The second movie to ever scare the living [crap] out of me was George A. Romero’s Night Of The Living Dead and that was when I was eleven years old in 1969. My first pants pisser, however, was a really bad Sci- Fi film that I now feel got me ready for the experience that is watching Romero’s original zombie flick for the first time. It is also the movie that got me into horror and sci fi films in general.

The Invisible Invaders (1957) was a late night favorite of the popular local horror television show Chiller Theatre as they played the film several times. This ridiculous “Z” movie is about invaders from the moon who take over the corpses of human beings in their bid to conquer the earth. I remember being fascinated by the idea of normal looking people walking around dead and looking all messed up.

The Invisible Invaders is pretty laughable after you see something like NOTLD, but at the tender age of 8 this movie blew my mind. Arguably, this is not the first walking dead zombie movie, but for me it paved the way to a misspent life of watching ghouls rise from the grave to feast on the flesh of the living.

Over the last 29 years there has been a ton of zombie movies with most of them being made in the last 15 or 16 years. Like any other sub genre of film, some of these movies are good and some of them are bad…really bad. As the owner of ISV for the last 12 years I can honestly say that since the year 2000, the zombie has become the number one monster in our current culture. People can’t get enough of these films. They will watch the good with the bad, as long as there is a zombie or two involved. And when there is no movie to watch, they play video and role playing games with zombies in them, read novels about zombies and show up as zombies at a strange new phenomenon known as “The Zombie Walk”. This is the zombie nation whether you want to admit it or not. You are reading this while standing around a zombie convention, are you not?

So here’s to the zombie and the people out there who so desperately want to be one. Our fascination with this shambling, rotting and ever so hungry version of us is at its peak and there seems to be no end in sight. Not since the monsters of yesterday (Frankenstein, Dracula, the Wolfman and that whole crew) has a horror character captured the imagination of an entire country. Go zombie go!

ISV’S TOP TEN ZOMBIE MOVIES

NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD (1968) Before this landmark film, the role of the zombie in film history was that of a voodoo created slave that usually labored in a salt mine, a sugar cane field or some other hellhole of a work place that no living human would dare set foot in. Romero’s film changed all that and made the zombies flesh eating ghouls who rise from the grave for no apparent reason. George took the zombies out of exotic island locales such as Haiti and brought them into America’s back yards. Needless to say, things have never been the same since.

2.DAWN OF THE DEAD (1978) The first sequel to NOTLD is a low budget horror film that has the look and feel of an epic. It is also one of the first movies to be released un-rated for it’s extremely violent content. It made being special effects man a career choice and a Pittsburgh shopping mall a destination location for horror fans around the world.

3.RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD (1985) The first zombie comedy is one of the few of its kind that actually works. The film broke new ground with the living dead talking (“BRAINS!”) and running, rather than shambling, after their victims.

4.ZOMBIE (1979) This Italian gore extravaganza takes the action back to a tropical island and mixes voodoo and science to explain why the dead have risen and are feeding on the living. To this day there are no nastier looking zombies than the ones found gut munching in this film.

5.DAY OF THE DEAD (198) Romero continues his living dead mythology with a third installment that is more character driven than the others. Holed up in an abandoned mineshaft, a group of desperate scientists and soldiers fight one another while the living dead roam the world above them.

6.LET SLEEPING CORPSES LIE (1974) Dismissed by critics as a Euro trash rip off of NOTLD, this atmospheric and stylish Spanish-Italian co production was one of the first time audiences were treated to zombie gut munching in living, vivid color.

7.DEAD ALIVE (1992) Another zombie comedy that succeeds under the direction of New Zealand’s current favorite son, Peter Jackson. Known outside of the U.S. as BRAIN DEAD, this is probably one of the goriest and most blood soaked movies ever made.

8.CHILDREN SHOULDN’T PLAY WITH DEAD THINGS (1972) Included here only for it’s last reel, which contains one of the most haunting and impressive zombie attacks ever filmed. The rest of the movie, however, suffers from annoying characters and bottom of the barrel bad acting.

9.CEMETERY MAN A sureal zombie comedy about love and death, this movie is considered to be the last great Italian horror film ever made. A must see!

10. NGHT LIFE (1989) There are no massive hordes of the living dead to be found in this all but forgotten zombie movie from the late Eighties. This is a simple story of a nerd who is picked on by four high school bullies, making his life a living hell. When the obnoxious teens die in a car crash, they come back to life and continue torment the poor kid as zombies.

