I thought that the origin of the whole concept is rooted in Haitian magic and folk lore. These modern iterations deviate from the “evil magic zombie” origins and end up with all sorts of problems. The story has to rely on various silly contrivances because of it.

Just go with magic, go old-school. May not sound modern enough, but it totally works. There’s no need to worry about the laws of physics when black magic is used to reanimate the corpse. The only way to deal with them is to break the spell. Who cares how dead and decaying the corpses are. They don’t need water, energy or even muscles to move. It’s pure magic. It just works.