Brandon’s Top5 Zombie Movies

2. Zombi 2 (1979)

Director: Lucio Fulci

From the sequence where the zombie wrestles with the shark [1], to the infamous eye-gouge scene [1], Zombi 2 is a real class act. It was released with the title, so that it could be released as an unofficial sequel to Romero’s Dawn of the Dead (released in Italy as Zombi). In it, a researcher contracts a bizarre illness while conducting research on a tropical island, only to sail into New York harbor, effectively starting a zombie pandemic.

Of all of Romero’s zany Italian emulators, no one quite nailed it as effectively as Fulci.

1. Night of the Living Dead (1968)

Director: George A. Romero

The film is largely a reaction to sensational media coverage of the Vietnam war, and this is one of the first films to integrate mass media (and false news broadcasts) as an integral storytelling device, with much of what the viewer learns about the zombie pandemic is articulated through false news broadcasts. It tells the story of a group of strangers who seek refuge in an empty house in the midst of the zompocalypse.  It wasn’t the first zombie film of all time, nor was it the most expensive. It did, however, provide much of the basis for familiar zombie film traditions (the zombies have to be killed via trauma to the brain, the bodies were resurrected by radiation, etc).

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by Brandon Engel