It’s sad that Plants Vs Zombies is the most original zombie series in years

Then there's the IQ of the characters rising and falling when the plot needs it to.

Zombies seem to be in an endless cycle of becoming over-saturated and then nobody uses them and then somebody does something clever with them and then they become over-saturated again... Almost like some kind of metaphor about the undead and reincarnation.

Everyone: *turns into zombies* Comic relief character: Z A P P E R S

Oh, and never call them zombies. call them "shamblers" or something ridiculous.

“A mindless swarm of all consuming...hmm, can’t think of a comparison.” What about a Twitter feed?

I've always wanted to see something that starts with your cliche patient-zero zombie, someone promptly shoots it in the head because they recognize it's a zombie, then the rest of the story has a totally unrelated plot and genre, like a romantic comedy.

Honestly, I haven't seen a zombie story that wasn't just a virus or fungus in over a decade. Magic or alien zombie origin would be outright refreshing at this stage.

Shaun of the Dead is the only zombie film I’ve watched where the army is actually competent, which sad because it’s a comedy.

“Bruuuuuuuuhhhhhh” -Minecraft Zombie

Actual advice: When adding a disposable side-character to your band of survivors, make sure that the cliches you are using to characterize him don't make him the most competent and well-prepared character in the story. I'm looking at you, The Walking Dead tv show. In his first 15 seconds on screen, Daryl Dixon showed more survival skills/applied common sense than every other character up to that point, combined. And I'm still convinced they did that on accident...

You forgot the character that watched a lot of zombie movies and is really good at killing them but is a total geek

Love Triangles are like zombies: a cliche that's been long since dead, everyone can see how gross they are, yet they're still alive.

You've succeeded the moment the audience says to themselves _"We're_ the real monsters".

"You can't have zombies without the apocalyse!" Resident Evil: Huh? What?

So some quick pro tips. Even if 99% of the entire human population is wiped out... that's ironically still enough to repopulate the human race with. You really only need about 4k healthy and reproductively viable pairs. Most cities only have 2-3 days worth of inventory, so food shortages will take place within the first week. If you consider scavenging, looting, and spoilage, all processed foodstuff will probably be expired or consumed within 5 years. Even most doomsday stockpiles dont exceed 10 years. The priority of all humans will be water, food and shelter. In a post apocalyptic setting, the severity and availability of those three things is going to vary dramatically. If your in a place like wyoming, water is going to be far more concerning than the dead. If your in the mountains, stockpiling food for the winter will be your priority. For some reason people only think about the zombies and surviving off rats. I encourage people to watch "Alone" to see just how difficult lonewolf survivalism actually is.

Ah yes, zombie apocalypse, time to start dating someone. Aren't rotting corpses so romantic?

Cue the Obligatory Brains Joke- Oh it’s literally in the opening. Good.

Ironic how the Zombie genre is a zombie itself. By which I mean, something that should be dead but is still alive, and wants nothing more than to either devour or infect any media in its path.

"Fungus Among Us" I had a good laugh at that.

Imagine trying to run away from zombies and a marathon zombie breaks through the hoard.

Zombie-alien-spy? I smell a franchise...

JP: "The slow and inexorable-" Me: *skips death cutscene* "Yeah yeah yeah, this is a tough level, just let me reload from the previous checkpoint so I can try yet again"

Personally, alot of the plot of zombie movies could be explained as the zombie disease also causing stupidity.

2:49 "But hey, if we can't lift zombies up, then the next best thing is to bring the humans down." Damn quite a summation.

Always have the story end with a cliffhanger where the main character got bit but secretly had a daughter off screen or something

Zombies: *represent the existential horror if the uncanny, the once-familiar, the swarm, the imminence of death, and cannibalistic comsumption* Writers: "Zombies because jumpscare, plus have a touching family/love story" Zombies: "Am I a joke to you?"

Choosing between fast zombies and slow zombies is *very* important for the overall theme and tone. Both types represent humans being outclassed at our best way of hunting, persistence hunting, but whether you choose fast or slow zombies changes this dramatically. Fast zombies are the short term threats. Because of their lack of pain or physical limiters by the brain, they can dead sprint unceasingly. This means that outrunning them is impossible because humans can only do this for a few seconds, and even that's for athletes. This means that the danger of a zombie is immediate, and the choices and tactics survivors make have to be pre-determined in order for them to be successful. A single fast zombie can kill you easily even if you see it coming. The danger here is physical, rather than psychological, because the hardest part of survival is in the immediate vicinity rather than a slow inevitable collapse (obviously it's still there, but not as much thematically as slow zombies). Slow zombies, however, fully encapsulate their superiority in stamina hunting thematically. Humans hunted not by running, but by keeping a constant pace of walking and jogging as they tired out their prey in the course of several hours. Fast zombies can't bring this theme forth because the danger is immediate, but slow zombies don't have this ability and instead rely on slowly swarming survivors until they can't escape anymore. A swarm of zombies will also keep with this endurance hunting theme by constantly being after the the characters who can keep outrunning them in the short term but will eventually be caught by the swarm. This also allows for immediate danger in which the characters have enough time to come up with a plan while still having a looming threat. You can see this in movies where a single slow zombie is ignored (but still known) by the characters because it is far away enough that it is safer to simply keep your distance rather than risk killing it. This is a good way to show how characters became used to the situation by realizing what kind of threat a zombie is in each specific situation. Both choices allow for different dangers, character choices, as well as necessary planing for survival, but they most importantly have contrasting themes over the course of the story.

