The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)

The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) poster
Rating: ★★★★★
Halloween Denizens Take Over Christmas/Stop-Motion Animation

Tim Burton and Henry Selick combine on this stop-motion animated fantasy made in Burton’s characteristcially eccentric style, a beautifully stylised and dark fantasy in which assorted Halloween denizens invade Christmas

Night of the Living Dead (1968)

Night of the Living Dead (1968) poster
Rating: ★★★★½
Zombies

The film that created the modern zombie genre, that took a creature from voodoo and reinvented at a something stumbling and wanting only to devour flesh. George Romero creates a horror film that shoots out all cozy, established convention

The Evil Dead (1981)

The Evil Dead (1981) poster
Rating: ★★★★
Backwoods Possession/Splatter Comedy

Ferociously paced low-budget hit that put the names of Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell on the map, both making their film debuts here. What made the film a cult hit was Raimi’s full tilt pace and entertainingly over-the-top splatter effects

The Serpent and the Rainbow (1988)

The Serpent and the Rainbow (1988) poster
Rating: ★★★★
Voodoo/"True Story"

One of Wes Craven’s best films. Loosely based on true-life book by botanist Wade Davis who set out to find the drug that creates zombies, Craven delves into Haitian voodoo in a striking blend of dream and horror

Dawn of the Dead (1978)

Dawn of the Dead (1978) poster
Rating: ★★★★
Zombies

George Romero’s successor to his cult hit of Night of the Living Dead. Romero creates a very different film, one that takes place in a mall and comes with a level of droll satire. A bigger budget allows him to push things to gore-drenched extremes

John Dies at the End (2012)

John Dies at the End (2012) poster
Rating: ★★★★
Reality-Expanding Drugs/Gonzo Supernatural Investigators

Phantasm series director Don Coscarelli returns with this mind-expanding effort that seems a conceptual collision between Donnie Darko, Limitless, a slacker version of Supernatural and Marvel Comics’ Dr Strange. Maybe the best mind-tripping fun it is possible to have without the use of illegal substances

Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959)

Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959) poster
Rating: ★★★★
Alien Invasion/Classic Bad Movie

This has become legendary as the Worst Film Ever Made. Maybe it is but the audience that celebrates its technical gaffes, the purple prose and bizarre bheind-the-scenes stories has contrarily made it one of cultish fascination

I Walked with a Zombie (1943)

I Walked with a Zombie (1943) poster
Rating: ★★★★
Voodoo/Psychological Ambiguity

One of the key films from the legendary Val Lewton, this exploits a topical interest in voodoo. As with Lewton’s films, this sits in an ambiguous place that leaves the actuality of the supernatural uncertain

Re-Animator (1985)

Re-Animator (1985) poster
Rating: ★★★★
Resurrection of the Dead/Splatter Black Comedy/H.P. Lovecraft Adaptation

This was one of the classic 1980s splatter films. Stuart Gordon throws most of H.P. Lovecraft’s tone out the window and goes for hilariously black comedy served up with outrageously over-the-top effects

What We Do in the Shadows (2014)

What We Do in the Shadows (2014) poster
Rating: ★★★★
Vampire Comedy/Mockumentary

Hands down, this is the best vampire comedy ever made. An incredibly witty effort that contrasts the cliches of the genre with the mundane business of a group of vampires flatting together in New Zealand. A film that comes with sly deadpan gags packed into the corner of every frame

Braindead (1992)

Braindead (1992) poster
Rating: ★★★★
Zombies/Splatter Comedy

One of Peter Jackson’s early films, which is maybe the funniest zombie comedy ever made. This becomes a work of unparalleled genius in the glorious gore-drenched excesses it reaches for

Train to Busan (2016)

Train to Busan (2016) poster
Rating: ★★★★
Zombies on a Train

The zombie film has become an overworked vein in the last few years, reduced to self-parody. This South Korean film does nothing to reinvent the zombie film, just contains the drama aboard a train for the duration, but manages to create a grippingly intense epic of the genre

Return of the Living Dead (1985)

Return of the Living Dead (1985) poster
Rating: ★★★★
Zombies/Black Comedy

Spinoff of Night of the Living Dead that emerged from a complicated copyright split with George Romero. Director Dan O’Bannon substitutes black humour to deliver an hilariously different take on Romero’s zombie film

Pontypool (2008)

Pontypool (2008) poster
Rating: ★★★★
Zombie Film/Deadly Contagion in the English Language

Bruce McDonald makes a standout fim with Stephen McHattie as a radio dj dealing with a zombie infection that inhabits the English langage

Cooties (2014)

