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1968 onward · 34 films

Zombie

Slow, numerous, and always about the survivors. Romero built the whole thing in 1968.

The modern zombie is one man's invention. Before 1968 a zombie was a Haitian folkloric figure, a person under another's control, as in White Zombie (1932) and I Walked with a Zombie (1943). Romero replaced it with a reanimated corpse that eats people, never used the word in the first film, and did not copyright the result.

Night of the Living Dead

Shot for around 114,000 dollars outside Pittsburgh, in black and white because that was affordable. A distributor's error left it without a valid copyright notice, so it fell into the public domain immediately, which cost Romero a fortune and is why it played on television constantly and became universally known.

The lead is Black, which in 1968 was almost unheard of in a film that does not comment on it, and the ending is unbearable in a way the film does not soften.

Dawn of the Dead

The 1978 sequel is set in a shopping mall and is the best zombie film ever made. It is also very funny, which people forget. Savini's effects are crude on Blu-ray and were extraordinary at the time. The Italian cut, supervised by Dario Argento with a Goblin score, is a genuinely different film from the American one; both are worth watching.

Italy takes it

Fulci's Zombie Flesh Eaters (1979) was sold in Italy as Zombi 2, a fake sequel to Romero's film. It contains a zombie fighting a shark, which was shot with a real shark and a stuntman, and an eye-splinter scene that put it on the DPP list.

The two revivals

The Return of the Living Dead (1985) makes them fast and talkative and is the funniest film in this category. 28 Days Later (2002) makes them fast and furious and restarted the whole genre, which then ate itself over the following fifteen years.

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The whole shelf

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Sleeve art for 28 Years LaterWATCHcanon

28 Years Later

2025 · UK/USA · 115m

Boyle and Garland back together, shot largely on iPhones rigged in arrays. Stranger than the sequel anybody expected.

Sleeve art for BraindeadWATCHcanon

Braindead

1992 · New Zealand · 104m

The bloodiest film ever made at the time, and it is a comedy about a man and his mother.

Sleeve art for Cannibal ApocalypseWATCHcult

Cannibal Apocalypse

1980 · Italy/Spain · 92m

Vietnam veterans come home with a bite that spreads. A better idea than the film delivers.

Sleeve art for Cemetery ManWATCHknown

Cemetery Man

1994 · France/Italy · 92m

The last great Italian horror film, and it is a romantic comedy about a man who shoots the dead for a living.

Sleeve art for CreepshowWATCHknown

Creepshow

1982 · USA · 120m

Romero and King doing EC Comics, with panel borders, primary lighting and a story about a cake.

Sleeve art for Dead & BuriedWATCHknown

Dead & Buried

1981 · USA · 92m

Eerie, well made, and completely undeserving of the list. Stan Winston's effects.

Sleeve art for Dead SnowWATCHknown

Dead Snow

2009 · Norway · 90m

Nazi zombies in the Norwegian mountains, and it knows exactly how silly it is.

Sleeve art for DemonsWATCHknown

Demons

1985 · Italy · 84m

Lamberto Bava, produced by Argento, and it is a film about a cinema audience being turned into monsters inside the cinema.

Sleeve art for Forest of FearWATCHobscure

Forest of Fear

1980 · USA · 89m

Marijuana growers, a herbicide and some very slow zombies. On the list by accident of title.

Sleeve art for Messiah of EvilWATCHcult

Messiah of Evil

1973 · USA

A California coastal town waiting for a blood moon, made by the writers of American Graffiti, and it looks like nothing else.

Sleeve art for One Cut of the DeadWATCHknown

One Cut of the Dead

2017 · Japan · 96m

Sit through the rough first 37 minutes. That instruction is the whole review and it is worth obeying.

Sleeve art for Pet SemataryWATCHknown

Pet Sematary

1989 · USA · 103m

King wrote the novel and thought it too bleak to publish. The film keeps the bleakness.

Sleeve art for PontypoolWATCHcult

Pontypool

2008 · Canada · 95m

The infection is carried by the English language, and the whole film happens in a radio booth.

Sleeve art for RabidWATCHknown

Rabid

1977 · Canada/USA · 87m

Cronenberg's second feature, with an experimental skin graft, a stinger in an armpit, and a plague across Montreal.

Sleeve art for RECWATCHcanon

REC

2007 · Spain · 75m

A Barcelona apartment block, a news crew, and eighty minutes with no let-up.

Sleeve art for REC 2WATCHknown

REC 2

2009 · Spain · 85m

The sequel picks up minutes after the first, sends a SWAT team into the sealed building, and reframes the whole outbreak.

Sleeve art for Tales from the CryptWATCHcult

Tales from the Crypt

1972 · UK/USA · 92m

Amicus adapting the EC Comics, with Joan Collins menaced by a killer Santa and Peter Cushing as a wronged dustman.

Sleeve art for The BeyondWATCHknown

The Beyond

1981 · Italy · 88m

Almost no coherent plot and that is the argument for it. One of the bleakest endings in the genre.

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The Sadness

2021 · TW · 100m

Taiwanese, and among the most extreme things released this decade. Go in warned.

Sleeve art for Train to BusanWATCHcanon

Train to Busan

2016 · South Korea · 118m

The best zombie film since Romero, and the only one that makes you cry.

Sleeve art for White ZombieWATCHknown

White Zombie

1932 · USA · 69m

The first zombie film, made independently, with Lugosi controlling the dead on a Haitian sugar plantation.