Top Ten Greatest Zombie Movies

As Halloween is approaching my mind is turning more and more to scary movies.  I love all kinds of horror flicks: Psycho Killers (both realistic and supernatural ones), Vampires, Werewolves, Big Apes and Bigger Lizards, Mummies, Trolls, Aliens, Goblins, and Sharks.  I’m not so much into the splatterporn/tortureporn stuff like those cheap Hotel movies or the Wood Cutting Implement series, but I’m not above gore – Texas Chainsaw Massacre jumps forward as a classic example of greatness and gore sharing the same space. 

But of all the subgenres of horror, one has dominated the spotlight in recent years: Zombie and Zombie Apocalypse movies. 

Thus, to begin our countdown to Halloween (36 Days!), I present the Ten Greatest Zombie Movies (in chronological order). 

To begin, the Rules: a Zombie isn’t a Zombie isn’t a Zombie.  White Zombie, I Walked With a Zombie, Cast a Deadly Spell, House of the Dead, and Reanimator, all feature zombies of different varieties.  None of them make this list.  Nor do Frankenstein’s monster, Mummies, or Vampires, all technically Walking Dead, but not zombies.  This list is of Romero, Russo, and O’Bannon style zombies only, MTV style zombies make the cut if they are true zombies, but not if they are only zombie like (28 Days Later). 

1.  Night of the Living Dead (1968) – the first, the classic, the film all other zombie films are judged on – and it wasn’t even supposed to be zombies.  Written by George A. Romero and John A. Russo, Night was originally supposed to be Ghouls - the traditional flesh-eating undead creatures. 

2. Dawn of the Dead (1978) – Romero and Russo split company after Night each wanting to take the series in different directions.  Romero’s follow-up was Dawn of the Dead, produced by Italian horror master Dario Argento.  It closely follows the same themes and tone as Night and is filled with Romero’s brand of humor and social commentary. 

3. Zombie (1979) – In Italy, Argento reedited Dawn and released it as Zombi, which spawned a series of sequels of its own, beginning with Lucio Fulci’s Zombi 2 or – as it was released in America – Zombie.  Fulci’s film – like Argento’s reedit of Dawn - is more serious and more graphically gory than the Romero films.  Iconic scenes include a woman getting her eye gouged out and a fight between a zombie and a shark.  Fulci went on to make more of his own – unrelated – zombie films and the Zombi series continued with one more official film and dozens of unofficial ones. 

4. Return of the Living Dead (1985) – While Romero continued the Dead films, Russo began writing novels, starting with an adaptation of Night and followed by Return of the Living Dead.  Russo’s Zombies stayed relatively true to the classic Walking Dead zombies.  But this 1985 film adaptation of the novel did not.  Anyone who thinks zombies feed on human brains has seen, or at least heard references to, Dan O’Bannon’s horror/black comedy Return of the Living Dead.  Famous for its Ghouls’ hunger – and moaning – for brains, as well as 80’s scream queen Linnea Quigley’s – a hum – “wardrobe,” Return spawned two true sequels – one funny, one not – and two in-name-only sequels – not funny and not really O’Bannon style zombies. 

5. Night of the Living Dead (1990) – Romero, along with frequent collaborator/gore effects god Tom Savini as director, returned to the original material to remake Night mostly to prevent someone else from doing it.  Not as creepy as the original film, not as fun as Return, Savini’s Night is good for a few scares and far exceeds the later 2006 remake. 

6. Resident Evil (2002) – This flick – more action than horror – based on the video game franchise of the same name, is more flash than substance, but – along with its multiple sequels (which are only in various degrees zombie movies – some are more in line with not zombie movies featuring zombies) – is among the finest examples of MTV Zombies and is a very fun film. 

7. Dawn of the Dead (2004) - Zack Snyder’s Dawn remake is an even better example of MTV Zombies – fast moving, scary (if cheaply), intense, somehow less realistic than the Romero zombie.  The two Dawns are among – if not the - greatest zombie movies of all time.  However, Dawn was only the second greatest zombie film of ’04…

8.  Shaun of the Dead (2004) – The film that made slow-moving, flesh-eating, rotting corpses cool again…and funny.  Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg’s “romantic comedy…with zombies” was, along with Snyder’s Dawn responsible for reigniting the zombie brushfire.  Shaun is the Zombie genre’s Scream - a serious, but funny, loving attack on the conventions of the zombie movie.  It even goes so far as to point out you’re not supposed to call them “zombies.”

9.  Land of the Dead (2005) – Romero’s studio zombie film which was made thanks to the two films immediately above.  Sometimes called Romero’s greatest zombie film, sometimes not looked at so favorably.  Land is filled with the “biting” social commentary of Romero’s former films and cameo’s several Romero regulars, but also features some name actors and a budget. 

10.  Diary of the Dead (2008) – Romero’s follow up to Land and possibly a reboot of the Dead series, Diary is my personal favorite of the second Dead trilogy films.  It comments not only on society – social media especially – and commercialism – horror movies do better than serious documentaries – but also on MTV zombies – “I told you dead things move slow!”

So there you have it.  Ten Zombie films to sink your teeth into.  Did your favorite make the list?  Or was it left out?  Was my list too Romero heavy? Not enough?  Do you like Romero zombies, O’Bannon zombies, or MTV zombies?  Or are flesh-eating zombies lame and there should be more voodoo zombie flicks. 

Let me know your Zombie preferences in the comments below or on my twitter page @nerdisnewcool. 

Also, for a long but incomplete list of zombie films see This Page on Wikipedia. 

Nerd Is the New Cool, signing off.