It's not easy to square the Zack Snyder who directed "Dawn of the Dead" with the Zack Snyder who gave us the "Justice League" #SnyderCut, the far-too-faithful "Watchmen" adaption, and the style-over-substance pair of "300" and "Sucker Punch."Which is not to say that Snyder's 2004 remake of George Romero's 1978 movie of the same name, also called Dawn of the Dead, is not stylish. The first 12 minutes set the tone for the rest of his career, and the opening title sequence is one of the best in the history of the genre. This intro is a great physical counterpoint to the movie that "Dawn of the Dead" is often compared to: Danny Boyle's "28 Days Later," mostly because both movies have zombies that move quickly.
Dawn of the Dead's opening minutes are its high point, and although the rest of the picture never quite matches them, the script by future "Guardians of the Galaxy" director James Gunn keeps things interesting. Snyder avoided the tragedy that would inevitably follow his following take on Alan Moore's work and the DC universe as a whole by bypassing Romero's societal critique and establishing his own unique take on the zombie genre.
Netflix's "Army of the Dead" will see him return to the genre in 2021.
The action takes place in a post-apocalyptic zombie wasteland brought about by the unknown street drug known as "Natas." As the story progresses, we follow one guy as he hunts Flesh Eaters for fun and atonement while also attempting to escape his past.
After colliding with a small group of survivors who are quickly running out of resources, he decides to aid them. A surprise attack by the flesh-eating Flesh Eaters forces them to run and tests the talents of the Hunter.
The trailer for Zombie Hunter suggests that it will be the type of gruesome B-movie fun that everyone will enjoy. We're interested to see how filmmaker K. King handles a tribute to grindhouse classics like Machete and Planet Terror. The marketing team did an outstanding job with the eye-catching poster.
Lupita Nyong'o's Little Monsters is an unexpected dramatic film. She's having a blast as a kindergarten teacher whose class meets zombies on a field trip. The 2019 picture was the actress' second horror attempt (after Jordan Peele's "Us").
But I have no doubt that she can handle it. To to the official press materials, "dedicated to all the kindergarten teachers who push youngsters to study, build confidence in them, and save them from being eaten by zombies." And I think that about covers it. Alexander England portrays an effete, has-been musician who is in love (or maybe lust) with Lupita Nyong'o, and Josh Gad plays an annoying, renowned kid performer in "Little Monsters."
It's a horror-romantic comedy mix that energizes both genres.
Since then, the zombie outbreak hasn't showed any signs of abating. (It is said that a few of them have even picked up running.) Although "The Walking Dead" is the most obvious example, zombies have appeared in everything from discovered footage movies (like "REC") to romantic comedies (like "Warm Bodies") to homages to the classics (like "The Walking Dead") (Planet Terror).
At the same time, all over the world, a whole genre grew up around Romero's works.
Legendary Italian horror filmmaker Lucio Fulci went with the concept, first in his sequel Zombi (also known as Zombi) and later in his experimental and radically bizarre "Gates of Hell" trilogy.
Fans of Romero's work, like directors Dan O'Bannon, Fred Dekker, and Stuart Gordon, built on what he had started. They messed with the genre's rules and tried out new ideas for what a zombie movie could be. After that, zombies lost popularity very quickly.
Outside of horror sequels (Return of the Living Dead, Zombie) and low-budget scare films, the zombies no longer wandered the world.
Is there another place to begin? White Zombie popularized the Hollywood concept of Haitian voodoo undead decades before the original George Romero ghoul.
White Zombie is currently accessible to watch on YouTube, and it can also be found in practically any cheap zombie movie collection. Because the studio was still a few years away from establishing subtlety at the time, Bela Lugosi plays a witch doctor who is actually nicknamed "Murder." Lugosi had only been a year since his portrayal in Dracula cemented his reputation as one of Universal's go-to 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, as you might expect, the best part, but I guess you had to start somewhere. After White Zombie, a number of other voodoo zombie movies came out of Hollywood. Most of these movies are now free to watch online.
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 Robert Rodriguez's Grindhouse double-bill with Quentin Tarantino, telling the tale of a go-go dancer, a botched bioweapon, and Texan townspeople transformed into shuffling, pustulous creatures. Planet Terror has its exploding tongue firmly entrenched in its rotten cheek, leaning heavily towards its B-movie heritage with missing reels, rough editing, and hammy overdubbed dialogue.
Its over-the-top gore and oozing effects are repulsive, and it builds to a wildly hilarious ending in which Rose McGowan's heroine has her leg replaced by a machine gun. I'll devour your brains for information.
Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead promises a few Troma mainstays. It'll be completely tacky. It will be bloody. It will have no limits and no sense of taste. The true question, like with every Troma production, is "Is it boring?" In this case, the answer is "absolutely not."
