Top Ten Zombie Movies

by Maxsamedia

I love horror movies, especially with zombies, vampires, aliens, etc. Why? Because the monsters definitely aren’t real, unlike highly doubtful but still vaguely possible ones like Saw and Hostel, where the monsters are human. That really scares the bejeebers out of me.

But I really dig the zombie movies. The possibility of something after death, worse than death, is especially creepy and scary. Zombies also tend to be slow and relentless, you can see them coming, they don’t stop coming, which is way creepier and nerve-wracking than a monster just popping out and killing someone.

The zombie has undergone an interesting transformation over the last several decades.  From the ancient Haitian curse for making a personal revenge slave to a faceless world-threatening plague of unknown origin, the zombie genre has usually been kept on the low end of movie making. Early zombie cinema did not have a following or poster child, like vampire movies had with Bela Lugosi and Christopher Lee. Surprisingly enough, do you know what finally brought the zombie into mainstream entertainment?  Michael Jackson’s Thriller video from 1983.  Really!  Can you imagine? Now zombie films are made all the time, by studios large and small all over the world.

These are my favorite zombie movies of all time, in no particular order, I love them all and I own them all.  I will try to include things like Best Scene, Best Line, Best Kill, Level of Gore, and any other trivia or notes I can think of.  I will add to this list as I remember more details. Enjoy!

