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Forums - Movies & TV - Best zombie movie?

 

What is the best zombie movie of all time?

28 Days Later (2002) 7 15.91%
 
Night of the Living Dead (1968) 3 6.82%
 
Dawn of the Dead (1978) 4 9.09%
 
Dawn of the Dead (2004 remake) 5 11.36%
 
World War Z (2013) 0 0%
 
Train to Busan (2016) 3 6.82%
 
[REC] (2007) 0 0%
 
Shaun of the Dead (2004) 9 20.45%
 
Zombieland (2009) 12 27.27%
 
Other 1 2.27%
 
Total:44

With it being the month of October and me being the huge zombie aficionado that I am, I thought I'd start a poll for Best Zombie Movie.

I'd say 28 Days Later, looked upon by many as the one that revolutionized the zombie genre. Not only is it arguably the best zombie movie ever made, it's one of the best modern horror movies ever made. Everything from the cinematography, characters, tension, direction, story is nailed to a T. It deserves its title as the quintessential zombie film IMO. It's also the first zombie film to introduce the popular fast zombies.

Night of the Living Dead and OG Dawn of the Dead are the next best zombie movies IMO. Romero (R.I.P.) is a legend. Also Shaun of the Dead is probably my most-watched zombie movie, I've watched it dozens of times on DVD.

I applaud WWZ for trying something different with the sub-genre, but it has so many plot holes and implausibilities/miraculous survivals that I just can't take it seriously. Add in the terrible ending, constant shaky cams that make it impossible to tell WTF is going on and lack of gore (or hell, blood) the few times it IS shown and you have what I and many others consider to be a mediocre film at best, even ignoring the fact that it has nothing to do with the book past the title. It was way too sanitized and contrived for my taste.

No, gore doesn't make a good film, but when you're talking about millions of flesh-eating zombies that can only be killed via headshot, a bit of violence and bloodletting is to be expected, not kneecapped with jump cuts and shaky cam (seriously, that's like making a Jet Li movie where he doesn't beat people up). The classic Resident Evil games even had a disclaimer when you first loaded the game, "This game contains scenes of explicit violence and gore". How I miss that.

Last edited by KManX89 - on 10 October 2019

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My personal favorite is Shaun of the Dead, and I think its also the one Ive seen the most as well. Not sure if its a proper answer because of its satirical tone.

On the more serious side, Train to Busan and 28 days later would probably be amongst the ones Id consider "the best".  28 weeks later is good, tho not as good as the original. And of the more “classic” ones, the original Dawn of the Dead (the remake is also good), Night of the Living Dead and Re-Animator would be amongst my favorites. 

I think the first REC was good but the zombie theme went to shit with the horrible sequels in favor of demonic possessions, which sucked.

Unpopular opinion: I never cared much for the original The Crazies (tho I like the remake), army of the dead, day of the dead, and such and such cause I think they weren’t that good to begin with and even aged poorly. 



I've seen all the movies listed in the poll except the two versions of Dawn of the Dead. 28 Days Later is the best in my book but all of those listed are great.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1gWECYYOSo

Please Watch/Share this video so it gets shown in Hollywood.

Ka-pi96 said:
Who calls 28 Days Later the "quintessential zombie film"? I mean, how can anyone give that title to anything other than a Romero film?

Shaun of the Dead is great, and a right laugh! Zombieland too, albeit that's not as good as Shaun. Don't think it would be fair to call what's effectively a spoof of zombie films the "best" zombie film though. Besides, there's a very different feeling you get when watching a scary zombie film, something that these two just can't manage.

I thought World War Z was crap... so yeah, that's not even in the running. I didn't really like REC either. For one thing I absolutely hate the hand-held camera style of film, they just annoy me. But also it wasn't really my type of horror film. I like them to be scary, but also actiony. REC was too heavily on the scary side for me.

Train to Busan was fantastic, best zombie film in a long long time actually. I'd love to watch it again, and it is on Netflix.... but with no English subtitles
While talking about non-English language movies though, La Horde really deserves to be mentioned too, that was another really good zombie film.

I think the Resident Evil films deserve a mention too, I mean they did get progressively stupider and less zombieish, but I thought the first 2 were still pretty good zombie films.

Overall though I'd have to say the original Dawn of the Dead, event hough it hasn't aged particularly well. That weird blue make-up they used(and the hair/clothing styles) really do make it look dated. In terms of plot though, I think it wins hands down. The remake looks much better and more modern, but isn't as good in other aspects (a trait that's all too common for remakes, unfortunately). Still a good film though, it just didn't live up to the original.

The first Resident Evil was okay, certainly one of the better game adaptations out there (which isn't saying much, but still), but I think most people would agree it'd be quite a stretch to even put it in the discussion for best zombie movie.

