They want to eat your brain: Zombie attack

3. “Zombie” (1979)
A nasty classic by which others are judged. It’s the one that stars Mia Farrow’s sister. It’s the one with the greatest tagline ever, “We Are Going To Eat You!” It’s the one originally titled (in its native Italy by director Lucio Fulci) “Zombi 2,” even though it’s not a sequel to anything. But the zombies are incredible. They’re gross. They go right for the eyeballs first. And they group-eat. If you’re a zombie fan, that’s sort of like Christmas.

See also: “Evil Dead 2” (1987), which is a sequel, and better than all the “Spider-Man” movies director Sam Raimi has made.

4.  “Les Revenants” (2004)
I like this recent French import (English title: “They Came Back”) about the dead returning to life because it’s not exactly a zombie movie. One day the cemetery graves open up and everyone resting there just goes back to their house and jobs like nothing ever happened. Meanwhile, the people they left behind are like, “Oh, uh… gee… good to see you… I guess. I mean, I kinda got remarried.” 

See also: “The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies!!?” (1964), director Ray Dennis Steckler’s teen-carnival-rock-and-roll mess where the zombies aren’t exactly zombies either, just these acid-disfigured hypnotized guys. Hence the “mixed-up” part.

5. “Dead-Alive” (1992)
It had to have happened, right? Some parent letting their kids watch this early Peter Jackson movie after “Lord of the Rings”? And then the parent looking up from the newspaper to see that it’s a splatter-fest (a reported 700 liters of red goo used for the final scenes alone) and it has zombies having sex? By then, of course, it’s too late and the kid’s accidentally turned into a lifelong gore-hound. That’s how it happened to me. My parents let me watch anything. Thanks, Mom and Dad!

See also: “Grindhouse” (2007), because “Planet Terror,” the first half of its double-feature, is similarly splatter-happy and because you probably haven’t seen it yet, based on what I’ve read about its tanking box-office.

So that’s a good starter set of 10. I know zombie nerds are going to yell that I left off the very cool “Dawn of the Dead” remake and other excellent examples of undeadittude like “Pet Sematary,” “Shock Waves,” “White Zombie,” “Serpent and The Rainbow,” “Night of The Comet,” “Return of The Living Dead,” “28 Days Later,” “Shaun of the Dead” and a few dozen others. But all lists are subjective and incomplete in this life, possibly in the undead next life too.

Dave White is the author of “Exile in Guyville” and the film critic for Movies.com. Find him at www.imdavewhite.com.

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