"The zombies aren't the monsters... We are... eh, no. Um... Humanity shines bright even in the darkest of... Nah, that's lame. He who fights monsters... I'm bored. We've been doing character drama and ham-fisted critics of the human condition for three seasons, let's have some guy get brutally ripped apart by zombies that we just remembered exist in this story.

*Civil authorities in your area have reported that the bodies of the dead have risen from their graves and are attacking the living*

2:05 That soldier who balances himself on top of that tank's cannon while it fires no less is a true chad.

Funny enough, going back to the voodoo type zombie, the ones controlled by someone, might be a fresher take on zombies. At least today.

Our Dark Lord Skillshare has forsaken us! Tis the darkest of days!

OK, now you've made me want a story where the main character is an alien zombie spy. I thought this was about bad writing advice, not awesome writing ideas. ...that was a joke, but I still want a story like that.

I think that's the first time I've ever been disappointed to not get an ad at the end of any video.

"...how various government and military institutions failed to contain the outbreak." How terribly relevant to our current global situation

- Zombies can only bee line to potential prey *Sweats in Return of the Living Dead*

I'm so early zombies are still relevant.

The one thing that can bring me, if ever so slightly, out of a zombie setting is if the women have smooth armpits. Yes, take time out of either running from zombies or scrounging for food to trim a random hair patch with some tool that's covered in rust on a good day, zombie juice on a bad day

You forgot how to mention that a rag tag group of nobodies manages to be more efficient than the military of the respecting country. Or how our main character has plot armor for even certain death whike others die in the most preventable way.

Zombie Apocalypses: Because basic human decency dies when functioning government does, for some reason... EDIT: "An obviously incompetent member who the group just...puts up with for some reason, even though he gets everyone killed one at a time." Hey, you leave Ben alone! He's nice!

*Zombies: The white noise of creativity!*

No love triangle? If there ever was a time for a "back from the dead" joke. Kidding! I loved this! Thanks for another great vid.

"Let's always use guns despite them being loud attracting more zombies and attention and that ammunition is getting rare. They always jam and make you disoriented. But its okay, I'm fine with being deaf to the point I can't hear those dam zombies coming. A spear made from a broom and a kitchen knife is useless! Where can I find that? I'll also drive cars that need gas and maintenance than rather use some bicycle I can find everywhere on the streets which is much quieter, faster and easier to maintain!"

I personally enjoyed World War Z. The book, not the movie. The movie is awful. Oh shit, you actually put it in the video. Nice!

Imagine a zombie story from the perspective of the luckiest zombie, or the perspective of the horde at large perhaps.

TWD died at Season 2, but it continues on just slower, worse, and it stinks. The show isn't just *about* zombies, it *is* a zombie.

My new favorite trend in zombie media is the human zombie like *iZombie* and *Santa Clarita Diet* where even if a person becomes a zombie, they're still somewhat the person they use to be in life but need to eat human flesh regularly or else they'll become the classic brainless zombie. It's a more interesting concept with great storytelling potential and a good way to keep the subgenera fresh, especially for television.

The Walking Love Triangle

"There's a Zombie on your lawn! There's a Zombie on your lawn!" 😂😂😂

"If one vampire is scary, then a whole army of vampires is scarier" - - - - - Richard Matheson, author of: I AM LEGEND, the first story of the Undead Apocalypse subgenre of sci-fi horror

At this point I'm honestly curious how much military tactics and doctrine this guy's learned from researching his videos

1:29 When the Fungus is...

I think we are forgetting the power of the all mighty Love Triangle. According to the movie Warm Bodies Love (or some other contrived nonsense) can reverse zombification.

"Then add an obviously incompetent member that gets everybody killed..." does he mean the guy with the white shirt that makes horrible decisions, acts like they're an actor in a Shakespeare play, and gets everybody killed? Or the guy with a silly catchphrase that shows up for like, two scenes?

To be fair to zombies, after every cruddy behavior we have seen during covid it is no wonder zombies could easily overwhelm us.

Ironically, this gave me a good idea for a zombie story.

I love how he has to tell us to read world war z because it's just that freakin good

Zombie apocalypse roleplay: - Cool guy antihero - Some random Bad Girl - Comic relief character that does help accualy - Cool antihero girl - Comic relief character's rival Imagine this.

