This has happened twice. A while ago, before I started using CC and today.

My sim knew an elder who started out looking like a normal sim, but then they become what looked an moved like a zombie. I looked through the sims 2 wiki, but it says nothing about this kinda thing happening.

Before I posted here, I downloaded the cure zombie potion of this site, and got the zombiefied sim to drink it. This fixed the movement issues, but hasn't changed his appearance.

the title of this thread; all shipped version ways I take involve player direction. closest "random" way I take to be the genie lamp when wishing for resurrection.

for the character's appearance; you might use insimenator (or its equivalents) to make character a zombie then to cure it.
if the character still has zombie appearance; you might use SimPE's Sim Surgery to change the character.

That picture is much too small and far away, however from here he does not look like a zombie but rather that he is close to freezing.

You can directly upload pictures here simply go advanced>upload picture.

He's also far too upright for a zombie. Zombies have a hunched over pose and they shuffle as they walk.

I guess I must have been mistaken. (I swear he looked like a zombie though). Thank you all for the advice!