After vampires, zombies are the most popular type of undead to appear in mass media. I would go so far as to say that they are even more popular in computer games than vampires are.
So what are zombies? And more importantly, how do you stop them?
Zombies are undead monsters who hunger for human brains. Sometimes they are not undead, and sometimes they just hunger for human flesh and not brains per se. Zombies are a bit more homogeneous in their origins than vampires, generally either being created by the bite of a zombie or contracting a virus, often man-made in origin. Two notable exceptions are "The Happening", which has nature itself rebelling against humanity and releasing a pollen that turns humans into a type of zombie mostly interested in killing themselves, but anxious to kill unaffected humans as well, should the opportunity arise; "The Serpent and the Rainbow", looks into how 'traditional' zombies, often referred to as ju-ju zombies, are created through voodoo ritual magic and aren't actually undead nor craving of human brains or flesh. The zombies in this second film are really brain-damaged humans who will almost literally follow any order without stopping or tiring until it is accomplished.
Not cointing the two exceptions mentioned above, almost all movies deal with stopping zombies the same way, removing the head of the zombie, though "Shaun of the Dead" only requires that the brain be destroyed, so you could just bash it's head in. While the methods to kill zombies (if you can kill what is not living) would certainly kill humans, all the other methods that kill humans will not kill zombies. There are some variations to the way the head is removed from the bosy, such as by gun blasts and burning the body to ashes.
Gosh, zombies are almost boring compared to vampires and certainly easier to understand.
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