20 Underrated Zombie Movies That Deserve To Be Brought Back From The Dead
- 11,058 VOTES
- Photo:
Years before Parasite won the Academy Award for Best Picture or Squid Game had record-breaking viewership on Netflix, this South Korean zombie film was released with great success. Train to Busan follows workaholic divorced father Seok-woo (Gong Yoo) and his efforts to protect his young daughter Su-an (Kim Su-an) after a zombie outbreak occurs while they are on a high-speed train from Seoul to Busan. When an infected woman boards the train, the contagion quickly spreads and Seok-woo is forced to join forces with the other passengers in order to survive.
Train to Busan successfully combines intense zombie violence with emotional melodrama involving the passengers, giving additional weight to the suspenseful survival narrative. Although Train to Busan was successful enough to inspire a sequel titled Peninsula, it is still relatively unknown to many international film fans, especially when compared to the massive success of other South Korean hits.
More Train to Busan
- #83 of 399 onThe Best Horror Movies Of All Time
- #29 of 138 onThe 100+ Best Disaster Movies Of All Time
- #82 of 107 onThe Best Intelligent Horror Movies
- 2561 VOTES
This Spanish found-footage film takes place entirely in a quarantined apartment building with a zombie-like outbreak eventually revealed to be demonic possessions mutated by scientific experimentation carried out by one of the residents. Television journalist Ángela Vidal (Manuela Velasco) and her cameraman Pablo (Pablo Rosso) are on a story covering a local fire station in Barcelona when the firemen receive a call about a hysterical resident trapped in an apartment. Shortly after entering the apartment building, the firemen and Ángela’s production team become trapped inside by police attempting to contain the threat.
Although [REC] was successful enough for three sequels and an American remake titled Quarantine, it is an inventive revision of the zombie narrative deserving of an even wider audience. The story is a clever indictment of corruption in government institutions from the police department to health inspectors, which the television show Ángela works for often exposes.
More REC- #198 of 399 onThe Best Horror Movies Of All Time
- #70 of 107 onThe Best Intelligent Horror Movies
- #1 of 73 onThe 65+ Best Found Footage Movies
- 3461 VOTES
- Photo:
Also known as Braindead, Dead Alive was one of the early horror films made by Peter Jackson before his monumental success with the Lord of the Rings franchise. After a hybrid rat-monkey coming from Skull Island (in a reference to King Kong, which Jackson would later remake) bites the mother of Lionel Cosgrove (Timothy Balme), he is forced to deal with the resulting zombie outbreak. As any good son would, Cosgrove attempts to keep his mother’s condition a secret, despite her tendency to bite and turn others into zombies. Eventually, Cosgrove shares the secret with his girlfriend Paquita (Diana Peñalver), and together, they attempt to end the threat by destroying the zombies in a number of creatively gruesome ways.
The romantic comedy aspects of the narrative would influence Simon Pegg’s Shaun of the Dead, though few zombie films have reached the comedically outrageous levels of gore found in Dead Alive’s climactic sequence.
More Dead Alive- #305 of 399 onThe Best Horror Movies Of All Time
- #325 of 379 onThe Best Movies Of The '90s, Ranked
- #35 of 115 onThe Goriest Horror Movies Ever Made (2023 Update)
- 4395 VOTES
- Photo:
When failing musician Dave Anderson (Alexander England) is forced to move in with his sister following a break-up, he begrudgingly agrees to take his nephew Felix to kindergarten. Anderson changes his mind quickly when he discovers Felix’s teacher is a charming young woman named Audrey Caroline (Lupita Nyong'o). Agreeing to chaperone a school trip to be closer to her, Anderson must step up and be an unlikely protector of the children when there is a zombie outbreak at the farm they are visiting.
While Little Monsters borrows plenty from Shaun of the Dead, it is elevated by Nyong’o’s charming performance, as well as Josh Gad as an equally unlikable children's television personality who happens to be filming his program at the farm during the children’s visit and the zombie attack. Although reviews for Little Monsters were mostly positive, it suffered from a limited release before being lost in the crowded world of streaming.
More Little Monsters- #19 of 32 onThe 30+ Best Zombie Comedies
- #3 of 12 onThe Best Zombie Movies Streaming on Hulu
- #17 of 28 onThe Best Comedies With Zombies And Vampires
- 5278 VOTES
The Horde
- Photo:
Many horror zombie movies contain action, but The Horde is an action film with horror violence. This French film begins with a group of policemen preparing to raid a condemned high-rise in the heart of a crime-ridden Paris neighborhood to take down a notorious drug dealer responsible for the death of their colleague. Although this mission is a failure with members of the team captured by criminals, both sides must join forces when an army of zombies swarm the building and surrounding neighborhood.
