Top 100 Best Zombie Movies Part 4
Top 100 Zombie Movies: A Toast to the Zombie Gaming Revolution
Intro:
We love zombies. It’s our duty as geeks and/or gamers to be fascinated by the social commentary so often paralleled in modern zombie cinema; or atleast to enjoy watching people get their faces eaten. Either way they’re lovable creatures with a following that is to be truly admired. With the ever increasing boost of zombie/undead themed games, I present to the general public a list of the best zombie movies (and worst) to date. Of course this list is my personal opinion and very much open to dispute, there are also plenty of zombie movies I have not seen that probably deserve to be on this list. This is simply one zombie fan’s attempt to further the spread of zombie admiration and perhaps get some people into some of the best zombie movies they may have never before seen. Keeping the interest high keeps the zombie games coming!
Numbers 70-61:
70] Junk
Synopsis: "Four crooks rob a jewelery shop, then head for an abandoned factory where they plan to fence the goods to the Yakuza. Unfortunately, their chosen location happens to be the same place where American scientists had previously experimented on resurrecting the dead."
Japanese zombie fun. If loads of gore mixed with martial arts and some undead thrown in is your idea of a good time, then this one's for you. Not up there with quality acting or dialogue, but the badness of the delivery of the aforementioned items makes it a riot to watch. Also, for all you pervs out there, the main zombie girl walks around flashing her breasts regularly... amazing how well groomed and clean she appears for being a zombie, what a coincidence...
69] The Rage
Synopsis: "A crazed scientist experimenting with a rage virus on innocent victims in a laboratory in the woods. When his monstrous subjects escape and vultures devour their remains, they became mutations seeking to feed on humans."
Not even Divoff could save this movie. The cheese level of The Rage is about the equivalent of watching an old 70's horror movie and snorting every time you see the string making the rubber bat bounce up and down to flap it's wings. Here instead we are given zombie vultures, and they are just relentless, I mean reaaaaaaally relentless little buggers. Of course what heroes survive the drawn out encounter with the undead aviators end up having to face Divoff and his small band of zombie slaves. People just never seem to get a break in these movies, sheesh. Plenty of decent gore and rather well done effects with the killer buzzards make for a well composed zombie movie, but the movie lingers in the cheese aisle while it oddly appears to be taking itself seriously. It should've just tried to cash in on the campy cheesiness and save the super serious zombie movie stuff for scripts with a budget enough to back it.
68] I Eat Your Skin
Synopsis: "A cancer researcher on a remote Caribbean island discovers that by treating the natives with snake venom he can turn them into bug-eyed zombies. ... the unfortunate man is forced by his evil employer to create an army of the creatures in order to conquer the world."
IEYS tries really hard to make our lead man a super hunky ladies man (what with the womanizing and constantly taking his shirt off). What it effectively ends up doing is making the whole movie feel more like a bad Elvis Presley movie... only with zombies. The zombies themselves are rather well done given the quality of the film itself, although they're just men with tattered clothes, some white powdering and the interesting choice to wear their eyeballs outside their now rotting heads. But hey, as far as fromage goes this one's got it in spades.
I'll warn you now though, there is infact no 'eating of skin', the title was changed to fit a double feature bill with I Drink Your Blood. So do not be deceived!
67] Shadow: Dead Riot
Synopsis: "Twenty years ago, the serial killer known as Shadow was executed and then resurrected as a Zombie killing machine. Although Shadow and his undead army were once thought to be destroyed, they return. This time, however, their prison killing ground is now full of female convicts, who wage an all-out battle against Shadow and his minions."
This is practically a softcore porno. When there aren't women flashing their breasts about there's a cat fight. Once the movie finally decides we've had enough girl on girl clawing and uncovered curves it presents us with Mr. Todd and his army of zombies. They attempt some crazy martial art crap throughout the film, but it's so laughable it's actually pleasing to watch. The zombies are quite brutal and there are some gibs strewn about, sometimes gruesome and sometimes laughable. Oh, and there's a zombie baby that eats a breast... complete with bloody/milky consequences. If that sounds funnier to you than gross, feel free to pick up the special edition with the zombie baby accessories. Despite what the trailer shows, the movie is infact not a grindhouse feature, so get that out of your head right off the start. It's a simple low budget zombie movie with as many breasts as instances of bad acting.
