There's something special about zombies in cinema. As a viewer we immediately know where the dangers comes from, as a writer the undead are rife for allegory, and as a producer you can really accomplish a lot with a shoestring budget. It's probably this last that made them so prolific as to become a genre of their own.

In 1972 Bob Clark and Alan Ormsby teamed up to make Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things , a story about an acting troupe that raises the dead on a small island. The both worked on the screenplay, and Alan starred while Bob directed.

Bob Clark isn't well known as a horror director, in fact he only has two other horror credits. One of those is for Black Christmas, the massively influential holiday slasher, although his more well known holiday movie would have to be A Christmas Story - drink your Ovaltine! He's probably still more well known for Porky's or maybe even Baby Geniuses, so it probably isn't surprising that Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things leans heavily on comedy.

The movie was shot on a budget of $50,000 and it shows. The opening shots in particular are pretty rough, in fact the first scare is pretty artlessly done and is clearly a guy in cheap ghoul makeup - although later in the film we discover the opening ghoul is indeed one of the actors who came to the island for giggles. Production quality improves as the film progresses, as do the effects. In fact, star/writer Alan Ormsby is perhaps more well known as a practical makeup artist and when the ghouls kick off in earnest we can see he does a pretty good job.

As is often the case in zombie flicks, the true horrors aren't the zombies but the people who are somehow worse than the flesh eating dead. In this case, the horrors are at-will employment and predators in the entertainment industry.

These horrors are embodied virtually solely within Alan playing the eponymous Alan, the producer for the acting troupe and the reason the gang goes to the island. He's such a sleaze and a loser that honestly it was pretty difficult to watch - but we all know that makes for a more satisfying comeuppance. Alan uses his position as the manager (even going so far as to say he owns the actors) to force the troupe to an island graveyard for a night of fun, games, and hijinks. Any dissent is met with a reminder that he could release them from their contract at any point, and for somebody who is off for a trip of "fun and games" he sure is a killjoy wet blanket.

Alan's ultimate goal is to prank the actors with a good scare. In the context of a film, it is a pretty good one that goes off more or less without a hitch. Although in reality, and as is remarked on in the film, it is a ludicrously dangerous, wildly unsafe joke - but it still leaves him in stitches.

Presumably for more giggles and to take advantage of his captive audience, Alan then attempts to summon the dead with a satanic ritual from a grimoire he brought with him. Weirdly, he does seem to be genuinely disappointed that the spell did not raise the dead - although that probably leads to a greater surprise when the dead rise anyway.

What does make this entry a little unusual as far as zombie movies go is that the first zombie doesn't make a move until a little over an hour into the movie - and the film only has an 87 minute running length. That's an awful lot of build up, but once the dead start to boogie they never stop. Perhaps the film has some problems with pacing leading up to this point, but the tonal shift is stark and the remaining twenty minutes do not disappoint.

For a movie that has until this point been a comedy, the zombies are a truly brutal foil. These aren't the laconic shamblers of Night of the Living Dead, nor are they the screaming sprinting virals of 28 Days Later, but they stagger with purpose and viciously grab at their prey. The cast begins to evaporate almost as quickly as the gags dry up, and as is remarked just earlier in the film, there's nothing funny about any of this.

The climax of the movie comes with what is perhaps my favorite and most enduring zombie moment in cinema. It's also in the last two minutes of the film, so naturally, this is a heavy spoiler.

spoiler

After the zombies overrun the cabin, Alan and Anya attempt to flee upstairs. Anya's in shock and has to be dragged and to Alan's credit he does actually try to help carry her for a little while. Then he seemingly remembers how he's acted for the rest of the movie and pushes her into the zombies to buy himself a few precious seconds. Here the zombies break character, and while some help her downstairs the rest stare incredulously at Alan judging him for being even more of a ghoul than they are.

Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things can be found on YouTube and the Internet Archive

"It's no use. It's a waste of time to lock the doors. They'll be here soon... to destroy us all."

If you ever wanted to see a zombie and a shark fight it out, this is the movie for you. Lucio Fulci's entry to zombie cinema starts with this 1979 film. Originally released as Zombi 2 in Italy, it was distributed as Zombie in the UK and Zombie Flesh Eaters in America.

