And if you’re going for competeness, don’t forget Lucio Fulci’s work, Zombie, and a few others that are more generic ‘hell on earth’ movies but have zombies in them.
I recommend seeing a Fulci movie with a group of friends or better yet in a theater. There’s something about a group of folks laughing at a bad actress screaming at a rubber spider being dangled off a string that is just plain fun.
I must second this one. One of my favorite movies of all time. Great zombie effects, like the “tar” zombie, hilarious performances; James Karen as Frank was hysterical!
Return of the Living Dead is a great zombie flick…but the sequels fall quickly into suckitude. The second one is meh…it has some great moments (“Get that damned screwdriver outta my head!” “I feel like we’ve been here before!” “Who’se the president? Harry Truman!”) but was no where near as good as the first. The third threw out all that was good in the first two (that being dark humour and decent effects and scares) and tried to play it straight, and in my opinion, was a miserable failure. I’ve yet to see 4 and 5 (which just came out) but my hopes are not high.
I had no idea that they made a 4 and 5. I’m a sucker for cheesy horror movies, so I’ll have to go find them. Even though they’ll probably suck as much as 3 did.
They suck. They really, really suck. Like a black hole the size of a galaxy, they suck. They suck, suck, suck, suck, suck!!!
These were ultra-low budget made-for-cable efforts orginally shown on the Sci Fi channel (which ought to set off an alarm right there) and apparently at least partly filmed in Europe. I realize low budget horror films are traditionally granted an awful lot of slack, but jeez, the filmmakers REALLY abused the privilege here.
These two films absolutely are not worth watching, not even as camp or kitsch. Stay away from them.
Did I mention they suck?
Sci-fi channel shows them every so often. In fact, I think 4(“Rave to the grave”) is scheduled to be shown sometime this week.
Of course, being aware of scifi’s reputation for movies doesn’t make me feel particulary hopeful.
I don’t recall much of Rotld 2, but I thought 3 wasn’t too bad, although different from and nowhere near as good as the 1st.
Don’t forget White Zombie (with Bela Lugosi), Jacques Tourneur’s I Walked With a Zombie, Ed Wood’s [URL=http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0052077/]Plan 9 From Outer Space, and Peter Jackson’s first movie, Bad Taste, which isn’t about zombies per se, but has the look, feel, and gory action sequences we associate with zombie movies: aliens take over a remote Kiwi town, slaying the people in gory ways; then, humanity fights back in kind. Definitely an OTT gore-fest, with Peter Jackson stumbling around, dazed, with his head bashed in and his brains falling out, as a sort of crypto-zombie casualty.
:smack:
Gee, it’s as if the sheer incompetent gawd-awfulness of Plan 9 infected the coding of its title:
I’m not sure if it qualifies, but the first zombie-type film I ever saw was The Mad Ghoul . I don’t know if I’d enjoy it today, but it made quite an impression on me way back when.
A lot of good ones mentioned, I’ll second Braindead though. Only remember parts of it, but those parts involve someone holding up a lawnmower to a living-room full of zombies, and a priest kicking some zombie ass.
BBBRRRRAAAAIIIIIHHHHHNNNNZZZZ!!!
SEND MORE PARAMEDICSSSszzzz!!
Does Serenity count as a Zombie movie? I mean, the Reavers were kinda zombie-ish in nature, right?
There’s a Netflixable movie I saw not too long ago, called Les Revenants (They Came Back). It’s a french film. Calling it a zombie movie is a bit of a stretchez-vous, but in the interest of completeness, it should be viewed.
I kinda liked it, but it drove the roommate nuts because he couldn’t understand why “they came back.” Hey, it’s a french film. Who needs a raison?
Land of the Dead has by far the worst ending of any of these movies.
The fireworks(skyflowers or whatever the fuck they called 'em) don’t work so let’s roll down the road shooting them off like it’s the Mickey Fuckin Mouse parade at Disney World. Great way to end a movie about dead people eating living people
Oh yeah…
Don’t shoot the smart dead guy who managed to bring down our entire city. He’s just looking for a place to live. Can’t we all just be friends? I mean, it’s not like he’s a dead guy who wants to eat us and teach the other dead how to defeat us. He’s more like a dead soul brother that I want to bond with in my quest for a home
I used to be able to hold over my wife’s head that she got me to watch * Diary of a Sex Addict*. I lost that right when I took her to see Land of the Dead
Lucio Fulci’s Zombie is an important I suppose movie in the zombie genre but it is pretty old and I don’t like the setting on the island it has to be a city or house or something. Most of George Romero’s zombie flicks are good and though most people don’t like it at much as Dawn of the Dead or Night of the Living Dead, Day of the Dead is pretty spiffy I think. I have not yet seen Land of the Dead but I really want to buy it. Return of the Living Dead and its sequel are really funny and good. The remake of Dawn of the Dead I thought was great. Resident Evil of course is good and Mila Jovovich is so gorgeous. But Sean of the Dead is definitely the funny movie you save for last.
p.s. never…ever…rent or buy Oasis of the Zombies :eek: :eek: :eek: just plain suckitude.
“Party’s over!” A definite classic: it won film of the year in NZ when it came out - quite deservedly; apart from the zombies it captures life in smalltown 1950’s NZ absolutely perfectly - and there was a huge furor among the intelligentsia that such violent trash could possibly be deserving of such an accolade. Now, of course, Peter Jackson walks on water and is NZ’s favourite son.
Heh, the google ad for a thread about Zombies reads “End Communism Now!” 
How’s about the “Zombie Flesh Eaters” trilogy?
First- re CARNIVAL OF SOULS- by all means, make sure it’s the early 60s B&W one, not the color remake from a few years ago starring the brilliant-standup-comic-totally-miscast-here Larry Miller. If you want to see a recent movie that explores the same theme, SOUL SURVIVORS is a better investment than the newer CoS.
Second, SciFi Channel today seems to be having a Thanksgiving Day Zombiethon, including ROTLD 4 & 5 (and the very-good Lovecraft’s DAGON [really “Shadow Over Innsmouth”] later tonight).