How zombie flicks teach you to survive

It's hard to reconcile the Zack Snyder who made "Dawn of the Dead" with the Zack Snyder who gave us the "Justice League" #SnyderCut, the "Watchmen" adaptation that stuck too close to the source material, and the "300" and "Sucker Punch" movies that were more about style than substance.

Which is not to argue that Zack Snyder's 2004 adaptation of George Romero's 1978 picture with the same title has any sense of aesthetic. The first twelve minutes of the film act as an opening salvo for his career and include one of the most impressive opening title sequences in the annals of the genre's history. This introduction provides a fantastic dynamic counterpoint to the movie that "Dawn of the Dead" is sometimes linked to: Danny Boyle's "28 Days Later," mostly because to the involvement of zombies that are referred to as "quick."

The remainder of "Dawn of the Dead" never quite matches these first few minutes, but the writing by future "Guardians of the Galaxy" director James Gunn keeps things entertaining all the way through. It should be emphasized that replicating a classic was certain to fail (a fate Snyder would repeat when tackling Alan Moore's work and the whole DC world), but by forsaking Romero's social criticism, Snyder was able to carve out his own part of the cinematic zombie cosmos.

It's a genre corner he plans to return to in 2021 with Netflix's "Army of the Dead."

Set in a post-apocalyptic Zombie apocalypse brought on by the enigmatic street narcotic "Natas." We follow one guy as he hunts Flesh Eaters for fun and atonement while simultaneously fleeing his past.

After seeing a small group of survivors who are running short on supplies, he resolves to assist them. A unexpected onslaught by the Flesh Eaters, however, causes them to flee and puts the Hunter's talents to the test.

The trailer for Zombie Hunter makes it seem like the kind of bloody B-movie fun that everyone would love seeing. We're curious to see how director K. King pulls off an homage to the grindhouse style of films like Machete and Planet Terror. With the eye-catching poster, the marketing team has done an excellent job.



Little Monsters is an unexpected movie from Lupita Nyong'o, who is best known for her dramatic roles. But it looks like she's having a lot of fun as a kindergarten teacher whose class is on a field trip when a zombie outbreak happens. The 2019 movie was the actress's second horror movie, but it wasn't as well known as Jordan Peele's "Us," which came out the same year.

But she is definitely up to the challenge. According to the official press materials, the movie is "dedicated to all the kindergarten teachers who inspire kids to learn, give them confidence, and keep them from being eaten by zombies." Yes, that pretty much says it all. Josh Gad plays an annoying, famous child entertainer, and Alexander England plays a snobby, washed-up musician who is taking his nephew on a field trip and is in love (or maybe just lust) with Lupita Nyong'o.

As a result, you get an unique horror—romantic comedy mix that amps up both genres.

Since that time, zombies have not shown any signs of slowing down. (There are even reports that some of them have learned how to run.) The Walking Dead is an easy giant to point towards, but in the realm of cinema, zombies have made their way into found footage films (like "REC"), romantic comedies (like "Warm Bodies"), and grindhouse throwbacks (like "The Walking Dead") (Planet Terror).

Meanwhile, in reaction to Romero's works, a global subgenre arose.

The Italian horror maestro Lucio Fulci took the idea and ran with it, first with Zombi 2 (aka Zombi) and then with his far more strange and experimental "Gates of Hell" trilogy.

Fans of Romero's work who built on his foundation, such as filmmakers Dan O'Bannon, Fred Dekker, and Stuart Gordon, toyed with the genre's constructs, exploring and broadening what a zombie movie might be. The popularity of zombies quickly faded after that.

The undead had been a fixture of horror films, but they now mainly feature in sequels (such as Return of the Living Dead and Zombie) and low-budget B-movies (such as My Boyfriend's Back, Cemetery Man, and Dead Alive).

Exists any alternative starting point? White Zombie popularized the Hollywood concept of Haitian voodoo undead decades before the original George Romero zombie.

White Zombie is currently accessible for watching on YouTube, and it can also be found in practically any budget zombie film collection. Due to the studio's lack of subtlety at the time, Bela Lugosi plays a witch doctor who is actually nicknamed "Murder." After his portrayal in Dracula, Lugosi was just a year away from his status as one of Universal's most popular horror performers.

Lugosi, who looks like Svengali, uses his different potions and powders to turn a young woman who is about to get married into a zombie so that she will do what a cruel plantation owner wants her to do, and... well, it's pretty dry and wooden stuff. Lugosi is the only bright spot, as expected, but you had to start somewhere. After White Zombie, there were a few voodoo zombie movies made in Hollywood every so often for many years. Most of them are now in the public domain.

A particular musical project that Rob Zombie was working on was, of course, also influenced by the film. You'll see it included heavily on some lists of the "greatest zombie movies," but let's face it: in 2016, the vast majority of viewers aren't going to get much out of viewing a movie like this one. It is virtually entirely due to its historical relevance that this item has been given the distinction of being ranked number 50.

Planet Terror is the better half of the Grindhouse double-bill that Robert Rodriguez concocted with Quentin Tarantino. Planet Terror tells the story of a go-go dancer, a bioweapon gone awry, and Texan townsfolk turned into shuffling, pustulous monsters. Planet Terror was directed by Robert Rodriguez. Planet Terror has its exploding tongue firmly entrenched in its rotten cheek, leaning strongly upon its B-movie heritage, with missing reels, rough cuts, and hammy overdubbed dialogue.

In the end, the severed arm of Rose McGowan's character Cherry Darling is replaced with a machine gun in a ridiculously entertaining climax with lots of blood and oozing effects. Gather around, people, because I want to use your brains to grow mine.

Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead seems to have aspects characteristic of Troma films. It will be a mountain of trash. It will get really bloody. There will be no aesthetic restrictions or considerations. As with every previous Troma film, the real question is whether you find it boring. In this instance, "absolutely not" is the correct answer.

It's smart in its social critique of commercial society, in an obvious manner. Is that why you're watching a movie about zombie chickens at a KFC-style restaurant on a Native American burial ground? Nope. Troma movies are about embracing gore, scatological comedy, and low-production qualities and enjoying thoughtless narrative.

As a consequence, Poultrygeist is just 103 minutes of filthy, gruesome, bawdy mayhem.

Even though zombie movies have been around for more than 80 years (White Zombie came out in 1932, and I Walked With a Zombie came out in 1943), most people agree that the subgenre didn't really start to take shape until 1968, when George A. Romero released Night of the Living Dead.

Night, a low-budget independent film, attracted audiences with its dark tale, horrible violence, progressive casting, social commentary, and, of course, its legendary hordes of gaunt, voracious zombies. Romero, the acknowledged maestro of the zombie genre, went on to make five more films in the Dead series, the best of which are discussed here.

It took some time for Night of the Living Dead to gestate and gain cache in the cultural consciousness before a huge wave of significant American zombie movies bloomed in the late 1970s and especially in the 1980s. This is despite the fact that Night of the Living Dead was a significant cultural influence. Shock Waves, which was released not long before Dawn of the Dead drastically enhanced the appeal of zombies as horror villains, is said to be the first of all the "Nazi zombie" films. It came out just before Dawn of the Dead.

Honestly, it's a dull, slow-moving movie for most of its length. It's about a group of lost boaters who end up on a mysterious island where a Nazi experiment has turned the crew of a sunken SS submarine into zombies. In the same year that he sneered at Princess Leia in Star Wars: Episode IV, A New Hope, Peter Cushing played an SS commander who was badly cast and looked like he was going crazy. Hard to believe there's a New Hope!

Since then, there have been at least 16 Nazi zombie movies (definitely more than one may imagine), making this one noteworthy for being the first to combine the portmanteau of renowned cinematic antagonists.

Shock Waves is ultimately responsible for the success of films like the Dead Snow trilogy.

It's hard to make a really new zombie movie, but Colm McCarthy's version of Mike Carey's novel The Girl With All the Gifts is a smart, thoughtful reimagining that also has genre thrills.

In this scenario, the zombie state is brought on by a fungal virus reminiscent to that seen in The Last of Us, which has caused the majority of the people to become 'hungries.' But it is kept mostly in the background of the plot, which instead centers on a young girl named Melanie. Melanie is being taught an odd curriculum by Gemma Arterton's character, Helen, in a facility that is highly armed.

Melanie is a'second-generation' hungry; she craves human flesh but is also capable of thought and emotion, and her very existence may contain the secret to survival.

The Draugr, a famous undead creature from Scandinavian folklore famed for its violent determination to defending its hoard of gold, is included in this gore-fest, giving it a Scandinavian touch. In Dead Snow, these draugr are really ex-SS troops who harassed and stole from the people of a Norwegian village before being slain or driven into the frigid mountains.

Certainly, this earns Dead Snow uniqueness marks. It is also an extremely humorous, bloody, and satisfyingly violent film with aspects of Evil Dead and "teen sex/slasher" films. And if you enjoy it, there's more to come in Dead Snow: Red vs. Dead, the sequel.

The narrative behind The Dead Next Door is one of those examples that may be more intriguing than the picture itself: Sam Raimi produced it using a share of the earnings from Evil Dead II to enable pal J. R. Bookwalter to direct the low-budget zombie epic of his dreams. For some reason, Raimi is listed as an executive producer under the moniker "The Master Cylinder," while Evil Dead's Bruce Campbell doubles as a voiceover for not one, but two characters, since the whole picture seems to have been redubbed in post-production. This, predictably, gives The Dead Next Door an aura of dreamlike unreality, and that's before we even consider that the picture was SHOT ENTIRELY ON SUPER 8, rather than 32 mm film.

What you have in The Dead Next Door, then, is an original take on the zombie apocalypse: A low-budget zombie action-drama with both cringeworthy amateur acting and unexpectedly polished sequences.

An "elite squad" of zombie killers finds a cult that worships the dead, but you don't watch this movie for the story, you watch it for the blood. The Dead Next Door was only made to try out gore effects and realistic beheadings. At times, it feels like a low-budget version of Peter Jackson's psychotic bloodletting in Dead Alive, but with jokes that are so obvious that they're scary. "Who is this Dr. Savini guy anyway?" How about "Officer Raimi"? Commander Carpenter?

They're all in a zombie movie that looks and feels like it was produced only for the director's family. Even still, there's a certain allure to that type of messy intimacy.

It's crazy to see how popular zombie movies have become. For a long time, monsters mostly lived in the worlds of Voodoo mythology, radioactive humanoids, and the iconic images of E.C. comics. When they were alive, zombies were not the flesh-eating, (original site) cannibalistic monsters we know and love today.

Cemetery Man (also known as Dellamorte Dellamore), directed by Dario Argento's student Michele Soavi, is a bizarre, psychedelic head trip in which the undead are portrayed as more of a nuisance than a serious threat. In Cemetery Man, an adaptation of the comic book series Dylan Dog, Everett portrays the misanthropic gravedigger Francesco Dellamorte, who would rather be among the dead than with living people. The issue is why he would not. For promoting the incorrect perception that he is sterile, the living are jerks.

There is one catch, however: the deceased will not remain buried in his cemetery. When he meets a beautiful widow (Falchi) at her husband's burial, Dellamorte falls head over heels for her, romances her in the gloomy corridors of his ossuary, and before they know it, they're naked and steaming it up on top of her husband's grave. That's only the beginning of the strangeness.