The way Italian copyright worked at the time, any film could be marketed as a sequel to any other film. So when Dawn of the Dead was released as Zombi in Italy and was a smash hit, it was inevitable that it would be exploited. Incidentally, director Lucio Fulci had no idea what the title would be and hated it when he found out. He'd go on to start directing Zombi 3, the first of several films that share the title.

Anyway, regardless of the name, the key takeaway is that you're going to see some zombies. An abandoned boat is found adrift approaching New York, and a zombie is discovered when it eats a cop. The boat owner's daughter teams up with an investigative journalist and track its origin to the island of Matool. Meanwhile, a doctor is trying to discover the origins of a deadly epidemic sweeping the island.

Maybe it's because I have the benefit of seeing (more than) my share of zombie movies, but it's hard to watch this one and not think the survivors are the dumbest people alive - although I guess they won't be for much longer. Most of the encounters with zombies are marked by at least one person freezing up - possibly screaming - while the dead slowly advance to murder them. The indoor usage of molotov cocktails raises an eyebrow, but you can probably chalk that one up to desperation.

Brian takes the cake for me though. Just about every zombie movie has the obligatory scene where a zombie is shown not to mind getting shot in the torso, and this one isn't an exception. It's basically a requirement to establish the "shoot them in the head" rule. Brian is shown several times that you have to hit them in the brain and that body shots don't work, but god love him he keeps trying anyway.

The zombies here follow most of the rules. Zombies are dead people that eat living people, if you are bitten by a zombie you'll become a zombie yourself, and the only way to stop one is to destroy the brain. Any corpse can become a zombie including 16th century conquistadors.

The original zombies in the film are said to be the product of voodoo, although this is a matter of some debate in the script. It's never confirmed, and we don't see any voodoo rites in the film, but we do hear drums in the jungle before the dead start climbing out of the ground. The viewer is invited to draw their own conclusions.

Whether you seek answers in voodoo or science, you're still left with questions. If there's a scientific explanation, then how does a 400 year old corpse get up and walk? If there's a religious explanation, then why does shooting them in the head kill them again? The answer: nobody knows.

Dancing around how the zombies work is one of the main themes of the film. Dr Menard spends the duration of the film trying to understand zombies and fails to do so. He applies the principles of bacteriology, virology, and even radiolagy and comes up short. He still insists there must be a scientific explanation because voodoo is ridiculous. Island native Lucas insists it's voodoo because it's obvious: the dead are walking around eating people, what else could it be?

Exploring these opposing views leads to the meaning of the film. Dr Menard clings to science as his religion. He's a transplant to the island and thinks little of the local culture and therefore rejects the evidence before him because it doesn't fit his model of the world. When scientists refuse evidence they become unscientific. But whether the answer lies in science or religion the truth is the "why" of it all really doesn't matter when you're getting your face chewed off.

Looking for meaning in a zombie movie isn't the main draw here though: we want spectacle and the film delivers. The aforementioned shark-wrangling zombie should be a sign not to take things so seriously - although in fairness this scene was shot without the director's approval. There's no shortage of zombies, gratuitous violence, and it's a Lucio Fulci movie so you know something horrible is going to happen to someone's eyeball.

If Dawn of the Dead was going for a comic-book horror vibe, then Zombie Flesh Eaters is reaching for shock beyond what realism might afford. Many of the zombies are rotting corpses, with worms crawling on their empty eye sockets and flesh that sloughs off when you grab it. There are buckets of blood that come out of people, and the colour of it all is disgusting.

The score was composed by Fabio Frizzi, a frequent Fulci collaborator. This would be the first time the two worked together on a horror movie. The most well known entry is probably Sequence #6 (better known for playing during the eyeball scene), which Frizzi says was inspired by the Beatles.

Zombie Flesh Eaters is available to stream on Shudder and the Internet Archive

"You are stronger than us, but soon, I think they be stronger than you. When the dead walk, señores, we must stop the killing, or lose the war."

Dawn of the Dead is a legendary horror movie, and perhaps the most famous zombie movie of all time. If George Romero's Night of the Living Dead was the most influential in how storytellers treat zombies, then Dawn of the Dead had its biggest impact in how the public views them.

