Top 5 Zombie Films

With Halloween starting the week off, we felt inclined to keep in the spirit of things, and what is scarier than a good zombie movie?

We’ve all woken up feeling like one, maybe left the house and gone to the shop (or work) looking like one, but who are the perennial zombies? Contractor Weekly brings you the top 5 zombie films.

White Zombie

The first Zombie movie and the one that set the trend for all to follow, the 1932 release of ‘White Zombie’ practically started the zombie phenomenon. Slightly different to what we think of now as the typical ‘zombie story’, this film charts the plight of the hapless Madeleine Short Parker, a girl transformed into a zombie at the hands of an evil Haitian Voodoo master played by the legendary Bela Lugosi. Madge Bellamy plays the victim, but unlike many zombie films (SPOILER ALERT), this one has a happy ending.

Braindead

One of the goriest films of all time, this cult classic by Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson is the archetypal ‘splatstick’ movie. Combining quick wit and comedy, it is the odd story of a deadly race of Sumatran Rat-Monkey that turns humans to zombies by biting them. The film follows a son trying to cover up the evidence of his zombie mother, who goes on a bloodthirsty rampage creating a tribe of the undead, resulting in a particularly gory final scene!

Shaun of the Dead

Simon Pegg and Nick Frost’s first film together, this classic modern zombie story deals equally with the problems in an ordinary mans life, and the uprising of a zombie infestation. Hilarious from start to finish and featuring a prolific cast, Pegg and Frost’s bid to get to the Winchester pub and ‘wait for it all to blow over’ has rightly become a cult classic of its genre.

Night of the Living Dead

Perhaps the greatest zombie film in existence, ‘Night of the Living Dead’ maintains not only a cult status as the perfect zombie film, but also as a classic of American cinema. George A. Romero’s directorial debut cost only $114,000 to make and has since grossed $18 million internationally, proving its worth. The film was even inducted into the American National Film Registry due to it being so ‘culturally, historically and aesthetically significant’. The plot follows seven people trapped in a Pennsylvania farmhouse under attack by the walking dead, and features the perfect amount of gore, suspense and impending doom!

Dawn of the Dead

‘When there’s no more room in hell, the dead will walk the earth’ was the rather ominous description of this film on its release poster. It followed perhaps the most revered zombie film ever (see number 4) and firmly established Romero as the don of zombie cinema. This film sees the entire human race come under siege by the infestation of zombies, and is a certain inspiration to other films of this genre such as ’28 Days Later’. Four people in search of safety and refuge face all sorts of challenges, and the film culminates rather ambiguously, leaving the future of the human race uncertain.