History Main / FleshEatingZombie

* 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.
* The zombies in ''ComicBook/TheWalkingDead'' eat flesh.

* ''WebAnimation/ZombieCollege'': The zombies not only eat brains but also hearts, ears and other human flesh.

* ''VideoGame/EternalEvil'' have plenty of areas where you find ghouls (the game's zombie equivalents, who behave like typical zombies despite their name) hungrily feasting on human corpses. As well as human skeletons picked clean of flesh, ghouls roam about a still-wet pool of blood nearby.

A subtrope of HungryMenace. Overlaps with NoZombieCannibals when the undead ignore each other as a potential food source.

Contrast FriendlyZombie; [[AttractiveZombie Attractive Zombies]] also tend to avert this trope, due to BeautyEqualsGoodness. Compare FeralVampires, this trope's vampire counterpart.

* ''Manga/MonsterMusume'' 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.
* ''ComicBook/TheWalkingDead'' includes zombies that eat flesh.
* ''ComicBook/{{Zombo}}'': These are a plague on the worst of the Death Worlds, as they also [[TheVirus spread rapidly]]. The answer to this threat is the titular Zombo, who is a result of combining zombie and human DNA to create an obedient super soldier. He's friendly enough when he's not eating you.

* [[TropeCodifier Codifed]] by the ''Film/LivingDeadSeries'', including ''Film/NightOfTheLivingDead1968'', ''Film/DawnOfTheDead1978'', ''Film/DayOfTheDead1985'', and ''Film/LandOfTheDead''. Though [[NotUsingTheZWord almost never called "zombies"]] prior to ''Land'' (series creator Creator/GeorgeARomero originally referred to them as "ghouls"), the living dead in this series became the starting point for nearly all Hollywood zombies that followed. 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 they can be trained to use tools 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 and cooperate to 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 {{Lampshaded}} 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.

* ''Film/DayOfTheDead2008'': The zombies will eat you alive — unless they were vegetarian when they were alive, in which case they're not so harmful if you don't piss them off.
* In the movie ''Film/{{Demons}}'', the eponymous creatures are basically flesh-eating and plague-bearing zombies, with a bit of demon in them.
* 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/NightOfTheLivingDead1968''. 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]]).
* ''Film/TheLivingDeadAtManchesterMorgue'' (aka ''Let Sleeping Corpses Lie'') features undead who are reanimated when vibrations from farm machinery revive their nervous systems.

* ''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]].

* The UrExample is no doubt ''Literature/TheEpicOfGilgamesh'' were the goddess Inanna treatens to release all the dead from hell to eat the living.
* An early example is in ''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 chapter "The Plague-Daemon" and the boxer in "Six Shots by Moonlight") do kill and eat other people.
* In Literature/{{Portlandtown}} the mindless zombies that are created by the Hanged Man's presence are fairly standard modern type, eating flesh and turning those they bite into zombies.

* ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'': According to Giles, zombies don't behave this way unless their masters explicitly tell them to.
** However, in the ''Buffy'' spin-off ''Series/{{Angel}}'', the episode "Habeas Corpses" has the ultimate emergency mode of the Wolfram & Hart office building be to revive dead employees as Flesh-Eating Zombies.
* ''Series/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".
* ''Series/TheWalkingDead2010'' includes zombies that eat flesh.

* Necrons in ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'' fill the role TheUndead would play in a conventional fantasy setting, and the Flayed Ones are their Flesh-Eating Zombie equivalents. Flayed Ones suffer from a MindVirus curse that causes feral behavior and BodyHorror physical mutations, as well as afflicting them with an incurable hunger for living flesh - despite the fact that Necrons are animate metal constructs and can't actually eat. The name comes from the fact that they drape themselves in the skin of their victims.

* All the undead in ''VideoGame/BloodyZombies'' enjoys human flesh. The first boss battle is in fact kicked off when you come across half a dozen undead huddled together and feasting on a fresh corpse, before the boss suddenly pops up and squashes every zombie into a pulp.

* ''VideoGame/EternalEvil'' have plenty of areas where you find ghouls (the game's zombie equivalents, who behaves like typical zombies despite their name) hungrily feasting on human corpses. As well as human skeletons picked clean of flesh, in a still-wet pool of blood, nearby where ghouls are roaming about.

* The Monster and the Uberhaunt enemies from ''VideoGame/TheHalloweenHack''. Both have sprites with blood dripping from their hands and mouths, implying that they eat flesh.
* ''VideoGame/{{Instinct}}'' sees you battling zombies in a science facility, and in a few specimen rooms you can see zombies feasting on human carcasses and ignoring you.
* 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.

* ''VideoGame/SurvivorTheLivingDead'' has plague-bearing flesh-eaters. In large numbers, and from the 2D view normally associated with platformers. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DbcyEoOGWnY Here's a review so you can see for yourself.]]

* Although not encountered often, ''Theatre/TheLeagueOfSTEAM''[='s=] zombies seem to be of the flesh-eating variety. The League have perfected (well, almost...) a collar-like device for domesticating them.

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* ''VisualNovel/{{Tsukihime}}'': Here flesh-eating zombies are crossed with vampires. Humans drained by a vampire ("Dead Apostle" in the series' parlance) will first turn into ghouls, animated corpses that instinctively seek to consume flesh. If they are not destroyed, they will gradually rebuild first their body, and then their mind as they continue to eat. If this continues long enough (on the order of weeks or even months), they will eventually regain awareness, becoming a full-fledged Dead Apostle themselves. Very few ghouls actually make it that far though: most of the time they get destroyed long before their mind begins to come back. It's also known that people with very high magic potential can speed up the process, in extreme cases developing from ghoul to vampire literally overnight.

* ''VideoGame/WarcraftIII'''s Ghouls (and later [[FleshGolem Abominations]]) are undead units who can eat corpses (of friendly or enemy units) to quickly regenerate health. The actual zombie unit has no real abilities and is only found in campain maps.

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* ''Series/TheWalkingDead'' includes zombies that eat flesh.

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

* The zombies in Umberto Lenzi's ''Nightmare City'' (a.k.a. ''City of the Walking Dead'') (1980) are variations of the Flesh Eating Zombie, except they drink blood instead of eating flesh. The specific origins of the plague are a result of [[NuclearMutant radiation exposure]].