Brandon’s Top5 Zombie Movies

4. J’Accuse (1919)

Director: Abel Gance

This film is woefully overlooked in the annals of early, silent European horror films, largely eclipsed by Robert Weine’s The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and F.W. Murnau’s Nosferatu [Beginner’s Guide to Early Horror Films]. There are many things that distinguish Gance’s film, though. While Caligari provided an interesting World War allegory, J’Accuse features authentic footage from the battlegrounds of the war itself. French townships are ravaged by the war, and in one particular town, a band of undead soldiers return to scorn the villagers for their complacency in allowing war to occur.

3. Day of the Dead (1985)

Director: George A. Romero

Romero’s Dawn of the Dead famously pit zombies against bikers in a shopping mall. Day ups the ante, pitting the zombie army against the United States army in an underground military complex. However fearsome the zombies in this film are (and this film absolutely features the most advanced special effects makeup of any Dead film that had been made up to that point), there’s no villain in the film as detestable as Captain Rhodes (Joseph Pilato), the sadistic military official who meets his end in what could be the most satisfying zombie banquet scene in any Romero film (or in any zombie film period, for that matter).

Day of the Dead is still a huge cult film, with many catching the film regularly on Robert Rodriguez’s new El Rey Network.