Cooties (2014) poster
Rating: ★★★½
Zombie Schoolchildren Comedy

A very funny film about a horde of zombie schoolchildren. Co-written by Saw‘s Leigh Whannell, this has a great deal of fun deflating zombie cliches and is wittily on the ball in its characterisations of the teachers

Shaun of the Dead (2004)

Shaun of the Dead (2004) poster
Rating: ★★★½
Zombie Comedy

A warm parody/tribute to the George Romero zombie films that saw the emergence of Simon Pegg as a star. It also saw the zombie film move towards a more comedic emphasis, although few subsequent entries come with such good-natured humour

V/H/S Viral (2014)

V/H/S Viral (2014) poster
Rating: ★★★½
Anthology of Found Footage Horror Tales

Third of the V/H/S films, all horror anthologies in the Found Footage style. While the other two were fairly hit and miss, this is extremely good. Each of the four stories sits among the very best episodes among the current crop of multi-director horror anthologies

Deadgirl (2008)

Deadgirl (2008) poster
Rating: ★★★½
Necrophilia with an Imprisoned Zombie Girl

Amid the zombie genre, which has given all evidence it has started to run out of original ideas in the last few years, this hits in with a considerable originality. The story of teenagers who find a zombie girl and keep her imprisoned for sexual purposes soon enters a disturbing headspace

Juan of the Dead (2011)

Juan of the Dead (2011) poster
Rating: ★★★½
Cuban Zombie Film

The world’s first Cuban zombie film. Imagine a Latin American equivalent of Shaun of the Dead, conducted with some cleverness, oddball wit and an undeniable satiric undertow to produce an effort that is just as polished as any English-language counterpart

World War Z (2013)

World War Z (2013) poster
Rating: ★★★½
Zombie Apocalypse

I went into this wondering what new things it could find to do with such an overworked genre as the zombie apocalypse but ended up gently surprised. Not a film that reinvents the wheel for the zombie genre but spins the basics out into a tight, exciting, international locale hopping survival story

The Cabin in the Woods (2012)

The Cabin in the Woods (2012) poster
Rating: ★★★½
Meta-Fictional Horror Film

Joss Whedon scripted work that is less a horror film than a meta-horror film that is constantly deconstructing the genre and subverting its cliches. A rare genre entry less about visceral impact than it has brains to spare

Vampire Girl vs Frankenstein Girl (2009)

Vampire Girl vs Frankenstein Girl (2009) poster
Rating: ★★★½
Gonzo Japanese Splatter Film

Completely insane Japanese film that wades in gore while playing everything up at a level of demented cartoonish absurdity. Possibly the most delirious movie-watching fun it is possible to have

Dellamorte Dellamore (1994)

Dellamorte Dellamore (1994) poster
Rating: ★★★½
Cemetery Keeper vs the Undead/Gonzo Comedy

Cult Italian film with Rupert Everett as a cemetery keeper facing the resurrected dead. This has such a wackily off-the-wall mix of black, deadpan humour and artiness, not to mention Everett at his laconic best, that you can never tell where it is going from one minute to the next

Dead Sushi (2012)

Dead Sushi (2012) poster
Rating: ★★★½
Man-Eating Sushi Amok/Gonzo Japanese Horror

Completely insane Japanese film about man-eating killer sushi. A film that has a whacko anything goes lunacy to it, resulting in some of the most surreally crazed monster movie scenes that this author has seen in some time

They Came Back (2004)

They Came Back (2004) poster
Rating: ★★★½
The Dead Return to Life

A French zombie film that is about as far removed from a zombie film as it possible to get – the dead inexplicably return to life not to eat the flesh of the living but calm and detached where society’s problem is how to let them return to their previous lives

Tombs of the Blind Dead (1971)

Tombs of the Blind Dead (1971) poster
Rating: ★★★½
Blind Knights Templar Zombies

The first in a series of films from Spanish director Amando de Ossorio about blind Knights Templar zombies. De Ossorio is clearly influenced by Night of the Living Dead but creates considerable atmosphere

The Dead (2010)

The Dead (2010) poster
Rating: ★★★½
Zombies Overrun Africa

A zombie film that stands out from shuffling horde by dint of the fact that it takes place in Africa and is a survival horror work that takes itself seriously rather than tongue-in-cheek. Low key but achieves some often haunted effect

Here Alone (2016)

Here Alone (2016) poster
Rating: ★★★½
Survival After a Plague Outbreak/Social Collapse

Beautifully filmed, intimate work about a woman’s attempts to eke out survival in the woods in the aftermath of an unspecified apocalypse. It is only part way through that we realise we are watching a zombie film

