This is alot harder then it sounds I love so many zombie movies. Anything by Romero is great but I think I will go with my non-Romero picks.
1) Notti del terrore, Le (Burial Ground)
2) Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things (Revenge of the Living Dead)
3) Incubo sulla citta contaminata (Nightmare City)
It’s funny you should ask because this weekend some friends and I were sitting around asking each other the same question (except we were doing ‘top 5 favorite zombie movies’). This, of course, led into the inevitable debate of ‘zombie film vs not a zombie film’. Here’s my top three (after much deliberating)…
Night of the Living Dead (without question)
Dead Alive (Peter Jackson’s great gore-fest)
28 Days Later (apologies to those who don’t consider it a ‘zombie film’)
[REC] (The original Spanish film, not the bullsh*t Quarantine)
Dawn of the Dead (1978)/Dawn of the Dead (2004) (If I had to choose one, it would be the original)
Shaun of the Dead
1) Night of the Living Dead (1968)
I swear that they thank the Oscar Mayer Company for the use of the “entrails.”
2) Dawn of the Dead (1978)
I always believed that it had to be true that zombies would end up going to places like malls due to force of habit when I used to work at a mall, and saw the shoppers that were regulars doing the same thing every time they were in the mall, thus, this movie had to have a grain of truth to it. =)
3) Dellamorte Dellamore (1994) aka Cemetery Man
Nothing is funnier than a motorcycle zombie riding back out of the grave to be with his girl, or a walking head that enjoys being with a mortal human who’s just not all there! This flick by far cracks me up every time I watch it.
A close number 4) Shaun of the Dead (2004)
Best parody of all zombie flix, best 2 lines in the film are “We’re coming to get you, Barbara” by Ed stolen from Romero’s Night of the Living Dead. And also by Ed, “Who died and made you … ‘King of the Zombies’?”!!!
And finally 5) The Return of the Living Dead (1985)
Best line in this film is “Send more paramedics.” Best soundtrack (The Cramps!) for a zombie flick next to Shaun of the Dead.
I know it’s more than three, but the last 2 were right up there with my top three.
Day of the Dead
28 Days/Weeks Later
Let Sleeping Corpses Lie
Wow, I wanted to talk about my three films and I couldn’t stop. So here is only a bit of it and I hope to write about the other films later
When making these lists, it is impossible to just list your top 3 guilty pleasures without thinking of balance or themes. Someone really covered that point earlier when they said they could just list all Romero films but wanted to add variety.
2) 28 days/weeks later
I am doing these two together because the most enjoyable parts of weeks were the callbacks to the first film. Starting with days, I love the use of light and dark. All the traveling is done in day in these sunny (as best as you can get in England) outdoor scenes combined with the blackness of the unlit interiors. It is both believable (the protagonists stick to traveling during the day and the lack of electricity is consistent) and impacts your emotions. It is classic film technique to exploit emotions in realistic context. The pitch black interior scenes are truly claustrophobic. The daylight scenes where people run from the infected are terrifying. They are scary without resorting to the horror tradition of hiding the villain.
The digital film was an innovative choice at the time. Do you remember seeing it in theaters? It loses something in subsequent, home viewing. It had a graininess that separated from the pristine 32mm used in horror films of the late nineties/early 00s. In some shots, like the driving scene with flowers in the foreground, had this blur that evoked a Monet painting. It was completely removed from modern, horror film convention.
The confect as the main character returns had everything. It uses only one song, “In a House, In a Heartbeat.” The song/editing allows them to do everything. It controls tempo. It builds emotions and captures the emotions in each moment. It also has my favorite theme in zombie films: the greatest evil is man’s inhumanity toward themselves.
As I said, the best part of Weeks is what evoked the ideas of Days. I adore how, “In a House, In a Heartbeat” became a series theme song. I don’t think many people in the theater realized it was the same song and that makes me sad.
The opening scene is a movie itself. When they opened the door and it was a sunny day I wanted to cheer. That moment said so much about their life. You could infer so much about their experience.
