Shawn Van Horn has been a Senior Features Author for Collider since 2022 with a focus on horror, and 90s TV and movies.
In 2002, director Danny Boyle and writer Alex Garland changed the zombie genre forever with 28 Days Later. The story of a rage virus that turned its zombie-like victims not into the shambling undead, but fast-moving creatures was terrifying.
A 2005 sequel, 28 Weeks Later, without Boyle or Garland's involvement was okay, but the franchise was truly reborn when they returned for 2025's 28 Years Later. The first of a trilogy, its follow-up, Nia DaCosta's 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, was just as good and showcased a very scary human villain in Jack O'Connell's Jimmy Crystal. It worked so well that we can only think of ten other zombie movies that do it better. 10 'The Return of the Living Dead' BRRAAAINNNNSSS! Directed by Dan O'Bannon, the screenwriter behind Alien, The Return of the Living Dead is nowhere near as serious as that film. The horror comedy stars Thom Mathews as the new employee at a medical supply warehouse. When gas is accidentally released from a basement military drum, the dead are awakened from their graves and rise to eat the living. The Return of the Living Dead perfectly blends genres. It's a terrifying movie with some absolutely disgusting special effects, but it also has fun and knows what it is. Not only do these zombies run if they choose, a few can even talk! It's gory and filled with gut-busting laughs. There have been few zombie films more fun than this one. 9 'Zombieland' Ruben Fleischer's Zombieland is led by a big name cast, a rarity for the subgenre. Starring Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Emma Stone, and Abigail Breslin, Zombieland takes place in the middle of the outbreak with Columbus seeking to get home when he meets a new group of friends who will change his life as they fight to survive. Zombieland is another horror comedy, and although there are plenty of laughs, it's never at the expense of the living dead. These running creatures are scary and presented as a real threat. It's everything around them that is lighter. Columbus has his rules. Tallahassee just wants his twinkies. And Bill Murray's surprise cameo is one of the best ever! 8 '28 Years Later' One of the zombie movies better than 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple is the one that came before it. Written by Alex Garland and directed by Danny Boyle, 28 Years Later takes place in a world that has learned to survive after the end. However, when Jamie and his young son Spike leave the safety of their island for the mainland, the monsters who still thrive might mean these guys aren't coming back. 28 Years Later moves fast, with plenty of pulse-pounding chases, a frantic score, and phenomenal performances from Taylor-Johnson and Williams. Boyle creates a technical masterpiece that's beautiful to look at, with plenty of gore and fears. However, once you meet Ralph Fiennes' unusual Dr. Ian Kelson, this becomes his movie, as the actor steals every scene he's in. 7 'Day of the Dead' George A. Romero is the godfather of the modern zombie movie, and in 1985 he delivered the final entry in his original trilogy, Day of the Dead. Set many years after the world has been destroyed by an outbreak of the undead, a group of soldiers and scientists find safety in an underground military bunker where those who are there to protect are even more of a threat than those who live on human flesh. Day of the Dead wasn't well received when it first came out, but today it's regarded as a cult classic masterpiece. As per usual, Romero has a lot to say about the state of humanity with a bleak message. He doesn't forget to scare either. Joseph Pilato's Captain Henry Rhodes is one of the most despicable villains in horror history, and his death is among the best shockingly gory scenes ever put to film. Day of the Dead also has a zombie to root for with Bub , who has learned how to talk. Choke on 'em! 6 'REC' 1999's The Blair Witch Project wasn't the first found footage movie, but it's the one that made them insanely popular throughout the 2000s. Toward the end of the decade, they started to become played out, then came REC. Co-written and co-directed by Jaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza, the Spanish movie stars Manuela Velasco as Ángela Vidal, a reporter who takes her film crew on a shift with a group of firefighters who respond to an apartment building and find something unimaginable. Instead of being a lazy trope, the found footage approach helped REC by bringing an intense and immediate realism. It doesn't mess around. REC gets right to the action and is a tight 78 minute thrill-ride all the way to its shocking end. Its success led to a franchise and an American reboot, but nothing comes close to the original. 