Little Monsters (2019)

Little Monsters (2019) poster
Rating: ★★★½
Zombie Comedy

This has a premise that doesn’t do much to enthuse – a hapless loser has to take care of a bunch of kids during a zombie outbreak. I appeal to you to sit in past that and you will find yourself in the midst of the funniest zombie comedy since well Shaun of the Dead

28 Weeks Later (2007)

28 Weeks Later (2007) poster
Rating: ★★★½
Post-Holocaust/Zombie Outbreak

I was cautious about hailing 28 Days Later as a modern classic; this sequel is in fact a much better film. Newcomer director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo draws it out into a series of superbly sustained suspense sequences

Nazis at the Center of the Earth (2012)

Nazis at the Center of the Earth (2012) poster
Rating: ★★★½
Nazis Under the Polar Icecap/Hitler with a Robot Body/Mad Science

Hands down the best film ever produced by The Asylum. How could one not like an entertainingly madcap concoction that features mad scientists, zombie stormtroopers, Nazi UFOs and Adolf Hitler preserved as a head in a jar attached to a robot body?

The Battery (2012)

The Battery (2012) poster
Rating: ★★★½
After the Zombie Apocalypse

Just when the zombie genre seemed to be creatively exhausted, this is one of the freshest takes in some time. This does nothing radical with the basics, just offers a series of wry, sharply written vignettes as two bored slackers greet the apocalypse

Chillerama (2011)

Chillerama (2011) poster
Rating: ★★★½
Horror Parody Anthology/Drive-In Homage

In the same vein as Grindhouse, four filmmakers have come together to make an anthology of spoof horror films that homage the drive-in tradition. Good taste is left well behind and the results are both outrageous and funny

The Cured (2017)

The Cured (2017) poster
Rating: ★★★½
In the Aftermath of a Cure for the Zombie Apocalypse

The zombie genre has become creatively exhausted. This is one of the most original takes yet that asks what would happen if a cure were found but the zombies returned to life with full memory of everything they had done

Dead Space: Downfall (2008)

Dead Space: Downfall (2008) poster
Rating: ★★★
Animation/Videogame Adaptation/Spaceship of Mutated Dead

Animated spinoff of the popular Survival Horror videogame. Your first impression is that animation is not the best format for a gore-drenched film. One’s misgivings are promptly silenced by the wildly phantasmagoric range of creatures the film throws at you

Land of the Dead (2005)

Land of the Dead (2005) poster
Rating: ★★★
Zombies

George Romero’s return to the zombie genre after twenty years, which he was ironically only able to make after others starting remaking and homaging his films. The result is a mixed affair. Romero still makes pungent social metaphors but the gory extremes of his earlier films seem tamed down

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (2016)

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (2016) poster
Rating: ★★★
Jane Austen Retold with Zombies

Based on the book that led a publishing phenomenon in which literary classics are mashed up with monsters, this has the difficult balancing act – that of making Jane Austen’s Regency romance sit alongside zombies – nevertheless manages to play both with an impeccably straight-face

Deathgasm (2015)

Deathgasm (2015) poster
Rating: ★★★
Heavy Metalheads Unleash Demons/Splatter Comedy

Outrageously balls-to-the-wall New Zealand-made effort that fondly recalls the 1980s splatter-comedy films of Sam Raimi, Peter Jackson et al. The film often feels like former teen heavy metalheads looking back and wittily puncturing the pretensions of their youth

Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead (2006)

Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead (2006) poster
Rating: ★★★
Zombie Chicken Mutations/Troma Film

Troma film that has maybe the silliest movie title ever. This sets out to be so persistently moronic and wilfully offensive that it eventually attains a delirious absurdity

Demons (1985)

Demons (1985) poster
Rating: ★★★
Possessed Undead Take Over a Cinema

Italian horror directed by Lamberto Bava and produced by Dario Argento, an Evil Dead-inspired work about the possessed dead taking over a cinema, all conducted with a ferocious enthusiasm

I Zombie: The Chronicles of Pain (1998)

I Zombie: The Chronicles of Pain (1998) poster
Rating: ★★★
Ordinary Zombies

In the overworked vein the zombie film, one of the most unique and original voices has been British director Andrew Parkinson. This was the first of Parkinson’s kitchen sink zombie films

[Rec]3: Genesis (2012)

[Rec]3 Genesis (2012) poster
Rating: ★★★
Zombie Outbreak at a Wedding

Third entry in the hit Spanish Found Footage series. Not the origin story it promises to be, is the one entry in the series that decides to have fun. The Found Footage look is abandoned soon in, nevertheless it turns out the gore-drenched goods and is peopled with a range of amusingly eccentric characters

