Great Moments in Zombie History
Posted: Fri Oct 02, 2009 9:06 am
Below is Newsarama's list of top 10 moments in Zombie history. What I particularly like about this list is that includes movies, novels and comics.
10. Return of the Living Dead (1985): One common misconception circling this film is that it’s a direct sequel to “Night of the Living Deadâ€. Actually, when writer John Russo and director George A. Romero parted company after that film, they each kept one naming convention and the right to do their own films. Russo kept the “Living Dead†for his titles, while Romero stuck with “Dead†or “of the Deadâ€.
Russo’s subsequent novel was adapted into this film by Dan O’Bannon, who gave it a more comedic edge. This is the film that introduced “Braaaains! More braaaains!†and “Send more cops!†to the horror lexicon.
9. Re-Animator (1985): Frequent Lovecraft adapter Stuart Gordon directed one of his best interpretations with this 1985 fright-fest. Pulling a classic performance from Jeffrey Combs as Dr. Herbert West, Gordon also worked in several FX bits that were fairly innovative for the time.
While the film thrives on gallows humor and has became widely known for several scenes involving Dr. Hill’s head (including a particularly notorious one featuring Barbara Crampton), the whole enterprise maintains a taboo-busting vitality that extends into some of its scare moments. One strong entry: the follow-up to Hill’s declaration that he didn’t come without a plan.
8. Shaun of the Dead (2004): Not the first Zom-Com, but the first Zom-Rom-Com (i.e. zombie romantic comedy), “Shaun of the Dead†proudly wore all of its influences on its sleeve. Zombie apocalypse on the outside and treatise about making sacrifices for a relationship on the inside, “Shaun†scores as many points for its sharply observed details about love as it does for its horde of zombie-film references.
The tracking shot of Shaun walking through his mindless daily routine against the carnage kills, as does the process by which one selects which LP to hurl at the advancing dead. Packed with laughs and not a little pathos, “Shaun†proved that there was still fresh territory to be mined in the genre.
7. Zombie (1979): Italian horror legend Lucio Fulci made his bones in film with this swing at an unofficial “Night of the Living Dead†sequel. This one posits what happens when one lone zombie reaches New York City. The event spurs an investigation to a tropical island where things get much, much worse.
Perhaps the most famous scene in the film is the one that is referred to in the fan short-hand of “zombie vs. sharkâ€. And yes, that’s as much fun as it sounds.
6. World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War (2006): Writer Max Brooks (son of Mel!) struck comedy gold in 2003 with his “Zombie Survival Guideâ€. However, his 2006 novel “World War Z†staked a claim in a swiftly growing horror lit subgenre. With an epic scope and a sweeping account of a zombie apocalypse across the entire planet, Brooks wasn’t exactly short on ambition.
A film is in development; it’s set to be directed by Marc Foster, with a screenplay adaptation by genre powerhouse J. Michael Straczynski. And really, won’t it be extremely interesting to see what Brooks’s biggest contribution to zombiedom, the Redeker Plan, looks like on screen?
10. Return of the Living Dead (1985): One common misconception circling this film is that it’s a direct sequel to “Night of the Living Deadâ€. Actually, when writer John Russo and director George A. Romero parted company after that film, they each kept one naming convention and the right to do their own films. Russo kept the “Living Dead†for his titles, while Romero stuck with “Dead†or “of the Deadâ€.
Russo’s subsequent novel was adapted into this film by Dan O’Bannon, who gave it a more comedic edge. This is the film that introduced “Braaaains! More braaaains!†and “Send more cops!†to the horror lexicon.
9. Re-Animator (1985): Frequent Lovecraft adapter Stuart Gordon directed one of his best interpretations with this 1985 fright-fest. Pulling a classic performance from Jeffrey Combs as Dr. Herbert West, Gordon also worked in several FX bits that were fairly innovative for the time.
While the film thrives on gallows humor and has became widely known for several scenes involving Dr. Hill’s head (including a particularly notorious one featuring Barbara Crampton), the whole enterprise maintains a taboo-busting vitality that extends into some of its scare moments. One strong entry: the follow-up to Hill’s declaration that he didn’t come without a plan.
8. Shaun of the Dead (2004): Not the first Zom-Com, but the first Zom-Rom-Com (i.e. zombie romantic comedy), “Shaun of the Dead†proudly wore all of its influences on its sleeve. Zombie apocalypse on the outside and treatise about making sacrifices for a relationship on the inside, “Shaun†scores as many points for its sharply observed details about love as it does for its horde of zombie-film references.
The tracking shot of Shaun walking through his mindless daily routine against the carnage kills, as does the process by which one selects which LP to hurl at the advancing dead. Packed with laughs and not a little pathos, “Shaun†proved that there was still fresh territory to be mined in the genre.
7. Zombie (1979): Italian horror legend Lucio Fulci made his bones in film with this swing at an unofficial “Night of the Living Dead†sequel. This one posits what happens when one lone zombie reaches New York City. The event spurs an investigation to a tropical island where things get much, much worse.
Perhaps the most famous scene in the film is the one that is referred to in the fan short-hand of “zombie vs. sharkâ€. And yes, that’s as much fun as it sounds.
6. World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War (2006): Writer Max Brooks (son of Mel!) struck comedy gold in 2003 with his “Zombie Survival Guideâ€. However, his 2006 novel “World War Z†staked a claim in a swiftly growing horror lit subgenre. With an epic scope and a sweeping account of a zombie apocalypse across the entire planet, Brooks wasn’t exactly short on ambition.
A film is in development; it’s set to be directed by Marc Foster, with a screenplay adaptation by genre powerhouse J. Michael Straczynski. And really, won’t it be extremely interesting to see what Brooks’s biggest contribution to zombiedom, the Redeker Plan, looks like on screen?