History Main / FleshEatingZombie

->'''Dr. Langham:''' "Has anyone given any thought to what these creatures eat?"\\
'''Scientist:''' "Ben, they eat ''people''."\\
'''Dr. Langham:''' That's just my point. These viral mutants used to be humans, correct? And humans are omnivores. We require the four basic food groups to survive, yet the virus creatures are living on a completely carnivorous diet. How? What does the virus do that changes such a basic attribute?"\\
'''Scientist:''' "You might be overthinking this a bit."

!!Examples

[[folder:Anime And Manga]]

* ''Anime/DailyLifeWithMonsterGirl'' has Zombina, who adores eating flesh...not HUMAN flesh, mind, [[RealMenEatMeat but she loves barbecue]] being a dyed-in-the-wool {{Ladette}}.

* In ''ComicBook/TheGoon'' zombies are usually flesh eating and may be created by either mad science or voodoo depending on the story. They also may or may not be sentient. Also may or may not be evil. In fact zombies are really inconsistent in the series.

[[folder: Film ]]

* ''Film/ShaunOfTheDead'' zombies are generally of the Romero type. The interesting thing is that, while animal-like and mindless, they retain some mannerisms and shards of personality they had in life - a zombified kid keeps playing with his ball, zombified menial workers can still do their job, and [[spoiler:Shaun's zombified stepdad turns off the radio with the blaring modern music he hated in life]]. And [[spoiler:zombie Ed still plays video games]].

[[folder: Live Action TV ]]

[[folder: Tabletop Games ]]

* Zigzagged in ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons''. Zombies are usually created by TheNecromancer rather than a plague, but later editions included rules for portraying zombies that were "self-perpetuating". Zombies also usually simply try to kill anything that is around them because they hate life, but again rules for supporting flesh-eaters exist. In particular, ''TabletopGame/{{Ravenloft}}'' provides ample support for it, having featured Cannibal Zombies (which are, literally, zombies built by way of this depiction) in 2nd edition, and having the 3rd edition {{sourcebook}} "Van Richten's Guide to the Walking Dead", which spells out the exact combination of salient powers and traits needed to build a Flesh Eating Zombie.

[[folder: Video Games ]]

* In ''Webcomic/SluggyFreelance'' zombies are people who did a magic ritual to gain immortality; as a side effect, their flesh starts decaying, and they need to eat human flesh in order to replace the tissue they've lost. They can actually be fairly intelligent, but only as long as their brains haven't decayed too much. If they want to keep from devolving into mindlessness, they have to eat, you guessed it, ''braaaaaiiiiiiins!''

[[folder:Web Original]]
* ''Series/IAmNotInfected'' has the classic Flesh Eating/Plague Bearing combo. That can drive cars (poorly).
* Although not encountered often, ''Theatre/TheLeagueOfSTEAM''[='s=] zombies seem to be of the flesh-eating variety. The League have has perfected (well, almost...) a collar-like device for domesticating them.

'''Scientist:''' [[BellisariosMaxim "You might be overthinking this a bit."]]

->''"They just... eat."''
-->-- '''Waste''', ''Literature/DeathTroopers''

* The ''Film/ReturnOfTheLivingDead'' series riffs off the Romero series, but changes the zombies to make them much more dangerous. Decapitating the zombies will not stop them, and this change is {{lampshade}}d by one character in the [[Film/TheReturnOfTheLivingDead first movie]], who cries, "You mean the movie lied?" Zombies maintain a roughly human-level intelligence, and can run and speak provided they still have the right parts, enabling them to taunt and bully their victims, as well as lure them to their doom by impersonating normal humans. They are driven to feed on human brains because it temporarily eases the pain of being dead. A gas called Trioxin is the source of the plague.

* The ''Film/LivingDeadSeries'', including ''Film/NightOfTheLivingDead1968'', ''Film/DawnOfTheDead1978'', ''Film/DayOfTheDead1985'', and ''Film/LandOfTheDead''. Though [[NotUsingTheZWord never called "zombies"]] before ''Land'' (Romero originally referred to them as "ghouls"), the living dead in this series became the starting point for Hollywood zombies. They walk and move slowly, have very rudimentary instincts, and are driven most by the instinct to feed. They can only be stopped by destroying their brains. Over the series, their attributes are gradually expanded upon. In ''Film/DawnOfTheDead1978'' it's discovered that they are drawn to places they knew in life, such as malls. In ''Film/DayOfTheDead1985'' it's discovered that zombies can be trained to use tools and can be coaxed to remember aspects of their past life. ''Film/LandOfTheDead'' takes it all much further, showing that the dead can communicate with each other, empathize with each other, cooperate, and solve problems, suggesting that they are replacing humanity. ''Anyone'' who dies in the living dead world will become reanimated, which is the overriding reason the planet is overrun so quickly. Zombie bites are fatal, thus causing victims to reanimate after they die.

