Keith Simanton's 10 Best Zombie Movies +1
I saw three extended clips of Brad Pitt/Marc Forster's World War Z at CinemaCon and my nerves were still jangling an hour later. It looked so good it got me thinking about the best zombie movies ever. Apologies for films I've not been able to catch yet like Cockneys vs. Zombies or Re-Kill (and I've heard good things about both) and I did not include films such as say, The Evil Dead, From Beyond, Reanimator, and a slew of others, that technically have the dead returning to life. No "The Walking Dead" either as it's a movie list.
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- DirectorZack SnyderStarsSarah PolleyVing RhamesMekhi PhiferA nurse, a policeman, a young married couple, a salesman and other survivors of a worldwide plague that is producing aggressive, flesh-eating zombies, take refuge in a mega Midwestern shopping mall.Director Zack Snyder and writer James Gunn's remake of the George Romero classic (see spot #3) is remarkable for concentrating, not on their Usain Bolt zombies, but on the survivors. We watch as Ana, a nurse played by Sarah Polley, watches her life and her society crumble around her, even as she attempts to rebuild it, or at least save it, by joining with a band of the non-infected in a mega-mall. Jake Weber as Michael, a copier repairman who becomes an unexpected leader, brings a quiet, commanding presence to his role (Please give this actor better, bigger parts Hollywood!). As others refugees join them questions of humanity, mercy and self-preservation play out in unexpected and often poignant ways. Among the many memorable aspects of this film is the brutal, spot-on use of Johnny Cash's, "The Man Comes Around."
- DirectorGeorge A. RomeroStarsDuane JonesJudith O'DeaKarl HardmanA ragtag group of Pennsylvanians barricade themselves in an old farmhouse to remain safe from a horde of flesh-eating ghouls that are ravaging the Northeast of the United States.Childhood fears open George Romero assured, first directorial feature film, the now classic "Living Dead" as a brother teases his sister in a graveyard with a taunt from their youth, the now immortal lines "They're coming to get you Barbra." Yes, yes, they are, in this film that redefined zombies as often shambling but extremely successful members of a persistent collective, much more aligned in purpose and spirit than the living, who are a microcosm of a fractious, isolated America. Barbra, either hysterical or catatonic through most of the film, makes it to a farmhouse that stands out like a big metaphor for society, then and today, where she's joined by the only thinking person in the film, a black man named Ben (Duane Jones). They find a nuclear family and two teens hiding in the cellar and their real troubles begin. Almost universally panned on its release this spartan, independent film gained well-earned praise over time. The most memorable and shocking moment is the discovery in a basement of a young zombie girl gnawing on her father's arm.
- DirectorGeorge A. RomeroStarsDavid EmgeKen ForeeScott H. ReinigerDuring an escalating zombie epidemic, two Philadelphia SWAT team members, a traffic reporter and his TV executive girlfriend seek refuge in a secluded shopping mall.Before he pushed the zombie bully pulpit too far (see Land of the Dead) Romero could be counted on to make incisive societal commentary. In the original Dawn there is a distinct notion of unhinged consumption as a traffic reporter, his producer girlfriend and two SWAT team members take refuge in that symbol of unbridled want, a shopping mall. Even as zombies take chunks out of loved ones and strangers, as if they were sides of beef, the living loot and riot. It's a pretty bleak statement (except for the zombies aimless riding the escalators, which is pretty funny) but a relentless film filled with gore by makeup master Tom Savini. Also famous for its tagline: "When there's no more room in hell, the dead will walk the earth."
- DirectorLucio FulciStarsTisa FarrowIan McCullochRichard JohnsonStrangers searching for a young woman's missing father arrive at a tropical island where a doctor desperately seeks the cause and cure of a recent epidemic of the undead.Guillermo del Toro describes Lucio Fulci Zombie as a "masterpiece of madness" and he's not far wrong. From the very opening scene, where a gun is leveled at the camera/us to shoot a draped corpse rising from a table we know there will be no quarter for the viewer, and there isn't in this suspenseful gore-fest. It starts when a crewless boat (save a plus-sized zombie) arrives in New York sending the boat owner's daughter and a reporter on the trail to a voodoo friendly island in the Antilles called Matool. Known best for the legendary shark vs. zombie sequence (which starts as a zombie vs. naked bombshell scuba diver scene--really!), and a Lasik surgery scene performed with a wooden splinter, del Toro puts it best when he says, "No other movie matches it for shock value and sheer madness."
