It's tough to reconcile the Zack Snyder of the "Justice League" #SnyderCut, the too accurate "Watchmen" adaption, and the style-over-substance combo of "300" and "Sucker Punch" with the Zack Snyder who directed "Dawn of the Dead."The 2004 remake, directed by Zack Snyder and based on George Romero's 1978 original, is not without its charms. The first twelve minutes are a career-launching onslaught, including one of the genre's best opening title sequences. Many people find parallels between "Dawn of the Dead" and Danny Boyle's "28 Days Later" since both films feature speedy zombies. This prologue serves as a fantastic dynamic contrast to that image.
Although the remainder of "Dawn of the Dead" never quite lives up to the promise shown in these opening scenes, the screenplay written by James Gunn, who would go on to helm "Guardians of the Galaxy," manages to keep things fascinating all the way through. It is important to point out that remaking a masterpiece is a recipe for disaster ("disaster" being something that Snyder would again court when tackling the work of Alan Moore and the entire DC universe), but by avoiding Romero's social commentary, Snyder was able to carve out his own space in the cinematic zombie universe.
With Netflix's "Army of the Dead," he hopes to return to the genre in 2021.
Set in a zombie-filled wasteland after the end of the world caused by the mysterious street drug "Natas." We follow one man as he hunts down Flesh Eaters for fun and to make up for his past mistakes.
After running into a small group of survivors who are quickly running out of food, he decides to help them. When the flesh-eating Flesh Eaters attack suddenly, they have to run away, which puts the Hunter's skills to the test.
Zombie Hunter seems to be entertainingly nasty B-Movie fodder — after all, who doesn't want to witness Danny Trejo combat swarms of zombies in slow motion? Director K. King looks to be striving for a Machete/Planet Terror grindhouse retro vibe, so we're looking forward to seeing how it pans out. The marketing team has done an excellent job with the sleek poster.
Lupita Nyong'o, an actress who normally shines in serious parts, surprised everyone with her performance in the movie Little Monsters, which was released in 2014. However, it seems like she is having a great time playing the role of a kindergarten teacher whose class is on a field trip when they come across an epidemic of zombies. In 2019, the actress appeared in another horror movie, although this one was far less well-known than her last one, which was Jordan Peele's high-profile picture "Us." The film was released in 2019.
But I have no doubt that she can handle it. To to the official press materials, "dedicated to all the kindergarten teachers who push youngsters to study, build confidence in them, and save them from being eaten by zombies." And I think that about covers it. Alexander England portrays an effete, has-been musician who is in love (or maybe lust) with Lupita Nyong'o, and Josh Gad plays an annoying, renowned kid performer in "Little Monsters."
What you get is an intriguing mix of horror and romantic comedy that breathes fresh life into both genres.
The zombie apocalypse has continued uninterrupted since then. (A select handful have even perfected the art of running.) Television's The Walking Dead is the most well-known example, although zombies have also featured in discovered footage ([REC]), romantic comedies ([REC]), and grindhouse homages (Warm Bodies) (Planet Terror).
Meanwhile, in reaction to Romero's works, a global subgenre arose.
The Italian horror maestro Lucio Fulci took the idea and ran with it, first with Zombi 2 (aka Zombi) and then with his far more strange and experimental "Gates of Hell" trilogy.
Fans of Romero's work who built upon his foundation to further explore and broaden what a zombie movie might be, filmmakers like Dan O'Bannon, Fred Dekker, and Stuart Gordon came along and messed with the genre constructions. The zombie then went out of style as swiftly as it erupted.
Outside of continuous horror sequels (Return of the Living Dead, Zombie), low-budget fright pictures, and the rare genre oddity (My Boyfriend's Back, Cemetery Man, and Dead Alive), the undead no longer roamed the earth.
To what other places might we turn next? The concept of Haitian voodoo zombies was first popularized in Hollywood with the release of White Zombie, the first full-length "zombie" horror film. This was a good many years before George A. Romero's modern-day zombie movies.
As a public domain classic in almost every cheapo collection of zombie flicks ever compiled, White Zombie is simple to get today—you can easily skip through its 67-minute length on YouTube if you wish. Only a year removed from Dracula and enjoying in his reputation as one of Universal's go-to horror actors, Bela Lugosi portrays a witch doctor who is literally dubbed "Murder" since the company was still a few years away from finding nuance at the time.
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.
The film influenced Rob Zombie's music. It's on several "greatest zombie movie" lists, although most viewers wouldn't like it in 2016. It's #50 for historical reasons.
Planet Terror is the better half of the Grindhouse double-bill that Robert Rodriguez concocted with Quentin Tarantino. Planet Terror tells the story of a go-go dancer, a bioweapon gone awry, and Texan townsfolk turned into shuffling, pustulous monsters. Planet Terror was directed by Robert Rodriguez. Planet Terror has its exploding tongue firmly entrenched in its rotten cheek, leaning strongly upon its B-movie heritage, with missing reels, rough cuts, and hammy overdubbed dialogue.
Eventually, Rose McGowan's hero Cherry Darling gets her severed limb replaced with a machine pistol in a ridiculously entertaining climax that has over-the-top gore and oozing effects. Gather 'round, folks: I want to consume your intellect in order to expand my own.
Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead seems to have aspects characteristic of Troma films. It will be a mountain of trash. It will get really bloody. There will be no aesthetic restrictions or considerations. As with every previous Troma film, the real question is whether you find it boring. In this instance, "absolutely not" is the correct answer.
For a musical that is marketed as a "zom-com," if that makes any sense, the satire of consumer society is quite subtle. But why are you watching a movie about chickens that come back to life and take over a restaurant that looks like KFC and is built on a Native American burial ground? Don't believe that. To enjoy a Troma movie, you have to think that the violence, scatological jokes, and bad production are all part of the fun. You also have to like the thoughtless plot.
As a result, Poultrygeist is just 103 minutes of dirty, vile, raunchy madness.
Despite the fact that zombie films have existed for more than 80 years (White Zombie was produced in 1932, and I Walked With a Zombie was published in 1943), the subgenre as we know it today did not emerge until 1968, when George A. Romero released Night of the Living Dead.
Night, a low-budget independent film, attracted audiences with its dark tale, horrible violence, progressive casting, social commentary, and, of course, its legendary hordes of gaunt, voracious zombies. Romero, the acknowledged maestro of the zombie genre, went on to make five more films in the Dead series, the best of which are discussed here.
Despite Night of the Living Dead's effect, it took some time for that picture to gestate and develop cache in the popular awareness before a massive wave of notable American zombie movies sprouted in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Shock Waves may have been the first "Nazi zombie" film, arriving soon before Dawn of the Dead, which massively increased the appeal of zombies as horror adversaries.
A gang of wayward boaters find themselves on a remote island where a wrecked SS submarine has discharged its undead crew, a Nazi experiment. Peter Cushing plays a miscast and addled SS Commander the same year he sneered at Princess Leia in Star Wars: A New Hope?
There have been at least 16 Nazi zombie movies since this point, according to my amateur count—certainly more than one would realize—making this one noteworthy, if only for being the first to combine the portmanteau of famous cinematic villains.
Shock Waves is ultimately responsible for films like the Dead Snow trilogy.It's not easy to create a fresh perspective on the zombie film, but Colm McCarthy's The Girl With All The Gifts, based on Mike Carey's novel, succeeds while also giving some enjoyable genre thrills.
In this scenario, the zombie state is brought on by a fungal virus reminiscent to that seen in The Last of Us, which has caused the majority of the people to become 'hungries.' But it is kept mostly in the background of the plot, which instead centers on a young girl named Melanie. Melanie is being taught an odd curriculum by Gemma Arterton's character, Helen, in a facility that is highly armed.
Melanie, a so-called "second-generation" updated information hungry, can think and feel, and the simple fact that she exists may be the most important factor in determining the course of future events. She still craves eating human flesh.
This gore-fest incorporates the Draugr, a mythical undead creature from Scandinavian folklore renowned for its savage commitment to guarding its gold hoard. In Dead Snow, these draugr are really former SS soldiers who terrorized a Norwegian village and robbed its inhabitants before being slain or driven into the cold mountains.
Dead Snow receives bonus points for uniqueness. It's also a really humorous, gruesome, and satisfyingly violent film with aspects of Evil Dead and "teen sex/slasher" films strewn around. If you like it, there's more to come in the sequel, Dead Snow: Red versus Dead.
The narrative behind a film may often be more compelling than the film itself, as is the case with The Dead Next Door. Sam Raimi used the money from Evil Dead II to finance its development so that his friend J. R. Bookwalter could achieve his ambition of a low-budget zombie epic. The whole film seems to have been redubbed in post-production, and Raimi is identified as an executive producer under the title "The Master Cylinder," while Evil Dead's Bruce Campbell doubles as the voiceover for not one but two characters. Because of this, The Dead Next Door exudes a dreamy surrealist air, and that's before we even consider the fact that it was filmed exclusively 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.
The tale follows a "elite squad" of zombie exterminators who stumble onto a zombie-worshiping cult, but you're watching for the gore. The Dead Next Door seems like a backyard effort to imitate Peter Jackson's Dead Alive, but with on-the-nose genre allusions. Savini? Raimi? Carpenter?They are all there in a zombie picture that seems like it was never intended for anybody other than the director's family. Nonetheless, there is an unsettling appeal to this degree of poor familiarity.
The journey of zombie films into the mainstream has been remarkable. Outside of Voodoo legend, radioactive humanoids, and the memorable imagery of E.C. comics, the monsters didn't have much of a presence or description for decades. Zombies weren't employed very often, and when they were, they weren't anything like the cannibalistic, flesh-hungry undead monsters we know and love today.
Cemetery Man (or Dellamorte Dellamore), directed by Dario Argento apprentice Michele Soavi, is a strange, chaotic head trip of a film that sees the living dead as more of a nuisance than a lethal menace. Cemetery Man, based on the Dylan Dog comic book, stars Everett as Francesco Dellamorte, a misanthropic gravedigger who prefers the company of the dead to that of the living. Why shouldn't he? The living are jerks, and they keep circulating tales about his impotence.
But there's a catch: the dead refuses to be buried in his own cemetery. Dellamorte meets a lovely widow (Falchi) during her husband's funeral and falls in love with her. They end up boiling it up on her husband's grave after wooing her in the dreary halls of his ossuary. It just gets weirder from here.