BEST ZOMBIE MOVIESNight of the Living dead - 1968Director: George A. Romero
The seminal classic. This is from whence the modern idea of a flesheating zombie came forth. It is in public domain due to a failure in copyrighting it, so there are a million billion copies floating around every which-where. Use it in your next movie! Anyway, it's one of the classic B-movie style B-movies, but it's probably also one of the best. It's not nearly as campy as you'd think, it really does hold up pretty well. There's even some sort of social message people will pin on this movie (and all of Romero's classics, really, but in this one's case he'll deny it up and down as being incidental) which stems largely from it having a black actor playing the lead.
The classic zombie movie, and one of the most influential horror films in general.
Night of the living dead - 1990Director: Tom Savini
Annnnnnnnd it got remade years later! This is the only remake you should bother watching (I think there's a couple more that came out recently...), as it's the only one that lives up to the original in any capacity, and even manages to build on what the original was. The zombies are
creepy in this damn movie. There are some really suspenseful sequences in the farmhouse before all hell breaks loose, which is a subtlety even the best of zombie movies can sorely lack. Bonus points for being directed by one of the greatest makeup effect artists to ever be an awesome Sex Machine.
Dawn of the Dead - 1978Director: George A. Romero
Romero could've rested on his laurels (though not monetarily, damn copyrights!), but he decided not to let zombies go the way of the dinosaur (or more accurately, the atom-age monster features of the 50's). This time he intentionally inserted a bunch of social commentary into what would otherwise still probably be an astonishingly solid film. Kenan's dad delivers one of the best lines ever in any zombie movie ever. You know, the "no more room in hell" thing. Yeah. This got remade somewhat recently, too, and while the remake isn't terrible, it definitely deserves to be taken with a grain of salt.
ZOMBIE/Zombi 2/Zombie Flesh Eaters - 1979Director: Lucio Fulci
Here we've for the
premiere Italian zombie film, Zombi 2 (a title which was changed to cash in on Dawn of the Dead's, which was released in Italy as Zombi, success). This has a crossover between what we now understand as the (modern) zombie and the voodoo zombies of yore. A scientist is researching voodoo rituals involving bringing the dead back, and, well, then there are zombies. The most memorable sequence is an incredibly well-shot
fight between a zombie and a shark, which will probably be the thing most people say about this movie. Well, it rules.
Day of the Dead - 1985Director: George A. Romero
Once more, with feeling! Here we get Romero petering out, in a way. This movie has some great visual sequences, and some awesome gorey makeup effects. The acting, however, is a bit over the top. Awesomely, hilariously over the top. Everybody's mad, everybody's yelling. Some of the greatest overacting ever filmed, really. *
for more delicious (though not zombie related) overacting, see: Halloween 3, as per the video at the topReturn of the Living Dead - 1985Director: Dan O'Bannon
Dan O'Bannon was probably one of the most underrated presences in horror film - without him Alien would not have had the same art direction
or even the same director. He worked heavily with John Carpenter before they had a falling out. Here he riffs on George Romero's films, and in a great goddamn way. This was the first good zombie comedy, which is incredibly ironic, because some of the zombie visuals (tar man tar man tar man) are absolutely fantastic and the zombies in general are some of the most frightening, if you think about it. (burning them only creates zombified ash in the air, which causes a raincloud which makes more dead rise. There's no "headshot") There's some kooky punk-rocker kids in a cemetery, a great soundtrack to match, a warehouse with drum canisters containing army secrets (hint: it's zombies), and some great zombie gags, too. The sequel is interesting because it has essentially the same storyline, but with only slightly different characters. (some of the same actors return playing "new" roles, too) It's not got the same level of camp and the punk rock vibe or soundtrack, though, so it's a wee notch below.
"Send more paramedics!"
Cemetery Man/Dellamorte Dellamore - 1994Director: Michele Soavi
This is a peculiar one. The titular character is a cemetery groundskeeper in a graveyard full of corpses that will not rest. So, he and his assistant have to keep them all down. The zombies are really just a side-feature to the storyline, however, which involves some mind-bending murders which may or may not have been committed by our man. Evidently based, at least in part, on the Italian horror comic series Dylan Dog (which also got a real movie just a couple years ago!), this one is, if nothing else, at least pretty memorable. If I learned nothing else from it, it's that chicks dig an ossuary.
Dead Alive/Braindead - 1992Director: Peter Jackson
Yes,
that Peter Jackson. Before he made those blockbuster Lord of the whatever movies, he was directing incredibly schlocky/awesome C-grade horror hilariousness. Dead Alive is his masterpiece goddamnit. It's the one where the guy takes a lawnmower and mows through an entire housefull of undead. Yeah, it's amazing. It supposedly held the record for most fake blood used in a film, measured by volume used (300 liters or so in the final scene alone). It's a messy, fun time.
Night of the Comet - 1984Director: Thom E. Eberhardt
It is the 80's. A girl works at a movie theater. Then a comet turns everybody into zombies and it gets crazy. A fun, incredibly dated (in the best way) movie which kind of drags near the end, but eh, what are you gonna do.
Honorable Mentions: City of the Living Dead
Dawn of the Dead (remake) [for the love of god avoid the
Day of the Dead remake]
The Video Dead (available on netflix - this is probably the campiest movie I watched this year)
28 Days Later (awesome movie, but they're not
really zombies)
Shaun of the Dead (best British zombie movie, and it's a comedy)
Zombieland (recent and humorous, but also well-made)
Evil Dead, Evil Dead 2, Army of Darkness (they're kind of like zombies, I reckon)
Night of the Creeps
[REC]
Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island (surprisingly few zombie cartoons even exist)
Resident Evil (the first two are... worth watching, but there is progressively less zombie action as they go on. Damn BOWs)
HAPPY HALLOWEEN!I leave you with this poem:
Hallowe'en in a Suburb
by H. P. Lovecraft
The steeples are white in the wild moonlight,
And the trees have a silver glare;
Past the chimneys high see the vampires fly,
And the harpies of upper air,
That flutter and laugh and stare.
For the village dead to the moon outspread
Never shone in the sunset's gleam,
But grew out of the deep that the dead years keep
Where the rivers of madness stream
Down the gulfs to a pit of dream.
A chill wind blows through the rows of sheaves
In the meadows that shimmer pale,
And comes to twine where the headstones shine
And the ghouls of the churchyard wail
For harvests that fly and fail.
Not a breath of the strange grey gods of change
That tore from the past its own
Can quicken this hour, when a spectral power
Spreads sleep o'er the cosmic throne,
And looses the vast unknown.
So here again stretch the vale and plain
That moons long-forgotten saw,
And the dead leap gay in the pallid ray,
Sprung out of the tomb's black maw
To shake all the world with awe.
And all that the morn shall greet forlorn,
The ugliness and the pest
Of rows where thick rise the stones and brick,
Shall some day be with the rest,
And brood with the shades unblest.
Then wild in the dark let the lemurs bark,
And the leprous spires ascend;
For new and old alike in the fold
Of horror and death are penned,
For the hounds of Time to rend.
Poll