r/zombies

What are your favorite zombie films?

Hi everyone, I’m Robin. I work on documentaries including In Search of Darkness, Aliens Expanded and The Thing Expanded. My zombie obsession started at 13, when I found an ex-rental VHS of Day of the Dead in a charity shop. Years later, I got to interview Lori Cardille from Day of The Dead at her house. Teenage me would have lost his mind.

I’m kicking around an idea called Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse, and thought this might be a good place to put it under a bit of pressure.

The premise: the outbreak has already happened, and the documentary is your survival training manual. Please pay attention. There probably won’t be a resit.

We’d explore zombie films and TV as case studies: where to shelter, who to trust, which escape plans are terrible, and why appointing the loudest bloke with a gun as leader might need some thought.

Along the way, we’d explore the genre’s history and what these stories say about us: fear, power, community, and how quickly we turn on each other when things fall apart.

It’s early days, and I’m fielding feedback while there’s still plenty of room to shape it. Does that format sound fun? Which films or survival lessons would you want included? What would make you roll your eyes and switch it off?

I’ve written more about it on my Substack here, but I’d love your thoughts in the comments too.

First question: If you could make every survivor watch one scene from a zombie film as a compulsory training lesson, which scene would you choose, and what should they learn from it?

The original definition of a zombie was simply a corpse ressurected by magic that would do chores around the house for you. No cannibalism, infection, nothing.

Then came the Romero zombies, that popularized the classic corpse that comes back to life that eats humans and transforms other humans into zombies by biting and that can only be killed by headshots.

But some other kinds appeared. The 28 franchise zombies are not even corpses, they are alive and need their organs functioning to survive. They are not even cannibal they just really really want to punch or kick you to death or spit on you to keep the Rage Virus going. The Left 4 Dead "zombies" are also alive and not corpses if I am remembering it right.

There are even tech zombies now, like the Voteless in Helldivers 2: humans from Super Earth that are captured by aliens and injected and modified with nanomachines to be mindless hordes that kill eveything they see.

So, since the original and Romero definition of zombies can not always be applied to a lot of zombie like creatures nowadays, I ask you: what would be the "modern" definition of a zombie? That could encompass all variants under its description?

Excited to hear your answers!

(My apologies for any bad grammar in this)

Personally I enjoyed it not the best but was alright it’s clear the budget was really low but it had a very bleak ending too that I loved for that. Though I got to admit I was questioning what was going on in romero head when that scene with the father and daughter. I know it was to show how far the infection could twist someone’s mind but still got me fast forwarding through that. Also I know they aren’t technically ‘zombies’ but they were close enough to were I felt it was appropriate to post it here.

Named him Bub after the best zombie in the Romaro universe (IMO).

Head and hands are 3D printed