5 'Shaun of the Dead' Directed by Edgar Wright, which he co-wrote with Simon Pegg, Shaun of the Dead is the first entry in their Three Flavours Cornetto trilogy. It's also their best. Pegg stars in the film as the titular Shaun, a loser salesman with a girlfriend, Liz , who has gotten sick of laziness. When the zombie shit hits the fan, Shaun and his slacker best friend Ed have to save the day. Shaun of the Dead is hands down the funniest zombie movie ever made. Again, it's not the zombies who are the joke. Change the tone, and they're equally scary. But Pegg and Frost as two imbeciles who must overcome their own flaws to protect those they care about makes for plenty of laughs, whether it be the brilliant one shot of Shaun not noticing the outbreak, or the sad yet touching final scene. 4 'Train to Busan' If you want the most intense zombie movie of all-time, only Train to Busan makes the list. The South Korean film from Yeon Sang-ho stars Gong Yoo as Seok-Woo, an office drone with a young daughter he loves but barely gets to see. When a zombie outbreak hits, this father will do everything it takes to make sure his child survives. There are fast zombies, then there are the ghouls from Train to Busan. This horde is non-stop, creating a tense film that leaves viewers on the edge of their seat, no matter how many times you've seen it. It's a horror film, for sure, but Train to Busan is also a heartwarming and heartbreaking story of love. We still haven't gotten over that ending. 3 '28 Days Later' The one that started the franchise, 28 Days Later, put Cillian Murphy on the map as Jim, a Londoner who wakes up from a coma only to find the city completely abandoned. Clueless about what happened, he quickly finds out, and from then on he's on the run with a group of new friends he makes along the way in a world where the uninfected are as horrifying as the ones who are. Subscribe to the newsletter for zombie-film deep dives and more Craving deeper takes on classics like Dawn of the Dead or Train to Busan? Subscribe to our newsletter to get curated analyses, watchlist picks, and context that deepen your appreciation of zombie and genre cinema. Get Updates By subscribing, you agree to receive newsletter and marketing emails, and accept our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. You can unsubscribe anytime. Zombies that run and don't walk are everywhere now, but this wasn't the case in 2002. Boyle and Garland's film leaves the viewer thinking with its strong satirical message. It is loaded with terror and is even more painful to watch now. Filmed as 9/11 happened, 28 Days Later became an allegory about the terrorist attacks, and after COVID, the message of infection, isolation, and distrust resonated even more than ever. 2 'Night of the Living Dead' The most important zombie movie ever made is also the second best. Before Night of the Living Dead, zombies were about voodoo cults. George A. Romero reinvented them as ghouls who come back from the dead to feast on human flesh and can only be taken down with a shot to the head. The plot of the film is simple, with a group of people trapped in a boarded-up farmhouse and the undead fighting to get in, but there's so much more going on than meets the eye. Night of the Living Dead is light on the gore and heavy on the scares. It's also filled with political messaging. Duane Jones as Ben, the Black hero in an otherwise all white cast, was extremely rare for the time. It spoke to the civil rights era of the 60s with Ben as the protector while everyone else around him falls apart from fear or anger. The tragic ending scene and the end credit photos will rip your guts out. 1 'Dawn of the Dead' Ten years after Night of the Living Dead, Romero returned to the world for the greatest zombie movie. Dawn of the Dead starts with a world falling apart from an evolving outbreak and four people taking to the skies in a helicopter in search of refuge. They find it at an abandoned shopping mall in Monroeville, Pennsylvania. After boarding the place up, they start a new life that's eventually interrupted by a biker gang who wants inside too. Instead of being black and white, Dawn of the Dead is filled with rich colors and lots of red. The green-looking zombies take some getting used to, but the real-life setting brings the plot to life with a strong message about consumerism and what it has turned us into. A special shout out to David Emgee's Flyboy not only for the acting ability of his death scene, but the perfection of the most accurate zombie walk. They don't get any better than this one.Powered by Expand Collapse
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