As an aside, I don’t cheer or shriek at horror movies. I laugh. When the filmmaker does something amazing, like the reveal of daylight above, I am impressed. When the director has total control of the audience fear, like when she crawls out of the television at the end of The Ring, I adore being in that moment and being scared. When the director knows he has drained their emotion and beats it further with something audacious, like beating to death the heroine at the end of 28 Weeks Later through the lens of her own night vision scope, I am impressed. That all comes out as laughter.
Back to the opening. As all heck breaks loose the scenes are well edited and the narrative jumps between several groups without becoming confusing. I would applaud the camera work but I am a little tired of the shaky cam shot this millennium. What I do like is all characters engage in range of behavior without fitting into archetypes. Robert Carlyle makes both choices to defend the group and abandon a loved one. The fellow who escapes to the barn offers to help the old lady up but he is not the one that stays to barricade the door. The director has turned these people into instinctual animals. They are torn in all directions and make gut reactions. It is another favorite theme of mine. It is the idea that without the protections of society humans become animals.
Finally, there is the moment Robert Carlyle runs for the boat. It is bright daylight, wide shot that reveals the running infected coming over the hill. It completely re-establishes the audience in this world. Suspending disbelief requires work. You need to make the audience believe it. The opening scene does it perfectly.
This is really, really hard! There are just so many great ones… Why’d you guys have to have only 3 choices? you know darn well Romero has more than 3! But here’s a shot…
1.) Night of the living dead
2.) Return of the living dead
3.) Evil Dead 2, if that counts as a zombie movie, if not then:
3.1)Dawn of the Dead (’78)
3. Return of the Living Dead.
taking the idea that the incident shown in Night of the Living dead really happened but was fictionalized to make the movie was a great twist on the mythos. The movie has such a fun feel and an awesome soundtrack (can we buy this soundtrack or get the files somewhere?). The line about it not being a costume it’s a lifestyle is a line i have jumbled but used for my entire life. send more paramedics. if you don’t like this movie, you are a douchebag, it is, however, fully acceptable not to like anything after the second return of the living dead (4 and 5 are baby punching material right there).
2. Day of the Dead
the real one. no bullshit remake, no shitload of fuck milking romero’s work, no running jumping vegan zombies, the real fucking thing. one of the single best god damn movies ever. i love the archetypes of the characters, the hopeless zompocalypse the world is facing… everything about this movie screams “epic”, i am sure if romero had a bigger budget it would have been more epic.
1. Tombs of the Blind Dead
I think this is really the first movie that at the end of the movie you know that everyone is going to die. it presents a real brutal story and in the end there is no hope. these are some evil zombies out for revenge and to make the living join them.
in the end i think that zombies just want to make the living play on their team. it’s like a fucked up game of dodgeball, ya know what i’m saying?
no one has hood of the living dead or dead clowns on their lists (good job guys, way to have good taste)? or the day of the dead remake… haha
runners up: porn of the dead, evil dead 2, shaun of the dead, cemetary man, gates of hell.
As others have mentioned, it is very hard to narrow it down to 3 choices. But here it goes…
1) Dawn of the dead (Original)
2) Shaun of the Dead
3) Return of the living dead
1. Cemetery Man ~ the ending is wicked surreal
2. Dead Alive ~ The lawnmower sequence as well as Mother giant sized with son ripping out of her inside are images that will forever haunt me (and possibly delay eating for a day or two.)
3. 28 days later ~ ~ ~
1. NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD
2. DEAD ALIVE
3. THE WALKING DEAD I KNOW ITS A COMIC BUT IF AND WHEN THEY MAKE IT. THIS WILL PROBABLY BE THE BEST ZOMBIE MOVIE EVER
Dead Alive, because it was a comedy but you didn’t realize it til halfway thru thanks to the genius of Peter Jackson
Plan 9 From Outer Space, because it was a comedy but you didn’t realize it til halfway thru thanks to the ineptness of Ed Wood
Day of the Dead, because Bud is just so freakin’ lovable
Evil Dead 2
Night of the Living Dead
and my #1 zombie movie of all time -
28 Days Later.
I never thought I’d see a zombie movie with a heart.