Return of the Living Dead III (1993)

Return of the Living Dead III (1993) poster
Rating: ★★★
Zombie Girlfriend

Brian Yuzna’s entry is the only worthwhile effort among the sequels to Dan O’Bannon’s Return of the Living Deadwhere Yuzna adds an original plot about a zombie girlfriend and the film is spiked with perverse imagery

Handling the Undead (2024)

Handling the Undead (2024) poster
Rating: ★★★
The Resurrected Dead

A film adapted from a book by the writer of Let the Right One In concerning the resurrected dead, this goes some way to divorce itself from the zombie film and develops its horrors with striking slow burn effect

Revealer (2022)

Revealer (2022) poster
Rating: ★★★
Stripper and Fundamentalist Trapped Together During the Apocalypse

This sells you with its concept – a stripper and a religious fundamentalist are trapped together in a peepshow as the apocalypse occurs – and works surprisingly well

Goal of the Dead (2014)

Goal of the Dead (2014) poster
Rating: ★★★
Zombies and Soccer

Zombies and soccer! Ok? From co-director of the ferocious French zombie film The Horde, a rather entertaining effort that resembles something of Shaun of the Dead in its comedic approach

Re-Kill (2015)

Re-Kill (2015) poster
Rating: ★★★
Zombie Hunters Mock Reality TV Show

The zombie film has become creatively exhausted of recent – this is one original treatment, mocked up as a reality tv show like Cops, following soldiers into infestation zones, all interspersed with a series of witty commercials

Garden of the Dead (1972)

Garden of the Dead (1972) poster
Rating: ★★★
Zombies on a Prison Chain Gang

A zombie film made not long after Night of the Living Dead. This comes with an off-the-wall premise – the prisoners on a chain gang get high inhaling formaldehyde, which causes them to rise from the dead after being shot in an escape attempt

Scarecrows (1988)

Scarecrows (1988) poster
Rating: ★★★
Field of Undead Scarecrows

An overlooked effort from the direct-to-VHS era concerning itself with a field of undead scarecrows. Amid the numerous zombie and splatter effects efforts of the day that were being churned out, this settles in with an unusual atmosphere that is often hard to shake

Fido (2006)

Fido (2005) poster
Rating: ★★★
Domesticated Zombies Comedy

Charmingly droll film that posits an alternate version of the 1950s where zombies have been domesticated. This has a perfect sense of mood and admirable deadpan playing by all involved

Seoul Station (2016)

Seoul Station (2016) poster
Rating: ★★★
Animation/South Korean Zombie Film

Train to Busan was a massive breakout hit from South Korear. Overlooked in the buzz was this animated prequel from the same director released at the same time. The zombie film and animation are an uneasy mix but this works well, if not with the same kick as Train to Busan

Exit Humanity (2011)

Exit Humanity (2011) poster
Rating: ★★★
American Civil War Zombie Film

Modestly effective zombie film set during the US Civil War. This eschews the usual gore-drenched zombie attacks in favour of a nicely achieved story about one man’s internal journey through the apocalypse

The Empire of Corpses (2015)

The Empire of Corpses (2015) poster
Rating: ★★★
Anime/Alternate Victorian England Based on Frankenstein Technology

Fascinatingly original anime set in an alternate history Steampunk version of Victorian England that has developed a technology based on Frankenstein’s corpse resurrection experiments

Severed (2005)

Rating: ★★★
Zombie Film

A Canadian entry made soon into the zombie movie revival of the mid-00s and before the copycats started to become tediously familiar and the genre turned to self-parody. This delivers a solid rehash of the essentials – IMHO a better job that Zack Snyder did in Dawn of the Dead

Dungeons & Dragons: The Book of Vile Darkness (2012)

Dungeons & Dragons: The Book of Vile Darkness (2012) poster
Rating: ★★★
Sword and Sorcery

The third film based on the roleplaying game. The previous two films were forgettable but for a throwaway effort, this is surprisingly good, taking a far darker tone than the usual sword-and-sorcery adventure and adding considerable moral complexity

Doomsday Book (2012)

Rating: ★★★
South Koren SF Anthology

South Korean anthology containing a trio of tales on the theme of the end of the world. The standout is the middle segment, a very Asimovian tale wherein a robot claims to have logically attained Buddhist enlightenment

Doc of the Dead (2014)

Doc of the Dead (2014) poster
Rating: ★★★
Zombie Fandom Documentary

Documentary about the popularity of zombie films and the rise of zombie fandom. Although there are some noted omissions, this covers the history of the genre in reasonable depth, even examines its historical origins and provides an amusing glimpse into the zombie’s pervasion of popular culture

