The most important zombie film, produced by George Romero in 1968, is Night of the Living Dead, but is it the best?
Poultrygeist: The Legend of Chicken's Night Troma's Dead is a very low-budget and violent film. The parody of the consumer world is very funny.
Nicholas Hoult plays a zombie who spends his days wandering a defunct airport with hundreds of his brethren, until he sees Julie for the first time, and his cold, dead heart inexplicably warms.
The plot of Warm Bodies revolves on two zombies who track out their biological father. A standout aspect of the movie is its comical connection.
On a field trip to a farm/petting zoo, Lupita Nyong'o portrays a kindergarten teacher protecting her students from a zombie epidemic.
Some Whites embrace the worst aspects of colonialism for their own profit, while others are welcomed as refugees.
Acoustic radiation awakens the dead in Let Sleeping Corpses Lie.
This zombie movie is an unusual combination of American zombie cliches and foreignness.
Wes Craven's 1988 movie The Serpent and the Rainbow brings back the voodoo-style Haitian zombie in a way that wasn't expected. It also shows that it's probably still possible to make a "voodoo zombie" movie that takes itself half-seriously and tries to scare people.
Juan of the Dead, Cuba's first feature-length zombie film, is a strong piece of art by filmmaker Alejandro Brugués.
A nurse flies to the Caribbean to assist a patient who may have the zombie virus. While there, she is tangled up in a mystery involving a voodoo sect.
The last film directed by George A. Romero depicts the progression of the zombies into sentient creatures and stars Dennis Hopper as an evil plutocrat who rules a walled-off version of Pittsburgh. Although it is not nearly as subtle as his earlier films, it nonetheless looks nice and possesses just enough of Romero's rebellious spark to make it enjoyable to see.
Planet Terror is a comical zombie film made by Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino about destructive zombie/mutants who invade the southwestern countryside. It excels at being that kind of film, and it deserved to perform a lot more at the box office.
Cemetery Man is a dark comedy about a lonely graveyard attendant who wonders why he bothers to do his job. The protagonist's despondency and confusion about who he is have echoes aspects of American Psycho.
28 Weeks Later is an often interesting, often scary, often powerful and often frustrating film for zombie/horror view source genre geeks, but it violates one of the unwritten rules of zombie cinema by having a 'main zombie' that escapes and robs the other infected of being perceived as legitimate threats.
A string of killings breaks out in a tiny New England seaside village, and individuals who resemble the slain guests are now permanent inhabitants. The zombies here are distinct in their autonomy and capacity to behave independently.
Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead, a post-apocalyptic zombie film with flare, is frightful without being dour, expressive without sounding pompous, and gory without becoming Peter Jackson's Dead Alive or Bad Taste.
One Cut of the Dead is a film about a shoestring budget and DIY spirit, and it captures the creative spirit and adaptability displayed by low-budget filmmakers like George Romero.
A low-budget zombie film about a former baseball pitcher and catcher who journey across the nation together after the zombie apocalypse. The zombies are around, but they serve as a perpetual impediment and bitter reminder of everything that these guys have lost.
Hammer Horror is responsible for such classics as Dracula, Frankenstein, and The Mummy, as well as more recent offerings like Plague of the Zombies. Like in the classic horror film, Night of the Living Dead, their zombies are rotting corpses.
In Peter Jackson's horror-comedy Dead Alive, there are zombies and a lawnmower that keeps running even after 1,000 gallons of blood are poured on it.
In the zombie comedy Zombieland, the action is relocated to the United States, and the survivors are not pals but rather strangers. It strikes an almost ideal mix between humorous violence and character-driven comedy and has zombies that are really scary.
Train to Busan is a movie from South Korea that is both a popcorn movie and a family story. At the end, there's action and make-up effects I've never seen before.
The first Paranormal Activity and Romero's own Diary of the Dead came out in 2007, which was a big year for found-footage horror. Still, REC, a Spanish film that mixes traditional zombie stories with religious mysticism, is probably the best of all the found-footage zombie movies.
Everyone's phone would record a zombie outbreak in the digital era. This film offers an idea.
Pontypool imagines a zombie in a new manner. I enjoy this movie because it takes a firm position and critiques how people in the 21st century can't connect or communicate about vital matters.
Demons is a zombie film about a cinema palace populated by strange individuals such as preppy youngsters, warring couples, a pimp and his prostitutes, and even a blind guy.
The screening of a horror film, followed by the introduction of zombies and demons into the audience, all in the name of some unknown plan that results in brutality and survival.
The Italian horror film Zombi 2 is the genre's crown gem, considerably increasing the craziness level and pushing gore to new heights. It has memorable scenes that have transcended the horror genre.
Night of the Living Dead by George Romero is the most powerful zombie movie ever filmed.
The rules for zombie movies were set by Romero's movie, and every zombie movie since then has been influenced by it. It has the same effect on horror as Tolkien did on high fantasy "races," and it's hard to talk about zombies without having seen Romero's movie.
In 2002, 28 Days Later brought back the traditional zombie movie and made them a serious menace. It was the first zombie movie.
The science fiction film Re-Animator takes great pride in its clinical treatment to reanimated dead. As Herbert West, Jeffrey Combs portrays the crazy scientist who uses glowing green slime to bring the dead back to life.