- DirectorEdgar WrightStarsSimon PeggNick FrostKate AshfieldThe uneventful, aimless lives of a London electronics salesman and his layabout roommate are disrupted by the zombie apocalypse.As scary as it is funny director Edgar Wright's zom-edy did us all the good and great favor of launching Simon Pegg and Nick Frost onto the world stage. The film is, ultimately and surprisingly, about friendship and constancy in the face of the need to mature. Pegg and Frost play two lifelong friends whose entire goal when the infected arrive is to get to their favorite pub, the Winchester. Trivia: Coldplay's Chris Martin shows up briefly promoting ZombAid.
- DirectorDan O'BannonStarsClu GulagerJames KarenDon CalfaWhen two bumbling employees at a medical supply warehouse accidentally release a deadly gas into the air, the vapors cause the dead to rise again as zombies.The dead in this film need brains to ease their pain, and they don't play by the rules. They keep on going even when shot in the head or decapitated. Director Dan O'Bannon has a great deal of fun with his zombies, who are reanimated after the chemicals in a cremated corpse gets into the water table. Veteran character actors Clu Gulager, Don Calfa, and James Karen (who is given a fairly touching death scene) share the screen with Scream Queens Linnea Quigley and Jewel Shepard. Whenever you hear someone say, "Brains..." they're likely either quoting this film or a show that's paying homage to it.
- DirectorBruce McDonaldStarsStephen McHattieLisa HouleGeorgina ReillyA radio host interprets the possible outbreak of a deadly virus which infects the small Ontario town he is stationed in.This unlikely, original and pretty terrific film is the product of Bruce McDonald and writer Tony Burgess (based upon his novel). In it Stephen McHattie plays Grant Mazzy, a once-popular shock-jock now banished and doing the morning show in the titular, small Ontario town. It's not only the middle of a bleak winter, people have begun to act oddly. First they repeat words mindlessly then go catatonic, then go berserk, turning into ravaging, unthinking zombie-esque creatures. Most of this film recaptures the delicious aural pleasures of Arch Obler's "Lights Out" radio program as most of the updates on the increasing menace are oral reports coming into the station.
- DirectorDanny BoyleStarsCillian MurphyNaomie HarrisChristopher EcclestonFour weeks after a mysterious, incurable virus spreads throughout the UK, a handful of survivors try to find sanctuary.I know, I know, they're infected with a rage virus and not necessarily zombies. But, let's face it, Danny Boyle made "fast" zombies cool (hat tip to The Return of the Living Dead). It also has a sterling cast including early-ish big screen starring roles for Cillian Murphy and Naomie Harris and a heart-breakingly great dad role for Brendan Gleeson.
- DirectorGary ShermanStarsJames FarentinoMelody AndersonJack AlbertsonSheriff Dan Gillis investigates eerie deaths in a sleepy coastal town.Some movies lodge in your memory cortex and hang on with bat claws. Such a movie is director Gary Sherman's Dead & Buried. Sherman, a designer and photographer, also made the early "cannibal family" flick Raw Meat, and he lends a malevolent, dank effect on every frame of this often terrifying, always creepy, film. James Farentino plays the sheriff of Potter's Bluff, a Rockwell-ian coastal town, who investigates a series of gory murders. That the townsfolk are in on the crimes is evident but what is continually surprising, and unnerving, is the reappearance of the corpses as part of the population. A scene with an upside-down car accident victim and a hapless man in full body cast (save for his exposed left eye) leave indelible impressions.
- DirectorPeter JacksonStarsTimothy BalmeDiana PeñalverElizabeth MoodyA young man's mother is bitten by a Sumatran rat-monkey. She gets sick and dies, at which time she comes back to life, killing and eating dogs, nurses, friends, and neighbors.Peter Jackson introduced us to the Sumatran rat monkey which infects a lovely little old lady with a disgusting zombie virus. I'd love to be able to forget the scene where her ear falls--plop--into her soup. This film includes a memorable dispatcher of the undead, an upturned lawn mower.
- DirectorRyûhei KitamuraStarsTak SakaguchiHideo SakakiChieko MisakaThere are 666 portals that connect this world to the other side. These are concealed from all human beings. Somewhere in Japan exists the 444th portal.... The forest of resurrection.It's probably also cheating to include Ryuhei Kitamura's very funny film since it could also be considered a samurai, kung-fu, gangster, re-animated corpse, supernatural action flick with black leather dusters (and conscious of its Matrix rip-off origins). Yakuza enforcers follow a convict into the Forest of Resurrection where they've been dumping their mob hits for years. Zombies not only move slowly in this cult classic, they shoot slowly too.