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ZOMBlE
#1 DAWN OF THE DEAD (original 1978 version)
#2 NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD (original)
#3 RE-ANIMATOR
#4 RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD
WORST zombie movies ever:
#1 ZOMBI 2
#2 DEAD HEAT
#3 RESIDENT EVIL
Reviews
.com for Murder (2002)
One of the truly worst movies ever made
Sad and pathetic that two people felt necessary to leave ten-star reviews on this board. Trust me when I say that ".Com For Murder" is one of the worst films in the history of bad films. More than an almost plagiaristic ripoff of Hitchcock (and Kubrick) but also just offensive to the audience.
One scene for instance, as to just how STUPID this movie is... the killer cuts Nicolette Sheridon's wrist, and tells her "you will die in exactly twenty minutes." Does Nicolette raise her arm to slow the bleeding? Does she attempt to bandage the wound? Nope, she just sits there like a blonde Barbie doll for NINETEEN MINUTES while the killer terrorizes her friend, the camera cutting to a clock to remind the viewer she only has so many minutes left. Then her friend gets to her just in time and bandages the wrist, and TWO MINUTES LATER the killer pulls off the bandage and the countdown begins again, from the top. "In twenty minutes you'll be dead, haha." This is the last (hopefully the last) of a long list of turds from director Nico Mastorakis, the Greek's answer to Edward D. Wood. Frankly, at least Mr. Wood's movies were so bad you could laugh at them. Not so with ".Com For Murder," which is simply an insult to the viewer.
The Brown Bunny (2003)
The Brown Lump
To simply call this pretentious mess "vile" is an understatement, and to call Vincent Gallo a "filmmaker" is ludicrous. This is without doubt the most unforgivable and narcissistic drive-forever-and-go-nowhere/home porno movie ever conceived, and Gallo's parents must be ashamed of themselves. I feel sympathy and disgust that Chloe Sevigny would allow herself to stoop so low (pun intended) without an ounce of self-respect for herself or for the viewer. Gallo's -- and Sevigny's excuse, calling this an "art" film is utter rubbish. Brown Lump -- er, Brown Bunny is little more than an excuse for Gallo to point the camera at himself for what seems like hours on end, until time comes to lower it to his genitals, so Chloe can perform an impressive Linda Lovelace imitation.
As to the pathetic cretins who seem to enjoy this kind of garbage, what can I say, to each his own; even if it's watching narcissistic racists (read Gallo's personal website where he tried to sell his sperm; look for "not interested in women with dark skin," and "free insemination for women with Aerian features whose fathers fought for Germany in WWII". If this's your idea of great cinema, then the dead truly do walk the earth...
Zombi 2 (1979)
Avoid at all costs!!
This is not a zombie film, it's a Lucio Fulci film. Fulci will be remembered with the likes of Ed Wood as a truly inept filmmaker, but at least Ed Wood THOUGHT he was making original and compelling movies, and although ridiculous, Wood's ideas were mostly his own. Fulci's game was to rip-off plot lines, and release his films as "Part 2," so imbeciles would believe they were watching sequels. In Italy, "Dawn of the Dead" was titled Zombie, so Fulci's Zombie was released as "Zombie 2". He did likewise with other films, but I personally believe Zombie was his most blatant rip-off. It's not impossible to make a fresh and original zombie movie without resulting to plagiarism.
House of the Dead (2003)
Garbage
I only just now learned that House of the Deads was "directed" by the same idiot who's responsible for Along in the Dark, easily one of the worst video-game-turned-movies of recent years. The less said about House of the Dead, the better. Boring zombies, boring characters, bad direction, lots of unnecessary computer graphic effects. This is one of those Matrix ripoff movies where bullets and knives and people freeze in mid-air and the camera zooms around them in slow-fast/slow-fast motion. Lots of blood, but who cares? Even for hardcore gore fanatics like myself, blood and fx just don't cut it. All of the people are interchangeable. You can give this person's dialogue to that person, and that person's dialogue to this person, and nothing would matter. These aren't characters, they're card-board cut-outs. I can understand Clint Howard being trapped in this crap-fest, but how did they get Jürgen Prochnow?
Dead Heat (1988)
A zombie movie that deserves to remain dead
Who told Joe Piscopo he could act? He's not much of a comic, and he's a dreadful actor. Treat Williams has talent, but he's utterly wasted here, stumbling from one bad scene to another, with Piscopo following like a loyal dog, barking bad dialogue. As with the dreadful Forest Whitiker/Anthony Edwards cop flop Downtown, this movie suffers from exceptionally poor dialogue, and even worse direction. There are moments where you think the actors weren't even aware the camera was rolling, and other scenes where the actors are just waiting for their lines, as though the director was out to lunch or something. What could have been Lethal Weapon meets Dawn of the Dead becomes a series of predictable incidents that are more or less rehashes of previous buddy cop films. Lethal Weapon and 48hrs and Running Scared worked not because of gimmicks, but because of the characters. Dead Heat fails on every level because there was zero attention paid to script and character.