HONERABLE MENTION

BURIAL GROUND (1981) It’s non stop zombie action in this relentless Italian gore flick. Not much of a plot here, but if you want to see some serious carnage, then this is the perfect no-brainer. Warning…this film contains one of the most disturbing mother-son relationships ever to be put on film!

NIGHTMARE CITY (1980) This crazy Italian gore romp starts with a plane landing at an airport and unloading a rampaging gang of murdering axe and gun wielding toxic zombies. While there is no plot and the zombie make up is some of worst ever, this a really fun movie. Highly recommended to watch with a group.

LAND OF THE DEAD (2006) Romero’s fourth living dead film isn’t perfect, but it does have some great moments. The evolution of the zombie didn’t sit well with some fans, but hey…this is guy who invented all of this and I feel that he can do whatever he wants.

CITY OF THE LIVING DEAD (1980) The dead are alive in the small town of Dunwich and they are pissed! The zombies in this Lucio Fulci classic are probably the meanest and most violent ever. There is so much gore and violence on display here that one forgets that the movie makes no sense at all.

SHAUN OF THE DEAD (2004) A loving tribute to the films of George Romero, this British comedy is also a top-notch zombie flick in it’s right and features many inspired moments that no serious horror fan can resist.

DEATH DREAM (1974) There is only one zombie in this grim re-working of the classic monkey’s paw story, but don’t let that stop you from watching this great film. When a mother hears that her son has been killed in the Vietnam War, she wishes him back to life. When he shows up on her doorstep he is distant, dark and …DEAD! He is also very hungry for human flesh. One of the best horror movies of the Seventies, DEATHDREAM will leave you pretty creeped out.

THE DEAD NEXT DOOR (1988) This low budget 8mm extravaganza is impressive because it is chock full of gore and zombies and really delivers the goods. It also features some really awful acting, so brace yourself for that. THE DEAD NEXT DOOR deserves respect for being one of the first independent zombie films, made well before the age of the digital video camera.

WILD ZERO (2000) When the Japanese punk rock band Guitar Wolf decided to make a movie, they threw in every cool thing that they could… and that included lots and lots of zombies. WILD ZERO is an amazing movie that is almost impossible to not like. Tons of gore, UFOs, rock and roll, flaming microphones and guitar picks that can kill zombies make this a must see!

SHOCK WAVES (1976) SHOCK WAVES is a subtle zombie film with very little gore or violence. But what it lacks in those departments, it certainly makes up for with some of scariest and creepiest underwater Nazi zombies ever!

THE WORST

The Zombie Army (1991) I used to have a sticker on the VHS box of this movie that read “worst video in the store”, and needless to say, this lead to a lot of curiosity rentals. I’ll have to admit that I felt bad taking people’s money because of a sticker on a movie that was truly awful…and not in a fun way. As the years went by, a ton of bad crap came into ISV and ZOMBIE ARMY’S title reign of “worst movie in the store” was usurped several times. But in the zombie movie category, it still stood its own. Shot on video (which in 1991 meant it looked like total shit) and with a budget of 55 cents, ZOMBIE ARMY has to be the worst zombie movie ever made.

The plot is not that bad…a troop of army guys take over an abandoned mental asylum, only to find that the patients that were left in solitary confinement have become flesh eating zombies. No, that is not the problem here. It is everything else…in spades.

The acting is capital “A” abysmal, the dialog atrocious and the make up is as amateur as it gets. The blood looks like watered down store bought spaghetti sauce for crying out loud! And like I said before, this is early nineties shot on video stuff, so as far as technical quality, everything blows… lighting, sound, editing…the whole awful ball of wax.

I hope that with this write up that I am not glamorizing the badness like I did when I put the sticker on the video box. I really don’t want you to see this movie and good luck if you really want to. I’m pretty sure that this atrocity has vanished off the face of the earth…I still have my copy though. Meet me in the alley.

Wow…it seems like I a wasted a lot of space ranting about ZOMBIE ARMY and there’s no room left to write about the other living dead shit-fests out there. Just take my word for it, the following movies are really bad and should be avoided like a bite from the undead.

Zombie Bloodbath (1993)
Biohazardous (2000)
La Cage aux Zombies, (1995)
Children of the Living Dead (2001)

Day of the Dead: Contagium (2005)
The Dead Hate the Living! (1999)
House of the Dead (2003)
Oasis of the Zombie (1982)
Zombie Lake (1981)