History Main / NotAZombie

* ''Series/{{Castle}}'' did a zombie episode. Turns out, the murder was not committed by a zombie, but by a member of NY's zombie subculture, which Castle was upset to learn existed and he didn't even know about it!

* Justified in the second ''Franchise/ResidentEvil'' novelization when Leon encounters zombies for the first time. He realizes quite quickly that they are zombies, but continues to aim his weapon and order them to freeze because the realization that he's caught in a ZombieApocalypse scenario is sending him into a panic. Unlike what usually happens in visual media like games and movies, Leon ''does'' notice the horrible smell given off by zombies before he actually sees any, which helps to clue him in that something is rotten in the city of Raccoon.

* ''Literature/TheTroop'': Tim briefly mistakes PatientZero for a waterlogged zombie when first seeing him, but shakes himself out of it. He's proven right. While the infection has a lot of zombie like qualities (HorrorHunger, for instance), [[spoiler:it's actually caused by a genetically modified tapeworm.]]

* In the chilean comic ''Zombies en la Moneda'', a group of “frikis” attends a comic convention where there are many people performing cosplayers, and they see how some of them are disguised as zombies and attack others, even laugh at how bad their costumes are and they also criticize the fact that the "zombies" are fast.
-'' To run? Zombies never run! ''
** [[spoiler: Of course, zombies are real]]

* Most of the characters in ''Film/{{Quarantine}}'' do this. What makes it mind-boggling is that they ''[[TooDumbToLive keep doing it throughout the movie, even after being flat-out told what's happening by a CDC man.]]''

That is [[PlotInducedStupidity rarely]] the [[ApathyKilledTheCat case]] here. There will always be one person who misidentifies the [[NotUsingTheZWord living-impaired]] as a regular, if badly hurt, human. There's two variants of this, with differing levels of [[TooDumbToLive idiocy involved]].

* ''VideoGame/RedDeadRedemption: Undead Nightmare'' plays the "law enforcement" part straight except, of course, John Marston isn't a lawman. John first calls the zombie on its unruly behavior before incapacitating it with a tap on the head. He then grabs his gun and starts shouting commands to stop. When gameplay resumes the objective is to blow the thing's head off. Justified to a terrifying level in that no one at the time the game is set in would have even a vague concept of what a Romero style zombie is.

* Lampshaded humorously on ''Series/{{Supernatural}}'' in the episode "Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid", in which part of a small town cemetery (namely the most recent) are brought back from the dead as seemingly normal humans. Naturally, however, the brothers are suspicious and while visiting one of the first to pop back up, Sam (alone), finds the said woman alone in the house, laying on a bed, pasty green, and whispering, motioning for him to come closer. Sam, genre savvy, sighs and moves slightly closer. She continues to motion for him to come closer and he asks sarcastically if she can just "tell him from over there." Well, she continues to motion for him to come closer and he gets right up next to her, and sure enough, she wants him to put his ear by her mouth, whispering hoarsely. He sighs and says aloud "I know I am going to regret this," and leans in, and shizzam! She goes full on apeshit zombie on him and tries to eat him. However, he was expecting all this and shoots her in the head. Oh, and during the struggle he lands next to the badly mutilated corpse of her husband.

* In ''Series/{{Community}}'', when military "taco meat" turns party guests into zombies en masse, this trope is played straight, as characters assume the zombies to be simply people on some kind of drug -- until Troy averts it with "Holy crap, Leonard's a zombie!". The Dean threatens Troy with pepper spray later, thinking he is a zombie.

* ''Series/TheWalkingDead'': In the intro for the pilot episode, while looking beneath a car Rick sees a little girl's feet shuffling along. However, once he sees her fully after standing up and she turns to his voice, he realizes she's a zombie, and promptly [[BoomHeadshot blows her head off]].

[[folder:Web Comics]]

* In the chilean comic ''Zombies en la Moneda'', a group of [[HollywoodNerd “frikis”]] attends a comic convention where there are many people performing cosplayers, and they see how some of them are disguised as zombies and attack others, even laugh at how bad their costumes are and they also criticize the fact that the "zombies" are fast.

Generally, any character who thinks a zombie is Not a Zombie is also prone to having ZombieInfectee [[ZombieAdvocate behaviour]] or ''becoming one''. If he [[SelectiveObliviousness doesn't accept that the creatures outside are zombies]], he can't very well become one after being bitten, now, can he?

