The five zombie stories that changed horror forever
Vampires and werewolves are folklore that goes back centuries, ghosts and mummies even further than that, Frankenstein’s monster comes directly from one of the most celebrated and influential works of fiction ever, thus, the fact that the humble zombie not only joins them on the list of iconic movie monsters but arguably tops them all is genuinely incredible.
They’re still the new kid on the horror block, their reputation still a little unrefined compared to their contemporaries, the gore inherent in the concept of a zombie makes them a little gauche, a little classless – the nouveau riche of the horror set, and of course, there are stories going back centuries of the dead coming to life, but there’s a direct line from Sinners to the early vampire mythos in a way that you can’t match with zombies.
Their stories begin in the mid-1960s. The zombie mythos as we know it is younger than a number of our world leaders, which is a state of affairs bleak enough to feature in a zombie movie in and of itself. This reputation is patently unfair, since there’s an argument to be made that zombie movies have done more to shape the very foundations of horror than any other monster in the 20th and early 21st century.
Which is fighting talk, I know, so I put this list together to cite my sources. Here are the five zombie stories that changed horror forever!
The five zombie stories that changed horror forever:
‘The Last of Us’
I won’t lie to you, dear reader, the last slot on this list came down to a coin flip between two TV shows. As much as I want to put the absolutely wonderful 28 Years Later movies on this list, when one thinks of zombies over the last 20 years, there are only two possible options to choose from. The Walking Dead and The Last of Us, both small-screen adaptations of existing stories, the former a long-running comic series and the latter a classic video game series. Both enormous hits in their own way, yet to me, only one stands apart, and sure, The Walking Dead was a massive cult hit and, for a period of time, was one of the most talked-about shows on TV.
On the other hand, The Last of Us went one better and was arguably the most talked-about show on TV when it aired – it also achieved something that arguably no other zombie story has ever achieved: genuine critical acclaim, and every other major achievement on this list received pushback for its brutality and bleakness. The Last of Us had that in spades, yet was one of the most acclaimed pieces of TV of the decade, fully making stars out of Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey, we’ll need a little more time to analyse its full influence, but since Fallout followed in its footsteps as a video game turned streaming TV smash, we’re just seeing the start of something major.
‘Shaun of the Dead’
After 28 Days Later, the zombie was back – the aforementioned Dawn of the Dead was a big hit at the box office, Danny Boyle’s grim classic was greenlit for a sequel, and Resident Evil was one of the biggest video game franchises in the world, but this was the early 2000s and thus, everything was immensely serious, or at least meant to be taken immensely seriously. The other shoe had to drop at some point, and drop it did with Edgar Wright’s still-spectacular rom-zom-com Shaun of the Dead. On a structural level, there’s no part of this absolute classic that doesn’t work.
It’s not a romantic comedy with some zombies attached. Neither is it a zombie comedy with a romance subplot tacked on. It works as a love story between Simon Pegg’s slacker Shaun and his girlfriend, Kate Ashfield’s Liz. It works as a comedy like few others of its generation (the little “ow” Pegg gives after demonstrating how to hit a zombie on the head with a cricket bat kills me every time). Both of these work so well that it sort of goes under the radar just how well it works as a zombie film. Then you see the fate of Dylan Moran’s David. Hooooly shit. Wright’s influence today can be seen in countless zombie comedy flicks like Zombieland, The Dead Don’t Die, Warm Bodies and Little Monsters.
’28 Days Later’
At least in the West, the 1990s were absolute doldrums for horror. A few green shoots punched through like Jacob’s Ladder, Scream and The Blair Witch Project, but other than that, pickings were slim and nowhere is this more apparent than in zombie stories. Even more so than the slasher tropes that Scream was parodying, people knew what to expect from a zombie picture. People had gotten so tired of the tropes that people thought the genre would finally be laid to rest. Then Danny Boyle proved just how wrong we were.
Much like Night of the Living Dead just over 30 years earlier, 28 Days Later shocked the world by making a zombie story that was bleak, gritty and realistic to the point of it looking actually quite ugly at points. Unlike Romero’s generation-defining classic, it made one vital change to the zombie mythos. Rather than being the shuffling, groaning targets of yore, these zombies sprinted at you while screaming at the top of their lungs. A change so inspired, it’s a wonder that it took 30 years for anyone to think of it. One so influential that when Romero’s Dawn of the Dead was remade in 2004, it cribbed this trick wholesale to great effect. Still got nothing on the original though.
‘Zombi’
Now, look. A great many of you will take a cursory look at this list and go… “What, a zombie list with no Dawn of the Dead?!” Fair enough, you should, but like the greedy little piglet that I am, I’ve managed to have my cake and eat it. You see, Zombi is actually the title of the Italian version of the movie that catapulted Romero and his zombie flicks into the mainstream. It’s also kind of its own thing? You see, Zombi is Dawn… But hugely re-edited, dubbed and with an entirely new soundtrack.
If Dawn… Is Romero’s masterpiece, then Zombi is the work of Dario Argento, who was in charge of all the changes listed earlier. The finished product was different enough that an entirely new franchise was spun off it. Which, in turn, began the phenomenon of countries outside the USA taking a swing at Zombie movies and making some of the best of the entire bunch, from [Rec} and Train To Busan to One Cut of the Dead and The Sadness.
‘Night of the Living Dead’
The granddaddy of them all, yet one that still packs an absolute whammer of a punch nearly 60 years on from its premiere in 1968. With many other horror films of this era and before it, one needs to watch with a certain degree of context in mind. Things like “these were cutting-edge special effects of the era” or “they couldn’t get away with the scares they had in mind”. George A Romero’s masterpiece (get ready to hear that name a lot) absolutely doesn’t need that. It’s still an absolutely nerve-shredding watch today.
Now, a lot of this comes from Romero’s mastery of tension and the spectacular scares it has on offer. However, what truly gets Night of the Living Dead under your skin decades on from its original release is the pointed, unignorable social commentary on offer. Horror stories have been offering social commentary for as long as they’ve been told. However, in the 1960s, the number of horror movies offering that kind of substance with the chills was close to zero. Romero changed all that. He did that quite a bit.