Zombie movies have always been popular, but just because a director throws a bunch of gory makeup on some extras and tell them to walk around with limps moaning, that doesn’t mean his movie is any good. Here is a list of ten movies that brought something else to the table, in terms of either biting social commentary or a clever, fresh take on an idea that has been resurrected again and again on the silver screen.
Night of the Living Dead: George Romero’s original masterpiece still stands out among the crowd for its insightful take on the Civil Rights Movement.
Dawn of the Dead (2004): Few zombie films capture the absolute hopelessness of the situation as does this remake. In the end, there is no escape.
Shaun of the Dead: It’s a love story disguised as a zombie film and brilliantly pulled off by Simon Pegg who manages to find the humor in zombies without losing their terror.
28 Days Later: The opening sequence of this movie plays out in near silence, making for one of the scariest car alarms in the history of cinema.
Evil Dead 2: Sam Raimi’s masterpiece uses manic tracking shots to disorient the audience and make them forget the lack of big-budget effects.
Night of the Comet: Gag me with a spoon. This film from the 80′s has aged well, even if the mall zombies we encounter have certainly not.
Zombieland: With one of the best cameos in the history of film, this tongue-in-cheek look at survival after a zombie apocalypse pokes fun at the genre while losing little of its horror.
Rec: The Spanish film that was remade into Quarantine in the United States features equal parts gore and artistry, and you’ll never look a spiral staircase in exactly the same way.
Weekend at Bernie’s 2: Sure, the original was the better movie, but this is the one that fits the category, as voodoo is used to reanimate Bernie’s corpse instead of Jonathan Silverman.
Dead Snow: Not only do you get zombies, but in this film from Norway, the zombies are also Nazis. This is one ski vacation that went horribly, horribly wrong.