There is no singular zombie lore. The brain eating entered pop culture with “Return Of The Living Dead”. That movie and the associated Living Dead series exists as a result of an IP fight between John Russo and George Romero. It is not canon with the George Romero zombie movies (Night Of The Living Dead, Dawn Of The Dead, Day Of The Dead, Land Of The Dead, and the lesser following low budget movies).
In Romero’s movies the zombies do not go after brains, they don’t say “brains”. Their hunger for human flesh is discussed by characters but nobody really knows for sure why zombies attack or eat people.
In many other zombie series, there are often theorized reasons for their behavior, but rarely a solid answer, and very few series have zombies that explicitly want brains to eat.
Zombies aren’t real. And will take on any qualities the writer wants. Some people write zombies as brain eating mindless undead. Others are super fast group thinking infected humans. It’s all up to your imagination.
I like how relevant their opener is to this question:
Zombie movies have got it all wrong. Zombifying viruses are unlikely to give dead people the brain-munchies — but real-life parasites have the power to take over brains and make real zombies.
I mean we can’t generalise human for only liking certain part of the chicken, some like breast, some like wings, some like thigh, so it’s pretty fair to say we shouldn’t generalise what a zombie might prefer. Some will like your hand, some like your scalp, some like your brain, and some like your intestine.
Maybe ask the zombie what they like before you sacrifice your friend, it would be wasteful if you throw the whole thing, isn’t it?
apropos of nothing, have you ever tried to actually get your jaws around someone else's head? you can't really open your mouth enough to do more than scrape the skin - biting someone's skull open would probably not be possible.
As an aside to what others have already pointed out about “braaaiiiiinss” originating in Return of the Living Dead, the zombies in that film also aren’t mindless. They can still think and feel, and they crave brains because it (somehow) eases the pain they feel from their bodies decaying.
It’s an element of zombie lore that I really wish was used more often because it makes becoming a zombie even more frightening. They’re also totally immortal beyond cremation, so no aiming for the head to put them out of their misery.
The first and third Return of the Living Dead movies are my favourite zombie films ever. The second is… fine. It’s basically a remake of the first focused more on comedy like Evil Dead 2, but it didn’t really work for me. The two latest movies throw out all of the unique elements of the series to become generic zombie movies and aren’t worth watching.
The sliced up dog returning to life was a messed up scene and also pushed the movie in the magic realm. This version of Zombies can never die, even after total bodily annihilation.
It was good but not my one of my favourites. The zombies are developing a form of intelligence and are empathetic to each other, but that’s used to contrast with the cruelty of the humans living in Fiddler’s Green. It makes the zombies sympathetic, but they aren’t in perpetual suffering like RotLD’s zombies. There’s just something really creepy to me about a mostly decayed corpse saying it can feel itself rot.
I think Land of the Dead is very similar to I Am Legend where the “monsters” form their own society, which is fitting because Romero based his zombies off of the creatures in The Last Man on Earth which was in turn based on I Am Legend.
Not OP, but I get your comparison since Land of the dead goes into something similar with zombies remembering stuff. That being said (in case you didn’t knew) Land of the Dead is not a standalone movie, and is in fact from the original non-voodoo zombie movie universe. A lot of the criticism I see towards Land of the Dead comes from people who watched the movie in isolation and complain about it never explaining zombies and why they can do things, but that’s almost like watching Matrix 3 and complaining they never explained the Matrix.
If you like that concept it’s gradually built in the series, so other movies feature it in one way or another. The original Night of the Living Dead introduced the concept of zombies; The sequel Dawn of the Dead already painted a picture where zombies brains remember something, since it’s pointed out they go to the shopping mall and drag carts around because that’s what they did when living; Day of the Dead is entirely focused on a research project on zombie behaviour, with a scientist doing experiments to see how much zombies still remember; then finally you get to Land of the Dead.
Sorry I went out on a rant about it, but I love those movies, they’re not only great horror movies that defined an entire genre but also are very strong criticism to society and humans in general which I think a lot of other zombie movies miss entirely.
Yeah, it wasn’t made very obvious that it was a sequel to Night of the Living Dead unless you knew the behind-the-scenes stuff. Even for those who were aware, like myself, the first “… of the Dead” movie I saw was the remake of “Dawn” and that is too different from the original series to be comparable. I went into Land of the Dead expecting something similar to the remake but it was really jarring and hurt my first impression of the film. I was expecting gritty realism but instead got Romero’s classic social commentary and subtle goofiness. I’ve since come to appreciate both.
I think everyone has already covered the fact that it depends on which kind of zombie you’re talking about, since the only “real” zombies aren’t actually undead at all, and are certainly not mindless.
But! Even within the brain hungry zombie type, there would be plenty of reasons to target something other than the head!
First, the chances of attacking a living person, getting through their skull, and to the brain in a single attack are low. So, attacking other parts of the body in order to prevent the prey from escaping is a good idea.
If you then assume that the zombies will want living brains, rather than freshly dead, the guts are the ideal target. See, if you can get the living human down, and tear into their guts, they’ll be immobilized for the most part, but their heart should stay beating for at least a few minutes. This gives your brain eating zombie much better chances of having a bit of live brain. So, even if they’re too weak to crack the skull and eat quickly, if you have time, you can make it happen anyway.
Now, you probably were seeing one of the varieties of zombie fiction where their hunger is for either flesh in general and human by preference, or specifically for human flesh.
The walking dead zombies were flesh eaters in general, they were shown to eat deer and horse for sure, but seemed to prefer human when available. And there were a good number of scenes where they were seen digging into the abdomen. While Robert Kirkman has never given real details about how and why his zombies function as they do, we know two things for sure: First, they can function even when their body isn’t fully intact; second that they have a constant hunger for flesh that will drive them to attempt to eat, no matter what happens to the rest of them. Indeed, severed zombie heads can still try and eat.
So, you run into zombies in that world that may not be at full strength, but can drag down the living in numbers. They then crawl their way to the meat and gnaw.
But, the reason why walking dead zombies often go for the soft parts rather than arms and legs isn’t an in-universe thing, it’s practical. Zombies tearing the guts out of a victim looks cooler, and it’s easier to make effects for. Making a believable leg eating prop is a lot harder.
There’s also been versions of zombies where they have residual capacity for thinking, and memories. When that’s the case, you could be dealing with the mind that’s left going for a target that’s easier to chew into, as compared to a skull. The throat and belly are the most vulnerable targets available for human teeth that will kill or immobilize in a reasonable span of time.
Movies? Look, I’m asking for a friend, he’s been at McDonald’s for like 45 minutes and the manager keeps refusing him brains. I just want an ice cream cone.
It has the second highest concentration in the body, after the skull. Since the human bite force is not strong enough to penetrate the human skull the zombies are actually targeting the next best area to eat brains.
It’s a common misconception that zombies are stupid and don’t know the brain is in the skull. They actually are just attracted to humans who were known to have shit for brains, and are going for the abdomen, because that’s where shit is made.
The iconic phrase “Brains!” associated with zombies is most famously from the “Return of the Living Dead” series. This horror-comedy franchise, which started with “The Return of the Living Dead” in 1985, diverged from traditional zombie films by featuring undead creatures that specifically vocalized their craving for brains. This particular depiction of zombies was a departure from earlier representations, where zombies typically didn’t speak and were not specifically focused on eating brains.
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