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— by Carl Davis and Ben Cosgrove
Horror fans are a lucky bunch these days. First, they've been presented with the gift of a new George Romero film, as the fourth in his epic series of "Dead" movies recently splattered across movie screens everywhere. Right on its heels, "Undead," yet another movie featuring ravenous ghouls, this time from Down Under, is hitting theaters. With the frequently dormant zombie-film genre evidently undergoing one of its occasional reawakenings, it's high time to look back at some of the movies that defined and reinvented the genre.
 "Shaun Of The Dead" (2004)
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After Danny Boyle revolutionized the zombie genre with "28 Days Later" (see below), fellow Brits Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright kicked out the zombie jams old-school style, with undead ghouls shambling pitifully through this unique romantic-zombie-comedy. When Shaun's girlfriend Liz dumps him, his world comes to an end — literally. As the dead rise from their graves and proceed to wreak havoc, Shaun must try to win back Liz's heart, make his mother proud and save his best friend from his own self-destructive tendencies, all by doing what he does best: namely, going down to the Winchester to grab a pint. With references to just about every zombie film worth mentioning, as well as demonstrating the best way ever to deal with a zombie bite (run it under cold water), this film obviously loves the genre it skewers.
"28 Days Later" (2002)
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Danny Boyle's film is part tribute to the genre and part reinvention. When activists liberate caged animals from a lab in England, they're quite proud of themselves — until they realize that the critters are infected with a "rage virus" that turns humans into bloodthirsty berserkers a mere 20 seconds after exposure. While not "zombies" in the strictest sense of the term, the army of angry flesh-eaters is zombie-like enough to warrant inclusion here, and Boyle, who directed the wonderfully sordid "Trainspotting," clearly has a terrific feel for both gore and suspense.
"Braindead" (a.k.a "Dead Alive") (1993)
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Before he went all respectable on us, Peter Jackson was best known for a trilogy of increasingly grotesque and disturbing films: "Bad Taste," "Meet the Feebles" and "Braindead" (a.k.a. "Dead Alive"). In the latter, Lionel has spent his entire life under the thumb of his overbearing mum, but the tables are turned when the old bird falls ill after being bitten by the rare Sumatran rat monkey. Lionel does his best to care for her, even though the rat monkey's bite has turned her into a flesh-eating zombie. After meeting the lovely Paquita, however, Lionel must now find a way to maintain his newfound relationship, deal with the growing number of his mom's undead victims in the basement and keep his nefarious Uncle Les from moving in and discovering the awful truth. Jackson is on fire here, using every trick in his considerable arsenal, including a cemetery of gleeful ghouls (featuring a kung-fu clergyman — "I kick ass for the Lord!"), an undead infant and a lawnmower-massacre climax that help create one of the silliest and goriest films of all time.
"Pet Semetary" (1989)
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This gruesome adaptation of Stephen King's equally harrowing novel of the same name starts off like your typical made-for-TV movie — until the second half, which is positively drenched in blood and gore. Dr. Louis Creed has moved his wife and kids from the hustle and bustle of Chicago to the quiet of the Maine countryside. When his daughter's cat becomes roadkill, instead of burying it in the backyard, his elderly neighbor Jud tells him about the mystical restorative properties of an old Indian burial ground. Well, like the song says, the cat came back — only different, somehow, and downright evil. When his son is also killed, Louis is driven by grief to take the corpse from its grave and make another trip to the burial ground, this time with even more disastrous results.
"The Serpent And The Rainbow" (1988)
Anthropologist Dennis Alan (Bill Pullman) gets in over his head during the chaotic last days of the brutal Duvalier regime in Haiti, as he searches for the active ingredient in "voodoo powder" and ends up dealing with a lot of pissed-off Haitians, unfamiliar religious practices, foreign sensibilities and (of course) zombies. Wes Craven directed this adaptation of Harvard professor Wade Davis' book of the same name, and he has given the film a convincing, creepy, semi-documentary vibe.