• Night of the Living Dead (1968) Directed by George Romero. The mother of them all, classic still, even after 40 years. Though black and white and pretty low budget, it still portrays the suspense and horror very well. A group of various survivors hole up in a farmhouse surrounded by the zombie hordes.  Who will live and who will die? What is causing this? Romero’s groundbreaking movie set off the Italian flood of zombie cinema of this period.
• Best line: They’re coming to get you, Barbara (obviously).
• Best scene: the little girl and her mother in the basement.
• Night of the Living Dead (1990) Directed by Tom Savini. Remake of the 1968 classic, by the special effects artist from Dawn. Excellent remake, true to the story, but the characters have been bumped up a notch. I like that Barbara had more guts in this one. Also loved the ending, good satisfying reality twist. 
• Best scene: That ending scene … oh yeah, you get yours!
• Dawn of the Dead (1978) Directed by George Romero. Follow-up to the original NOTL. Four refugees fly a helicopter to safety, landing on the roof of a mall surrounded and filled with zombies. Very surreal, symbolism everywhere, consumerism. This movie also set off another Italian flood of films.
• Best scene: Circus music to clean up zombies to. Oddly jovial choice. 
• Best line: When there’s no more room in Hell, the dead will walk the Earth. (obviously)
• Best scene: The arm in the blood pressure machine “Please Remain Still”. 
• Trivia: The closing music by the Goblins is now used at the closing of Robot Chicken. (Correction: The song is "The Gonk" by H. Chappel. The mp3 available online, search: gonk mp3)
• Trivia: Filmed at the Monroeville Mall, outside Pittsburgh, PA, hometown of Romero and Savini.
• Dawn of the Dead (2004) Directed by Zack Snyder. Excellent remake, except for the running zombies. The zombie plague is loose again, and a bunch of locals hole up in the mall. 
• Best scene: all of them! 
• Best line: Well, everyone there is dead, ish.  They all fell down, and they got up ...
• Trivia: Actual disabled people were used for some of the zombies (the Asian guy with an arm missing, the legless zombie in the garage)  Even in the original, in the early apartment scene, the armless zombie was really armless.
• Trivia: Ken Foree of original DOTD as TV minister, Tom Savini of original DOTD as sheriff, Gaylen Ross dept store at mall, nod to Gaylen Ross of original DOTD
• Kinda sucked for Andy. Too bad he didn't have a crossbow in his gun shop ...
• Day of the Dead (1985) Directed by George Romero.  This one was military vs. individual.  Can we train the zombies, or should we just annihilate them?  Still pretty good, but losing momentum by this time.  Go get ‘em Bub! 
• Best gore: The evil sergeant getting his guts ripped out.
• Return of the Living Dead (1985) Directed by Dan O’Bannon.  Though the rest of this “series” were beyond cheese, this one was very funny, cheesy in a goofy 80s way.  Let’s all dance in the graveyard as the zombies are coming out of the ground. Check out Pathmark Pete going into rigor.
• Best scene: The animals in the medical supply warehouse (you’ll see).
• Best line: If you loved me, you’d let me eat your brain.
• Resident Evil (2002) Directed by Paul W.S. Anderson. The video game was very cool, and the movie had lots of action and suspense. Great action, great music.  A new drug has some horrible side effects, and it’s been released in a secret locked lab. So let’s go open it up and see what’s going on! The sequels were also good. Alice rocks!!
• Best scene: Hallway security slice and dice.
• Dead Alive (1992) aka Braindead.  Directed by Peter Jackson. Before Peter Jackson made Lord of the Rings and King Kong, he made cheesy horror movies like Bad Taste (1987) and this little gem.  The Sumatran rat monkey bites Lionel’s mother, who then degenerates into a cannibal demon, who bites everyone else. Before long his whole basement is full of her victims, and the party upstairs isn’t helping. So much gore, it’s like an explosion at the Ragu factory! Don’t miss the hot zombie sex and zombie baby!
• Best Line: I kick ass for the Lord!
• Another best line: Your mother ate my dog!! 
• Trivia: The Sumatran Rat Monkey that starts the zombie plague has a cameo in the new King Kong - there’s a box in the cargo hold of the ship that reads “Sumatran Rat Monkey”.  I bet my husband and I were the only ones in the theater to catch it.
• Best gore: The lawnmower.
• Great scene: Rebirth, eeuuwww.
• Shaun of the Dead (2004) Directed by Edgar Wright. A lighter view of the zombies, how they’re not too different from some of us. Shaun must rescue his roommate, girlfriend, mum and friends from the zombie horde. Where do they hide out? The pub of course! Even my lazy-ass nephew crawled out of bed to see this one on a Saturday morning. Damn funny!
• Best scene: Shaun is doing his usual morning walk to the store, and doesn’t notice the damage or blood.
• Another goodie: The "White Lines" sing-a-long with the zombie, heeheehee.
• Can't listen to "Don't Stop Me Now" without wanting to whack someone with a pool cue ... ;-)
• Trivia: Shaun works for Foree Electronics (nod to Ken Foree of original DOTD)
• Re-Animator (1985) Directed by Stuart Gordon. Lovecraft always makes for a kooky movie, and this is one of the best. Jeffrey Combs is so cool and creepy here. Eccentric medical student creates a life-restoring serum which of course backfires horribly.
• Best character: The head in the tray.
• Best scene: Attack of the Killer Large Intestine!

Honorable Mentions:

• Bio Zombie (1998)  Japanese Dawn of the Dead, pretty good, got a Scooby Doo feel to it
• Dead Meat (2004) Irish mad cow disease, kinda Raimi-esque
• Undead (2003) Australian alien zombies
• Dead Heat (1988) Goofy cop zombie, cheesy for sure, but amusing
• Flight of the Living Dead (2002) Zombies on a Plane, but no Sam. L Jackson ...
• Night of the Living Dorks (2004) Funny German high school zombies, worth the subtitles

Books:

• Zombie Movie Encyclopedia, by Peter Dendle. An excellent reference for any zombie lover.
• Zombie Survival Guide, by Max Brooks. A fictional “How-To” guide on how to survive a zombie attack. Aim for the brain!
• World War Z, by Max Brooks.  This book was really excellent. Told in “actual” reports to the author, it portrays the world war against the zombies (before, during and after) from everyone's point of view: soldiers, doctors, civilians. Unusual format, but great story.  That same lazy-ass nephew mentioned above is now reading this book, and he loves it too! I am soooo looking forward to the movie! Scheduled for 2010. Produced by Brad Pitt??? wtf ...