And Cillian Murphy is rather easy on the eyes.
Day of the Dead
Night of the Living Dead (remake)
Dawn of the Dead (original)
That flyboy print is awesome!
Night of the Living Dead (original)
Dead Alive
Return of the Living Dead
This is alot harder then it sounds I love so many zombie movies. Anything by Romero is great but I think I will go with my non-Romero picks.
1) Notti del terrore, Le (Burial Ground)
2) Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things (Revenge of the Living Dead)
3) Incubo sulla citta contaminata (Nightmare City)
It’s funny you should ask because this weekend some friends and I were sitting around asking each other the same question (except we were doing ‘top 5 favorite zombie movies’). This, of course, led into the inevitable debate of ‘zombie film vs not a zombie film’. Here’s my top three (after much deliberating)…
Night of the Living Dead (without question)
Dead Alive (Peter Jackson’s great gore-fest)
28 Days Later (apologies to those who don’t consider it a ‘zombie film’)
Romero could easily occupy all three choices, but I’ll limit him to one. Even then, it’s still tough.
I’m going to say Night ‘68 for kicking off the zombie genre as we know it;
Dawn ‘04 for a great opening, Richard Cheese, and generally being a solid film;
And Re-Animator for the inimitable Herbert West. No flesh-eating or contagion, but I still consider it a zombie film.
Night of the Living Dead (original)
Day of the Dead
Dawn of the Dead (remake)
In no particular order:
[REC] (The original Spanish film, not the bullsh*t Quarantine)
Dawn of the Dead (1978)/Dawn of the Dead (2004) (If I had to choose one, it would be the original)
Shaun of the Dead
1) Night of the Living Dead (1968)
I swear that they thank the Oscar Mayer Company for the use of the “entrails.”
2) Dawn of the Dead (1978)
I always believed that it had to be true that zombies would end up going to places like malls due to force of habit when I used to work at a mall, and saw the shoppers that were regulars doing the same thing every time they were in the mall, thus, this movie had to have a grain of truth to it. =)
3) Dellamorte Dellamore (1994) aka Cemetery Man
Nothing is funnier than a motorcycle zombie riding back out of the grave to be with his girl, or a walking head that enjoys being with a mortal human who’s just not all there! This flick by far cracks me up every time I watch it.
A close number 4) Shaun of the Dead (2004)
Best parody of all zombie flix, best 2 lines in the film are “We’re coming to get you, Barbara” by Ed stolen from Romero’s Night of the Living Dead. And also by Ed, “Who died and made you … ‘King of the Zombies’?”!!!
And finally 5) The Return of the Living Dead (1985)
Best line in this film is “Send more paramedics.” Best soundtrack (The Cramps!) for a zombie flick next to Shaun of the Dead.
I know it’s more than three, but the last 2 were right up there with my top three.
Day of the Dead
28 Days/Weeks Later
Let Sleeping Corpses Lie
Wow, I wanted to talk about my three films and I couldn’t stop. So here is only a bit of it and I hope to write about the other films later
When making these lists, it is impossible to just list your top 3 guilty pleasures without thinking of balance or themes. Someone really covered that point earlier when they said they could just list all Romero films but wanted to add variety.
2) 28 days/weeks later
I am doing these two together because the most enjoyable parts of weeks were the callbacks to the first film. Starting with days, I love the use of light and dark. All the traveling is done in day in these sunny (as best as you can get in England) outdoor scenes combined with the blackness of the unlit interiors. It is both believable (the protagonists stick to traveling during the day and the lack of electricity is consistent) and impacts your emotions. It is classic film technique to exploit emotions in realistic context. The pitch black interior scenes are truly claustrophobic. The daylight scenes where people run from the infected are terrifying. They are scary without resorting to the horror tradition of hiding the villain.
