It’s the last day of the Holiday Bog Hop, which means it’s the last day to visit all of the blogs and enter to win some amazing prizes! If you haven’t already, be sure to check my main giveaway page for your chances to win my book and an amigurumi zombie hand-crocheted by yours truly. And keep reading to see how you can grab another chance to win a free e-book copy of Dominion of the Damned!
I’m a fan of zombie movies, which you might notice if you read my latest novel. I’ll pretty much watch anything with zombies in it, and I’ll be the first to admit, there’s a lot of bad out there in zombie-land. But there’s some greatness, too. Here are my five favorite zombie movies, in no particular order:
1. Shaun of the Dead – Billed as “a romantic comedy, with zombies,” there’s really not a better way to describe this movie, except to add that it’s British. And if you’re a fan of British comedy, then I don’t need to tell you that Shaun of the Dead is freaking hilarious. One of the best things about it is how straight it plays the zombie apocalypse — it’s not really a parody of the genre as much as it’s a genre-mashup. The zombies are quite frightening. It’s the “You can’t really be serious about this” attitudes of the protagonists toward everything that makes this probably the funniest zombie horror movie you’ll ever see.
2. Return of the Living Dead – This 1980s classic actually is a parody of Romero-style zombie movies, and it’s pretty brilliant. Although hilarious, it also has some genuinely frightening moments, along with a significant amount of gore. It also gets credit for adding zombies’ unyielding hunger for “braaaaains” to the genre.
3. Dawn of the Dead (2004) – Here’s where I have to confess that I still haven’t seen the original, so I don’t know how it compares, but this is a pretty frightening flick. There’s not a lot of humor to be found in this one, but it is a fascinating study of human nature in a dire situation, when it all comes down to survival. And the zombies in this are of the fast-moving variety, which makes them all the more frightening.
4. Night of the Living Dead (1968) – The movie that started it all is a classic, and for good reason. Its low budget only adds to the realism and feelings of claustrophobia and paranoia, and although some of the performances are pretty far from Oscar-worthy, there’s also some stand-out acting from some of the unknown actors in the film. It’s the film that set the standard for all modern zombie movies, and I still never get tired of watching it.
5. Pontypool – This is kind of a controversial choice. I debated giving this slot to either Zombieland or Fido, both of which I liked better overall than Pontypool, but I realized that I have more to say about the latter. It’s kind of an obscure movie, about a morning radio shock-jock and his producer who are locked in their basement radio station when an apparent zombie-like outbreak occurs in their small Canadian town. It’s one of the more creative approaches to the genre that I’ve seen, and it’s almost like listening to a radio play, as most of the action is heard rather than seen, leaving a lot to the audience’s imagination. I do have to say, though, that the ending almost ruined it for me, which I found to be almost insulting in its pretentiousness. But up until then, it was a pretty entertaining and original take on the zombie genre that had me on the edge of my seat.
Do you have a favorite zombie movie, or do you steer clear of the genre altogether? Tell us about it in the comments — and for this last day of the Holiday Hop, I’ll randomly select one winner from among today’s comments on this post to receive an e-copy of my zombies vs. humans vs. vampires novel, Dominion of the Damned!