Zombies

[Thomas]

Overdone, as with fashionable stock horror/sexy-romance monster the vampire, but the zombie plague as a dramatic force always appeals to me. Best zombies, then, in no particular order.

Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare (2010) has a perfect atmosphere. Great soundtrack, great roaming space, and great gameplay in small creaky towns holding up against a dusty Wild West of zombies. The only game of recent years that I've completed.

Shaun of the Dead (2004). Humour and eeriness in fine balance. My favourite of the 'Cornetto trilogy'.

Spoiler alert

David being pulled backwards through the pub window

[close]

was an image that stayed with me for a long while, as was

Spoiler alert

Shaun's mum revealing the bite in her arm

[close]

. The shift in tone as they're hunkering down in the streetlit pub is palatable.

Dead Set (2008). Man, bleak or what. Very darkly funny. Andy Nyman, as Patrick, deserves special mention for his brilliant performance. Camerawork a touch on the wobbly side, but the visual tone makes up for that.

Probably some George A. Romero ones I haven't seen enough of. Tarman, too, in The Return of the Living Dead (1985), is fantastic.

I bought the DVD for my brother a year ago, but I've not seen Peter Jackson's Braindead (1992) yet - it looks like it'll be great fun.

NOT-ZOMBIES-BUT-SIMILAR-ENOUGH-TO-BE-CATEGORISED-AS-SUCH-BY-PASSERS-BY -

28 Days Later (2002). I love this film. This standalone, sequel-less film.

Your best uns? Any older recommendations? Feel free, also, to name yer worst zombies. Seems that they're very easy to get horribly wrong.

[Mr Eggs]

Zombies are shitter than Vampires.

Write that down.

[Morrison Lard]

Zombie Davina McCall was strangely erotic

[Camp Tramp]

Day Of The Dead is very grim but I like it, Bub the Zombie is a classic character, the first in a long line of smart zombies

Also "I hope you choke on it!" is a great epitaph.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

Dawn of the Dead is the start middle and end of everything zombie and the scene you like from SOTD is an homage to a moment in that film.

The rest is just either outright bullshit or perfunctory at best.

[Thomas]

Dawn of the Dead is the start middle and end of everything zombie and the scene you like from SOTD is an homage to a moment in that film.

Is that the scene where real pig guts were used, stenchin' up the studio?

Or is that Day? Too many 'of the Deads' floating around, if you ask me.

EDIT -

Yes, this is the one I presume you're referring to. Watch out, onlookers, it's gruesome -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kLbYI7qm8Q

[Camp Tramp]

Is that the scene where real pig guts were used, stenchin' up the studio?

That was Captain Rhodes death scene in Day

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjikkKdnyck

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

The scene of zombie squalor at the start of Dawn is one of the most powerful images ever, I'd say equal to Goya's Saturn Devouring His Son.

Astonishingly chilling and disturbing and almost sexually depraved performance from the actors. It't the first time I felt a parallel between the lust for flesh and the regular human lust for sex. Fucking disturbing.

[biggytitbo]

I like zombie flesh eaters and the beyond, but yes the real big hitters here are the Romero films night of the living dead, dawn of the dead and day of the dead, with dawn the obviously superior film of the 3. After that Return of the living dead is great, as is the remake of dawn of the dead and Romero's own Land of the dead is good too. The living dead at the Manchester morgue is a favourite of the rest after the 2 films mentioned at the start.

[Steven]

Colin Blunderstone still going strong.

[Ambient Sheep]

I bought the DVD for my brother a year ago, but I've not seen Peter Jackson's Braindead (1992) yet - it looks like it'll be great fun.

It is.

[BritishHobo]

The zombies in Resident Evil 4 aren't really zombies but they're still the best zombies that there are.

[Mister Six]

I love zombs, but they are played out worse than vampires, I think - probably because 'X but with zombies' is an easier concept to throw together quickly than 'X but with vampires', because the latter means you also have to create personalities for the monsters.

Obviously zombie vampires are the worst.

Dead Set (2008). Man, bleak or what. Very darkly funny. Andy Nyman, as Patrick, deserves special mention for his brilliant performance. Camerawork a touch on the wobbly side, but the visual tone makes up for that.

