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With the popularity of TV shows like The Walking Dead and video games like “The Last of Us,” zombies have officially entered the current mainstream pop culture arena and don’t show signs of leaving. Originating from West African voodoo religion, the concept of a zombie came to America via the African slave trade (and America has dutifully appropriated the concept for its own profit, but that’s a discussion for another day). The voodoo religion still has cultural significance in the American South, particularly in New Orleans, as well as throughout South and Central America; definitions of what a zombie is in these cultures varies, but the most common and realistic explanation is that voodoo queens and priestesses would create “zombies” by administering a specific kind of herbal medicine that would lower an individual’s heart rate so much that they would appear dead, and then proceed to thoroughly terrify everyone when they broke out of their coffins. It was only a matter of time before this would become a popular horror movie trope.
In a rather interesting twist, a lot of zombie movies double as social commentary. This is probably because a zombie outbreak likely spells out the end of the world in a pretty horrifying way, and any extreme situation of that kind necessarily magnifies an individual’s or a society’s values. How would you react to a zombie apocalypse? How would your city or your country? These questions are at the forefront of any zombie film, and therefore those themes dovetail nicely with the other major appeal of any good horror movie: scaring the shit out of you.
Because, let’s face it, the genre of the zombie is one of the most fertile concepts in the entire horror catalogue. They are the anarchic, bloodthirsty monsters every horror movie ever has tried to create; with no emotions or values of their own, they exist (or, rather, ceased to exist) solely to terrorize, and killing one does not guarantee the extermination of the rest, creating an endless cycle of dread that can be used in a horror storyline in a number of different ways.
Night of the Living Dead
Director: George A. Romero
Stars: Duane Jones, Judith O’Dea, Marilyn Eastman, Karl Hardman, Judith Riley
Night of the Living Dead is the ur-zombie movie; to this day, we still consider how it depicted its undead as the archetypal way a zombie should look and behave. It was so shocking and terrifying to contemporary audiences that it sparked a controversy over the “moral health” of those who saw it, made it, and the filmmaking industry as a whole. Despite its black and white aesthetic and dated acting styles, it is the definition of #iconic. And it’s also pretty cool that Duane Jones, a black stage actor who played the protagonist and the most hero-like character possible in the circumstances, broke the contemporary mould as the lead (he dies in the end though, so, you know, take what you can get, I guess). The 1990 authorized remake is remarkably similar to the original, so there’s really no need to watch both.
Dawn of the Dead (1978)
Director: George A. Romero
Stars: David Emge, Ken Foree, Scott Reiniger, Gaylen Ross
One of those rare instances where the sequel might be actually better than the original, Dawn of the Dead is the second movie in George A. Romero’s zombie trilogy and takes place in a Pittsburgh that is already knee-deep into a zombie apocalypse. Four survivors are able to barricade a shopping mall and live relatively well off of all the merchandise they find inside. But it’s a predictably gory, horrifying free-for-all, with plenty of heads graphically blown right off, with an added pinch of cynical social commentary on materialism thrown in just for shits and giggles. Pro tip: If you’re up for it, also look into the 2004 Zack Snyder remake of the same name. It follows roughly the same storyline, though works hard to be considered its own movie with the addition of lots of new characters.
Shaun of the Dead (2004)
Director: Edgar Wright
Stars: Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Kate Ashfield, Lucy Davis, Dylan Moran
There are only two kinds of zombie movies: the ones that are genuinely out to stoke fear in the hearts of its audience and the ones who want to mine this fertile sub-genre of horror for laughs. And this British comedy from the same team that brought you Hot Fuzz and The World’s End is perhaps the best movie belonging to that second category. It’s excellent because it embraces the best, most wildly bloody parts of a good zombie movie, while also injecting some classically dry British humor to the production.
Juan of the Dead (2010)
Director: Alegando Brugués
Stars: Alexis Dias de Villegas, Jorge Molina, Andrea Duro, Andros Perugorría, Jazz Vilá
By now, this title construction should always read both as an homage to the Romero films that created the architecture for zombie films, yet also as a sure sign that you’re in for a parody of some sort. In this iteration of the zombie apocalypse, Cuba is being overrun by undead monsters that Juan, a deadbeat dad, is convinced are capitalist dissidents. Rather paradoxically, Juan and his buddy Lazaro start a zombie-exterminating business: “Juan de los Muertos: We kill your loved ones!” This thread of social and political commentary is woven throughout the film, making this an interesting foreign entry into the zombie genre. Still, though, the entertainment comes mostly from clumsy and clueless Juan and Lazaro hapless attempt at surviving the uprising.
