By Vexen Crabtree 2006 Sep 08
All the original zombie films were b-movies. They have endured through time, however, and these classics planted the seeds of a series of modern zombie films largely based on them. The originals normally contained TV programs or radio broadcasts that showed us how scientific attempts at understanding the phenomenon were going, and these add an element of foreboding and scale to the b-movies. Modern movies generally lack science interludes, which is a shame. The best combination of scale, science, gore and plot is the original Dawn of the Dead.
Cause of Zombies:
Radiation from a space probe
Night of the Living Dead (1968, Wiki article)
Is the first zombie film as far as we are concerned. The dead, across the East coast of the USA, are coming back to life as monsters shortly after dying. The background story is that an exploded space probe flooded the Earth's atmosphere with radiation. The film centers on a farm house where half a dozen survivors hole-up. They barricade the doors and windows, using all the furniture. The hero of the story is a black man, who is the only brave and strong character in the film. He ends up trapped in the attic alone, with no-one else left alive. The end of the films sees state police and volunteers make sweeping searches across the state, picking off the zombies and rescuing people. An excellent closure of the film prevents any sense of predictability.
Cause of Zombies:
Exotic hybrid rat-monkey bite
Braindead (1992, Wiki article)
Is a fun-minded, rather than doom-laden post-apocalypses like many other zombie films. It is an incredibly cheap film, and is the story of a feeble, fumbling young man. His problems stem from his over-bearing mother... who soon gets bitten by a dangerous foreign creature, a one-off rat-monkey hybrid, that must carry some kind of pathogen. She becomes very ill, and turns into a zombie, and soon he finds himself in a house full of zombies. The most famous scene is the lawnmower scene, where the lead picks up said weapon, turns it on, and walks back and forth through a hallway full of zombies, turning the film into a gore-fest of limbs and body-parts. Only for true b-movie fans. By Peter Jackson, the director of (inferior) Bad Taste.
These are largely action-based, with next to no explanation of what is causing the dead to rise again - except in 28 Days Later, which is a brilliantly well-rounded film.
Cause of Zombies:
Virus from Science Lab
28 Days Later (2002, Wiki article)
A modern zombie film, breaking with the traditional depiction of zombies. In this film, a disease spreads throughout the UK... we see riot-like scenes of the zombies fighting police. The infection causes an almost immediate change... people don't have to die before turning. These zombies are strong and fast, aggressive and alert... and this makes for much more realistic violence and fear throughout the film. With this film, zombies are once again to be feared, like in Night of the Living Dead. A small group of soldiers and survivors meet up... and then the plot becomes very similar to Dawn and Day of the Dead: Internal problems cause the group to disintegrate. The film ends on an up-beat note as the survivors realize rescue seems imminent, and the zombies are mostly starved to death. 28 Days Later has some genuinely emotional moments. One where the main character is introduced and he finds a "Missing Persons" board in London, covered in hundreds of messages... and sees the newspapers with "EVACUATION" headlines. Another when he finds the bodies of his parents, who killed themselves while he was in a coma, and they've left a message which ends with the instruction "don't wake up".
Dawn of the Dead (remake) is a re-hash of George Romero's original three of the dead films, but not by him. The biggest change is that it is no longer a b-movie. Everything is much fresher, and it has none of the cheapness or b-movie gore of the classics. The remake centres around the shopping maul again. Memorable scenes include the "sniper" scenes where they pick off zombies from the horde outside, and the baby scene was pretty gruesome as they hope in vain that a pregnant woman's baby will be born alive (it isn't). To an extent, this remake contains many of the best elements of the original movies, but in another, it lacks the concentration on personal strife of the originals.
Shaun of the Dead (2004, Wiki article)
Is a funny parody. Shaun spends most the film not realizing that disaster has struck, and when he leads the survivors, his plans and the conflicts between the characters are hilarious. They hole-up in a pub, where the final scenes are fought out (one of them in sync to a Queen sound track). A memorable scene starts where they are arguing, and someone says "Moaning won't get you anywhere"... it inspires a plan and we see them pretending to be zombies (in order to get past a large crowd of the dead), moaning. It ends with the government rescuing everyone.
Land of the Dead (2005, Wiki article)
Is the newest (fifth) of the dead zombie film. In all previous films, the numbers of survivors were dwindling and the landscape was becoming more and more barren. This film does not follow that trend, and we see thousands of survivors living in an island city connected to the world by bridges, which they have barricaded. Once again, internal strife and politics destroys their safety. This is the most Hollywood-style of the of the Dead films; the survivors have a tank/bus, rockets, many weapons, and all sorts else. The film lacks sadness or emotion, but it makes up for it in progression. In each film, the zombies have advanced a little in skill and talent, and in this film a zombie leader emerges who encourages the other zombies to innovate. He is the least zombie-like... more like a monster, than a zombie. He arms the others, directs them, and leads assaults on the survivors. Only a few people realize that the zombies are changing.
With 28 Days Later breaking the mould, it is clear that there is scope for serious new zombie films, professional and well directed. And with Land of the Dead it is clear that any more in the George Romero series are going to be very interesting: How intelligent can the zombies get? If the trend is that the zombies slowly progress, and more leaders emerge, what will happen when zombie leaders clash? Will the zombies, for the first time, fight each other? The original script for Day of the Dead involved scientists training a whole army of the undead to use to fight other zombies. Will we see trained zombies working for the humans? There is a lot of scope for expansion of the genre, and fresh and aggressive zombies will probably play an important part.