Aside from the great cast (esp. Kevin Eldon and - as you say - Andy Nyman) Dead Set didn't do much for me at all. The social commentary was heavy-handed at best, and it failed to depart from the most tediously overdone zombie flick tropes - the people holed up in one place, a coward who causes a rift that ultimately lets the zombies in, everyone dying at the end, etc etc et fucking cetera.

For me, the greatest zomb-related entertainment is The Walking Dead adventure game by Telltale.  I think someone on here described it as a 'social anxiety simulator', and that's pretty spot-on - much of the game is about talking to the numerous, superbly fleshed-out characters and trying to stop them from turning on one another. Or, indeed, letting them tear each other to pieces while you suck up to one side - it's brilliantly reactive, and while the broad strokes of the story and ending cannot be changed, a lot of the characters' fates are up for grabs, as are the details of their individual story arcs over the course of the game.

Look, I could go on about it for ages but trust me - it's the best game I've played in years. It's so cleverly crafted - particularly the conceit that you're looking after a (possibly) orphaned girl, and many of the decisions you make are complicated by the risk of exposing her to horrible truths about human nature.

Also, a shout-out to the book World War Z. It's not quite as mind-blowing as some have said, and some of the jingoistic elements made me wince (post-apocalypse Cuba has become heaven because they've embraced capitalism, for example), but it manages to find about 50 different ways to tell a zombie story without repeating itself once, and I'm a sucker for anything that tries to make fantasy plausible.

And while it's not a 'proper' zombie tale, Garth Ennis's comic book Crossed is a great apocalyptic read for those with strong stomachs. The zombies in this case are more like the Rage-infected maniacs in 28 Days Later, except that rather than being blindly violent, they are calculating and sadistic, and given to elaborate torture.

While there are some absurd infected (including a guy who beats people with a severed horse cock) it's really just a very grim story about how close we all are to savagery, and how thin the veneer of morality really is, once society is no longer around to enforce moral cues on the uninfected survivors.

A word of warning, though - only read Garth Ennis's original story (collected in one volume), which says everything the comic needs to say, and has by some distance the best-realised characters. There are one or two extremely graphic scenes of violence at the start,[nb]Most notably a couple being raped while their child is hacked to pieces in front of them.[/nb] but after that almost everything else is left to the reader's imagination, and relayed through narration or shown at a distance. The hacks who did the other Crossed books didn't actually pick up on that, and instead just pile on the sickening gore, to the point where it just becomes noise.

[Pijlstaart]

I reckon zombie films would be much scarier if the zombies were 8-feet tall. Has anyone done that yet, because the fear aspect of zombies is in their numbers. A single zombie isn't scary, in fact it is often used as a comedic device, but an 8-foot zombie would be scary. Someone make that film, they'd be millionaires.

I personally prefer the films with dogmen in, because we have all thought of "what if humans and dogs were together" and these films answer that with their dogmen, so now we know.

[Mobius]

The World War Z audiobook is really good and has tons of recognisable narrators. It's nothing like the shit movie.

[Brundle-Fly]

Dawn of the Dead is the start middle and end of everything zombie and the scene you like from SOTD is an homage to a moment in that film.

The rest is just either outright bullshit or perfunctory at best.

I'm going to this soon. Can't wait.

http://store.unionchapel.org.uk/about/events/18-aug-14-dawn-of-the-dead-ft-live-score-by-goblin-union-chapel/

[BlodwynPig]

Its become the domain of the adult infants.

[zomgmouse]

I'm going to this soon. Can't wait.

http://store.unionchapel.org.uk/about/events/18-aug-14-dawn-of-the-dead-ft-live-score-by-goblin-union-chapel/

I saw them play the live score to Suspiria, and if that was anything to go by then this should be fantastic.

There's a decent Nazi zombie film called Dead Snow which is worth checking out if the words "Nazi zombie" sound appealing at all. Needless to say, it's not a terribly serious film.

