Haitian Voodoo Zombie: A spicy mix of whip-your-ass missionary technology and several different flavors of indigenous Latin/African religions. They don’t eat your brains but will labor endlessly for the benefit of their master(s). These O.Z. voodoo zombies can carry out complex tasks at the beckoning call. Seriously, you can get these zombies to wash your dirty undies and sell Amway to your neighbors.

Modern Cannibal Zombies: Quite different from the O.Z. (original zombies). These dead predators tend to become overwhelmed with the munchies for human intestines, brains, spleen, etc. Far less intelligent than his voodoo cousin, the modern zombie wanders aimlessly much like an awakened mummy.

Whether your zombie literature of choice dates back to religious mysticism or government-sponsored bioterrism, all zombies are weaponized with eternal existence and a powerful drive to live that most of us shabby humans can only afford after several cups of strong coffee.

Mummy types lay at rest under sand and large sculpture art. Zombie types ponder their dinner 6 feet deep in clay soil with a gravestone atop their heads. If the multitude of literary zombie myths adhere to the consistently singular premise of the medically deceased returning to a quasi-living state, then unequivocally, mummies and zombies exist in the same genus.

Stop hatin’ on my wrapped peeps! Mummies are zombies, too.

EXHIBIT A: Lucio Fulci’s slowmo voodoo zombie flick comonly known as ZOMBI.

It must be noted that human meat post-zombitization must taste like delicious meat popsicles. Similar to the process of curing meat, the undead body becomes like a walking stick of hickory smoked turkey jerky as a human crosses over and becomes a living corpse.

MMMM. That’s scrumptious zombie!

Left unanswered in the film:
How terrifying would a zombie shark be? Pretty damn frighting is the correct answer.

Beyond the non sequitur shark fight, ZOMBI remains awesome.

Still from ZOMBI: Nothing tenser than a slow eye gouging!

Respect to the Italians who saw what Romero’s NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD and grew the horror galaxy with some of the best gore in cinema history  (re: history’s longest anxiety provoking eye-gouge). Not to omit the eye bleeding found in Fulci’s GATES OF HELL. You don’t see a lot of spontaneous eye bleeding these days, and I’m unsure why….like the frequency of maggots used as props in horror movies. ZOMBI contains its fair share of sleepy zombies lumbering around covered with gross-but-benign fly larva.

So to finally end the discuss: Yes, there is indeed a perfectly good reason why a voodoo style zombie and shark would get all caught up in fisticuffs. Zombies are tasty. You’re just too busy running for your life to sample a bite.

So why wouldn’t the zombies just eat themselves all day? Good question. Well, like junk food, undead flesh is delectable but lacks all of the nutritional properties of healthy living human flesh. Guh!

I also have to root for really slow zombies. They’re really working hard for their meal. Keep on crawling, Mr. Torso Zombie, you’ll get there eventually.