* The ''Film/ReturnOfTheLivingDead'' series riffs off the Romero series, but changes the zombies to make them much more dangerous. Decapitating the zombies will not stop them, and this change is {{lampshade}}d by one character, who cries, "You mean the movie lied?" Zombies maintain a roughly human-level intelligence, and can run and speak provided they still have the right parts, enabling them to taunt and bully their victims, as well as lure them to their doom by impersonating normal humans. They are driven to feed on human brains because it temporarily eases the pain of being dead. A gas called Trioxin is the source of the plague.

* ''The Living Dead At Manchester Morgue'' (aka ''Let Sleeping Corpses Lie'') features undead who are reanimated when vibrations from farm machinery revive their nervous systems.

* An early example is in ''Herbert West--Reanimator'' by Creator/HPLovecraft. While the story predates the usage of the term zombie, several of the corpses that are reanimated (Doctor Halsey in the chapter "The Plague-Daemon" and the boxer in "Six Shots by Moonlight") do kill and eat other people.

Flesh-Eating Zombies are the type usually found in a ZombieApocalypse. They consume the skin, [[BrainFood brains]], or various other organs of the living, and sometimes [[TheVirus infect survivors, who become zombies themselves]] -- which makes them a lot like a [[OurGhoulsAreCreepier ghoul]], really. Can also be merged with a VoodooZombie or PlagueZombie. They [[OlderThanTheyThink show a lot of]] the characteristics of the actual European folkloric vampire, before Gothic novelists [[VampiresAreSexGods made them sexier and cleverer]].

* An early example is in the ''Herbert West--Reanimator'' by Creator/HPLovecraft (later turned into a [[Film/ReAnimator cult film]]). While the story predates the usage of the term zombie, several of the corpses that are reanimated (Doctor Halsey in ''The Plague-Daemon'' and the boxer in ''Six Shots by Moonlight'') do kill and eat other people.

Flesh-Eating Zombies are the type usually found in a ZombieApocalypse. They consume the skin, [[BrainFood brains]], or various other organs of the living, and sometimes [[TheVirus infect survivors, who become zombies themselves]] -- which makes them a lot like a [[OurGhoulsAreCreepier ghoul]], really. Can also be merged with a VoodooZombie or PlagueZombie.

'''Flesh-Eating Zombies''' are the type usually found in a ZombieApocalypse. They consume the skin, [[BrainFood brains]], or various other organs of the living, and sometimes [[TheVirus infect survivors, who become zombies themselves]] -- which makes them a lot like a [[OurGhoulsAreCreepier ghoul]], really. Can also be merged with a VoodooZombie or PlagueZombie.

* ''TheMiddleman'' has perhaps a unique example of the Flesh Eating variety, selecting a very unusual type of flesh to eat. Nowhere else will the zombies cry not "Braiiiiins", but instead "troooooout".

* VideoGame/TheWalkingDead by Telltale has these as the premise of the game.

* Kyurem from Franchise/{{Pokemon}} is a [[NinjaPirateZombieRobot frozen dragon from space]] whose appearance and mannerisms are based off of the classic flesh-eating zombie. It's even explicitly stated to have a taste for human flesh. Though, unlike other examples, its bite cannot turn you into a zombie.

* An early example is in the ''Literature/HerbertWestReanimator'' by Creator/HPLovecraft. While the story predates the usage of the term zombie, several of the corpses that are reanimated (Doctor Halsey in ''The Plague-Daemon'' and the boxer in ''Six Shots by Moonlight'') do kill and eat other people.

* Animates in ''UnhallowedMetropolis'' fall under this. They have elements of the PlagueZombie, as their bite is usually fatal and death from a bite is guaranteed to result in reanimation... but any corpse has a chance to reanimate, with the odds varying according to the surrounding environment.

* The ''Film/TheReturnOfTheLivingDead'' series riffs off the Romero series, but changes the zombies to make them much more dangerous. Decapitating the zombies will not stop them, and this change is {{lampshade}}d by one character, who cries, "You mean the movie lied?" Zombies maintain a roughly human-level intelligence, and can run and speak provided they still have the right parts, enabling them to taunt and bully their victims, as well as lure them to their doom by impersonating normal humans. They are driven to feed on human brains because it temporarily eases the pain of being dead. A gas called Trioxin is the source of the plague.