The digital film was an innovative choice at the time. Do you remember seeing it in theaters? It loses something in subsequent, home viewing. It had a graininess that separated from the pristine 32mm used in horror films of the late nineties/early 00s. In some shots, like the driving scene with flowers in the foreground, had this blur that evoked a Monet painting. It was completely removed from modern, horror film convention.
The confect as the main character returns had everything. It uses only one song, “In a House, In a Heartbeat.” The song/editing allows them to do everything. It controls tempo. It builds emotions and captures the emotions in each moment. It also has my favorite theme in zombie films: the greatest evil is man’s inhumanity toward themselves.
As I said, the best part of Weeks is what evoked the ideas of Days. I adore how, “In a House, In a Heartbeat” became a series theme song. I don’t think many people in the theater realized it was the same song and that makes me sad.
The opening scene is a movie itself. When they opened the door and it was a sunny day I wanted to cheer. That moment said so much about their life. You could infer so much about their experience.
As an aside, I don’t cheer or shriek at horror movies. I laugh. When the filmmaker does something amazing, like the reveal of daylight above, I am impressed. When the director has total control of the audience fear, like when she crawls out of the television at the end of The Ring, I adore being in that moment and being scared. When the director knows he has drained their emotion and beats it further with something audacious, like beating to death the heroine at the end of 28 Weeks Later through the lens of her own night vision scope, I am impressed. That all comes out as laughter.
Back to the opening. As all heck breaks loose the scenes are well edited and the narrative jumps between several groups without becoming confusing. I would applaud the camera work but I am a little tired of the shaky cam shot this millennium. What I do like is all characters engage in range of behavior without fitting into archetypes. Robert Carlyle makes both choices to defend the group and abandon a loved one. The fellow who escapes to the barn offers to help the old lady up but he is not the one that stays to barricade the door. The director has turned these people into instinctual animals. They are torn in all directions and make gut reactions. It is another favorite theme of mine. It is the idea that without the protections of society humans become animals.
Finally, there is the moment Robert Carlyle runs for the boat. It is bright daylight, wide shot that reveals the running infected coming over the hill. It completely re-establishes the audience in this world. Suspending disbelief requires work. You need to make the audience believe it. The opening scene does it perfectly.
Dawn of the Dead (1978)
Night of the Living Dead (1968)
Day of the Dead (1985)
Romero takes all 3 spots in my list . . . can’t help it. The close fourth would be Fulci’s Zombi 2.
Night of the Living Dead (remake)
Fido
28 Days Later
1. Wild Zero
2. Shaun of the Dead
3. Dellamorte Dellamore (Cemetery Man)
1)shock waves
2)return of the living dead
3)plague of the Zombies
This is really, really hard! There are just so many great ones… Why’d you guys have to have only 3 choices? you know darn well Romero has more than 3! But here’s a shot…
1.) Night of the living dead
2.) Return of the living dead
3.) Evil Dead 2, if that counts as a zombie movie, if not then:
3.1)Dawn of the Dead (’78)
Mind you the order means nothing.
3. Return of the Living Dead.
taking the idea that the incident shown in Night of the Living dead really happened but was fictionalized to make the movie was a great twist on the mythos. The movie has such a fun feel and an awesome soundtrack (can we buy this soundtrack or get the files somewhere?). The line about it not being a costume it’s a lifestyle is a line i have jumbled but used for my entire life. send more paramedics. if you don’t like this movie, you are a douchebag, it is, however, fully acceptable not to like anything after the second return of the living dead (4 and 5 are baby punching material right there).
2. Day of the Dead
the real one. no bullshit remake, no shitload of fuck milking romero’s work, no running jumping vegan zombies, the real fucking thing. one of the single best god damn movies ever. i love the archetypes of the characters, the hopeless zompocalypse the world is facing… everything about this movie screams “epic”, i am sure if romero had a bigger budget it would have been more epic.