It's billed as a "zom-com musical," and it's a little bit witty in its social satire of consumer culture—in an obvious manner. But is it really the reason you're seeing a movie about zombie chickens that come to life in a KFC-style restaurant constructed on an old Native American burial ground? I didn't believe so. Watching a Troma film entails accepting the gore, scatological comedy, and cheap production qualities, as well as just enjoying some thoughtless narrative.
As a consequence, Poultrygeist is just 103 minutes of filthy, gruesome, raunchy lunacy.
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), Night of the Living Dead by George A. Romero in 1968 is generally seen as the start of the subgenre as we know it today.
The budget for the independent film Night was slightly over $100,000. The film's unforgettable hordes of gaunt, voracious zombies were a big part of why it was so successful, but the film's obtuse plot, shocking gore, progressive casting, and societal commentary all contributed. "Godfather of Zombies" director George A. Romero directed five further installments in the Dead franchise. This book covers the two most famous of these flicks, Dawn of the Dead and Day of the Dead.
Despite Night of the Living Dead's effect, it took some time for the picture to mature and earn cultural cachet before a massive wave of notable American zombie films exploded in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Shock Waves may very well be the first of all the "Nazi zombie" films, arriving just before Dawn of the Dead drastically increased the appeal of zombies as horror adversaries.
A gang of wayward boaters find themselves on a remote island where a wrecked SS submarine has discharged its undead crew, a Nazi experiment. Peter Cushing plays a miscast and addled SS Commander the same year he sneered at Princess Leia in Star Wars: A New Hope?
Since then, there have been at least 16 Nazi zombie movies, which makes this one notable for merging two famous cinema villains first.
Shock Waves is to thank for how well the Dead Snow movies did.It's not easy to create a fresh perspective on the zombie film, but Colm McCarthy's The Girl With All The Gifts, based on Mike Carey's novel, succeeds while also giving some enjoyable genre thrills.
This particular outbreak of zombieism is caused by a fungal infection, similar to the one that wiped out humanity in The Last of Us. The plot centers on Melanie, a young girl being taught by Gemma Arterton's character, Helen, in a unique way in a highly secured institution.
Melanie, a so-called "second-generation" hungry, can think and feel, and the simple fact that she exists may be the most important factor in determining the course of future events. She still craves eating human flesh.
This splatterfest adds features of the Draugr, an undead beast from Scandinavian legend that zealously defends its treasure trove, to the standard zombie. In the case of Dead Snow, these draugr are former SS troopers who tormented and robbed a Norwegian town until being done in or driven into the frigid mountains by the inhabitants themselves.
Definitely a point for Dead Snow's originality there. It has elements of "teen sex/slasher" flicks and the "Evil Dead," yet it's also quite funny, disgusting, and satisfyingly brutal. The movie is enjoyable all around. In addition, if you like the first installment, Dead Snow, the tale will continue in Dead Snow 2: Red vs. Dead.
The history of a film might be more fascinating than the film itself, and this is the case with The Dead Next Door. Sam Raimi used the money from Evil Dead II to bankroll its development, allowing his friend J. R. Bookwalter to achieve his concept of a low-budget zombie epic. The whole film seems to have been redubbed in post-production, and for some reason, Raimi is credited as an executive producer under the alias "The Master Cylinder," while Evil Dead's Bruce Campbell serves as the voiceover for not one, but two characters. Because of this, The Dead Next Door exudes a dreamy surrealism, and that's before we even get to the fact that it was filmed completely on Super 8 rather than 32 mm film.
The Dead Next Door provides something unheard of in this genre: a grainy, low-budget zombie action-drama with cringe-worthy amateur acting and surprisingly polished touches.
The story is about a "elite team" of zombie killers who find a cult that worships zombies, but you don't watch this one for the plot, you watch it for the gore. The Dead Next Door seems to have been (this post) made just as a way to practice practical blood effects and beheadings. At times, it feels like a backyard attempt to copy the crazy bloodletting in Peter Jackson's Dead Alive, but with genre references that are so obvious you can't help but laugh. "Dr. Savini"? "Officer Raimi"? "Commander Carpenter"?
They are all there in a zombie picture that seems like it was never intended for anybody other than the director's family. Nonetheless, there is an unsettling appeal to this degree of poor familiarity.
Zombie flicks' popular rise is remarkable. For decades, the monsters existed only in Voodoo legend, radioactive humanoids, and E.C. comics. When zombies were deployed, they weren't the cannibalistic, flesh-hungry beasts we know 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.
But there's a catch: the dead refuses to be buried in his own cemetery. Dellamorte meets a lovely widow (Falchi) during her husband's funeral and falls in love with her. They end up boiling it up on her husband's grave after wooing her in the dreary halls of his ossuary. It just gets weirder from here.