girl was impaled through the vagina and up through her mouth and didn't actually kill someone on film.

I read about that one, there are a few others where the director had to prove that it wasn't real. Did you watch the Cannibal Holocaust?

Yeah, I watched that one and some of other major ones Cannibal Ferox, Jungle Holocaust, Zombie Holocaust (People really liked putting Holocaust in their titles, I guess it implied you'd be watching something really horrific) and a few others I can't remember the names of.

Out of that genre Cannibal Holocaust and Cannibal Ferox are probably best ones of the lot. CH was probably the first horror movie that did the found footage thing long before Blair Witch Project. 

Now Zombie Holocaust sounds like it might be really cool since it has cannibals AND zombies in it, (along with a mad scientist) but it's not as great as one might think since it's sort of a plodding kind of movie. It has its moments though. One scene has a bunch of cannibals overpower a zombie and start eating it!

I have a sudden urge to write a story about a group of cannibals surviving in a zombie apocalypse. :p

Sounds like some hardcore shit. Are the cannibals in the Zombie Holocaust just regular people that like snacking on people, or were they made to eat motherfuckers?   

It's been a while since I saw, but let's see what I remember without referring to wikipedia...

As I remember, there are cannibals living in their jungle, but there's some mad doctor type making zombies out of their dead I believe or really anyone he can get his hands on. So they're a little afraid of him and stay away from his creations and territory. The zombies themselves I don't even remember eating anyone, they're more like undead goons he sends after folks to kill or capture them.

At some point a group of other people come to investigate and they run into the cannibals who they fight with and then later the zombies. At some point I think one of the white women gets captured by the cannibals and strip her naked, but it turns out that they have some sort of prophecy that she's their white goddess queen or something (Lol) so they ultimately side with the people that came to investigate and they storm the mad scientist home (who has been torturing and experimenting on a few people during all this ) and that's where there is a scene where the cannibals overpower the zombie and start eating its guts ( kind of a brief scene) and the remaining investigators escape.

Like I said, it probably sounds better than when you really watch it. Then again I do remember being pretty hyped up to see it and then I was disappointed by it, so maybe I just built it up too much. Maybe I'll give it another chance one day.

Sounds like a movie meant to be taken seriously, but in the end, the audience doesn't, lol. White goddess queen, xD. Ah, that reminded me of the Prince Philip Movement. 

No way am I ever watching Cannibal Holocaust.
Yeah, the girl wasn't really murdered by vagina impalement, and that's great and all but they did genuinely kill some animals in the film and... I really don't see the appeal in watching things actually getting killed on camera. When it's fake it's fine! The more gore the better, but when it's real... *Cringe* >.<

Yeeeah... that's a bit too much "realism."

To be fair, I'm fine if it's a documentary and a lion kills a gazelle or something like that. I guess it's just the fact that people caught an animal and killed it on camera for entertainment purposes... People are fucked up >.<

Actually they ate all the animals that got killed (I think it was three of them) Though the "turtle scene" is probably the worst of lot.

They have an option on the DVD that cuts out the animal killing scenes. 

Oh... Well if they ate them I guess that's okay? 

Well, at least they didn't waste them.

Eh, true enough...

Same. I've got no issue with nature being nature, I can also watch slaughterhouse documentaries, I can watch footage from natural disasters / war. Killing animals for real, on camera, just so the shot "looks good" or is cheap is not okay imo.

I was sick of zombies from the get-go... and yet I just read (and loved) The Girl With All the Gifts.

It's all in what you do with the trope.

The book sounds interesting, do you recommend it? 

I do! I mean, I'd recommend reading the sample (or picking up an actual physical copy in your local bookstore) and seeing if it grabs you, but it definitely grabbed me.

Yea, I'll check it out. Thanks.