* The "Living Dead" series, including ''Film/NightOfTheLivingDead1968'', ''Film/DawnOfTheDead1978'', ''Film/DayOfTheDead1985'', and ''Film/LandOfTheDead''. Though [[NotUsingTheZWord never called "zombies"]] before ''Land'' (Romero originally referred to them as "ghouls"), the living dead in this series became the starting point for Hollywood zombies. They walk and move slowly, have very rudimentary instincts, and are driven most by the instinct to feed. They can only be stopped by destroying their brains. Over the series, their attributes are gradually expanded upon. In ''Film/DawnOfTheDead1978'' it's discovered that they are drawn to places they knew in life, such as malls. In ''Film/DayOfTheDead1985'' it's discovered that zombies can be trained to use tools and can be coaxed to remember aspects of their past life. ''Film/LandOfTheDead'' takes it all much further, showing that the dead can communicate with each other, empathize with each other, cooperate, and solve problems, suggesting that they are replacing humanity. ''Anyone'' who dies in the living dead world will become reanimated, which is the overriding reason the planet is overrun so quickly. Zombie bites are fatal, thus causing victims to reanimate after they die.

* The ''Film/ReturnOfTheLivingDead'' series riffs off the Romero series, but changes the zombies to make them much more dangerous. Decapitating the zombies will not stop them, and this change is {{lampshade}}d by one character, who cries, "You mean the movie lied?" Zombies maintain a roughly human-level intelligence, and can run and speak provided they still have the right parts, enabling them to taunt and bully their victims, as well as lure them to their doom by impersonating normal humans. They are driven to feed on human brains because it temporarily eases the pain of being dead. A gas called Trioxin is the source of the plague.

* ''The Living Dead At Manchester Morgue/Let Sleeping Corpses Lie'' features undead who are reanimated when vibrations from farm machinery revive their nervous systems.

* The "Living Dead" series, including ''Film/NightOfTheLivingDead'', ''Film/DawnOfTheDead'', ''Film/DayOfTheDead'', and ''Film/LandOfTheDead''. Though [[NotUsingTheZWord never called "zombies"]] before ''Land'' (Romero originally referred to them as "ghouls"), the living dead in this series became the starting point for Hollywood zombies. They walk and move slowly, have very rudimentary instincts, and are driven most by the instinct to feed. They can only be stopped by destroying their brains. Over the series, their attributes are gradually expanded upon. In ''Film/DawnOfTheDead'' it's discovered that they are drawn to places they knew in life, such as malls. In ''Day of the Dead'' it's discovered that zombies can be trained to use tools and can be coaxed to remember aspects of their past life. ''Land of the Dead'' takes it all much further, showing that the dead can communicate with each other, empathize with each other, cooperate, and solve problems, suggesting that they are replacing humanity. ''Anyone'' who dies in the living dead world will become reanimated, which is the overriding reason the planet is overrun so quickly. Zombie bites are fatal, thus causing victims to reanimate after they die.

* The zombies of ''{{Film/Fido}}'' are clearly inspired from Romero's ''Living Dead'' series, with the reanimation of the dead (which continues to occur for anyone who dies of any cause) being attributed to space radiation like in ''Film/NightOfTheLivingDead''. Naturally, they act this way, though the [=ZomCon=] corporation has developed control collars that somehow inhibit the desire, allowing controlled zombies to act as domestic servants. Unusually, the bites of these zombies do ''not'' seem fatal, as one character is revealed to be covered in several bite-like scars (presumably from his [[{{Squick}} zombie girlfriend]]).

** There are a few slight but notable differences between Brooks-zombies, Romero-zombies, and Kirkman-zombies from ''The Walking Dead''. People turn into Romero-zombies if they die for any reason, zombie bites just happen to always cause a fatal infection. Brooks-zombies are caused by a virus, and if you're not exposed to a zombie's bodily fluids you won't catch it. People know that Brooks-zombies are created by a virus, it is just untreatable. No one knows what causes Romero-zombies, with the frustration at the lack of an explanation being part of the plot: scientists suspect it's a virus everyone is technically already infected with, but that activates upon death (from any cause), but there is room for some characters to suspect religious explanations, that it is literally the wrath of God. One big difference in behavior is that Brooks-zombies can remember basic tasks, and even (after ''much'' prodding) learn from their experiences. Brooks-zombies are explicitly robotic automatons, incapable of learning from even the most basic trial and error. In some ways this makes them more terrifying: if you hide somewhere a Romero-zombie can't reach you, after a long time they might eventually realize they can't get in and leave. Brooks-zombies will just keep robotically attempting to reach their goal for days on end. Kirkman-zombies follow Romero-zombie rules more closely (anyone who dies for any reason turns into a zombie), though the one distinction is that he has stated that his zombies can ''never'' learn even on a basic level, unlike Romero-zombies.

* ''DeadRising'': Aspects of F and PS. [[spoiler:Mass-producing cattle created a wasp that turns people into zombies. The wasps in question are actually quite huge, compared to normal wasps. Trying to find out how they got so huge, the wasps themselves escaped and found a better source of food: humans.]]

* ''Webcomic/TheOtherGreyMeat'' shows a zombie civilization that devoured brains to stave off a hunger. They are able to live on TOGM, a brain substitute that mimics the qualities of human brains.