The plot resembles The Raid: Redemption with zombies, though it was released two years before the popular Indonesian action film. The Horde was only given a limited release in France and the US and failed to make back the cost of the budget, despite earning awards for the screenplay and special effects at the Fantasporto Film Festival.
More The Horde- #67 of 124 onThe Top 100+ Zombie Movies Of All Time
- #23 of 32 onThe Best Dramas About Zombies
- #13 of 22 onThe Best French Horror Movies
- 6550 VOTES
The third installment of George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead film series failed to make the same impact as his first two, partially because Day of the Dead was only given limited distribution and a minimized budget when the filmmaker insisted on releasing the zombie film as unrated to avoid the MPAA restrictions on violent content. The plot continued the exploration of a post-apocalyptic world following the zombie pandemic, with scientists and soldiers experimenting on the undead in an underground facility in the Everglades in order to find a solution.
Sympathy for the undead is created with the introduction of Bub (Sherman Howard), a zombie serving as a lab rat for the many experiments being conducted who has relearned normal human behavior. Although the horror elements audiences had come to expect from the genre were less predominant in the narrative, Romero’s ability to continuously evolve the franchise is admirable and worthy of reconsideration.
More Day of the Dead- #43 of 96 onThe 90+ Best Movies Of 1985, Ranked
- #248 of 399 onThe Best Movies Of The 1980s, Ranked
- #180 of 399 onThe Best Horror Movies Of All Time
- 7204 VOTES
Extinction
- Photo:
Taking place long after a zombie apocalypse has occurred, Extinction offers a unique take on the sub-genre with a terrifyingly evolved monster. While traveling to a safe zone, survivors Patrick (Matthew Fox) and Jack (Jeffrey Donovan) suffer a loss that puts them at odds with each other. Years later, they no longer speak, despite living right next to each other in the isolation of snowy wilderness. Patrick lives alone with his dog while Jack raises his daughter, Lu (Quinn McColgan), who struggles to understand the disagreement between the men. When the zombies return after a long absence, they have developed strength, speed, and enhanced hearing, despite losing the ability to see.
This frightening new take on zombies leads to a few intense scenes of horror, despite the focus of the film being character development between the three isolated survivors. With poor critical response and extremely limited distribution, Extinction failed to make back its budget, although it has plenty to offer viewers seeking a unique and thoughtful take on the zombie apocalypse.
- 8479 VOTES
- Photo:
Produced by J. J. Abrams, this hybrid of a war film and zombie movie involves a squad of WWII American soldiers who are dropped behind enemy lines the day before D-Day and discover an experiment by the Third Reich has created zombies with super strength. The soldiers are on a mission to destroy a German radio-jamming tower in an old church, which is also where the experiments are being housed. In order to complete the mission before D-Day, the soldiers led by Corporal Lewis Ford (Wyatt Russell) enlist the help of local French civilian Chloe Laurent (Mathilde Ollivier).
Overlord contains graphic war violence before even getting to the narrative’s horror elements, blending both genres into a memorable cinematic experience praised by critics, despite failing to make much impact at the box office.
- 9294 VOTES
- Photo:
The Night Eats the World is an understated zombie film mostly dealing with themes of isolation in a post-apocalyptic world, though it also contains its fair share of intense scenes of survival action. The film follows Sam (Anders Danielsen Lie), a musician living in Paris who becomes trapped in an apartment building when a zombie apocalypse begins after he stops by a party to see his ex-girlfriend (Sigrid Bouaziz). There are no other survivors, but Sam is able to clear out the building and lock himself inside with rations, only to find the solitude unbearable over time.
Released in 2018, the themes of The Night Eats the World may have been better received by audiences following the self-imposed quarantines many faced after the outbreak of COVID-19 in 2020, just like the similar South Korean film, #Alive.
- 10362 VOTES
- Photo:
Fido is a Canadian zombie comedy taking place in a 1950s-era alternate universe in which radiation from space has turned the dead into zombies. Following a war with the zombies, a corporation named ZomCon learns to control the undead with collars that make them a labor source. Housewife Helen Robinson (Carrie-Anne Moss) buys a zombie (Billy Connolly) her son Timmy (K'Sun Ray) names Fido and treats him like a pet and companion, in a zombie parody of Lassie. Fido befriends Timmy and protects him from neighborhood bullies, though ZomCon threatens to put him down after the occasional outbursts of violence.