But yeah, World War Z was crap. I thought it was okay when I first saw it (no, I didn't pay to see this), certainly better than it had any right to be given the production problems and PG-13 rating (which means no blood and very little on-screen violence in a zombie movie {!}, oh and tons of annoying shaky cam), but the more I think about it, the more it dips into a mediocre-to-bad movie, and not just because it literally steals the name of the book for money. Terrible ending, choppy editing and direction (did I forget to mention terrible shaky cams?), bad CGI, characters with no depth and the personality of a plank of wood, oh and there's so many plot holes and, well, logic holes, I don't know where the fuck to begin:

Throwing a grenade on a plane that merely blows a hole in the wall ('cuz it would totes do that ), then buckling up after it goes haywire and miraculously surviving a plane crash that happens to be within walking distance of a medical research facility AND a metal spike through his lung?

Zombies slowing down as soon as they're about to get Pitt and getting stopped by a fridge when they were flying through the air and scurrying up walls?

A cop getting mowed down by a semi truck through a crowded street that was NOWHERE TO BE SEEN in the previous shot without it hitting the other cars (!)?

Pitt getting zombie blood in his mouth and not turning?

Pitt leaving his cell phone on in Korea? And his wife calling him (and thereby putting him in danger) DESPITE HIM TELLING HER NOT TO earlier?

Miraculously picking the right combo of vials for a camouflaging virus without getting instructions from the scientists who happened to be on the security cams?

Shaking off 2 car collisions (which BTW, the driver's side door was completely smashed, and apparently he's not even hurt because needing medical attention would mean he and his family are zombie meat, and we can't have that, so...) and snagging an RV that somebody conveniently left in the street with keys in the ignition and a loaded shotgun during a zombie apocalypse (!) which somehow nobody bothered to take THE WHOLE TIME (!) and somehow never once running into traffic during said zombie outbreak after that?

Zombies that can somehow detect infected hosts while sprinting full speed at them (nevermind the convoluted logic of already-infected zombies needing healthy hosts) yet need loud noises to know where people are (they can "sense" infections, yet they can't "sense" heartbeats? LOL! )?

Israelis building a wall and having no one watching the outside of it?

Pitt being chased by zombies all throughout the Israel scene, yet they conveniently stop long enough for him to catch a glimpse of said zombies running past the Israeli chick (which, again, makes no fucking sense)?

Spanish kid cheering after his parents were killed? 

There's (plenty) more, but that's a pretty damning list (the no-turning-after-zombie-blood-in-mouth gaffe alone should be enough to derail this film; seriously HTF did THAT make it past the editing room? Or the semi collision scene for that matter?). 28 Days Later, this is not. Oh, and the family was so useless that I personally wouldn't have cared if they got ripped apart by zombies. In fact, that might've actually IMPROVED the film, but alas, it couldn't have happened because, PG-13 limitations. Even if it did, they probably would've left it off camera for that exact same reason.

Oh, and here's one more giant plot hole for you (actually, make that 2): the zombie-in-bathroom scene on the plane. So you're telling me an infected man somehow fought through huge crowds, got onto the plane, then locked himself in the bathroom all within the 12 seconds time they said it takes for someone to turn? And apparently, he didn't make any sound the whole time because the stewardess/flight attendant didn't know he was in there despite all the loud plane noises the zombies were supposed to be triggered by.

Last edited by KManX89 - on 11 October 2019

Zombieland is my favorite but it's not the best. It does have the best soundtrack though.



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OMG. You Have WWZ on here as an option, and don't have Return Of The Living Dead.....I have to move you down one full peg on the big board.



- "If you have the heart of a true winner, you can always get more pissed off than some other asshole."

To me is Train to Busan, and is not even close.  I never thought I would actually cry in a zombie flick.



Reanimator = hidden gem
Best recent one= train to busan
Undisputed best= original Romero trilogy especially dawn, also the reamakes are pretty weak they substitute all the cool social messages with senseless action.
I also like the first evil dead but I thought the second one was too silly.
Warm bodies and zombie land had a cool different take on the genre, didn’t like so much 28 days later, maybe I should rewatch it since it’s so highly regarded.



Return of the Living Dead 3, for best zombie movie that isn’t on anyone’s short list for Best Zombie Movie.



COKTOE said:
OMG. You Have WWZ on here as an option, and don't have Return Of The Living Dead.....I have to move you down one full peg on the big board.

I felt compelled to include it just because it's one of the "major" zombie film releases, but yeah, the fact that it ranks dead last in pretty much every single poll taken on the subject, both ones that I've posted and ones I've seen posted on other boards pretty much puts those "ZOMG WWZ EZ DA BES ZOMBAY MUVAY EVUHR!111!" comments I've read on various YouTube vids to bed.

So many plot/logic holes and implausibilities, stupid shaky cams to where I can't tell what's going on, cookie cutter throwaway characters with no depth or personality, oh, and did I forget to mention that it's a watered-down zombie movie with no blood and very little on-screen violence? Seriously, that's like making a Jet-Li movie where he doesn't beat people up, talk about a cardinal sin. I miss seeing this message every time you booted up the Resident Evil games:

I wish the RE2make would've included it just to bring back that nostalgic feel. Oh and BTW, I just saw Zombieland: Double Tap. It was pretty good, but I liked the first one better.