The rest of “Dawn of the Dead” never really rises to the level of these opening moments, but the script from future “Guardians of the Galaxy” director James Gunn keeps things interesting throughout. This intro serves as an excellent kinetic counter to the film “Dawn of the Dead” is often compared to: Danny Boyle’s “28 Days Later,” predominantly due the inclusion of so-called “fast” zombies. The opening 12 minutes serve as an opening salvo for his career, including one of the best opening title sequences in the genre’s history. It’s somewhat difficult to reconcile the Zack Snyder of the “Justice League” #SnyderCut, the far-too-faithful “Watchmen” adaptation, and the style over substance duo of “300” and “Sucker Punch” with the director at the helm of “Dawn of the Dead.” Which is not to say that Snyder’s 2004 remake of George Romero’s 1978 film of the same name lacks style. Its sequel “Zombieland: Double Tap” catches up with the road warriors some years later, exploring their evolving relationships in a still zombie-ravaged landscape. Ranking among IndieWire’s selection of the best horror comedies of the 21 century, the 2009 original film follows an underdog outcast (Jesse Eisenberg), an unpredictable cowboy (Woody Harrelson), a snarky gunslinger (Emma Stone), and her whip-smart younger sister (Abigail Bresline) on a road trip looking for lost loved ones and snack food that’s sweet but fleetingly sincere and consistently funny. Image Credit: Courtesy Columbia Pictures/Everett Collectionįour travelers get the zombie apocalypse down to a science in Ruben Fleischer’s “Zombieland” duology. Featuring great animation and a very slightly darker take on the classic and lovable Scooby formula, “Zombie Island” is the perfect first zombie movie for any kid to catch the genre’s bite. But they’re shocked to discover that the monsters this time are very very real, and they’re forced to fend off hordes of terrifying zombies. The very first in a series of direct-to-vhs films starring the iconic Hanna Barbera character, the late ’90s home video favorite stars the Scooby Gang as they head to a mysterious, supposedly haunted island, after briefly splitting up due to boredom over all of the monsters they encounter merely being weirdos in costumes. “Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island” is the complete opposite. Most of the zombies films on this list are gorey, frightening, dark films meant for adults and adults alone. Image Credit: Courtesy Everett Collection “Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island” (Jim Stenstrum, 1998) With editorial contributions by Christian Blauvelt, Wilson Chapman, Tambay Obenson, Eric Kohn, Ryan Lattanzio, Leonardo Adrian Garcia. Entries are ranked, with consideration to their quality and their impact and influence on zombie cinema overall. So, although some might see the zombie genre as overdone or shallow, history proves otherwise: these movies have brains.īefore you suddenly rush to make your funeral plans, give a close read to this, IndieWire’s ranked picks for the greatest zombie films ever made, updated in honor of the Halloween season. Other films that followed, like Romero’s “Dawn of the Dawn,” have used zombies’ quest for human meat as a stand-in for all-American consumerism. Romero’s “Night of the Living Dead,” has been extensively analyzed for the racial implications of its story, particularly its notorious final scene. The film that really brought the genre to the mainstream, George A. One of the very first zombie films was 1948’s “I Walked With a Zombie,” which very explicitly tackled racism, colonization, and the legacy of slavery. Zombies have long been a tool for filmmakers for satire and contemporary critique. How’s that for an endorsement of cremation? Sometimes, zombies can bear larger metaphors on their disintegrating shoulders - for our increasingly wired yet increasingly isolated post-internet world, say, as in “ Shaun of the Dead.” But sometimes zombies are just zombies: walking corpses who shuffle around and remind us that, even if we’re never somehow reanimated, we’re actually going to look like this when we’re in the ground someday. Or rather, death confronts us, looking to scoop out our brains and have us join its ranks. So the intrigue of zombie movies is that this genre forces us to confront death face-to-face. It’s a predictable belief for our youth-obsessed culture. Too many of us quietly believe if we follow the right workout regimen, eat enough kale, and take the right expensive supplements we may just live forever. But it should: North Americans and Europeans are chronically averse to facing death. When you’re putting together a list of the biggest taboos in Western culture, death itself might not make the cut.
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