1. Tombs of the Blind Dead
I think this is really the first movie that at the end of the movie you know that everyone is going to die. it presents a real brutal story and in the end there is no hope. these are some evil zombies out for revenge and to make the living join them.
in the end i think that zombies just want to make the living play on their team. it’s like a fucked up game of dodgeball, ya know what i’m saying?
no one has hood of the living dead or dead clowns on their lists (good job guys, way to have good taste)? or the day of the dead remake… haha
runners up: porn of the dead, evil dead 2, shaun of the dead, cemetary man, gates of hell.
As others have mentioned, it is very hard to narrow it down to 3 choices. But here it goes…
1) Dawn of the dead (Original)
2) Shaun of the Dead
3) Return of the living dead
Dawn of the Dead
Night of the Living Dead
Day of the Dead
My three favorite Zombie films of all time are:
1) Planet Terror
2) Night of the Living Dead (original version)
3) Dawn of the Dead
Thanks for the contest and please count me in!
Very hard to just pick 3 but here they are:
1. Night of the Living Dead
2. Dead Alive
3. Shaun of the Dead
thanks!
-28 Days Later
-Shaun of the Dead
-28 Weeks Later
1. NIght of the living dead
2. Return of the living dead
3. 28 days later
1. Cemetery Man ~ the ending is wicked surreal
2. Dead Alive ~ The lawnmower sequence as well as Mother giant sized with son ripping out of her inside are images that will forever haunt me (and possibly delay eating for a day or two.)
3. 28 days later ~ ~ ~
1. NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD
2. DEAD ALIVE
3. THE WALKING DEAD I KNOW ITS A COMIC BUT IF AND WHEN THEY MAKE IT. THIS WILL PROBABLY BE THE BEST ZOMBIE MOVIE EVER
Night of the Living Dead
The Omega Man
Shaun of the Dead
1. Day of the Dead (original)
2. Night of the Living Dead (original)
3. Return of the Living Dead
Night of the Living Dead (original)
28 days later
Dawn of the Dead (remake)
Shaun of the Dead
Fido
Original Night of the living dead
1. Day of the Dead
2. Dawn of the Dead (Remake)
3. Dead and Buried
1. Shaun of the Dead
2. Night of the Living Dead
3. 28 Days Later
1. Day of the Dead (original)
2. Night of the Living Dead (original)
3. Return of the Living Dead
THANK YOU GOD BLESS
1. The Night of the Living Dead
2. The Return of the Living Dead
3. The Killer Tomato movie
Night of the Living Dead
Dead Alive
Return of the Living Dead
1.) Dawn Of The Dead
2.) Shaun Of The Dead
3.) Day Of The Dead
like to win this
Tonya- You need to tell us your 3 favorite zombie films to be entered into the contest!
1. Shaun of the Dead
2. Dawn of the Dead
3. Dead Alive
Night of the Living Dead (original)
Day of the Dead (original)
28 days later
Dead Alive, because it was a comedy but you didn’t realize it til halfway thru thanks to the genius of Peter Jackson
Plan 9 From Outer Space, because it was a comedy but you didn’t realize it til halfway thru thanks to the ineptness of Ed Wood
Day of the Dead, because Bud is just so freakin’ lovable
(1) Night of the Living Dead (2) 28 Days Later (3) Zombies …. still recall the nail in the eye scene in great detail
gkstratos@yahoo.com
land of the dead, shaun of the dead, day of the dead
I hate zombies
Night of the Living Dead
Dawn of the Dead
Fido
Alicia- Um…okay. Thanks for stopping by?
wow
Night of the Living Dead, Fido, Dawn of the Dead
Evil Dead 2
Night of the Living Dead
and my #1 zombie movie of all time -
28 Days Later.
I never thought I’d see a zombie movie with a heart.
And Cillian Murphy is rather easy on the eyes.
Evil Dead # 1
Shaun of the Dead makes me laugh and cry a bit.