66] Burial Ground: The Nights of Terror
Synopsis: "A professor opens a crypt and reanimates rotten zombies. The zombies attack a jet-set-group which is celebrating a party in a villa nearby."
Anyone that enjoys watching an Italian 'little person' play a young boy that has a 'curiously disturbing' relationship with his mother will be in for quite a treat! Lots of lumbering decaying zombies armed with sharp weapons, amazing undead makeup and gruesome gore effects with plenty of ketchup. The film's filled with terrible logic when people decide to approach and battle the undead but whatever, it's enjoyable and a true cult classic for zombie enthusiasts!
65] Undead or Alive
Synopsis: "Elmer Winslow is a soldier on the run from the Union Army, and Luke Budd is a cowboy with a broken heart. When the two misfits rob the corrupt sheriff of an old west town, they have no idea that a plague of zombies is sweeping the country..."
Okay, this thing is far from being reigned in as a new zombie classic but it deserves respect nonetheless. The two leads, Chris Kattan included, are hilarious. Kattan is hilarious as the wannabe cowboy (especially funny with the constant inability to spit properly), who with his very feminine named horse and his new role model and love interest attempt to quell a mob of undead nasties that have a plot of their own. As absolutely silly as it is, the movie's comedic talents keep it interesting, ending on such a ludicrous point that it's just pure chuckle inducing. If you like your zombie comedies, this is one to watch. Just remember it's a zombie western comedy with Chris Kattan, so yes it will be absolutely ridiculous and cheesy.
64] Severed (Forest of the Dead)
Synopsis: "A multi-national forestry company engages in genetic experimentation to increase logging yield in a remote section of forest. But the experimentation goes disastrously wrong, transforming a disparate group of loggers and environmental activists into the 'infected'..."
Do you like watching hippie tree huggers get eaten alive? I know I do! Severed is a pretty low budget zombie flick concentrating on environmental stuff... but who cares about any of that stuff, it's really a pretty generic zombie movie with bad pacing and worse acting. But it's points like these that make a zombie movie enjoyable to watch.
63] Maniac Cop
Synopsis: "In New York, a man in a cop's uniform starts killing people for no apparent reason."
A zombie cop slasher flick. I'll repeat that to ensure it has successfully sunk in. A zombie cop slasher flick... from the 80's. This is a terrible yet thouroughly entertaining little ditty that spawned some needless sequels, and furthered Bruce Campbell's reputation as B movie master. This cop is ugly, huge, and seriously pissed off. A classic that deserves a viewing by any horror enthusiast.
62] Demons Series
Synopsis: "A group of people are trapped in a large West Berlin movie theater infected by ravenous demons whom proceed to kill and posses the humans one-by-one thereby multiplying their numbers." The sequel is practically the same thing, only now it's in an apartment tower.
I will explain to you in two easy points why you should watch Demons. Yes they are possessed victims and not zombies per se, but the transition and behavior of the infected are quite similar. That and plenty of 'possession' movies borrow the same elements of zombie flicks (like Night of the Demons and Evil Dead). So reason #1: Zombie pimp. Reason #2: A man rides a motorcycle through a theater dismembering infected with freakin' sword.
The sequel isn't as spectacular, but the gore and special effects are well done, especially the intro to the infection. A good duo of gooey 80's cheese.
61] Masters of Horror: Dance of the Dead
Synopsis: "In a post-apocalyptic American society, the population has been decimated by nuclear terrorist attacks and flesh-dissolving nuclear fallout. Among the ruins, a naive young teenager named Peggy gets involved with a drug-stoked biker and his friends ... The teens hang out at the Doom Room ... where re-animated corpses from the nuclear attacks perform courtesy of electric-charged flows and experimental drug-injected shots."
I found the intro to this episode remarkably well done; very bleak and dim feeling but visually pleasing and dramatic. The mood shifts dramatically afterwords though, and the bleak dim feelings from the intro seem to have converted themselves into the sets and costumes. While the movie is more about a young girl's descent into the rebel side of youth and peer pressure, morality, etc, it sports an interesting little club run by Mr. Krueger himself. The club uses the corpses of the victims of a nuclear attack that seem reluctant to die, and zaps them repeatedly causing them to dance in spasmodic and horrible ways for the audience. An interesting movie that warrants viewing from a zombie lover looking for something really different.
Movie synopses care of IMDB or each film's respective Official Website.
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