The movie was a massive success despite censorship. The MPAA had originally given it an X-rating, so it was released Unrated in America to improve its odds. In the UK it was deemed a video nasty, meaning it was criminally illegal to distribute. Despite this, Dawn of the Dead recouped more than 100 times its budget at the box office.

The film spawned countless sequels, homages, parodies, and easter eggs in other media. There were four official sequels and a 2004 remake. In the international market Dawn of the Dead was released as Zombi which would then get a dozen unofficial sequels.

Speaking of the international market, the soundtrack differs between the American and Italian versions. Both have original music by Goblin with the Italian version leaning more heavily on the artist. The American version uses more stock cues which I think enhances the consumerist allegory.

The practical effects are nifty. You've got exploding heads, decapitations, dismemberments portrayed by actual amputees, and probably the most famous disembowelment of all time. There's enough fake blood to drown in, and it's got this vibrant hue to contrast with the ashen faces of so many zombies.

The blood was a point of contention with effect supervisor Tom Savini. Romero wanted to capture a comic-book feeling with lurid colours, and Savini was disappointed that it wasn't more realistic.

Tom Savini probably deserves some special mention. Dawn of the Dead was his first zombie movie with Romero, although he was originally tapped to work on Night of the Living Dead. However, he instead got drafted into the Vietnam war. He would later get his chance to work with Night of the Living Dead though - he directed the 1990 remake.

There are lots of really cool practical effects to get into, but perhaps the most interesting wasn't an effect at all. Dawn of the Dead included a real human skeleton. The use of actual human remains in film is fascinating as it is repulsive. It was rented for the movie (you could actually rent a corpse at the time, God bless America) before being sold to a costume shop. The owner allegedly had no idea it was genuine, and after its discovery police were also baffled because it still had fake flesh from the movie.

What I find to be really cool about this movie is that I've already shared a ton of trivia, I have so much more that I want to say, and I haven't mentioned a word about plot yet. Without getting into the specifics, it's a story of civilization's collapse and how failure to cooperate hastens the decline. It highlights the futility of consumerism: once we've acquired everything we could possibly want we're still left unfulfilled. And yet, despite having more than we'd ever need, an unwillingness to share leads to demise. The zombies are merely a natural disaster, but it is the humans who are villains.

The zombies follow most of the rules, indeed it was this franchise that established most of them. A zombie is a dead person that wants to eat living people. It can only be stopped by removing the head or destroying the brain. To be bit by a zombie is a death sentence: you'll become sick, die, and become a zombie yourself in a matter of hours or a couple days.

Starting with Dawn Romero's zombies began developing personality. While most of them shuffle around doing zombie things, a few exceptional zombies have quirks of their own. A few are seen carrying housewares through the mall or playing with payphones. A nun leaves a survivor alone after being helped by them. My favorite is one who is more interested in collecting and inspecting guns than chewing on bones. Zombie personality would be further developed in sequels Day of the Dead and Land of the Dead

Dawn of the Dead is available for rent on Prime (ew), or you can find it on YouTube or the Internet Archive

"Do you ever wonder about all the different ways of dying? You know, violently? And wonder, like, what would be the most horrible way to die?"

"I try not too think about dying too much."

"Well for me, the worst way would be for a bunch of old men to get around me, and start biting and eating me alive."

Released in 1985, comedy-horror film The Return of the Living Dead is easily one of my favorite zombie movies. The punk aesthetic, the quotability, the easter eggs, and yes even the zombies - put them all together and you're in for the most fun you can have while getting your brains eaten.

Speaking of eating brains, if you've ever heard that zombies have an appetite for the warm brains of the living, you have this movie to thank for that. Zombies are almost universally flesh eaters, but at least as far as the Living Dead franchise goes (five films by the way), the dead are hungry for just one thing. Honestly, it's nice knowing that somebody's into you for your brains.

The film's influence is helped by the credibility of writer John Russo. He had previously partnered with George Romero on Night of the Living Dead. When they went their separate ways, they agreed that Russo would have rights to any Living Dead titles while Romero could develop his own sequels. There's something of a nod to this in the movie, one of the characters asks if the other has ever seen the movie Night of the Living Dead, even going so far as to say it's based on a true story.

However despite this link to the zombie canon, the zombies behave quite differently from Romero zombies. They possess a human level of intelligence, fully capable of conversation and even using radios to set ambushes. They also can't be killed by any means short of total incineration - as Burt remarks "You can cut them to pieces, but the pieces will still come after you."

