Best zombie movie?

That thread has me thinking about zombies... and wanting to watch a zombie movie.

What's the best one in your opinion? Or the worst?

As for me, it's a toss up between the original Night of the Living Dead and Fulci's Zombie... or between Sean of the Dead and Return of the Living Dead (for the funny). Redneck Zombies was one of if not the very worst.

I haven't seen Flight of the Living Dead yet... I want to though. Maybe I'll get that for the weekend.

on edit: I also want to at least mention 28 Days Later & 28 Weeks Later... cause those are a couple of my favorites.

they managed to find a great combination of humor and horror. They had one of the scariest looking zombies (mud man) with soem of the best laugh out loud dialog.

Like this job?

When I was in the army, some of my tank buddies named their tank(painted the gun tube): "Barking Split Dog."

:rofl:

did anyone get your reference?

All the enlisted in the company knew what that was, because vhs tapes were passed around the entire barracks.

(matter of fact, it's not any of the people listed on the tank crew and in the Company--if one were to put
"barking split dog" into google and search it.. all the guilty had departed by then.)

"Get some light over here, Trash is taking off her clothes again!"

"Send...more....paramedics."

"Brains!"

Plus a great punk-rock soundtrack!

I may have to watch that one this weekend. Pretty sure I have it on DVD.

Great!

As Tar-Man would say, "More Brains!"

Other deserving titles are Shaun of the Dead, Night of the Living Dead (1968), Dawn of the Dead (1978), and 28 Days Later (which some may argue isn't a true zombie flick, but I say it's close enough).

"Have some fuckin' respect for the dead!"

B U R T I S A S L A V E D R I V E R

"There's a skeleton farm in India."

"We've found that lost consignment of Easter Eggs. Yes sir. Well it would be good news, except the eggs have hatched. Just outside of Louisville. Um, Kentucky, sir."

My favorite line in the whole movie. :)

Which version of The Return... are you talking about, if I may ask? You don't mean 1988's The Return... Part 2, right?

At least that's the one I think they're talking about. I'm pretty sure that's the one.

Yeah. Him be creepy :)

and it's apparently now in the public domain so you can watch it online for free. Brilliant film.

Much, much better than it might seem at a glance. And the finale is staggering!


I understand that it's derivative of one or two earlier works, but every "cannibalistic walking dead" film that followed Romero's is creatively beholden to his interpretation.

Richard Matheson's excellent story I Am Legend when writing NOTLD. The Will Smith vehicle was such a travesty.





One of my favorite parts of NOTLD is when Ben hears the the radio announcements describing what's going on. Just chilling!

But you're right that Smith's version is awful.



I completely agree with you about the radio announcements. The medium itself serves to heighten the sense of isolation that's especially alien to today's Blackberry world.

:thumbsup:

Because it SCARED THE SHIT out of me.

I've seen it 4 times and it's still gripping every time.

Awesomely cheesy. And the woman is Mia Farrow's sister, for those trivia people out there.

Here's my rundown of a whole bunch of zombie flicks....

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=210x25191

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=210x25300

If you're gonna spell it with no 'e' though, use the 2. :P

Here's one that wasn't mentioned

Burial Ground: The Nights of Terror - Andrea Bianchi

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0081248/

Although, if the do World War Z and do it well, that might win out.

There were plans to do a 28 Months Later, but I think that fizzled. x(

Besides, Mel Brooks' son wrote it, so there's a pretty good Hollywood connection.

http://www.firstshowing.net/2008/03/27/world-war-z-movie-details-revealed-children-of-men-with-zombies/

It's a pity Mel didn't teach him how to spell and use apostrophes: I spotted some goofs which had slipped past the editor.

I'm not sure how well a film would work, because it'd have to concentrate on just one or two stories, thus losing the wide scope of the book. The book truly makes it feel like a world war, and that'd be hard to capture in a film.

The main character will be the U.N. guy collecting the stories, which should allow for a wider variety of stories than just a couple. I've read they are having troubles getting the script right so far, so we'll have to see. No matter what they do it'll be hard to top the book.

and pander to mouthbreathers by sticking pretty much with a couple of the more action oriented stories.

After they get done with it I'm sure it will another POS. Transformers but with zombies.

If they want action, they can have news footage of Yonkers and the battle in the desert where they used the Raj-Singh square strategy (yes, I know what it is, along with the Redeker plan).

worst was something called "I was a zombie for the FBI"

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0138508/

Max Brooks rules!

I saw it a long time ago when it first came out, and I remember walking out thinking I had seen a movie that wasn't only good but that was very serious.

Basically, it was a sequel to Night of the Living Dead (the first sequel) and it was set in a shopping mall. At some point you realize the zombies are behaving pretty undistinguishably from the way normal shoppers behave.