Resident Evil (2002)
Too bad Romero didn't direct this
I understand George A Romero was at one point going to direct this movie. It might have turned out better, but then Land of the Dead was not what it could have been either. Milla Jovovich is a knockout, and some of the zombie attacks are kind of scary, but this movie tries to make up in stylized action what it lacks in plot. Nowhere near as lame as House of the Dead, but perhaps video games should remain games, not movies. Still, Resident Evil had a few great death scenes. I personally liked the zig-zagging laser which sliced people into bits, but I could've done without the CGI dogs. they looked like dobermans dipped in strawberry jam. Too bad Michelle Rodriguez wasn't around for Part 2.
Dawn of the Dead (2004)
28 Dawns Later
OK, so it borrows the zombies from 28 Days Later, the idea of having our heroes hide out in a shopping mall, and the rest of the film stands or fails on its own merits. I think it stands quite well, certainly superior to Romero's 2005 Land of the Dead. The ending credits were kind of silly, reminiscent of Resident Evil/music video outtakes, but otherwise this wasn't a bad movie. The acting was fine, the directing sharp, and the zombies were kind of scary. A few so-so scenes like the zombie baby, which was done far better in 1985's Dead End, but as far as pointless remakes go, this was a good one. The @sshole security guard is great; at first he's a rehash of Joe Polato's un-praiseworthy performance in 1985's Day of the Dead, then he does a complete turnaround, ultimately saving the day. Look fast for Ken Foree as a TV minister.
28 Days Later... (2002)
No, it's not a zombie movie, but I loved it!
It confuses me why so many people argue on weather or not this is a zombie movie. They don't eat humans, they fall down and die when you shoot them, they starve to death at the end. They're not zombies. Now that that's settled, damn, was this a scary movie! More than a few scenes of real horror, with good characters and great direction. The infected definitely had a hand in the look of the recent remake of Dawn of the Dead, only they're better here. I didn't really need to see Cillian Murphy naked, twice, while the super-sexy Naomie Harris remains clothed throughout, but other than that, 28 Days Later is a near-perfect film. Sequels blow more often than not, but I'd love to see a Part II if they did it right.
La nuit des étoiles filantes (1973)
Did I miss something?
I rented this piece of junk years ago, with the impression I was going to see sexy women and hungry zombies. At least that's what the video box suggested. Not only is it difficult to accept the skanky lead actress is a virgin, but there are no zombies. Nothing even remotely resembling zombies. Some loser North American video distributer got the rights to release a cheap Italian film, let's say it was originally titled Fully Clothed Girl Walking Around On Boring Island For Ninety Minutes, he blew twenty bucks on cheap zombie poster art, retitled it Virgin Among The Living Dead, and then he took my two dollars! There should be a law against deliberately deceptive advertising. I have nothing against idiots who make cheap lousy movies, only I like to know what I'm paying for. Anyone who watches this movie won't walk away a virgin, and the dirtbag video distributer won't respect you in the morning.
Day of the Dead (1985)
Could have been better
1985 had three great zombie movies, and then there was Day of the Dead. Unlike Return of the Living Dead, Dead End, and especially Re-Animator, Day of the Dead just kind of sits there, with more screen time given to unlikable characters yelling at each other, than to rampaging zombies. The most sympathetic person in the movie is Bub the zombie, when he learns his friend the mad scientist has been killed. You really feel sorry for him, where as you don't feel anything for any of the humans. The only thing that makes some of the human characters remotely sympathetic is that they're not presented as complete creeps like all the others. Joe Polato is one of the worst bad guys you're likely to see on film, sneering and scowling and sticking out his jaw like a motorcycle thug in a bad '50's Roger Corman movie. It's worth seeing, but you might be disappointed.
Dawn of the Dead (1978)
Let's go to the mall!
Most likely the second best zombie film ever made, and in some ways the very best, George A. Romero's original Dawn of the Dead really stands the test of time. The sequel was good, but there's only one Dawn. Not only are the zombies themselves great characters, but the people they're killing and eating are interesting and sympathetic. Horror movies often present bloodthirsty monsters killing cardboard cut-out victims. Not the case with Dawn of the Dead, where the people are people. We care about them, and we feel sorry when they die, unlike the Friday the 13th movies where we just sit around bored, waiting for the next person to get his throat cut. So if you haven't seen this one, go see it. And if you have, look quick for Joe Polato, who ended up starring in Day of the Dead.