Dick Dynamite: 1944 (2023)

Dick Dynamite: 1944 (2023) poster
Rating: ★★★
Parody of WWII Heroics/Gonzo Splatter

A gonzo parody of WWII heroics a la Inglourious Basterds with the addition of Nazi zombies, over-the-top splatter and some decidedly non-PC humour, this proves an enormously entertainingly comic-book of a film

Solomon Kane (2009)

Solomon Kane (2009) poster
Rating: ★★★
Puritan Era Sword and Sorcery/Robert E. Howard Adaptation

Reasonable adaptation of Robert E. Howard’s stories about a Puritan warrior, an entry in the 00s sword-and-sorcery fad that comes with a welcomely dark edge

The Last Days on Mars (2013)

The Last Days on Mars (2013) poster
Rating: ★★★
Expedition to Mars/Alien Zombie Infection

This starts out offering a fine astrophysically credible depiction of Mars only to quickly reach for the playbook of Alien cliches to essentially become Zombies on Mars. As long as one accepts the hackneyed premise for what it is, the film generates more than reasonable tension

Trancers (1985)

Trancers (1985) poster
Rating: ★★★
Time-Travelling Detective

One of the more unpretentiously enjoyable films from Charles Band, this rides the mid-80s spate of time travel films with Tim Thomerson giving a highly entertaining performance as a hard-boiled detective travelled back from the future. A series of sequels followed

The Dead Don’t Die (1975)

The Dead Don't Die (1975) poster
Rating: ★★★
Film Noir/Voodoo Resurrected Dead

Largely forgotten tv movie featuring a Robert Bloch script. Curtis Harrington creates a fascinatingly creepy atmosphere that blends a recreation of the tropes of film noir with mysterious happenings involving voodoo and the resurrected dead

Night of Something Strange (2016)

Night of Something Strange (2016) poster
Rating: ★★★
Zombie-Creating Sexually Transmitted Disease

Film about a zombie-creating sexually transmitted disease that feels like it was made by a bunch of drunken adolescents trying to out-gross each other after an all-weekend beer party. A film that is readily ventures into bad taste and is prepared to offend

Pesticide (1978)

Pesticide (1978) poster
Rating: ★★★
French Zombie Film

One of the films from cult director Jean Rollin. This is a zombie film, clearly influenced by Night of the Living Dead, but with a uniquely French spin – the zombies are caused by drinking toxic wine

Dead Creatures (2001)

Dead Creatures (2001) poster
Rating: ★★★
Ordinary Zombies

The second of British director Andrew Parkinson’s remarkable kitchen sink zombie films about people trying to deal with ordinary life while transforming

Peninsula (2020)

Peninsula (2020) poster
Rating: ★★★
Train to Busan Sequel/Zombie Film

Yeon Sang-ho makes a sequel to his international breakout zombie film hit of Train to Busan, appropriating the basics of Escape to New York to good ends

Beyond Re-Animator (2003)

Beyond Re-Animator (2003) poster
Rating: ★★★
Re-Animator Sequel

The second sequel to the cult splatter hit Re-Animator is a superior effort to its predecessor Bride of Re-Animator, getting the original’s sense of black humour down pat and arriving at a memorably apocalyptic climax

Zombie Fight Club (2014)

Zombie Fight Club (2014) poster
Rating: ★★★
Zombie Outbreak

It is mind-boggling to think how you could combine zombies with Fight Club, the classic anti-capitalist manifesto about brawling clubs and split personality … Such an idea proves too challenging for this Taiwanese effort but we do get a solid zombie version of The Raid

Peelers (2016)

Peelers (2016) poster
Rating: ★★★
Strippers vs Zombies

There have been a surprising number of films in recent years offering up the combination of zombies and strippers. Although what we have is never quite specified as zombies, this offers up strippers kicking zombie ass with a great deal of gore-drenched relish

Attack of the Lederhosen Zombies (2016)

Attack of the Lederhosen Zombies (2016) poster
Rating: ★★★
Gonzo Zombie Comedy

One has seen just a few too many wacky titled zombie comedies and this Austrian film seems another wannabe until the climactic scenes where it redeems itself with a completely demented bloodbath

The Night Eats the World (2018)

The Night Eats the World (2018) poster
Rating: ★★★
French Zombie Film

The zombie genre has become creatively overused and exhausted in recent years but this French entry plays with an appealing originality, sort of like a low-key version of Dawn of the Dead where a man builds a Parisian apartment building into his own paradise