Top 100 Best Zombie Movies Part 6
Top 100 Best 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 50-41:
50] Boy Eats Girl
Synopsis: "A boy declares his love for his girlfriend, only to die the same night. He is brought back to life by his mother as a flesh-craving zombie, who sires more teen undead while trying to control his, er, appetite for his beloved."
In typical teen drama tradition our hero falls head over heels for a girl, only to see her (quite mistakenly) engaging in sexual acts with a total douchebag. So he turns to the only reasonable option given his age and circumstances - suicide. Pathetic demonstration of cowardice aside, mommy refuses to accept her son's death and resurrects him as the undead. Unaware at first he continues about his life, only to discover he has an urge other than sexual towards his love interest. Plenty of hilarious situations and flesh eating ensues, complete with a ludicrous and yet fittingly ridiculous ending.
49] Zombie Strippers
Synopsis: "...a secret government re-animation chemo-virus gets released into conservative Sartre, Nebraska and lands in an underground strip club. As the virus begins to spread, turning the strippers into "Super Zombie Strippers" the girls struggle with whether or not to conform to the new 'fad'..."
Definitely not your typical zombie movie. The dialogue is over-the-top awful (and I assume intentional) and the acting is scarily bad. The story however, is genius! A stripper gets infected with a zombie virus and becomes the hit of the (very illegal) club. The other strippers become jealous and want to hop on board, even if it costs them their life. Nudity aplenty (full and mostly disturbing), gore to quench the thirst of any horror lover and comedy to keep it from being dull. If you ever wanted to see a zombie cat-fight complete with vaginal pool ball cannoning, this is the movie for you.
48] Flight of the Living Dead (Plane Dead)
Synopsis: "...a mad scientist on the run from the CIA is transporting a coffin containing the body of a colleague infected with a genetically modified virus. While the 747 crosses a violent thunderstorm, the instability of the aircraft allows the corpse to get out of its container..."
Hopping on the Snakes on a Plane fad, this movie delivered the horrible scenario of flesh eating undead 30,000 feet in the air. Considering my dissatisfaction with Snakes, I found this to be a much better take on the 'terror in the air' idea. The gore is very well done, the story is silly yet fitting, the makeup and special effects are rather well done and the acting is quite fine given the subject matter. What would happen if zombies popped up on a plane? Here's your answer!
47] Dead & Breakfast
Synopsis: "Six friends on a road trip stop for the night at a Bed and Breakfast in the sleepy town of Lovelock... nearly all of the town's quirky residents become possessed by an evil spirit and pin down the friends inside the B&B."
A great cast leads this humble little tale about a bed & breakfast that eventually becomes a last standing ground for a small group of survivors. "Survivors of a zombie holocaust?" you may ask, well not quite. These undead are brought to us care of possession. Any blot or strand of DNA from any person that gets placed in a little yellow magical box becomes an undead fiend. Fun times. Some comic book intermissions, a town troubadour, a zombie line-dance and barrel loads of witty dialogue make this a great zombie flick to catch. It hypes itself as the American "Shaun of the Dead", but it's just a clever little low budget movie that deserves to be watched; no popular movie comparisons required.
46] Dead Space: Downfall
Synopsis: An ancient holy relic is discovered on a baron planet. The populace of the crew on the surface begin to act strangely, which only heightens as the monolith is brought aboard their spaceship. As homicide and suicide begin to possess every human, the corpses begin to return as horrific mutants bent on harvesting more bodies. A small security team sets out to assess the situation and help any survivors. Things go awry.
I still haven't played the game yet, which is apparently sort of taboo in the horror world, but I do find the story great. This movie acts as the prequel to the game, playing out the actions and consequences that lead up to the disaster on the ship. The main character is a little too Michelle Rodriquez to start, but her macho attitude becomes welcome and less dominant. Tied to an interesting cast of characters, there are bits of comedy strewn throughout the runtime, well placed between events of horrific gore and terrifying situations. I'll leave you with some of the silly yet well timed dialogue we're faced with between the moments of excessive violence.