I’m a fan of most zombie films, but my choices would be 1.) Day of the Dead 2.) Wild Zero 3.) Toms of the Blind Dead.
1. shaun of the dead
2. 28 days
3. day of the dead
Day of the Dead
Resident Evil
28 days later
My favorites are Night of the Living Dead, Sean of the Dead and Scooby Doo on Zombie Island
1. Night Of The Living Dead (original)
2. Return Of The Living Dead
3. Day Of The Dead (remake)
Resident Evil, Cementery man, 28 days later. Please enter me, thank you
Night of the Living Dead (the original)
Evil Dead 2
Wild Zero
Its funny how the original Night of the Living Dead is the generic answer for most zombie lovers… but that was the movie that started it all for me.
Nice Work!
Garden of the Dead
Zombie Bloodbath 3: Zombie Armageddon
Flesh Freaks
Dawn of the Dead
Night of the living Dead
Night of the Comet
Night of the Livind Dead
Shaun of the Dead
Resident Evil
Legend
Sean of the Dead
Dawn of the Dead (the newish one)
cherylfrancisco@hotmail.com
Dawn of the Dead
Night of the Living Dead
Resident Evil- Extinction
Legend? With Tom Cruise?
Night of the Living Dead (original)
Dead Alive
Return of the Living Dead
Day of the Dead (Original), Resident Evil, 28 Weeks Later (sequel to 28 days later)
Really great work!
Shaun of the Dead, 28 Days and Night of the Living Dead.
28 Days Later
Shaun of the Dead
Night of the Living Dead
Dawn of the Dead (remake)
28 Days
Shawn of the Dead
28 Days Later
Dawn Of the Dead
Evil Dead 2
Night of the Living Dead
Return of the Living Dead
Shawn of the Dead
Night of the Living Dead (original)
Day of the Dead
Dawn of the Dead (remake)
Shaun of the Dead
Evil Dead 2
Dead Alive
Resident Evil- Extinction
28 Days Later
Dawn of the Dead
1.28 Days Later.
2.28 Weeks Later.
3.Dawn Of The Dead Remake.
1.Night of the Living Dead
2.Resident Evil
3. 28 Days Later
1. Dead Alive
2. Plan 9 From Outer Space
3. Fido
Day of the Dead, Shaun of the Dead and 28 Days Later thank you
1. Dead Alive
2. Shaun of the Dead
3. Army of Darkness
1. army of darkness(has zombies)
2. night of the living dead
3.evil dead
1) Dawn Of The Dead
2) Zombie (aka Zombi 2)
3) Day Of The Dead
Dawn of the Dead 1978
Resident Evil 2: Apocalypse
Diary of the Dead
I Love Zombie movies, I’ve probably seen every one in my collection at least 100 times.
Dawn Of The Dead Day Of The Dead evil dead
1/ Night of the Living Dead (original)
2/ Return of the Living Dead
3/ Night of the Living Dead (remake)
The Zombie Diaries
Dawn of the Dead (1978)
Plague of the Zombies
night of the living dead
night of the comet
28 days later
Alien Dead
The boneyard
Braindead
Dawn of the Dead (1978)
Night of the Living Dead (1968)
Day of the Dead (1985)
Dawn of the Dead (remake)
28 Days Later
Resident Evil 2: Apocalypse
Night of the Living Dead (original)
Day of the Dead
Dawn of the Dead (remake)
Night of the Living Dead (original)
Day of the Dead
Dawn of the Dead (remake)
Day of the Dead
Night of the Living Dead (remake)
Dawn of the Dead (original)
That flyboy print is awesome!
Day of the Dead
Night of the Living Dead (original)
Dawn of the Dead (original)
Shaun of the Dead
Dawn of the Dead (70s version)
28 days later
CONTEST CLOSED
Let’s see…in no particular order…
1) Night of the Living Dead (original)
2) Return of the Living Dead
3) The Beyond
Zombob- Sorry. It ended yesterday!