This Is the Greatest Zombie Movie Ever — Even Though It Breaks A Major Zombie Movie Rule

If a zombie runs too fast, does that not make him (or her) a zombie at all?

Jonah Ray, comedian, host of Mystery Science Theater 3000 and recovering punk rocker, used to think so. “I’m a zombies nerd,” he explains in the latest episode of Staff Picks, Cracked’s excellent new movie show where our quartet of hosts and panelists select their favorite film from one of the big four genres: action, horror, drama and comedy. “You have to die and come back. So I just thought you couldn’t run because you were dead.”

But The Return of the Living Dead, where the zombies do sometimes move faster than a brisk walk, changed his mind — or at least, he can’t dismiss it as not a zombie movie just because of their penchant for jogging/sprinting/fartlek-ing.

“This is how I’ve done it in my head — or how I can be okay with it: When you first die, you still have all your same muscle mass,” Ray explains. “So if you see food, and your whole thing is just trying to go and eat somebody, you’re going to get there as fast as you can, meaning you’re going to run with all your muscle. But you’re dead, so you’ll just be tearing apart your muscles and eventually become a shuffling-around zombie.”

Either way, he’s steadfast about the movie’s greatness: “This breaks the rules, but it does so in all the right ways.”

In fact, if anything, The Return of the Living Dead has only added to zombie movie canon, as it’s the first film to introduce the idea of zombies eating brains. “They say they’re eating brains to kill the pain — the pain of being dead,” Ray explains.

You can watch this episode above. Or if scrolling up three paragraphs is too much, you can click here. Be sure, too, to head over to our YouTube channel to watch all the other episodes of Staff Picks as well as the rest of our great video series.

If you don’t, we’re gonna send zombies that can run like Usain Bolt after you.