"Day Of The Dead" (1985)
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Written and directed by Romero, the third in the "Dead" series is also one of the most unrelentingly bleak zombie films ever made — and coming on the heels of "Night" and "Dawn," that's saying something. This time around, scientists are conducting experiments and research on zombies in a missile-silo bunker below the earth's surface, trying to figure out a way to destroy or control them. Above, the earth is overrun by zombies; below ground, tensions between the scientists and the soldiers charged with protecting them are rising. This can't end well.
"Return Of The Living Dead" (1984)
This tongue-in-cheek film posits that "Night of the Living Dead" was based on an actual incident. The premise: the government has sealed all known zombies and the chemical agent that created them in military canisters for further study. Unfortunately, one of the canisters is sent to a medical-supply company where a group of teenage punks, slackers and misfits is exposed to the agent; the dead from the local cemetery, of course, proceed to rise from their graves. Director Dan O'Bannon ditches Romero's sly wit for outright laughs, toying with the ideas Romero initially presented but never truly explored. These zombies can think and occasionally talk, but forever crave living brains to dull the pain of their own deaths. A simple shot to the head, however, won't stop them, as even their severed limbs take on murderous lives of their own.
"Zombi 2" (a.k.a. "Zombie") (1979)
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Romero's "Dawn of the Dead" was re-cut by his friend and sometime collaborator Dario Argento, who then released it as "Zombi" in Europe. It met with tremendous critical and commercial success overseas, and inspired Italian gore-meister Lucio Fulci ("The Beyond") to cash in with an unofficial sequel, "Zombi 2" (released as simply "Zombie" in the U.S.). The story is classic zombie fare: When her father's boat arrives in New York with a strange, seemingly crazed man aboard, Anne decides she had better go and investigate pop's Caribbean laboratory to make sure everything's OK. With a nosy reporter and a couple of vacationing friends in tow, she heads to the sun-drenched island of Matool, which just happens to be swarming with legions of undead. Scenes like the one in which a zombie engages in an underwater struggle with a (real) shark, or the excruciating close-up of a wooden splinter being driven into a woman's eye, have made this a horror classic, and helped to make Italy the epicenter of zombie filmdom in the 1980s.
"Dawn Of The Dead" (1978) /
"Dawn Of The Dead" (2004)
Romero's "Night of the Living Dead" was already a classic when he set about making this epic sequel, which in many ways surpasses its groundbreaking predecessor. Taking place shortly after the original, "Dawn of the Dead" finds the world under siege by the undead, with the U.S. under martial law in an effort to
contain zombie outbreaks. Two Philadelphia cops decide that they've had enough and team up with a TV helicopter pilot and his girlfriend. The group makes its way to a massive shopping mall outside of Pittsburgh, where they hole up and fortify the structure from the encroaching madness outside. However, a vicious biker gang intrudes on their sanctuary, leading to a finale in which survivors must fight both the living and the dead. While referencing classic portrayals of cruelty, such as Poe's "The Masque of the Red Death," Romero's masterpiece is also a darkly comic critique on rampant consumerism and the decline of Western society. Zack Snyder's surprisingly faithful remake, meanwhile, is also a clever re-imagining of the original, with less emphasis on social commentary and more undead action, à la "28 Days Later." One of the more successful post-9/11 horror movies, Snyder's "Dawn" injects terror directly into the heart of the seemingly safe suburbs, turning the protagonists' world upside down and sending them running for the familiar shelter of the local mall. A great ensemble cast, sharp writing and an even sharper finale that draws on the legacy of the Italian zombie epics combine to make this one of the few horror remakes that, if not quite as smart as the original, is at least as entertaining.
"Night Of The Living Dead" (1968)
The one that started it all — and still one of the scariest film premises ever devised. Everything about the movie, from the excruciating, brilliant pacing to the rough, voyeuristic feel to the purity of the plot — people trapped in a house surrounded by the risen dead who want nothing but to eat them — makes this classic the sort of film that critics, horror fanatics and casual movie fans can agree on: It's simply great. (Note: The immortal line uttered by Sheriff McClelland when discussing the rampaging zombies — "Yeah, they're dead. They're all messed up" — was improvised by the film's production manager, George Kosana. How AFI missed that one on its recent list of the 100 greatest movie quotes of all time, we'll never understand.)
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Photos: Universal Pictures
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