#1 "There's a lot of blood in this room, but no bodies."
#2 "Sounds like one of your parties."
#1 "Or your sex life."
45] The Mad
Synopsis: "A doctor and his teenage daughter are terrorized by flesh-eating zombies at a truck stop."
Mad cow disease, zombie style. This is of course slightly higher on the danger chart, as the burger patties themselves are capable of movement and leaping attacks. Assuming the patties haven't already been consumed by unaware diners and turned them into ravenous beasts, the others have to deal with the onslaught of killer beef and zombies that are now looking to make them their meal. Billy Zane is a brilliant and underused actor nowadays, but his appearance in horror generally leaves the audience laughing to stitches at his witty execution combined with his diabolical voice and great dialogue.
44] DooM
Synopsis: "Something has gone wrong at a remote scientific research station on Mars... It's a level 5 quarantine and the only souls allowed in or out are the Rapid Response Tactical Squad - hardened Marines armed to the teeth with enough firepower to neutralize the enemy...or so they think."
A very controversial movie (ratings-wise) that I personally enjoyed to the utmost. While it's not exactly demons spawning from Hell, people that are 'bad' mutating into horrific creatures will make do; they atleast kept the zombies. Here they're fast, ugly, and vicious. Of course with enough time and 'evil inside' they become hulking masses of terror, but until then their ratty zombie appearance makes for a fun time as Reaper, along with The Rock, blow some bastards back to Hell. A few scenes are just terrible and should've been scrapped (like a horribly acted audio flashback) but there's definitely more good than bad. Plenty of violence, funny dialogue and situations, well done makeup and sets, and an amazing first-person perspective scene set this up to be a must watch for any horror buff.
43] Night of the Creeps
Synopsis: "An alien experiment crashes to earth and infects a fraternity member. They freeze the body, but in modern day, two geeks pledging a fraternity accidentally thaw the corpse, which proceeds to infect the campus with parasites that transform their hosts into killer zombies."
"Good news, your dates are here. Bad news, they're dead." That line alone warrants a watching. Of course there's plenty more to offer than that, as this is a true overlooked 80's classic. While not a fine example of horror/comedy mixing, it's ability to poke fun at the serious (yet awful) B-movies that preceded it is well done and makes for a movie to watch with buds and brews.
42] Masters of Horror: Haeckel's Tale
Synopsis: "Set in the 1870s, while on his way to see his sick father, a young man named Ernst Haeckel takes shelter with an elderly man and his young wife but soon discovers their horrible secrets of her appetite for human flesh, and her master Montesquino, a necrophiliac whom has the ability to raise the dead."
A very neat tale that becomes more and more twisted as it progresses. Starting as a man seeking the aid of a necromancer to resurrect a loved one, the tale moves to her story and a warning as to why he should not make such a request. Her story is a morbid and erotic one, involving blood, sex and the undead. Disturbing imagery of zombie orgies, terrible body mutilations, fantastic acting, an amazing plot and great sets and costumes make Haeckel's Tale one of the best entries into the first season of Masters of Horror.
41] House by the Cemetery
Synopsis: "A deranged killer lives in the basement of an old mansion and pops out occasionally to commit grisly murders that include be-headings, ripped throats, and stabbings with a fireplace poker. The killer needs fresh body parts to rejuvenate his cells."
I unfortunately have only been able to watch a really badly dubbed version of this movie that has the child's voice 10x louder than any other person and super abnoxious. The story is well done and plays things out rather slow, however that makes the sudden visions of horror that much more unexpected and disturbing. Acting as more of a ghost story and the development of a child dealing with visions from 'a friend' (much like The Shining) the movie doesn't really reach zombie status until the end; when we are finally introduced to the undead killer. The movie has a fantastic soundtrack, great 70's gore effects and an imaginative director making it a 70's zombie classic.
Movie synopses care of IMDB or each film's respective Official Website.
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