Without further ado, here is a list of my top 5 favorite zombie movies of all time:
1) Night of the Living Dead (1968) - The quintissential zombie flick. I first saw this when I was about 8 or 9 and it scared the bejesus out of me. It's one of those movies that you always heard the name of but never actually watched because your parents wouldn't let you (i.e. A Clockwork Orange, Texas Chainsaw Massacre). I think my dad caved in and rented this one for us though, because afterall, it is a bonafide classic. When I watched it later in my teens, I couldn't believe how gory it actually was, and how well it still holds up. They show naked zombies eating the flesh right off of human bones! And the little girl in the cellar comes back to life and kills her mom with a gardening tool. Remember that? Pay close attention to the ambient noise during most of the picture. It's just crickets. The music is eery as shit, but for the most part all you hear is crickets. Fascinating.
2) The Evil Dead (1981) - I don't know if this is technically considered to be a zombie movie; there are dead people that come back to life as evil ghouls, but then again there are also people who are just outright possesed by the evil force. Hmmm.....whatever the case may be, it's still one of my favorite movies of all time. My experience with these movies was backwards. I first saw Army of Darkness in the theater with my mom and brother. I was 10. It was my mom's birthday and she thought the movie looked funny. We loved it, but had no idea it was a sequel to anything, we just figured the intro was a made up story to explain how he ended up in the past. Anyway, a few months later when Army of Darkness made its way onto VHS, my whole family was at Blockbuster and my dad found Evil Dead 2 and rented that as well. The first Evil Dead was damn near impossible to find back then. Seriously, it was like this movie was a myth. It wasn't until my brother and I stayed with my cousin in Long Island two years later, that we went to the local video store and found a copy of the Evil Dead. I distinctly remember that they didn't even have a box for this movie, instead this video store took the box for Evil Dead 2, cut out the skull and the words "Evil Dead" and taped it onto the front of a black box. Well, my brother and I watched the movie that night and I've fucking loved it ever since.
3) Dawn of the Dead (2004) - Some people say that the original Dawn of the Dead is great, but I'll be completely honest, I could never get past the first 30 minutes or so. It starts out well as far as I could remember but then once they get to the mall I just want to watch something else. Anyway, I saw the remake in college and thought it was great. It was gory, but not CGI gory (except the little zombie baby, that sucked), and the zombies ran and shit. I thought the ending was a little weak, but overall this movie seriously kicks ass and confirms my belief that Sarah Polley is awesome in anything she's in. Watch it.
4) Zombie, a.k.a. Zombi 2 (1971) - The unofficial Italian sequel to Dawn of the Dead, as that movie was released in Italy as "Zombi". This movie is flat-out disturbing. This sparked my interest in the Italian horror genre. I love how the actors are clearly speaking English, but their English is so bad that they have to dub all their lines over in English. This seems to be the standard for all these Italian horror movies. I don't get why they didn't just speak in Italian and use subtitles, but either way I feel lke it kind of adds to the vibe. This movie has a bunch of people on an island being attacked by zombies left and right. There's some really cool imagery....the zombies move slow, but fuck, they are really scary. As I recall there's a really good scene where a girl is looking through a peephole and a zombie stabs her in the eyeball. The ending is incredible and will scare the shit out of you.
5) Dead Alive (1992) - Fuck if this isn't the greatest movie ever made, it really is up there. A Sumatran Rat-Monkey bites an old lady on the ankle in a New Zealand zoo, and the old lady's son, a total momma's boy, takes care of her as she becomes a horrible puss-projecting zombie. God bless Peter Jackson for being the greatest director of comedic horror. The man simply gets that horror movies shouldn't take themselves too seriously. I remember reading an interview with him and he said that he watched one of the more recent Hellraiser sequels and was dissapointed with how there was nothing comedic about the film. He said, "If I made a 'Hellraiser' film, I'd like Pinhead to be whacked against a wall and have all the pins flattened into his face". Yes!!! Anyway, this movie has so many zombies doing crazy ridiculous things that you can't stop laughing and covering your eyes at the same time. I put this movie on at a party once, with the sound off, and people couldn't stop watching it. The scene with the zombie baby at the playground is probably the best part of the whole movie.Well, there you have it. My top 5 favorite zombie movies. Stay tuned for more top 5 lists on Postcard from Space Mountain.
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