5 Must-Watch Zombie Films for Halloween!
- Zebediah Oke
- Oct 4, 2021
- 4 min read
Updated: Oct 28, 2021
Our picks of the 5 must-watch zombie films to get you in the mood for Halloween (Spoilers for Shaun of the Dead, Train to Busan, Zombieland, 28 Days Later and Girl with all the Gifts)
Considered the first zombie movie ever made, Victor Halpern’s White Zombie was first released in 1932, making the cinematic genre nearly 100 years old. White Zombie follows Madeline Short (Madge Bellamy) and her fiance’s (John Harron) stay in the plantation home of Charles Beaumont (Robert Frazer). Charles, desperate to make Madeline his own, enlists the help of a (white) voodoo priest, Murder Legendre (Bela Lugosi): their plan is to kill Madeline and bring her back as a zombie. A genre that was borne out of racist anxieties of Haitian Voodoo, morphed into one that made social critiques of American racism and the Vietnam era warmongering with George A. Romero’s 1968 horror film, Night of the Living Dead. Since then, “zombie” has expanded into many different avenues, touching on many different commentaries and tackling many different themes.
Shaun of the Dead
It wouldn’t be a list without this bumbling British classic. Simon Pegg, who plays the titular Shaun, is at a crossroads in his life, and what more do you need than a zombie apocalypse to get you to buck your ideas up? With Edgar Wright’s directing, he draws from inspiration across the board to pull together a cinematic potion of zom-rom-com that juggles the tones of heartfelt connections between friends and loved ones, splatters and splashes of guts and gore, tension-building up to horrific jump-scares and bursts of biting, comedic wit.
Train to Busan
In what has often been described as the Snowpiercer of Zombie films, Director Yeon Sang-ho transforms this uncomfortable and cramped space that most of us know intimately from our… undead morning commutes into a mobile thunderdome of human survival. The central story of Seo Seok-woo (Gong Yoo), a divorced fund manager struggling to connect to his daughter, Su-an as they travel from Seoul to Busan to reunite her with her mother, acts as the perfect emotional metronome for a film filled with high pressure, quick-witted survival, thunderous violence and a plethora of memorable characters (Sang-hwa, played by Ma Dong-seok, standing out as the protective papa bear of the camp.)
Zombieland
Another comedic addition to the list, Zombieland follows Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg) as a neurotic survivor of the undead apocalypse who, before long, teams up with a Twinkie-obsessed Tallahassee (Woody Harrellson), a deadpan Wichita (Emma Stone) and the youngest of the bunch, Little Rock (Abigail Breslin) as they fend for themselves, each other, and themselves a little bit more. What’s great about Zombieland is how it addresses the tropes that have become cliché in the ever-expanding genre of zombie horror through Columbus’ list of rules. Columbus isn’t particularly bloodthirsty or violent like Tallahassee or cunning like Wichita and Little Rock–he’s simply thorough in upholding his rules, and so mix this in with some over-the-top ridiculous zombie killings and a Bill Murray cameo and we’ve got ourselves a real fun time.
28 Days Later
With much debate about whether this is a zombie movie at all (with the director, Danny Boyle reluctant to brand it as such), 28 Days Later had to make the list as one of the most influential pieces of cinema to the modern zombie genre. The film popularised “fast zombies”, consumed by otherworldly rage and craving flesh as it moved away from the classic brain-dead shells slowly stalking to satiate their hunger. 28 Days Later’s gritty appeal comes heavily from it’s masterful cinematography and lofi visual aesthetic, and it manages to create one of the most recognisable openings in film history with it’s protagonist, Jim (Cillian Murphy) awakening from a coma (a premise most will recognise as subsequently borrowed in the highly successful TV show The Walking Dead) and wandering around an eerily deserted London city. In all the influence it’s had, its brilliance lies with how it’s exploration of humanity in crisis and the lengths humans would go to preserve themselves–individually and collectively.
The Girl with all the Gifts
Saving the best until last, The Girl with all the Gifts follows Melanie (Sennia Nanua) is, amongst her incarcerated peers, a child immune to a fungal disease that has infected humanity and turned them into “hungries”. When Melanie escapes this school prison, she is pursued by teachers and soldiers alike, and it’s revealed that she has the means to ensure mankind's survival. The Girl with all the Gifts concludes our list because as the ultimate subversion of a genre borne out of racist anxieties because (spoiler alert) – the zombies win and the Black girl ensures it. In a genre that often explores the tenacity of humankind’s will to survive and, in a world teetering on the brink of nuclear destruction, environmental crisis, rampant disease and devastating inequality, Melanie’s most haunting line poses a simple question, “...then why should it be us who die for you?”
What are your must-see zombie films? Let us know in the comments below!
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