Fido boasts an impressively unique spin on the zombie narrative with the typical horror elements traded in for satire, though it still manages to include sequences of obligatory blood and gore.
More Fido- #100 of 101 onThe Best Movies Of 2006
- #56 of 124 onThe Top 100+ Zombie Movies Of All Time
- #14 of 32 onThe 30+ Best Zombie Comedies
- 11666 VOTES
- Photo:
Inspired by William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, Warm Bodies is a star-crossed lover narrative between a living girl and a zombie, taking the Rom-Zom-Com elements of Shaun of the Dead a step further. The film follows a zombie who goes by R (Nicholas Hoult), unable to remember what his full name was before becoming one of the undead. When R comes across a human survivor named Julie Grigio (Teresa Palmer), his heart inexplicably begins to beat again and his attraction to her slowly returns him to human form. Despite this, Julie’s father (John Malkovich) doesn’t trust R and threatens to kill him like any other zombie.
Although Warm Bodies seemed to be attempting to capitalize on the success of Twilight with another story blending romance with classic horror monsters, it wasn’t nearly as successful with audiences despite being better received by critics.
More Warm Bodies- #188 of 375 onThe Best Movies Based On Books
- #3 of 46 on50+ Quirky Romance Movies With Unique Love Stories
- #59 of 170 onThe 150+ Best Teen Romance Movies, Ranked
- 12438 VOTES
- Photo:
Proving that not all zombie films have to be R-rated gore-fests, ParaNorman is a stop-motion animated comedic horror movie about a young boy who can communicate with ghosts. Norman Babcock (Kodi Smit-McPhee) is a social outcast because nobody believes in his paranormal abilities, until the dead rise and he is forced to intervene to save the town. A deceased girl named Aggie Prenderghast (Jodelle Ferland) who was thought to be a witch is responsible for the cursed dead citizens rising up as zombies, though Norman discovers they are actually nonthreatening, as is Aggie once finally understood.
In true children’s film fashion, ParaNorman includes themes of acceptance, even for the creepy undead monsters and ghouls. In teaching this lesson to the town, Norman himself also finds acceptance and peace. Although ParaNorman received an Academy Award nomination for Best Animated Feature, it fell victim to the monstrous power of Pixar and Disney when Brave took the award home.
More ParaNorman- #279 of 453 onThe 400+ Best Animated Kids Movies
- #170 of 188 onThe 180+ Top Kids Movies
- #17 of 32 onThe 30+ Best Zombie Comedies
- 13254 VOTES
- Photo:
Following the international success of the Norwegian zombie film Dead Snow, director Tommy Wirkola amped up the gore and campiness while also adding American actors to the cast of the sequel, Dead Snow 2: Red vs. Dead. The plot of the first film centers on a group of students forced to survive attacking Nazi zombies while staying in a cabin in the mountains of Norway after pocketing a gold coin from a hidden treasure belonging to the Third Reich. The premise combines a Scandinavian folklore in which the undead rise up to protect stolen treasures with the historical background of the occupation of Norway during WWII, and Dead Snow 2: Red vs. Dead continues this with Russian POW zombies added as heroic undead brought back to life to combat the threat.
As the sole survivor from the first film, Martin Hykkerud (Vegar Hoel) mistakenly has the arm of one of the zombies attached to his body by doctors and discovers it has a life of its own in a clear reference to the Evil Dead franchise. He seeks the help of an American group of zombie hunters led by an inexperienced nerd named Daniel (Martin Starr), bringing even more comedy to the gore-fest. Nothing is sacred in Wirkola’s sequel, embracing bad taste splatter horror for the enjoyment of audience members willing to go along for the ride.
- 14148 VOTES
- Photo:
Undead is the directorial debut by German-Australian identical twin brothers Peter and Michael Spierig, created with a limited budget and inspiration from classic zombie films. As local beauty pageant winner Rene (Felicity Mason) is leaving behind her family farm, she witnesses meteorites falling on the small Australian town of Berkeley. When the citizens come into contact with these rocks from space, they are turned into bloodthirsty zombies. The town is also visited by hooded extraterrestrials with unknown intentions, so Rene hides out in the home of a local (Mungo McKay) with a fallout shelter and a cache of guns, arming herself with a memorable three-barreled shotgun.
