OK a thread of my short reviews of some zombie apocalypse movies because I am a big fan.

First, lets start at the very beginning. Night of The Living Dead by @GeorgeARomeros ... this is the movie that started it all, that birthed the genre. It was influenced by other movies, certainly, but it took those ideas elsewhere and created most the tropes.

Romero's movies such as Dawn Of the Dead, Day of the Dead, Land of the Dead and Diary of the Dead are the gold standard of zombie movies. Every one of them took what zombie movies are and broke new ground. His death in 2017 devastated me.

It's interesting that Romero produced the "found footage" style Diary of the Dead because zombie movies are perfect for the format. The Spanish films [rec] and particularly [rec]2 are outstanding examples of that form. They are also brutal and terrifying.

Perhaps one of the greatest pure (non cross-over) zombie movies is World War Z, which I admit I originally wanted to hate. It's too slick, too Hollywood, has Brad Pitt in it. So much to hate but it's frankly an awesome movie.

Zombie movies are also ripe for cross-over. The most common and arguably beloved combination is Zombie-comedy; the benchmark zomedy (my word) movie is Shaun of the Dead which is a zom-rom-com. It's hilarious and absurd, exactly what a zombie movie needs.

A couple of nights ago I watched Better off Zed which was one of the funniest and most absurd (and perhaps most postmodern) zomedies I have seen. It was towards the end of a long zombie marathon at my house and I loved it. Definitely the standout movie of the night.

A few weeks ago I saw Anna and the Apocalypse which can only be described as a parody of High School Musical style movies with a zombie apocalypse in the middle. So, Zombie/Comedy/Musical. Hilarious and, again, absurd.

I have also seen zombie-westerns (Exit Humanity) zombies-meet-Frankenstien (Frankenstein's Army) and zombie sci-fi, many of which have been too terrible to name here.

However, the most surprisingly good zombie cross-over movie of all time was Død snø a Norwegian zomedy (if your idea of humor is vilely violent slap-stick). What makes is special is ...
...
... Zombie Nazis

Then of course there are the movies about zombies that aren't really zombies. One particularly great example is 28 Days Later where the zombies are people infected with a rage virus. It's sequel 28 Weeks later is also pretty great but not quite there.

And, of course, I am Legend where the "zombies" are more like vampires. I am Legend, interestingly is based on the novel of the same name which was incidentally one of the stated references for Night of the Living dead according to Romero.

Another important zomedy I just remembered. Brain Dead (renamed Dead/Alive in the USA) was one of the movies that got Peter Jackson, Wingnut Films and Weta Workshop started.

And lets not forget the Resident Evil movies which are possibly the only movies based on a computer game in history to not suck balls. They were impressive, particularly the first.