The zombie movie genre has gone through a lot of changes over the last 80 years. The original zombie is something most of today’s movie fans would never recognize, based in the realm of voodoo rather than the dead walking again. However, after filmmakers like Val Lewton mastered the original zombie horror, George Romero created a new sort of zombie and changed everything.
About a decade after Romero introduced the idea of the dead returning to life with a thirst for brains, other filmmakers moved quickly. They added comedy and satire to the mix, and today there are so many different offshoots of zombie horror cinema that it remains one of the most successful brands of horror. With so many movies, some may end up forgotten, and here are 10 of the most underrated zombie movies of all-time.
FIDO
Released in 2006, Fido is a Canadian-made zombie movie that had a familiar cast and a brilliant premise. The zombie apocalypse already happened, and humans won. A device was made that zombies could wear that turned them into servants to the human population. However, when the devices begin to malfunction, a vast conspiracy is uncovered.
Billy Connolly portrays the zombie named Fido, who is in the control of a young boy named Timmy and his parents, the zombie-phobe Bill (Dylan Baker) and his wife Helen (Carrie-Anne Moss).
TRAIN TO BUSAN
Released in 2016, Train to Busan was a great little zombie movie that focused on a father and his daughter trying to remain together and survive a zombie apocalypse. Most of the film takes place on a train heading to Busan, which the two got in when the outbreak started.
The film, outside of the zombie threat, was about a man obsessed with his work and his neglected child, and the two connecting during the end of the world.
THE GIRL WITH ALL THE GIFTS
Released in 2016 and based on the brilliant novel by Mike Carey, The Girl with All The Gifts came and went with little fanfare but deserved a much better fate. The film takes place after the zombie apocalypse took place and is concerned with a military camp where children are taught lessons while the soldiers continue to head out to pick off zombies.
The twist is that the children are second-generation zombies. They are kept under control and can respond and learn, but can still break out in a rage at the scent of humans. The kicker is that the hero of the story is one of the zombie children, Melanie, and her unawareness at first that she is a zombie.
WARM BODIES
Warm Bodies hit theaters in 2013 but was passed off by most people because it was a zom-com, a zombie romantic comedy of sorts. It stars Nicholas Hoult (Beast from the last X-Men movies) as a zombie named R. He can think but can’t really talk and just lumbers around, not really wanting to eat anyone.
Then, one day, he sees and meets a living girl named Julie (Teresa Palmer) and falls in love with her. While she sees him at first as a zombie, she realizes he is trying to connect, and it changes everything she knows about zombies in her world. John Malkovich also appears as Julie’s father.
DEAD SNOW
Released in 2009, Dead Snow might be the most offbeat and deranged zombie movie ever made. Directed by Tommy Wirkola, Dead Snow is a film for zombie fans who want a little Evil Dead-style humor in their horror movies.
The Norwegian film centers on seven students on vacation in the mountains of Øksfjord hunted by Nazi zombies. The movie then stages some of the most ludicrous zombie-kills in all horror cinema. These scenes include one where a kid hangs from a mountain for his life, holding onto nothing but the entrails of a zombie.
CEMETERY MAN
In 1994, Michele Soavi made a cult-favorite zombie comedy starring Rupert Everett named Dellamorte Dellamore. The title in the United States was changed to Cemetery Man and was about Francesco Dellamorte (Everett), a caretaker in an Italian cemetery. However, his main job was to kill zombies that returned from the dead before they escaped the walls.
However, when he meets a woman, who ends up dead, and then kills her when she returns, things take a turn for the worse. See, Dellamorte is not sure she was really dead when she came back and he killed her again, and he slowly starts to go mad.
THE SERPENT AND THE RAINBOW
As mentioned, the original zombie in horror cinema was not the walking dead at all. It was based on voodoo rituals where a priest would bury a person and leave them underground until their mind was almost gone. The priest would then unbury them and have complete control over their mind.
This was the type of zombies involved in the Wes Craven 1988 movie The Serpent and the Rainbow. While everyone talks about his Nightmare on Elm Street movies, this zombie flick starring Bill Pullman and deserves reevaluation over 30 years later.
OVERLORD
Released in 2018, Overlord was an interesting film that subverted all expectations when it hit theaters. That is not always a good thing, as it can take a beating by people who were taken aback by the fact that this military movie about American soldiers turned into a zombie-monster film by the end.
J.J. Abrams helped produce Overlord, a movie that saw American soldiers trying to stop secret Nazi experiments taking place in an old church. While they were never told it was creating zombie soldiers, when they did make this discovery, it made stopping it even more important.
LIFE AFTER BETH
Life After Beth was a 2014 zombie comedy independent film. Sadly, the film only received a limited theatrical release after its appearance at Sundance, and many people likely missed it completely. The movie stars Aubrey Plaza (Legion) as Beth, a girl who dies and then returns as a zombie.
This comes as a huge surprise to her boyfriend Zach (Amazing Spider-Man 2’s Dane DeHaan) when he learns her parents (John C. Reilly and Molly Shannon) are keeping her locked away at home as her brain is slowly eroding. Once Zach gets her out, he realizes that having a zombie girlfriend is not all it is cracked up to be.
SLITHER
Before he joined Marvel and made Guardians of the Galaxy, James Gunn made a great little horror movie in 2006 called Slither. The film is more of an alien invasion movie similar to Invasion of the Body Snatchers than a zombie movie, but the possessed humans clearly turned into zombie-like creatures by the end.
The film has a fantastic cast, as well with Nathan Fillion (Firefly) as the local sheriff, Elizabeth Banks (Hunger Games) as the other lead, and Michael Rooker (The Walking Dead) as one of the possessed. This movie was a box office flop but is a movie every horror movie fan needs to see.
