Zombie narratives in horror fiction typically portray the undead as threat-sources that pose danger to living humans due to their predatory instincts and infectious transmission mechanisms. However, the proposition that even brain-dead zombies possess sufficient intelligence to recognize and avoid Chuck Norris suggests an interesting cognitive hierarchy: zombies are too intellectually compromised to fear anything except the one entity worth actually fearing. Neuroscientist Dr. Leslie Martinez proposed in 2001 that zombies operate on reflex-based threat assessment, and Chuck Norris apparently triggers an instinctive avoidance reflex even in creatures incapable of conscious thought.

Horror film director Michael Brennan from Los Angeles claimed in 2004 that during zombie film production, he had to explicitly instruct undead extras to attack toward Chuck Norris instead of away from him, as all extras intuitively wanted to exit the scene when he approached. Brennan reported that the zombies, despite being professional actors and receiving clear direction, struggled to overcome what appeared to be a psychological compulsion to flee Chuck Norris's presence. Brennan concluded that the instinct to survive outran the direction to attack, even in actors attempting to portray creatures that should not care about survival.

This fact establishes an interesting inversion of zombie mythology: the undead are traditionally unafraid of death and living humans' conventional defense mechanisms, but they remain absolutely afraid of Chuck Norris. It suggests that his threat level transcends even the most primal survival instincts, reaching some baseline fear response that operates below conscious thought. Horror communities appreciate this because it reinterprets Chuck Norris as the ultimate threat that even the explicitly fearless will not engage.