The mechanism of infection is chemical. The US Army contracted the Darrow Chemical Company to develop 2-4-5 Trioxin for spraying on marijuana in the 60s. This is a play on the Dow Chemical Company and its role in the creation of 2,4,5-T Dioxin - more commonly known as Agent Orange. While Agent Orange is a defoliant, fictional Trioxin has the unique property of reanimating the dead. And of course, if you're killed by a zombie you'll come back as one yourself, which suggests there may be a viral component at play.

Several performances are worthy of mention. Scream Queen Linnea Quigley is perhaps best known for her role in the film as Trash, showing us a confidence rooted in nihilism which when challenged shows us her vulnerability. Miguel Núñez Jr provides an animated take on the strong black protagonist trope common to zombie movies. For me though, the standout performance comes from puppeteer Allan Trautman as the Tarman - you just don't see too many puppets these days and the way he moves is mesmerizing. Trautman would later become a Muppeteer.

While on the surface this is a cheesy zombie flick, the writing and details elevate it. The film is littered with easter eggs. For instance, while it's never explicitly said, the observant might conclude that Ernie is a closeted gay nazi who desires Burt. And while the movie is ostensibly a comedy, the zombies' motivation is truly horrifying - it hurts to be dead.

The soundtrack is noteworthy. The titles and main theme are composed of the obligatory synths common to zombie movies, but the majority of the score comes from contemporary punk artists. This lead to some licensing problems with future re-releases: some songs either could not be restored or were replaced. Oddly, even the Tarman's declaration of "Brains!" varies by release.

The Return of the Living Dead is available to stream on MGM and AMC via Prime or Apple TV. It's intermittently available on Tubi. You can also watch the original VHS release with theatrical audio at the Internet Archive

This indie darling bills itself as a "love letter to PSX survival horror," and it's just oozing with charm, nostalgia, and a little pus

Play as either Jack or Natalie, operatives of the elite Reaper Intervention Platoon (R.I.P.) on a mission to put an end to the villainous Dr Victor Ripper's twisted machinations.

The Ripper was a former CIA operative whose experiments into mind control were deemed too unethical - although you'd think they'd make him employee of the month. Naturally his experiments take on the form of zombies, tangle with the occult, and feature a glowing green serum that brings to mind Dr Herbert West Re-Animator.

Gameplay is exactly what you'd expect from an homage to Resident Evil. Dodge through mobs of zombies with tank controls, solve puzzles which require navigating a town overrun with the dead, and manage a limited inventory of guns, ammo, health, and keys. Standout feature is the fixed point camera angles - something you probably expect of the genre, with the modern touch that they do sometimes transition into a follow- or dolly-camera.

At the beginning of the game, you choose which character you play as. Natalie has more health, and Jack has more inventory space. The characters largely cover the same story and follow most of the same levels, although each has some unique bosses and locations.

The voice acting is a standout part of the art direction. Throughout the game you'll find voice recordings from victims, as well as the personal logs of Dr Ripper, and you can tell they had fun with it. The Ripper specifically makes me think of a saturday morning cartoon villain, although about six times more twisted than you'd see on cable. When it comes to dialogue, even the delivery makes me think of Resident Evil - it's stilted and cheesey, although the delivery is less flat.

Another little nod towards RE: there are multiple endings (seven of them) to be unlocked depending on if you save each member of your team. You'll also have to play through a segment of the game without your gear as a character who's normally an NPC.

One part of the game that might be contentious: at one point you will have to explore an elementary school full of little zombies. Through most of the game you're encouraged to conserve ammo and could never possibly kill all zombies. In this segment they are too numerous and the corridors are too narrow to avoid combat. Truly it is dangerous to be american schoolchildren.

Flesh Made Fear is available for purchase on Steam and Playstation. They even have an Itch page, although that does just link back to Steam.

If you think fondly back on Burger Time and imagine the sausages were trying to eat you alive, you'd have a pretty close approximation to this game. Living Dead House is an arcade experience for 1-2 players where they must survive in their house as zombies break in to eat them. Like so many titles from yesteryear, it's easy to pick up but hard to master - although it did come out this year.