Forgot to add: The first Night of the Living Dead is still the greatest.

If I could whistle, I'd whistle that mall music a whole lot, cause it pops into my head with alarming regularity.

Haven't seen it in awhile.

Oh yes... definitely one of the best. :)

even if only for that one scene.

Bush, Cheney, Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, Ashcroft just to name a few

:scared:

definitely a cult favorite... and one of THE most disgusting scenes ever.

Ia! Ia! Ia!

Honorable mention goes to Shaun of the Dead. Very funny.

Sure they're not technically dead... but they are close enough for me to enjoy them just as much as I do proper zombie movies.

http://www.mathstat.uottawa.ca/~rsmith/Zombies.pdf

Related Wired article http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/08/zombies/

It is possible to successfully fend off a zombie attack, according to Canadian mathematicians. The key is to “hit hard and hit often.”

...

An outbreak of zombies is likely to be disastrous, unless extremely aggressive tactics are employed against the undead,” the
authors wrote. “It is imperative that zombies are dealt with quickly, or else we are all in a great deal of trouble.”

...

"only sufficiently frequent attacks, with increasing force, will result in eradication, assuming the available resources can be mustered in time,” they concluded.

Night of the Comet, Sean of the Dead.

For serious zombie flicks, the only one I remember liking was "I Am Legend," and that's borderline zombie. Just not my genre.

:thumbsup:

I'd forgotten Night of the Comet. Hey, it looks like it finally got a DVD release, so I can retire my VHS copy!

Some twisted soul recommended Fido a while back. I found a copy & loved that too.

Do they even make zoombie robot movies?

Night of the Comet. (Or, Valley Girls Whoop Zombie Ass)

Should we ever meet in real life, however, I will never admit to this.

All zombie movies, of course, have to be compared to the original-- NOtLD. Many have tried, but none have bettered it.

Not zombie, but so close in flavor to NOtLD, is Vincent Price in "The Last Man on Earth." I bought that one.

("It's been staked!")

I'm a huge zombie fan!

1. Dawn of the Dead (original)
2. Night of the Living Dead.
3. Fulci's Zombie
4. Dawn of the Dead (2004)
5. Day of the Dead (1985)

Comedy.

1. Return of the Living Dead
2. Shaun of the Dead
3. Fido
4. Night of the Creeps
5. Braindead.

Honorable mentions:

1. Re-Animator
2. Resident Evil: Apocalypse-If only for one scene.
3. Return of the Living Dead II
4. Diary of the Dead
5. REC

I must ask, you really consider 28 days Later and 28 Weeks Later zombie movies? They are similar but technically the infected aren't zombies.

I hated Diary of the Dead though.

I do consider 28 Days Later & 28 Weeks Later to be zombie movies, even though they aren't really zombies... it's close enough to tickle my zombie spot, so it works for me. :P

But I'm a a lifelong nerd and I always have to bring up the details. ;-)

A lot of people hated Diary but for some reason I like it. Probably the Amish scene!

Last weekend, I watched Dead Set, a five-episode British zombie series. Written by our acerbic TV reviewer Charlie Brooker, and set largely in the "Big Brother" house, it's a parody of reality TV (with which Brooker has a love/hate relationship). But though there's a lot of black humour, the horror is played for real, and the result is genuinely scary. I'm not sure how well it would travel: although zombies and reality TV are international, some of the appeal depends on recognition of UK TV personalities and tropes. But viewers outside the UK might like to look out for a torrent anyway.

Thanks! :hi:

But I want to now! :D

Oh my! How can that not be made of win? The only way you could improve that would be to add ninjas.

Nazi zombies!

Full loaded awesome!

...although one of my current favorites is George Romero's "Land Of The Dead," primarily because of the casting (Dennis Hopper, for starters).

:toast:

I know I saw that one but I've completely forgotten it. I hope it comes on cable sometime soon so I can refresh my memory.

...and Romero backs up the fact that the film was a zombie-driven allegory of the Bush Administration.

Hopper had one really interesting moment in the film, where he proclaims "Zombies really creep me OUT, man," while he's got his finger jammed up his nose. It was a "WTF" moment, showing the "real" guy behind the facade of a "businessman" who's set up this zombie-free yuppie enclave.

I liked the interaction between Asia Argento ("Slack"), Robert Joy ("Charlie"), and Simon Baker ("Riley"), plus thought that John Leguizamo ("Cholo") was an interesting casting choice, as was Pedro Miguel Arce ("Pillsbury").

It's the kind of movie that will grow on you and become a "go-to" flick, or it won't. For me, it did...I watch it at least once or twice a month.

