Ah, Zombies! Shoot them in the brain! Remove their head! Don’t let them eat you! Zombie movies have been around a long time, but ever since 28 Days Later and Shawn of the Dead, there has been a reawakening of their popularity. I’m not saying that these are necessarily THE best zombie films ever in the history of ever. But, they are a few of my favorites so far.  I’ll discuss my six favorite and why I like them.

• Day of the Dead (1985)
  “And now the darkest day of horror the world has ever seen”
  • If we’re talking about zombie movies, we have to include a movie by the genre master, George A. Romero. This isn’t his first one, nor is it hist last, but in my opinion, one of his best. In this movie the survivors of the zombie apocalypse are held up on an island in an underground, military storage facility. At the beginning, a small group of the survivors use a helicopter to check out a city near the shore, but don’t find any and just find a lot of really dead people. The main plot revolves around a scientist looking for a cure...but it gets really weird from there as the scientist kinda goes crazy and instead tries to domesticate his pet zombie named Bud. Bud quickly becomes the most interesting character in this movie as he begins to learn and “remember” certain about being human.
  • You might remember them trying to do that in the third Resident Evil movie (Extinction)...and it didn’t go so well. Be warned, this move is ridiculously violent and gory. It was originally rated X FOR VIOLENCE. There is no sex in this movie, rated X for zombie gore, be warned.
    
    
• 28 Days Later (2002)
  ”The Days Are Numbered”
  • Now...the “zombies” in 28 Days Later...aren’t really zombies. Yes, they do run around all crazy and want to eat you. But they’re not dead people. They’re still “alive” in the traditional sense, just not away of who they are anymore. It’s more like they all got a severe case of rabies and are now spreading it to each other because...well, because. The fact that they’re not dead is also why they’re super freekin’ fast and will eat you before you can say “holy crap, is that a zombie...no, just some weird guy...omg! Why are you chewing on my epidermis!?”
  • However, the things in 28 Days are close enough to be zombies to be considered a zombie flick...so, it’s one of my favorites.
  • 28 Days Later was one of the first zombie movies to be about something else other than zombies....or so everyone said at the time it came out. But what everyone doesn’t understand, is that all zombie movies are about something other than zombies. Every Romero zombie flick is an allegory to our own human addictions or social issues. In one, the only black survivor is shot at the end because the police assume he’s a zombie (of course the black guy is a zombie,...’cus he’s black...?). Another Romero zombie flick is about communism, another about the stagnant corporate culture (that’s why everyone was wearing suits and ties).
  • But, I’ll give it to 28 Days Later to bring up what might happen in a world without hope and lack of the opposite sex to continue the human presence on earth. What what might happen? Rape, of course. Because, of course military men are all sex crazed male chauvinists who care nothing of women’s rights. (this is heavy sarcasm, of course).
  • But, aside from my gripe about the “twist”, it’s actually a pretty dang good movie.
  • Here’s a little trivia for ya, the dude who played Scarecrow in Batman Begins is the main guy in this.
    
    
• Undead (2003)
  “Crazy has come to town for a visit!”
  • This is one of those movies you just have to take a chance with. No big name actor, not an established zombie movie series, and a pretty much unknown director. But sometimes you get luck, and with this one, I did.
    
  • I rented this ‘cus it didn’t look bad, and kinda looked cool. Then I started watching it, and it was really awful, and by that I mean, extremely gory. There is a scene near the beginning where they are fighting zombies in a house. A bunch of zombies walk through the wall, one of them is either cut or damaged from before, or one of our heroes fought back at him. Either way, the poor zombie’s stomach kinda flops out and it has to hold it to make sure it doesn’t slop to the floor. Gross!
  • As people are just trying to survive and escape the zombie infestation, a wall is discovered where no one can cross. No one knows who put the wall there (it's hundreds of feet high) and no one can come in or out of the wall. Mysterious....
  • This is pretty interesting movie with probably the best twist for a zombie flick I’ve ever seen. I won’t give it away, but, you should definitely check it out.
    
    
    
• Shawn of the Dead (2004)
  “You Got Red On You”
  • Ah...Shawn. In my humble opinion, this movie gets better after watching it several hundred times. The entire beginning is all setup and for-shadowing for the rest of the movie. It’s a movie, neigh, film that must be watched at least twice.
  • It doesn’t actually get that violent right up until the end...when someone gets their limps ripped off. This is the first well received, light hearted zombie romantic comedy, and, in my opinion, why we’re seeing much more zombie stuff all over the place than we have before.
  • If you’ve never seen it, watch it, it’s just a pleasure. I  wanna see it again just writing about it.
  • And definately don't miss the DVD outtakes, these guys really have fun making movies.
    
  • Here’s some trivia for you. This movie was written and put out by the same crew as the short lived British television series Spaced, who are also responsible for the movies Hot Fuzz and Paul.
    
    
• Fido (2006)
  “He'll steal your heart... or eat it!”
  • Fido is the result of two zombie flicks before it, Shawn of the Dead and Day of the Dead. Where the main zombie in Day of the Dead started to become somewhat likable, Fido becomes down right lovable. The movie is set in a post zombie war time, (very reminiscent of a nostalgic, post WWII, Red Scare, 50’s era)  where a “cure” to the zombie problem has been discovered. A scientist created a control collar in order suppress the undead’s tendency to eat people. With the collar on, the zombies are easily controlled and can be used to do menial houshold chores. This leads incredibly funny quotes, like “What the neighbors think if we don’t have a zombie?”
  • Carrie Ann Moss (you know, Trinity from the Matrix), plays a really funny zombie sympathising  house wife.
  • Billy Connelly  plays an excellent pet zombie...I’d have to say, out of all the zombies in all the movies I’ve seen, he’s my favorite.
  • If you’ve ever seen Lassie, or references to it, you’ll catch the fact that the boy in this movie is named “Timmy”, and when his mother needs to know where he is, and asks the family zombie where he might be, Fido responds just how you might think a zombie who cares for his master would. Hilarious!
  • If you’ve never seen it, you absolutely must, it’s such a zombie flick.
    
    
• Zombieland (2009)
  “Survival rule #21: Avoid strip clubs.”
  • Taking after Shawn of the Dead in it’s mostly comical take on surviving a zombie apocalypse (though, there are a few serious moments), this is a good addition to the long line of decent zombie flicks.
  • Jesse Eisenberg (Social Network) makes a good nerdy, nervous, by the numbers type of zombie survivor. His list of rules for survival makes for a fun narrative. And, although his character as a nerdy and nervous guy is a bit type cast for Eisenberg, it works for this movie.
  • Woddy Harrelson is a perfect zombie killing enthusiast. He’s like that lovable not-so-responsible deer hunter you know, that may drink a bit while using a firearm, and may shoot at pretty much everything that moves in the woods, and probably gets extremely excited when he just blows away a little bunny rabbit with both barrels of a double barrelled shot gun,  but you trust him never shoot your face off accidentally...much.
  • Emmy Stone, in my humble opinion, is quickly becoming a big star and I wouldn’t be surprised if she becomes an A list actress scoring very high payed romantic comedy roles. You might remember her from Easy A (very good), she was a good “hot girl” chick in this movie, basically just there to let Eisenberg complain about attractive women and how they don’t ever go for the nice guys who may or may not be extremely physically attractive (well put Eisenberg!).
  • If you’ve never seen this one, a good watch. I hope more zombie movies are made like this one...perhaps with a bigger budget though.