We're treated to a 2D sidescroller perspective. The player can run, jump, and climb ladders to escape from zombies that break their way through the house's windows and doors. To succeed, the player only has to survive for a short while, typically 99 seconds, but will soon be overrun by zombies. Thankfully, pickups will occasionally spawn in that give the player a fighting chance.

Those pickups represent the core strategy of the game. Each player can only hold up to two items, which are consumed on use and only exist on the field for a short time. Picking up a third item will overwrite one of your items, so like many zombie games before it, Living Dead House requires players to manage a limited inventory.

Each item is single use. The axe, shotgun, and flamethrower work as you probably expect they would. A bear trap can be deployed and has two charges where it will kill whoever steps on it - whether that's an undead foe or a living friend. Perhaps most useful, the hammer and boards can be used to barricade any window or door to prevent the next zombie from spawning there.

In addition to the above items, there are various score pickups. These are essential if you're competing on the online leaderboards. Sometimes a letter might spawn. Collect all five to spell S-H-R-E-D and get a CHAINSAW. Like Mario's hammer in Donkey Kong, this baddie has unlimited uses for a limited time and can be used to level the playing field.

There are four maps to cycle through, each with its own gimmick. Some of them are explicitly helpful, like a fusebox that can be used to electrocute several zombies at once, or elevators the player can step into to teleport across the map. Others are a bit more dubious - a moving lift can be used to escape zombies or lead them straight to you. Another level has a zombie drop dynamite from the attic, blowing up friend and foe alike. Each level also features at least one Pacman door. Located at the edge of the map, you can step through it to emerge on the opposite side.

If this didn't already feel like a nostalgic title from yesteryear, the game offers a couple of filters to enhance the experience. The CRT filter is a classic for games like this, and something I usually look for. You can also choose to play the game in black and white if you want to really evoke Night of the Living Dead.

Living Dead House is available for purchase on Steam and Switch. You can also play the demo in your browser on Itch. The game is modestly priced, and suitable for an afternoon romp with a friend.

Sooner or later something bad, or WORSE, is gonna happen. It always does.

I watched this one for the first time last night, and honestly it was better than I expected. It's still an animated 'talking animals' movie for kids, but even if it is family friendly it's a loving homage to horror films.

First impressions were good. The score is this post-2010 80s inspired synthwave, the style you'd recognize from Stranger Things. And the visuals are gorgeous, we open to a vigorous chase scene through the misty woods with eerie green backlighting.

Actually the visuals and lighting deserve special mention. The zoo is covered in a perpetual light fog which diffuses the vibrant neon lighting used throughout. It leans heavily on a blue-red mix reminiscent of Dario Argento films, but it's also chock full of those Halloween special sickly greens and cosmic horror magentas.

The mechanism of infection starts from a glowing pink meteorite that crashes into the zoo. Patient Zero is exposed to the meteorite and turns into a pod creature before emerging as a gelatinous gum-beast. From there, any bite transmits the infection, and soon the zoo is overrun with gummy zombies. There is a cure for zombism, which is to be expected from a kids movie with an eventual return to the status quo.

The gumminess is pretty clever. I mean, how do you faithfully handle zombies in a kids movie? After all, a zombie movie tends to be the goriest sort of movie where people are eaten alive. As gummy creatures, the movie has carte blanche to show off dismemberments and slime in place of gore without being horrifying.

The gummy nature of the zombies leads to some really interesting creature design. Not only do you have a fairly diverse set of creatures because of all the different zoo animals, but you also get several animals combining themselves into mutant amalgamations reminiscent of John Carpenter's The Thing, and even a nod to Alien's Xenomorph.

Special Creature Design

Diverse creature design isn't limited just to the monsters. The main characters are fairly local to a Vancouver zoo as a timber wolf and mountain lion, but we also get an ostrich, capybara, lemur, pygmy hippo, and proboscis monkey (don't see too many of those) in the main cast. No gummy bears though, which is either a missed opportunity or they couldn't secure the trademark.

The lemur deserves special attention. Xavier is merely a supporting character, but he's the trope-aware movie buff. These guys are usually my favorite in movies, it's sort of a way to acknowledge that "yes, we are leaning on cliche, but that's part of the fun." A character like that also feels valuable for a kids-horror movie - the foreshadowing can take some of the bite out of the scares, and since the kids probably haven't seen a thousand horror movies it's good to have a guide.