Dead End (1985)
Blair Witch Zombies
I saw this weird little movie years ago at a friend's house, and no one else seems to have ever heard of it. A military germ warfare satellite crash lands in a small town, turning its inhabitants into zombies. A few people are also in the town, including a documentary film crew who believed the satellite was a UFO. This movie was shot on video, and like Blair Witch Project, pretends to be a true account of actual events. It's not perfect, and perhaps someone should have told the director to ease off just a tad on the blood and gore, but Dead End has moments of comic genius. The zombies are great! not their makeup, but their characters. One zombie endlessly drags a dead dog around the block, stopping at fire hydrants, while another zombie, a postman, walks up and down empty streets, placing items into mailboxes; rocks, dead birds, fingers, and so on, while several zombies dressed as characters from The Rocky Horror Picture Show just stand patiently in front of a closed theater throughout the entire picture, never chasing or eating anyone. Perhaps too many ideas for such a low budget, but filled with in-jokes for film and television buffs, and some of the most truly grotesque death scenes ever imagined.
Re-Animator (1985)
Death is just the beginning....
I'm amazed Stuart Gordon isn't known by fans world wide as one of the horror greats, like John Carpenter, George Romero, Wes Craven, Joe Dante and David Croninberg. Re-Animator is a comic masterpiece, and one of the best zombie films ever made. Herbert West is testing this new serum, see? Brings the recently deceased back to life... sort of. Buckets of screams and buckets of blood, and a comic wit that most filmmakers would envy. One of the funniest scenes in the film features a lascivious severed head and a naked Barbara Crampton tied to a table. Not for the squeamish, but overall one of the best thrillers of its type.
Land of the Dead (2005)
John Carpenter's Land of the Dead Ghosts of Mars
If I hadn't known better, I would have thought John Carpenter had directed this movie. That's not intended as an insult to Carpenter, whose Thing and Escape from N.Y. are sci-fi masterpieces, but much of the plot line and characters from Land of the Dead were right out of Carpenter's Ghosts of Mars! There was nothing in this film, not one character or scene or plot line, that was reminiscent of the imagination that Romero brought to Nght of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead, or even his so-so Day of the Dead. Dennis Hopper was amusing, Asia Argento was attractive, the zombies were maggoty, and everything else was sub-standard. Romero seems to have taken the George Lucas road; making audiences wait years and years, only to deliver a mediocre product. Land of the Dead rates lower than many of the zombie knock-offs inspired by previous Romero films. I hear there's a Land of the Dead II in the works, I won't be seeing it. The 1985 zombie comedy Dead End featured a character named Romero kicking a dead horse. Kind of funny at the time, only now it's kind of sad.
Return of the Living Dead: Part II (1988)
Well.... OK. I guess.... sort of.
Not much going on here. Blood and brains to be sure, but something's missing. Kind of nice to see Thom Matthews and James Karen more or less reprise their roles from the original -- "Watch your tongue boy, if you like this job!" "Like this job?!?" -- but the laughs are few and far between, and the scares are few. More campy than funny, with Forrest J. Ackerman doing a cameo and a Michael Jackson look-alike, and little if any of the comic energy that made the original so compelling. Like so many sequels, this is little more than a zombie, feeding off a superior original. And unlike the original, this film doesn't stand up for multiple viewings. I've seen the original perhaps twenty times, and loved it every time. In fact, I think I'll watch it the moment I log off. Part II; saw it, forgot it, don't make the same mistake.
The Return of the Living Dead (1985)
More brains!!!
What can I say? Irate zombies feasting on teenage brains is fun, and Linnea Quigley running around nude for 20% of the film doesn't hurt. Directed by Dan O'Bannon of Alien fame, and co-written by Russell Streiner who helped pen the 1968 original, 1985's Return of the Living Dead takes Romero's zombies to a new comic high. More than a few gross-out scenes, like an old hag zombie tied to a table screaming for brains, and a naked bald guy getting chopped up with an ax, but mostly this movie is just funny and silly. The ending is something of a downer because everyone dies, but overall there's not must to disappoint here. Comedy, blood, brains, and Linnea. Need I say more?
Night of the Living Dead (1968)
Grandaddy of all zombie movies!!!
Without exception, Night of the Living Dead is the single best zombie flick ever made! Good acting and direction, well written, and the documentary feel and low budget just adds to the suspense. 1978's Dawn of the Dead was, as Roger Ebert put it "an apocalyptic masterpiece," whereas 1985's Day of the Dead was tolerable, and the Savini remake and the recent Land of the Dead were just unnecessary, neither being as compelling as the original material they were based on. If you never bother with another zombie movie, see this one. It ranks with the original Frankenstein as one of the major thrillers of its time, paving the way for inspirational directors like John Carpenter, Wes Craven, David Croninberg and Stuart Gordon.