It's hard to reconcile the Zack Snyder of the "Justice League" #SnyderCut, the too-faithful "Watchmen" adaption, and "300" and "Sucker Punch" with the filmmaker of "Dawn of the Dead."The 2004 version, which is based on the 1978 version by George Romero and was directed by Zack Snyder, is not, however, boring. The first twelve minutes are a career-launching assault, with one of the best opening title sequences in the history of the genre. People often compare "Dawn of the Dead" to Danny Boyle's "28 Days Later" because both movies have a lot of fast zombies. This prologue is a great, fast-paced contrast to that picture.
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.
Netflix's "Army of the Dead" will see him return to the genre in 2021.
Set in a post-apocalyptic Zombie apocalypse brought on by the enigmatic street narcotic "Natas." We follow one guy as he hunts down Flesh Eaters for fun and atonement while simultaneously trying to escape his past.
After falling across a small group of survivors, he helps them. The Hunter's talents are tested as the Flesh Eaters strike unexpectedly.
The trailer for Zombie Hunter makes it look like the kind of bloody B-movie fun that everyone would love to see. We're interested to see how director K. King pays tribute to the style of movies like Machete and Planet Terror. The marketing team did a great job with the eye-catching poster.
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 can do it without any problems at all. The film is "dedicated to all of the kindergarten teachers who encourage children to study, fill them with confidence, and rescue them from being devoured by zombies," as stated in the official press notes. Yes, I think that covers every base. In "Little Monsters," Alexander England portrays an effete, has-been musician who is accompanying his nephew on a field trip and who happens to be in love (or maybe lust) with Lupita Nyong'o, while Josh Gad plays an obnoxious, renowned kid performer. Nyong'o appears alongside both of these characters. The year 2014 saw the publication of "Little Monsters."
Thus, the result is an uncommon horror-romantic comedy fusion that energizes both genres.
Since then, the zombie outbreak has continued unabated. (A few have even mastered the art of running.) The Walking Dead on television is the most prominent example, although zombies have also appeared in found footage ([REC]), romantic comedies ([REC]), and grindhouse homages (Warm Bodies) (Planet Terror).
In the meanwhile, a global subgenre emerged in reaction to Romero's works.
Lucio Fulci, an Italian horror classic, took the notion and ran with it, first with Zombi 2 (aka Zombie) and then with his far more weird and experimental "Gates of Hell" trilogy.
Fans of Romero's work who built upon 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 film might be. The popularity of zombies thereafter decreased precipitously.
The concept of the creature had become ingrained in the horror subgenre, but with the exception of ongoing horror sequels (such as Return of the Living Dead and Zombie), low-budget horror films, and the occasional horror subgenre oddity (such as My Boyfriend's Back, Cemetery Man, and Dead Alive), the undead no longer roamed the earth.
Is there somewhere else to begin? White Zombie was the first movie to popularize the idea of Haitian voodoo zombies. This was decades before the classic George Romero ghoul.
It's simple to obtain White Zombie nowadays, since it's a public domain mainstay in just about every cheapo collection of zombie flicks ever assembled—you can just watch its 67-minute length on YouTube if you want. Bela Lugosi portrays a witch doctor, who is literally titled "Murder" since the studio was still a few years away from finding subtlety at the time. He was just a year out from Dracula and delighting in his reputation as one of Universal's go-to horror actors.
The Svengali-like Lugosi ends up zombifying a young woman who is engaged to be married, attempting to bend her to the will of a cruel plantation owner, and... well, it's fairly dry, wooden stuff. Lugosi is, predictably, the finest part, but I guess you had to start somewhere. White Zombie was followed by a slew of additional voodoo zombie films from Hollywood, the most of which are now freely accessible 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 the Grindhouse double feature that Robert Rodriguez made with Quentin Tarantino. It's about a go-go dancer, a bioweapon that goes wrong, and Texan townspeople who turn into shuffling, pustule-covered monsters. Planet Terror is very much a B-movie, with missing reels, shaky edits, and cheesy overdubbed dialogue. Its exploding tongue is firmly planted in its rotting cheek.