Zombieland (2006)
Director: Ruben Fleischer
Stars: Woody Harrelson, Jesse Eisenberg, Emma Stone, Abigail Breslin
Zombieland is one of the most creative and genuinely entertaining modern interpretations of a zombie apocalypse. It’s a pretty refreshing take: When a mutant form of mad-cow disease has zombie-fied and killed the majority of the United States, survivors are weary to form any kind of bond for fear that anyone could die at any moment. In light of that, people have dropped their real names and begun identifying themselves by the cities where they come from. Four remaining survivors—Columbus, Tallahassee, Wichita, and Little Rock—eventually group together and make their way to an abandoned amusement park for one last hurrah. Thankfully, the movie does not skimp out on the bloody, maniacal violence that anyone should expect from a zombie film. Also, Bill Murray’s role in this movie is the greatest cameo of all time. Don’t @ me.
The Serpent and the Rainbow (1988)
Director: Wes Craven
Stars: Bill Pullman, Cathy Tyson, Zakes Mokae, Paul Winfield
As noted, the concept of zombies comes from Haitian folklore by way of the West African religion known as voodoo. We’ve pretty much bastardized the whole thing in modern American culture, but this movie at least attempts to associate zombie-ism with its original cultural and religious roots, and for that, it’s commendable. A Harvard researcher is tasked with isolating whatever herb or drug it is that the Haitians are using to create “zombies.” In the hands of horror gawd Wes Craven (Nightmare on Elm Street, Last House on the Left), though, this anthropological mission becomes a sinister journey through a little-understood culture and highly volatile situation (and by volatile, I mean waking up next to a headless woman and having one’s balls nailed to a goddamn chair).
Zombi 2 (1979)
Director: Lucio Fulci
Stars: Tisa Farrow, Ian McCulloch, Richard Johnson, Al Cliver, Auretta Gay
Although this movie also attempts to associate the zombie apocalypse with its cultural roots, it is a decidedly less “cultural” flick than it is a pretty straightforward excuse to raise your heart rate for about 90 minutes. It might be the goriest movie on this list; in fact, its commitment to its effects (which, for a movie released in 1979, more or less hold up for today’s audience) results in an outright shocker of a film, with a zombie vs. shark fight scene and an eye-gouging scene to boot. It is seen as one of the films that spearheaded the popularity of the zombie movie in Italy, where the genre was wholeheartedly embraced.
28 Days Later (2002)
Director: Danny Boyle
Stars: Cillian Murphy, Naomie Harris, Brendan Gleeson, Megan Burns, Christopher Eccleston
When a highly contagious “rage” virus is accidentally released on the unsuspecting population of London, nearly the entire city is infected. The victims succumb to the virus impressively fast, and it’s transmitted by any contact with infected blood or saliva. Although the infected are not zombies in the returned from the dead kind of way, they are just as quick to locate and attack anyone not yet on the same wavelength. Like all other apocalyptic movies, the plot follows a small group of survivors who are on a mission to find help—but unlike most other movies of this kind, the “help” they find is just another kind of terror.
Train to Busan (2016)
Director: Yeon Sang-ho
Stars: Gong Yoo, Ma Dong-seok, Jung Yu-mi, Kim Su-an, Kim Eui-sung
If you’re trying to learn something from the plots of these zombie movies, number one on your list should be that the more confined the space you are in, the harder the whole zombie apocalypse thing will be for you. Which is why the premise of this Korean movie—zombies on a moving train—is so frightening. The result is a fast-paced ride that zooms right past “normalized” zombie behavior, creating its own unique and nightmarish blend of characteristics of what works and doesn’t work against the monsters. What elevates Train to Busan, though, is that it manages to include elements of truly effective emotional character development and social class issues without feeling overcrowded.
REC (2007)
Directors: Jaume Balagueró, Paco Plaza
Stars: Manuela Velasco, Ferrán Terraza, Jorge-Yamam Serrano, Pablo Rosso, David Vert
Post-Blair Witch Project, found footage films became a real hit or miss sub-genre. The technique can often feel like a gimmick, thereby stripping it of all its potential to really scare an audience. But this Spanish zombie movie nails it. Depicting a Barcelona apartment building in the throes of a zombie virus outbreak, the found footage format adds to the drama by injecting it with a healthy, spine-chilling sense of confusion.