[BlodwynPig]

Goblin live is one of the best experiences you can have. I saw them do a "greatest hits" thing with a compendium of film clips playing in the background. I never wanted it to stop.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

I'm outing myself as some sort of heretic/philistine/contrarian moron, but I feel like Dawn of the Dead is pretty overrated.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

What are your criticisms of the film that manages to be tongue-in-cheek social satire, utterly dreadful (in the right way), tense, and deal with a few race/gender issues as well as being satisfyingly gory and thrilling?

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

It's not all that well directed. Dodgy acting. Terrible score. Partly it may be a result of seeing it after absorbing all the hype and building it up in my mind, but I just don't think it's as great as it's made out to be. I think Day is better.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

NO



NO ITS NOT TRUE

(especially the score which fits so well)

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

Listening to the Dawn of the Dead soundtrack.

[Brundle-Fly]

AMC's The Walking Dead

I couldn't give a shit if it's not as good as the comics or too popular now or if it's 'gone off the boil' or how rubbish Norman Reedus's hairstyle is ..etc, I love it!! Proper popcorn TV entertainment.

The Revenant and Juan Of The Dead

I'm not much into 'stoner comedy' but these two gems are the exception! And really add new ideas to the exhausted zombie genre.

Shall report back...

[maett]

I've been obsessed with The Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue since first seeing it with my parents in the early days of home video back in 1983/4, we soon mistakenly rented it again as it was also going under the title Don't Open the Window, then it vanished from the shelves, a victim of the nasties list. Come the mid 90s and I got hold of a bootleg copy for a fiver, it was just as good as I remembered, a few years later and it was out on DVD. I still haven't managed to get a copy of the soundtrack though, it goes for a tidy sum when it does turn up, better than bloody Goblin that's for sure,

Oh best game I've played are the Dead Island games, they've got a bit of a Zombie Flesh Eaters feel, despite the appalling voice acting. Though the Walking Dead game is the best story, but too scripted for me, despite the makers claims that your decisions tailor the game for you.

[Brundle-Fly]

I've been obsessed with The Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue since first seeing it with my parents in the early days of home video back in 1983/4, we soon mistakenly rented it again as it was also going under the title Don't Open the Window, then it vanished from the shelves, a victim of the nasties list. Come the mid 90s and I got hold of a bootleg copy for a fiver, it was just as good as I remembered, a few years later and it was out on DVD. I still haven't managed to get a copy of the soundtrack though, it goes for a tidy sum when it does turn up, better than bloody Goblin that's for sure,

TLDATMM is amazing.  Might be able to help you with the score. PM me

[madhair60]

The scene of zombie squalor at the start of Dawn is one of the most powerful images ever, I'd say equal to Goya's Saturn Devouring His Son.

Astonishingly chilling and disturbing and almost sexually depraved performance from the actors. It't the first time I felt a parallel between the lust for flesh and the regular human lust for sex. Fucking disturbing.

Fuckin' 'ell, 'ave a word, mate

[Deanjam]

I prefer Zombies that come from the Voodoo influence. Creepy forms in the shadows, rather than intestine eating coke-heads.

So off the top of my head, I like:



One of Val Lewton's is-it-supernatural? films. Based on Jane Eyre. It's all shadows and light with an ending so low key you might miss it.



Companion peace to The Reptile, it concerns odd goings on in a rural village's tin mine. Features a zombie-rising sequence that Romero must've been influenced by.



A zombie romance 60 years before Shaun of the Dead. Virtually a remake of Lugosi's Dracula, but far better. One of the creepiest, death-fetish films ever.

[Bored of Canada]

I'm outing myself as some sort of heretic/philistine/contrarian moron, but I feel like Dawn of the Dead is pretty overrated.

Yeah, I'm much the same. Even in the context of the times, I feel it's a poorly made film. The 'satirical' point of the film could be achieved in a photographed frame of the film, and I'd get the point, I'd not need to spend an extra 90 minutes watching that to get any more out of it. Also bikers having a pie fight was the fucking pits.

Pretty average film.

But hey, what do I know, I remember really enjoying the Snyder remake so surely I'm some fucking idiot.

Zombie films/games/TV shows these days are fucking beyond tiresome though. It's really gone beyond a joke. I do feel like this has been a good ten years of zombies being in the public consciousness, where everyone discusses their zombie survival plans and such. I'd really like to see something different!