Best Zombie Movies
Zombie movies have been making a huge resurgence in the past few years largely due in part to the successful remake of the original George Romero “Dawn of the Dead” film in 2004. Since then we’ve seen Hollywood latch on to the horror genre with an unrelenting furvor, giving us some good and some bad zombie movies. Here is a list of the all-time great zombie movies.
Day of the Dead (1985)
The third movie in the original George Romero “Night of the Living Dead” trilogy, “Day of the Dead” is often seen as the black sheep of the trilogy because of its slow pace and focus less on zombies and more on the human condition. In this movie a group of scientists and soldiers are hunkered inside a bunker in Florida, trying to live their lives and trying to understand and possibly control the zombie outbreak. It is a multilayered and complex work that is the most intelligent and thoughtful of the zombie movies Romero made and it deserves wider respect.
Return of the Living Dead (1985)
In the same year that Romero made the serious and thoughtful “Day of the Dead” a very different zombie movies was released, “Return of the Living Dead.” “Return” is widely seen as one of the most influential zombie movies because it flipped the genre on its head, making it silly, campy, and the zombies were fast. It is also the first zombie movies to feature the now common zombie chant of “braaaaaaiiiins….” “Return of the Living Dead” is a little dated today, with childish punk rockers dancing on cars and unintentially hilarious moments, but nonetheless it’s still a riot.
Zombie 2 aka Zombie (1979)
Directed by Lucio Fulci, “Zombie 2” made him a horror icon and showed that Europeans could do zombie movies just as good, sometimes better, than the American originators. Fulci’s film is series in tone but contains one of the oddest and most inexplicable scenes ever shot…period. The scene in question involves a zombie fighting a tiger shark underwater. It has to be seen to believe. “Zombie 2” was also praised for its ultra-realistic gore, especially an excruciating eye gouging scene involving a wooden bar stool splinter.