:toast:

It wasn't awesome, but it was definitely a different take on the genre, and the backstory begs for a sequel. The zombies act more like mutants, but the story is still pretty cool. It's like Jerimiah Johnson vs zombies.

I love the social commentary and the overall creepiness of that film. The directors cut is the one I'd watch first.




"When there's no more room in Hell, the dead shall walk the earth"

I wish I had lots of money to spare, I'd have a whole collection of these movies!

is the one to get. It has all of the versions plus some excellent documentaries.

http://www.amazon.com/Dawn-Dead-Ultimate-David-Emge/dp/B0002IQNAG/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1250630387&sr=8-1




Ebay is a great place to get this one for about $30. :hi:

Get it right!

:P

:P

It is very much not the same! The rage virus is not the same but it's a lot closer than demons with all the crazy faces and things flying around and supernatural type powers type of thing. Don't you think?

But I do love demon movies! But that is another thread altogether. IMO. :P

Buggers are hard to pigeonhole.

I was probably distracted by Bruce Campbell being awesome.

sort of levitated around... but in the Evil Dead 2 one, the nasty lady one was spinning around in the air, wasn't she?

I haven't seen these movies in too long. But they did supernatural demon stuff, not zombie stuff.

It's totally different. :P

If zombies didn't have nuthin in them, they'd just be meat.

though there's never any proper explanation for why the zombies in the NotLD came back... in RotLD it was some gov't thing... but in DotD it was hell being full or some such thing... so in that case there would be nothing in them right? In the case of Dead Alive it was some infectious agent from a Sumatran rat monkey's bite... but I dunno... I still say any supernatural powers = demon or some other such thing, and not a zombie.

I guess we're going to have to agree to disagree. :)

:shrug:

And we can agree to disagree, but the discussion is the fun part. :)

But some people seem to get angry when disagreed with... so... just in case. :P

And no! I don't think it's supernatural in and of itself, anyway. Well, maybe? I dunno... if it was, as hinted at in DotD, that hell was full... well that would in fact be sorta supernatural I guess. But if it was due to gov't-created chemical agents as in RotLD, then that would most definitely not be supernatural. Same as with the Sumatran rat monkey bite. I'm failing to remember other causes for undeadness... but I know there are more.

Were the monsters in Night of the Comet dead, or just infected people? I think they were just infected, same as with the 28 Days / Weeks Later stories... so... that's not supernatural either... but neither of those would be proper zombies as neither had actually died.

flamed for this but the remake of Dawn of the Dead is by far the best one I've ever seen...

Although I haven't watched those 28 days zombie movies yet.

I thought the baby was waaaaay over the top.

I'll still watch it if it's on and I'm bored though. :P

made me go, "WTHFS!"

I actually liked that part, added to the craziness...and Andy was awesome. :)

Easily the best zombie movie.

I want to make a poll now... this demon/zombie thing must be settled.

The Evil Dead series has Deadites, humans possessed by Candarian demons, not zombies.

Yeah, Deadites... see, they even have their own name. Definitely not zombies. Thanks. :)

Has some cinematography that fit nicely in most dramatic movies. The scene where they're are driving through the countryside and Ave Maria is playing soo softly in the background. The scene at Jim's parents' house and a little boy is singing so softly you can just barely hear him.

If that happens to be the reference for your name -- I love Lewis Carroll's fantasy novels for children. Great stuff -- the mathematical games, chess moves, etc.

I was actually more inspired by the theory than the character when I started using this name. :)

novels and inventing the games. Great and brilliant stuff.

I must say I so got got in the first scene in 28 weeks later!! I think I jumped out of my chair!!

Is that the scene where they release the animals from the lab?

I haven't seen it in so long I forgot.

Somewhere in the mix, something scared the shit out of me.

:hug:

but I never quite got one thing. If all of these people were infected with the "rage virus" and once infected they would attack the uninfected, but what would inhibit them from attacking other infected? It's supposed to be "pure rage" after all, so what would keep them from killing each other? :shrug:

but I just got Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things from Netflix. I haven't seen it since I was a kid, but I'll probably watch it tomorrow.

Is it good?

I saw part of it on television when I was just a kid, and I don't remember much except the ending. I couldn't even remember the name of it until I performed some ninja maneauvers on wikipedia to find it. I'll let you know if it lives up to my expectations.

If only for the hotness of Cillian Murphy. Yummy!
Sean of the Dead is a close second.

Very yes. :)

And the original Night of the Living Dead.

I've seen nearly all the favorites on this thread, but that is one glaring exception.

at the Brighton Theater in Chicago when it first came out. I went with my older sister and a couple of her friends, one of whom was named Barbara.

I was 10 years old, so that movie had an impact and will remain for me the greatest zombie movie of all time.

Love it!