Night of the Zoopocalypse is available to stream on Crave and Prime. It looks like you can get the full movie on Youtube from the distributor, although that version may be geo-locked.

Never underestimate the power of teamwork. Alone you are vulnerable, but together you can overcome any obstacle.

This book is like the bible for zombie nerds everywhere. It's largely written in the style of a military field manual, but also goes into the origins and mechanics of zombies in-universe, as well as speculating on historical events that may be attributed to zombies.

There is some debate about if the survival guide is a work of parody. Around the time of publication, Max Brooks had just won an emmy as a comedy writer for Saturday Night Live, and he also happens to be the son of legendary parody filmmaker Mel Brooks. However, Max doesn't consider the survival guide to be a work of humour - he considers it to be a self-help book and remarked "I can't think of anything less funny than dying in a zombie attack."

Then again, parody is often linked to satire and satirists make their living making funnies often out of very unfunny things. If the book is parody, it never breaks character. I believe it's up to the reader to decide for themselves.

Most of the book is naturally dedicated towards zombies - how to select a weapon to defend yourself, fortifications you can construct, places to avoid, etc. However there is also practical disaster preparedness advice in here too, such as what provisions to stockpile, how to store water in an emergency in your home, and what to put in your bugout bag.

The blending of fact and fiction is something of a mixed blessing. In a real emergency, all of the zombie stuff goes out the window and distracts from what you need to survive. However, the real stuff is still real stuff. In fact, the US Center for Disease Control has even published a zombie pandemic preparedness campaign. FEMA has run a similar campaign, noting that preparing for a zombie invasion will make someone just as prepared for a natural disaster such as hurricane but with considerably more sex appeal.

The Zombie Survival Guide is extremely opinionated on the mechanics of zombism and speaks authoritatively. The driving force behind the infection is the virus Solanum, which infects the brain of a living person and causes them to reanimate after the body dies. Infection is a blood-borne pathogen, and is always fatal, typically in a period of 2-72 hours. The resulting zombies are completely unintelligent, and seek to spread the disease by biting living humans with no ability to solve problems or preserve their own life.

When discussing zombies online, people would often argue about whether or not they were "real" zombies and point to the survival guide as an authority on the matter. This leads to some interesting conclusions about famous zombie franchises. The zombies in the 28 Days Later franchise aren't zombies because they aren't dead. The Romero zombie, popularized by George Romero of Dawn of the Dead fame, aren't "real" zombies because they possess some personality and use tools. The Walking Dead comes pretty close, but even the uninfected become zombies so therefore they are not "real" zombies.

If you'd like to read the survival guide, the author's website includes several links and platforms to purchase from. You can also read it free online

"The dead don't walk around, except in very bad paperback novels!"

Directed by Jorge Grau and released in 1974, this Italian-Spanish co-production is a pretty weird movie. Although in fairness, most zombie movies especially from that period are pretty weird. In the UK it was originally released under the title The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue, and has subsequently been released with at least 15 different titles internationally. This is one of several films to be released in Italy as Zombi 3.

Pollution has long been used in the movies as the cause of the dead rising, although this film has a pretty novel take. The Ministry of Agriculture is experimenting with a new form of pest control through ultrasonic radiation, which kills insects and parasites by causing them to fight each other. Two scientists involved proudly declare that no chemicals are used at all, although protagonist George remains skeptical. His fears are founded as the ultrasonic tones do actually cause a corpse to reanimate - although George also remains skeptical of that until he has a confrontation with zombies in a cemetery.

The film has many easily recognized tropes. Notably that those who have seen the undead have a hard time convincing people of the threat: the first woman to encounter them (secondary protagonist Edna) is written off as hysterical, the second woman as a drug addict, and finally when George himself sees them he's declared to be a satanist hippy lunatic. In addition to having a difficult time convincing the police to help in a horror movie, the primary antagonist is a hardnosed police inspector.

This is also one of the earliest examples I've seen of "zombies have messed up eyes." No explanation is given for why they look like that, but it's a trademark that will be recognized in zombie movies for years to come.

