Tying One Up

There is nothing that annoys me more when watching a zombie movie, than when someone decides to tie a zombie up.

And it almost always happens too; there I am just watching along and then, flash, contorting hands bound to chair arms, or collared, rotting necks chained to the wall.

I haven't figured out what is so attractive about taunting your starving prisoner but I can tell you there is absolutely no benefit to it, like most dim witted movie nobodies believe.

A lot of movies feature this too: Resident Evil Apocalypse and Extinction, Dawn of the Dead (2004), 28 Days Later and 28 Weeks Later, Gangs of the Dead, and of course Fido.

Fido is an interesting case because the whole movie is based around domesticating zombies for free labor; most other reasons stem from these three ideas.

First is the family affect; typically someone gets way to attached to an individual before the apocalypse hits, and then when granny is trying to test her dentures they cannot pull the plug. Now she sits, looking rather cute snarling and clawing like a puppy.

That person you thought you knew, is never, ever going to get better so don't kid yourself; the longer you stick around trying to hide them the more likely your ass is going to get eaten.

Plus, nobody wants to be a zombie, like nobody wants to live in Michigan...So be the Kevorkian to their suffering and lend assistance; and then go run for state congress.

I feel like I must note here that it's not right either to tie up your now zombie wife who is about to give birth to your maybe-zombie baby (Dawn of the Dead), just leave that trifling nobody. She won't be calling for child support, I promise.

The second reason people tie 'em up is to study their assailants; because that usually works well with something that wants to eat you every time you come near it.

If this is traditional zombie apocalypse there shouldn't be much to learn from a "living" zombie body that can't be learned from a dead one. Also, after a period of time a dead zombie won't be contagious so you can dissect them in peace of body and mind.

If this is mutating zombies, however, chaining Jimmy to the kennel out back won't cut it for the amount of research you would need to do on an unstable virus. This would require time, facilities, equipment, time, and time.

Time of which, there is none.

Most instances of laboratory examinations have only proved to be fatal causing further outbreaks.

The last motivation I found in 28 Days Later, which was to determine how long they could last without food (flesh).

Clever as it is, that doesn't tell you when the last person to be infected was, whether this rate of decay is standard, or when the last time your attackers had food was. When zombies stop coming after you, then you know they are dead; until then do it live like Bill O'Reilly.

So, why tie them up?

Because people secretly want to be zombies, because it will become a sick fetish in zombie apocalypse, because it will make for great entertainment.

Besides the last of those I can't come up with anything that would justify tying up a zombie; it's just too much of a risk.