# Someone is walking through the deserted area, when they see a moaning, [[UndeathlyPallor pale-looking body]] lying face down on the floor. Said body may already be bleeding or even missing large, fairly visible chunks of flesh, and may already be ghost white or putrefying green, but the character in question will never notice (or ignore it). Instead, they will run right up to the body, put aside whatever weapon they're carrying, and promptly try to hoist up the apparently distressed individual (often accompanied by dialogue like, "Are you alright?" or "Don't worry, I'll get you out of here."). HilarityEnsues when the putrefying face of the obviously-a-zombie is revealed, and promptly tries to eat the character's head. This is generally (well, [[TooDumbToLive hopefully]]) [[SleptThroughTheApocalypse the first zombie that the character encounters,]] so they tend to survive.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'': "Treehouse of Horror III" gave us Creator/MattGroening's favorite line of the entire series:
-->'''Bart:''' Homer, you shot the zombie Flanders!\\

* ''Film/ResidentEvil'':
** There's an entire sequence in the first movie where the Umbrella soldiers confront a horde of zombies, who they think are just survivors gone crazy; while most of the zombies look perfectly normal outside the shambling, there are a few with clearly broken bones and blatantly gaping wounds. One of the soldiers encounters a single zombie beforehand and gives several warnings before firing.
--->'''Soldier:''' Stay down. I'm warning you, stay down! Come any closer, and I'll fire. I mean it! ''[shoots the zombie 5 times]''
** Also from the first movie, there's a scene where a guy turns round and sees his sister. At first glance, she looks just a bit worse for wear... until she tries to chomp on his neck.

* In ''WesternAnimation/ScoobyDooOnZombieIsland'', Fred at first assumes that [[ScoobyDooHoax the zombies are just people in costumes]] and rattles off potential suspects as he tries to pull off a captured zombie's "mask". In his defense, this was the case for every one of the dozens of other supernatural creatures he and the other ''Scooby-Doo'' characters have encountered over the years, so it was a reasonable assumption. However, once the zombie's head comes off in his hands, he insists that it must be animatronic and Velma and Daphne tell him he's in denial.

** There's an entire sequence where the Umbrella soldiers confront a horde of zombies, who they think are just survivors gone crazy; while most of the zombies look perfectly normal, there are a few with clearly broken bones and blatantly gaping wounds. One of the soldiers encounters a single zombie beforehand and gives several warnings before firing.

** There is a scene in the first movie where the guy turns round and sees his sister. At first glance, she looks just a bit worse for wear... until she tries to chomp on his neck.

** In the original ''Film/DawnOfTheDead1978'', a woman encounters her dead husband while a SWAT raid is taking place. Believing he's still the man she'd fallen in love with, she rushes into his arms... and gets a healthy chunk bitten out of her neck and shoulder by the briefly confused zombie; they are possibly the most ''convincing'' looking zombie bites in the history of zombie movies post-''Film/NightOfTheLivingDead1968''.
** The ''Film/DawnOfTheDead2004'' remake features this -- and to make matters worse, the zombie is a little girl. Note this movie features the "fast" zombie archetype, so the protagonist and her husband only get a few seconds to process that something's wrong before the girl bites a chunk out of her husband's neck.
* ''Film/ResidentEvil''

** There's an earlier scene where one of the Umbrella soldiers confronts a zombie and gives several warnings before firing.
--->'''Soldier:''' Stay down. I'm warning you, stay down! Come any closer, and I'll fire. I mean it! ''[shoots the zombie 5 times]''
** ''Film/ResidentEvilApocalypse'' takes it to its logical extreme. When the city itself finally gets its first wave of zombies, ''the cops start arresting them'' '''[[TooDumbToLive getting bitten repeatedly in the process!]]'''

** The first zombie we see in ''Film/NightOfTheLivingDead1968'' is supposed to look like just some random person wandering around the cemetery, until he attacks the girl. Doesn't help that in one colorized version, he's green.

* In the chilean comic ''Zombies en la Moneda'', a group of [[HollywoodNerd “frikis”]] attends a comic convention where there are many people performing cosplayers, and they see how some of them are disguised as zombies and attack others even laugh at how bad their costumes are and criticize the fact that the "zombies" are fast.

[[quoteright:346:[[WesternAnimation/ScoobyDooOnZombieIsland https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/scoobyzombie2_1321.jpg]]]]
[[caption-width-right:346:"What? I could have sworn that was a tacky pirate zombie costume!"]]

* The second variation is played very straight in the ChooseYourOwnAdventure-esque story ''[[http://www.visitdeadends.com/index2.html Dead Ends]]'', near the beginning.

* In ''Manga/OnePiece'', during Luffy's first encounter with a zombie in the [[MonsterMash Thriller Bark Arc]], [[IdiotHero he identifies it as 'an old man with a big wound']], much to the annoyance of everyone around him, who had realized that it was a zombie right off. This is, of course, immediately following a scene where he ''[[SugarWiki/FunnyMoments shoves the zombie back into its grave]]''. This is flipped in the next scene, where the group encounters what they think is another zombie; turns out this one [[MistakenForUndead really is just an old man with a big wound.]]