Speaking of explanations, after an encounter with a homicidal infant who blinds a nurse, George and a doctor compare the timeline of killer babies being born with the start of the ultrasonic radiation machine and find they're connected. They return to the machine and get an explanation from scientists: the soundwaves affect the primitive central nervous systems of insects causing them to violently attack each other, but there's no way they'd incite rage in the more complex systems of a human. However, while the scientist is explaining this, he becomes increasingly agitated which personally I find suspect. The doctor posits that a newborn's nervous system is far less complex than a mature human, but decides not to pursue the matter. He remarks that the government wouldn't do anything for an untested hypothesis because the government already fails to act on matters where there are concrete facts - sound familiar?

The theory presented later in the film is that the nervous system retains some basic activity after death, which allows the recently deceased to be affected by the radiation. That's plausible enough for the moviegoer. Although perplexingly, a zombie is later seen raising the dead by feeding fresh blood to corpses in a bastardization of communion. I can't for the life of me figure out what that has to do with ultrasound, although narrative consistency was not super important to films of the period.

I had originally seen this movie on Tubi although I can't find it now - that may depend on region. It is available free on youtube under the title Don't Disturb the Sleeping Dead

"They're coming to get you, Barbara!"

What better way to start off c/zombies than with the most famous zombie movie of all time?

Night of the Living Dead was directed by George A Romero and released in October of 1968. The plot was novel at the time but probably familiar to all by now - the undead have risen to feast on the flesh of the living, and a ragtag group of survivors must try - and probably fail - to deal with this existential threat.

While there is much to be said about film analysis and critique, much of what's interesting about Night of the Living Dead has to do with its history, both behind the scenes and post-release. For instance, it's a fairly well known story that Night of the Living Dead opened at an afternoon matinee shortly before MPAA ratings became official. The result was that lots of parents dropped their kids off for what they assumed to be a campy movie in the vein of Dracula or the Wolfman, and instead traumatized their children with scenes of immolation and disembowelment.

Night of the Living Dead is often thought of as the first zombie movie. It isn't that, but it was massively influential and changed movie zombies into what we think of today. The days of voodoo and magical resurrection are largely behind us, and zombies are now typically the result of some sort of viral epidemic.

Many of the tropes we think of when it comes to zombies were introduced in Night. You have to shoot them in the head. They hunger for living flesh. Getting bit by a zombie is a death sentence, and what's more you'll become one yourself.

Of particular note is what I would also consider to be the main theme of the film: when people refuse to cooperate, they will fall apart. Romero himself explored this in each of his zombie flicks, and it's become a mainstay in cinema that while zombies are deadly, the true threat to humanity is other humans.

Speaking of the social fabric, there's two significant stories regarding race relations in the film. One has to do with the plot:

Movie Ending

The ending has a black man gunned down without cause by a rural sheriff's deputy. While the film doesn't make any remarks about race here, the subtext is almost impossible to separate.

The other has to do with casting: the character of Ben was originally written as a white man, but black actor Duane Jones gave the best audition. After accepting him for the role, George Romero refused to do any rewrites even though it was the cultural norm of the time.The result is that Ben became one of the first strong black protagonists in a mainstream horror film - without being typecast as a caricature, his race never really plays into his character, and therefore his strength comes from his deeds. An early example of positive representation

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I know there's some copyright nerds on the fediverse so I'm sure you'll like this: due to publisher error, the theatrical cut was released to the public domain. Ironically this was to avoid a copyright issue of their own - The original title was Night of the Flesh Eaters, but there were concerns it was too close to the 1964 sci-fi thriller The Flesh Eaters. The story goes that the titles and credits for Night of the Flesh Eaters had included the appropriate copyright, but the distributor had insisted the name be changed to Living Dead, and removed all references to the original Flesh Eaters title - including the title card that had the original copyright notice.

This snafu had some pretty serious implications. It meant that anybody could legally make their own copy of the film, cutting the distributor out entirely. This led to hundreds of bootleg versions, as well as colorizations, a 3D adaptation, and even an animated special.

An official remake with Romero's blessing came out in 1990. Notably, the movie is directed by Tom Savini, who served as lead special effects artist in Dawn of the Dead and Day of the Dead.

Night of the Living Dead is available to stream free on Tubi and Youtube. You can probably rent it just about anywhere, but especially since it is in the public domain you should save your money.