Vampires vs Zombies on Deadliest Warrior tonight

[Temis the Vorta]

Of course it's on Spike.

What happens when a show founded on the science of hypothetical battles between knights, ninjas, gangsters and centurions swaps swords and guns for fangs and claws? Fans of Spike TV’s “Deadliest Warrior” series are likely to find out Wednesday when the show, in the second half of the 2-1/2-hour season finale, will pit vampires versus zombies in a bloody battle to the death. Airing at 9 p.m. PDT, the two classic horror movie monsters will spar to determine who has the bigger, badder bite and more skull-crushing strength.

Well, I'm in the Pacific Time Zone and my DVR says this airs at 10pm so check your local listings. I think it's just one half hour segment of a longer "season finale" that includes various matchups of historical characters.

I'm sure this is bound to be controversial, since the assumptions will determine the outcome. Are these fast zombies or slow? Can the vamps survive in daylight? And most important of all, if a zombie and vampire bite each other simultaneously, what happens???

 

[Obiwanshinobi]

Whoever wins, we lose?

 

[Unicron]

I'd probably go with vampires myself, given that zombies have better infection but no intelligence. I could be wrong of course.

 

[Thestral]

I'm sorry, but vampires any day of the week. Even fast zombies are stupid.

 

[DarKush]

Crap. I missed the end of it, so I don't know who won. Maybe I'll catch it online, or if someone posts here I'll just spoil myself.

I don't really see how vampires could not win. Even if we say they both have equal strength, vamps are faster, smarter. The issue would be if they are immune to zombie bites, and I'm glad the show addressed that, even if they left it a little muddled. It was cool having the 30 Days of Night guy on there as an expert though. Wish Robert Kirkman had been on there too.

Zombies are more of the in thing, but a better contest might have been vamps v. werewolves. Could've been a great tie-in to Underworld Awakenings.

 

[FordSVT]

If they're True Blood or Underworld style vamps, nothing short of a Resident Evil style T-virus uber-zombie would stand a chance. I assume they're probably talking about classic, Universal-type Dracula versus Dawn of the Dead style zombies?

How, exactly, do you decide which vamps and zombies show up?

 

[DarKush]

Well the show did establish which type of vamps and zombies showed up. Similar to what you said, the vamps were the 'modern' vamps from Blade/30 Days of Night variety and the zombies from the Romero films. (True Blood, Underworld, or Vampire Diaries were not mentioned, to my knowledge, but I consider them fitting under the modern designation). There was an attempt to establish general characteristics or rules to make it more of a fair fight.

 

[Leroy]

Vampires would probably win the battle but could possibly lose the war. Zombies have one thing going for them strength in numbers the only weaknesses the vampires would have is exposure to sunlight and the need to feed. I suppose the zombies would be able to starve the vamps out especially if a lot of the human population has been infected and killed off by a zombi horde. In order for the vamps to pull off a victory they would need an alternative food source and wait for the zombies to rot away and maybe find a way to stop the infection from spreading to the surviving humans.

 

[Bob Karo]

Vampires would probably win the battle but could possibly lose the war. Zombies have one thing going for them strength in numbers the only weaknesses the vampires would have is exposure to sunlight and the need to feed. I suppose the zombies would be able to starve the vamps out especially if a lot of the human population has been infected and killed off by a zombi horde. In order for the vamps to pull off a victory they would need an alternative food source and wait for the zombies to rot away and maybe find a way to stop the infection from spreading to the surviving humans.

I would think prevalence of "good" vampires in modern fiction feeding on animals provides that alternative food source. Vampires win hands down.

 

[Immolatus]

Vampires would probably win the battle but could possibly lose the war. Zombies have one thing going for them strength in numbers the only weaknesses the vampires would have is exposure to sunlight and the need to feed. I suppose the zombies would be able to starve the vamps out especially if a lot of the human population has been infected and killed off by a zombi horde. In order for the vamps to pull off a victory they would need an alternative food source and wait for the zombies to rot away and maybe find a way to stop the infection from spreading to the surviving humans.

sounds like it would make a good movie

 

[Temis the Vorta]

I agree, the vamps would win the battle but lose the war. Unless they could adopt the Stefan Salvatore diet of small woodland creatures, but that seems like cheating to me. Then again, giving vampires werewolf-type claws also strikes me as cheating.

And do they need claws? The flaw of the vampires vs zombies logic is that the vamps shouldn't want to get that close in a fight. But they could hit a sporting-goods store just like anyone else and take out 63 zombies sniper-style from a safe distance. Vampires being smart, they can adopt any number of tactics, even if those tactics have nothing to do with them being vampires per se.

It was unfair of the show to let the zombies have the element of surprise. Presumably the sleeping vamps were unaware of the zombie apocalypse. If they had been forewarned, they would have been able to fortify their position more intelligently.

Then I got to thinking, "how did the zombies know the vampires were there?" Presumably by smell. But vampires would smell like corpses, and the zombies would not know to attack them. And don't zombies eschew dead flesh anyway? The very existence of zombies with only kill-wounds on them (neck, head, etc) implies that zombies will break off an attack when the victim is dead and therefore unappetizing. If zombies are in the habit of eating dead flesh, then there would be no corpses left around to reanimate, just a bunch of skeletons. (Hmm, there's an idea for a novel approach to zombology...)

PS for those who didn't see the ending, the vamps won, but then the surviving vamp turned into a zombie. So that answers half of my question. As for zombies turning into vampires, if it works the other way, then turnabout should be fair play.