Okay, “outbreak” might be a little bit hyperboloid, here, as there were only some 33 people involved. But that’s enough to classify it as such, isn’t it, on a relative scale? As the title suggests, these weren’t REAL zombies, or rather MOVIE zombies. A REAL zombie would be one of the brain-damaged Haitian sort, the kind revealed in the book (and later the underrated but heavily fictionalized Wes Craven Horror movie) THE SERPENT AND THE RAINBOW, not the kind you’d see in your standard George Romero movie. Truthfully, then, the zombies in this story are closer to the reality than they are to the Hollywood variety. Of the latter, the disease-infected zombies of WORLD WAR Z and 28 DAYS LATER are more comparable.
The pathogen infecting THESE zombies, though, was the drug K2, a synthetic concoction more commonly called “Spice.” A witness in New York was so freaked out by the zombie-like behavior of a bunch of over-dosers that he filmed them with his cell phone. They weren’t chasing him, though; in fact they looked incapable of chasing ANYbody. (See the video at the source link below.) The drug is still being sold in some stores. You may recall that naked tweaker who attacked and tore the face off of a homeless man back in 2012 in Miami. He was under the influence of a similar synthetic drug at the time.