Boo! It’s that time of the year again as Halloween 2024 is only a few days away!
For my annual recommendations of horror films, I’m separating the recommendations into genres … and today we’re again looking at: Zombies!
Here’s an interesting genre in horror that has evolved from the days-gone-by of a mummy coming to life to wreak havoc to the reanimation of the dead that then have a powerful hunger for living human brains!
So, let me guide you along the path of the zombies in alphabetical order (click the link on each title to read my review; one film has a link to IMDb.com):
‘Dawn of the Dead’ … Horror coefficient: A+
(1979; 127 minutes; rated R; directed by George A. Romero and starring David Emge, Scott Reiniger, Ken Foree and Gaylen Ross)
For more than 25 years, this was what I called the best-ever zombie movie. As a sequel, it topped even the original and was creative (people escape to a shopping mall to hide out from zombies) as well as being gruesome with intestines being pulled out and flesh eaten. Director George A. Romero again touched a nerve with his work of horrific violence and gore.
‘Night of the Living Dead’ … Horror coefficient: A+
(1968; 96 minutes; rated R; directed by George A. Romero; starring Duane Jones, Judith O’Dea and Karl Hardman)
Here’s the zombie film that propelled the genre into the mainstream. For 1968, this one was incredibly gruesome to the point that some moviegoers claimed they became physically ill. The movie itself had a solid plot, but so-so acting … yet it became a cult classic that was revived every Halloween in smaller theaters. The story is of a group that holes up in a house to save themselves from zombies. You can find out the rest for yourself!
‘Shaun of the Dead’ … Horror coefficient: A+
(2004; 99 minutes; rated R; directed by Edgar Wright and starring Simon Pegg, Nick Frost and Kate Ashfield)
Here is the film that became my best-ever zombie flick in 2004 after 25 years of a reigning champ. Simon Pegg knocks this one out of the park with both comedy and horror (he and a friend sort through LP vinyl records, picking out which one to throw at a zombie). It’s the story of a guy (Pegg) who tries to save his soon-to-be-former girlfriend and is mother from a zombie invasion. He does it with his dense sidekick and the whole thing winds up with such a strange outcome, you won’t believe it!
‘Zombieland’ … Horror coefficient: A+
(2009; 88 minutes; rated R; directed by Ruben Fleischer and starring Jesse Eisenberg, Emma Stone and Woody Harrelson)
‘Zombieland: Double Tap’ … Horror coefficient: A-
(2019; 99 minutes; rated R; directed by Ruben Fleischer and starring Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Emma Stone and Abigail Breslin)
The original of this two-film series instantly de-throned the reigning zombie movie champion after only five years. Here is just about the perfect blend of horror, gruesome zombie hunger and an attitude of homicidal insouciance that you need to see in a horror film. The cast does great work in both (but the sequel is just a touch less than original, but it would have been impossible to achieve the same height) and the ending scene at an amusement park in the original is pretty neat.
Come back tomorrow for the second post of my recommendations about horror flicks with slashers …
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