The Z Nation drinking game: drink whenever... ... someone behaves like they would not survive the first day of the zombie apokalypse, even though it is three years after the outbreak. ... the beforementioned behavior leads to an actually dangerous situation. ... the group runs out of ammunition. ... someone says something incredibly stupid. ... someone decides to do something for no other reason than the plot of the episode hinging on it. Someone please test if this works, and the amount that has to be drunk to make it work properly. I do not drink alcohol.

1:23 POSSIBLE AMOGUS REFERENCE!!!!!111!!!! WHEN THE IMPOSTER IS SUS X3

Is it really "turning on each other" when so many of us are already at each other's throats?

"... on par with most videogame characters" Goddamit. You're right tho.

HELLO SOMEONE HELP ME i can't find his video where at one point he's like "don't make the protag go up against a gun with a sword that's dumb" and then calls himself out bc he does that in aeon legion

I remember when this channel barely had a thousand subscribers; I'm glad to see this channel grow so exponentially, you deserve all the hard work coming to you!

Alternate video title: "How Days Gone's story was made."

Ahhh this is pre COVID, I believe. He wasn’t awareness how fast we turned on each other for our precious toilet paper.

There's a webtoon called Dead Days that does a nice take on the zombie genre. The "zombies" in the story is pretty unique, as for I've never seen this type of "zombie" before.

No sponsor? I was looking forward to the next piece of the story

These keep getting more and more masterfully helpful.

No sweat, just throw a potion of weakness and give them all a golden apple.

My favorite version of zombies: "The Dead Rise to Advertise"

Glory to the empire and to... wait, no sponsor? Was it attacked by zombies?

I liked how he slapped "brains" all over the end card XD

And never have your character even try to utilize any form of armour. Just try to bite through your casual leather jacket to see how pointless even makeshift armour is.

Zombies: it's so cliche, but we all love them

1:37 _Among_ _Us?_ _Among_ _us_ _Sus?_

"Fungus Among Us" Oh, so that's why there are impostors in the game.

I recently read a zombie story, where the MC is an optimist, and stays that way throughout the story. He observes, experiments and is kinda fascinated by the mechanics of the zombies, even though he's shit scared of them. Cause it HELPS him survive. It's great, and renewed my interest in the genre. I hope more zombie story will do stuff like that

4:05 I call bs on World War Z being the best zombie story. The zombies there are somehow immune to overpressure (which can pulp and liquify humans) and shrapnel (the leading cause of death in industrial war), but somehow not immune to bullets. I also call bs on defense in depth (hold a position, then pull back to a safer position with our superior mobility) somehow not being an option.

I think you may have forgotten the zombie love triangle.

World War Z (the novel) is a masterpiece in how a zombie apocalypse would become a planetary event despite any attempts at containing it. It was one of my favourite books, still is. The movie, on the other end, is complete rubbish.

My favorite piece of zombie related writing was graffiti on the walls of a safehouse in Left 4 Dead "WE ARE THE REAL MONSTERS" and all around this graffiti: "you are a real MORON" "No, that's the zombies" "IDIOT" "I think it's them, stupid"

I'm convinced that man's _name_ is Zappers, and he is secretly a Pokémon.

6:55 Actual amazing parody of grim dark, nothing out of the ordinary 😭😭

Wow. That analysis at the end of why zombie films are scary is BRILLIANT. O_O

Forgot that there’s no cars on the streets and highways. When they find a car it’s full of gas. Oh and you have to have them go famous places. Oh and there is always a bird or dog mutant . But most importantly you have to have deer and other animals run around the city

I feel deprived without a sponsored meta sub plot.

Dude, this video managed to answer a question I've asked myself for years

Resident Evil: I’d like to do literally everything in this video, then crank it up to 11!

Probably the most creative zombies I've seen are from Justin Cronin's _The Passage_ trilogy (yes, I know, they're technically vampires, but they're basically zombies). Not only do they have a consistent and interesting backstory, are quite threatening even in small numbers, have some extremely weird and cool psychic abilities, but are also somewhat sympathetic.

I don't know why, but this running zombie never cease to amuse me.

My favorite part of zom its is when the survivors are like" they're getting smarter"

Just finished binging all 4 seasons of the walking dead game when this was uploaded, very fitting.

The Crossed comics got around a lot of these issues, then fell headlong into other forms of stupidity (read: faux-profoundness, horrific violence and gore purely for the sake of shock value, etc.)

Do one about historical settings and based on a true story works

What would an episode about crossovers be like? What points would be made?

This is legit my favorite series for two years now.

Non sarcasm alert: I love you JP. You've made me such a better writer. I really appreciate your content.

Besides zombies from the zombie apocalypse, there are also zombies made by necromancers in fantasy worlds.