In an outrageously exciting conclusion with over-the-top gore and oozing effects, Rose McGowan's hero Cherry Darling has her severed arm replaced with a machine gun. Gather 'round, people: I want to absorb your brain in order to enlarge mine.
Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead, being a Troma film, offers a few mainstays. It'll be completely tacky. It will be a bloodbath. It will be devoid of limits and a sense of taste. The actual question is, "Is it boring?" as it is with every Troma picture. "Absolutely not," says the response in this case.
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.
So, Poultrygeist is just 103 minutes of bloody, gross, and rude madness.While zombie films have been around for almost 80 years (White Zombie was produced in 1932, and I Walked With a Zombie was published in 1943), it's widely acknowledged that the subgenre as we know it today didn't emerge until 1968, when George A. Romero released Night of the Living Dead.
Night, an independent movie with a budget just over six figures, captivated viewers with its unsettling story, horrific violence, progressive casting, criticism of society, and, of course, its iconic hordes of gaunt, ravenous zombies. Romero is the undisputed master of zombie movies. He made five more movies in the Dead series, and we'll look at the best ones here.
Even though Night of the Living Dead was a big deal, it took a while for the public to remember it. Notable American zombie movies didn't start coming out until the late 1970s and early 1980s. Shock Waves may have been the first "Nazi zombie" movie. It came out just before Dawn of the Dead made zombies much more popular as scary enemies.
Film follows a group of shipwrecked individuals who find themselves on an uncharted island where a submerged SS submarine has discharged its crew of zombies, a Nazi experiment. Hammer Horror legend Peter Cushing makes an appearance as a miscast and addled-looking (posted) SS Commander the same year he sneered at Princess Leia in Star Wars: A New Hope? It hardly seems possible.
There have been at least 16 Nazi zombie movies since this point, which is probably more than one may expect, making this one notable for merging the portmanteau of famous cinematic villains for the first time.
The Dead Snow movies have Shock Waves to thank for their success.Colm McCarthy's The Girl With All the Gifts, based on a novel by Mike Carey, is a smart and perceptive remake that nevertheless manages to add genre thrills despite the difficulty of making an original zombie film. This movie was inspired by the book of the same name.
In this instance, the zombie outbreak is caused by a fungal infection like to that shown in The Last Of Us, which has converted the majority of the population into 'hungry' zombies. But that's really in the background of the plot, which concentrates on little Melanie, who is getting an unorthodox education from Gemma Arterton's instructor Helen in a heavily-armed institution.
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. These draugr in Dead Snow are really ex-SS soldiers who tormented and stole from the residents of a Norwegian village before being slain or driven into the cold mountains.
Dead Snow is unique. It's humorous, gruesome, and violent, with Evil Dead and "teen sex/slasher" aspects. If you enjoy it, Dead Snow: Red versus Dead has more.
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, then, offers something unprecedented in this genre: A grainy, low-budget zombie action-drama with cringe-inducing amateur acting performances and surprising hints of polish.
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 are all present in this zombie movie, which gives off the impression that it was never intended for anybody other than the director's family members to see it. Nevertheless, there is a certain allure to the amount of sloppy closeness that was shared.
The public acceptance of zombie films followed a curious route. For decades, the monsters had no existence or definition outside of Voodoo legend, radioactive humanoids, and the iconic artwork of E.C. comic books. When zombies were deployed, they were a far cry from the cannibalistic, flesh-eating, undead monsters we know and love today.
Cemetery Man (also known as Dellamorte Dellamore) is a weird, hallucinogenic journey directed by Dario Argento's student Michele Soavi, who presents the undead as more of an inconvenience than a dangerous threat. In Cemetery Man, a cinematic version of the comic book series Dylan Dog, Everett portrays Francesco Dellamorte, a misanthropic gravedigger who would rather be among the dead than with living people. Why wouldn't he, you could ask? Living people are jerks for propagating the lie that he is infertile.
However, there is a snag: the dead will not be buried in his own cemetery. Dellamorte is smitten with Falchi, a lovely widow whom he meets during her husband's burial. They end up heating it up on her husband's grave after wooing her in the dingy corridors of his ossuary. From here on out, things become weirder.