George A. Romero | The Drunken Odyssey

Tags

28 Days Later, Bill Murray, Dan O’Bannon, Dawn of the Dead, Don Calfa, George A. Romero, Jesse Eisenberg, Linnea Quigley, Night of the Living Dead, Night of the Living Dead 3D, Nightmare City, Planet Terror, Rachel McAdams, Return of the Living Dead, Rose McGowan, Ryan Gosling, Shaun of the Dead, Sig Haig, The Notebook, Woody Harrelson, Zombieland

The Lists #16 by John King

Notable Zombie Movies

Night of the Living Dead (1968):George A. Romero basically invents the genre in a low budget masterpiece that used actually news reporters to report on the zombie apocalypse in the film and used actual real entrails as props. A little zombie girl who looks like she’s having a bad acid trip kills and eats her parents. A black man is not monster-fodder, but in fact the chief hero of the film. This movie still rocks.

Dawn of the Dead (1978): Zombies invent mall-walking.

Nightmare City (1980): Zombies have machine guns. Cf. The Curator of Schlock.

Return of the Living Dead (1985): Don Calfa has an awesome supporting role as the woebegone mortician, Ernie. Linnea Quigley plays the punk girl Trash, who spontaneously gets naked and later will be the hottest zombie you’ve ever seen devour someone’s brains. The zombies can talk. The zombies can talk. They will tell you that they want: “Braiiiinsss!” Dan O’Bannon, auteur, thank you.

28 Days Later (2002): Zombies can run.

Shaun of the Dead (2004): Very British. For the first half-hour, Shaun doesn’t notice that the zombie apocalypse is happening.

The Notebook (2004): A sultry prole zombie (Ryan Gosling) is enamored of a hottie among the upper-class undead (Rachel McAdams) when the entire world is consumed with boredom and the wet dreaming of bad ideas.

Night of the Living Dead 3D (2006): This quasi-reboot of Night of the Living Dead is awfully blasé except for one thing: Sid Haig as Gerald Tovar, Jr., a funeral home director with both a sensitive side and a rather dark secret.

Planet Terror (2007): On Rose McGowan, a machine gun prosthetic leg looks sexy—so sexy I don’t even feel that stupid for saying so. I think there were zombies, too.

Zombieland (2009): The greatest date movie ever. Jesse Eisenberg gives a primer on post-apocalyptic survival, Woody Harrelson reminds us of the glory of Deliverance, and Bill Murray seems like a really nice guy.