Zombie Films - An Alternative Rental List
A Putrid Pile Of Movies Featuring Undead Automatons
Zombie films have been around for decades, dating back to Bela Lugosi's supernatural turn in 1939's White Zombie. Yet it was George A. Romero's decision to break the walking dead free from their primitive jungle environments and set them loose on rural Pennsylvania, and his low-budget 1968 classic Night Of The Living Dead spawned the notion of a full-blown zombie apocalypse.
With a modern pop-culture saturation of all things zombified and flesh-hungry, perhaps it's time to dig deeper into cinematic soil and revel in those post-Night nightmares left rotting on video store shelves for ages. Whether for a Halloween night movie marathon or simply to explore horror film history after catching Zombieland in theaters, here are some rental options for when the Romero series and other recent favorites have been exhausted.
Return Of The Living Dead (United States, 1985)
2004's "zombedy" Shaun Of The Dead is on the short list of recent zombie films that kick-started the current undead mania, but this 1985 Dan O'Bannon shocker beat it to the munch. Return Of The Living Dead follows a group of punk rockers as they invade a moss-encrusted cemetery while waiting for their friend Freddy (Thom Mathews) to get out of work at the nearby Uneeda Medical Supply Company.
Unfortunately, the basement at Uneeda houses a batch of rusty barrels containing the liquefied remains of the corpses seen walking in Night Of The Living Dead - which this film posits as a true story. Noxious gases escape only to form an acid rain that brings the local dead back to life. Yet these ambulant corpses can move as fast as they talk, and they want brains! Equally campy and bleak, and uses its zombie invasion as an allegory for Cold War fears of the Eighties.
Zombi 2 aka Zombie (Italy, 1979)
When George A. Romero's seminal film Dawn Of The Dead was seen in Italy, it was in an altered cut (masterminded by Dario Argento) known as Zombi. Yet while Romero went on to make his own threequel (1985's Day Of The Dead), gorehound and talented visualist Lucio Fulci helmed a more obscure Italian cash-in. Apart from some tacked-on bookend scenes in New York, that's where the similarities end.
In some ways hearkening back to the origins of cinema's zombies, this tale centers on the tropical island of Matool, which has been plagued by disease - and the walking dead. A young woman (Tisa Farrow) thus joins forces with the press to uncover what has happened to her father on the cursed isle. The ensuing blood-soaked gags are great, but nothing can top the be-all end-all scene with an underwater zombie facing off against a real tiger shark!
Tombs Of The Blind Dead (Spain, 1971)
The first in the Blind Dead series, this mood-drenched nasty from director Amando de Ossorio is an original voice amidst a sea of Romero wannabes. Here, the zombies are actually mummified Knights Templar who rise from the grave at night. They hunt their prey sonically, as their eyes have all been long since picked clean by ravenous birds.
A naughty love triangle sets the plot in motion, as a shamed girl leaps off a train before taking an ill-advised nap in the ruins of the Templars' favorite hangout. In more of a nod to Psycho than Night Of The Living Dead, the missing girl's boyfriend and childhood chum find more than they bargain for while looking for answers. Absolutely dripping in style!
Shock Waves (United States, 1977)
Ken Wiederhorn's severely low-budget thriller might be bereft of gore and visceral kills, but it makes up for it in tone and with one important element - Nazi Zombies! With modern amusements such as the film Dead Snow and video games loaded with undead shock troops, now is the perfect time to dive in to this totenmensch classic. Brooke Adams, John Carradine and Peter Cushing all help make this slow boil shocker work.
When a boating accident leaves a group of pleasure seekers stranded on a remote island, their situation takes a turn for the worse with the revelation that undead U-boat operators ("Der Toten Korps") have awakened from their watery sleep. Cushing portrays the Nazi commander who once led the creepy begoggled corpses into battle. It's short on action and blood, but long on mood and weirdness!
Dellamorte Dellamore aka Cemetery Man (Italy, 1994)
Equal parts horror film, comedy, love story and surrealist masterpiece, Dargio Argento understudy Michele Soavi's groundbreaking zombie feature is a must see. Rupert Everett portrays Italian undertaker Francesco Dellamorte, whose cemetery spits forth reanimated corpses shortly after their burial. His portly near-mute partner Gnaghi (François Hadji-Lazaro) is his only help in offing the recently resurrected dead night after night.
When an infatuation with a beautiful widow (Anna Falchi, who plays a number of roles within the film) turns grisly and sour, Francesco's journey grows stranger and more violent by the second. Not a traditional zombie film by any stretch of the imagination, Dellamorte Dellamore flirts with giallo templates before unveiling a jaw-dropping, mind-blowing finale that will leave viewers stammering "What the heck was that?"
Of course these five films are just the tip of the putrefied iceberg, as there are legions of other zombie pictures lurking out there. But for those who have never strayed beyond 28 Days Later or Zack Snyder's Dawn of the Dead remake, these should go down a treat!
- Return Of The Living Dead (dir. by Dan O'Bannon) is available on DVD from MGM
- Zombi 2 aka Zombie (dir. by Lucio Fulci) is available on DVD from Media Blasters
- Tombs Of The Blind Dead (dir. by Amando De Ossorio) and the entire Blind Dead collection is available on DVD from Blue Underground
- Shock Waves (dir. by Ken Wiederhorn) is available on DVD from Blue Underground
- Dellamorte Dellamore aka Cemetery Man (dir. by Michele Soavi) is available on DVD from Starz / Anchor Bay
A Cuddly Friend From Lucio Fulci's Zombi 2
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