Undead is delightfully campy, making up for the low budget with creative horror violence and an inventive approach to the zombie narrative. Although it wasn’t widely seen, Undead was impressive enough for The Spierig Brothers to earn a career in Hollywood, beginning with their reinvention of the vampire sub-genre in Daybreakers.
More Undead- #76 of 124 onThe Top 100+ Zombie Movies Of All Time
- #25 of 26 onThe Best R-Rated Alien Movies
- #17 of 35 onThe Best Australian Horror Movies, Ranked
- 15188 VOTES
- Photo:
George A. Romero’s Dawn of the Dead was co-financed by Dario Argento with the agreement that he could release his own cut of the film in Italy, which resulted in Lucio Fulci making this Italian sequel, Zombi 2. Fulci also returned to the sub-genre’s 1930s origins by setting a portion of the film in the Caribbean and associating the outbreak of the undead with voodoo magic. After a scientist’s abandoned boat turns up in New York with a zombie on board, his daughter Anne Bowles (Tisa Farrow) travels to a Caribbean Island with British journalist Peter West (Ian McCulloch) to investigate.
Zombi 2 was famous for its controversial scenes of graphic violence, including a memorable sequence involving an eyeball pierced by a splinter, earning it a place on the UK’s list of “video nasties.” Fulci’s film also served as the main stylistic inspiration for the first Resident Evil game on PlayStation in 1996, which is often credited for reviving interest in zombie films.
More Zombi 2- #364 of 399 onThe Best Horror Movies Of All Time
- #100 of 118 onThe Best Horror Movie Sequels
- #62 of 124 onThe Top 100+ Zombie Movies Of All Time
- 16156 VOTES
- Photo:
Based on the novel Dellamorte Dellamore by Tiziano Sclavi, Cemetery Man is a surreal comedic horror film about the caretaker of a small Italian cemetery in which the dead begin to rise from their graves. The international production from Italian director Michele Soavi stars Rupert Everett as Francesco Dellamorte, an outcast who runs a small-town cemetery with his mentally disabled assistant Gnaghi (François Hadji-Lazaro). Although Dellamorte tries to report the undead, the town’s mayor (Stefano Masciarelli) is preoccupied with being reelected and dismisses the issue. Dellamorte also begins a romantic relationship with a widow (Anna Falchi) who frequently visits the cemetery, followed by two other women played by the same actress.
Cemetery Man leaves the audience questioning what is real, with every bizarre occurrence played with a tinge of dark comedy. The ambiguity may turn off some viewers but will reward those who enjoy a puzzle.
More Cemetery Man- #79 of 85 onThe Best Movies Of 1994
- #81 of 124 onThe Top 100+ Zombie Movies Of All Time
- #14 of 20 on20 Obscure Horror Movies from the '90s You Need to See Right Now
- 17154 VOTES
- Photo:
Written and directed by David Cronenberg, Rabid involves zombies created in one of the most inventive ways in the history of the sub-genre. After a woman named Rose (played by adult film star Marilyn Chambers) is injured in a violent motorcycle accident, a radical experimental procedure saves her life. Although the operation is a success, Rose develops a new orifice in her armpit which contains a stinger that feeds on human blood and turns the victims into zombies. The National Guard is brought in and martial law is declared when this contagion spreads from the countryside to Montreal and a larger percentage of the population becomes infected.
Cronenberg may be better known for some of his other films, but Rabid was a significant release in the development of the body horror sub-genre often associated with the Canadian filmmaker.
More Rabid- #77 of 124 onThe Top 100+ Zombie Movies Of All Time
- #11 of 60 onThe Best Horror Movies About Evil Experiments
- #32 of 49 onThe Best Horror Movies About Virus Outbreaks
- 18132 VOTES
Anyone using the newly coined term “elevated horror” or claiming social/political allegories in the genre began with Get Out need only watch Deathdream (AKA Dead of Night) to see this has been a longstanding tradition. The plot of Bob Clark’s film follows American soldier Andy Brooks (Richard Backus) as he returns home from the Vietnam War after he has been killed in action, and the film itself was made and released while the United States was still involved in the conflict. Brooks returns home as a flesh-eating ghoul, with his family unable to cope with his change in behavior.
As one of the first horror films to deal explicitly with the subject of the Vietnam War, the zombie experience is a clear allegory for PTSD. Adding to the realism in this portrayal are the zombie effects done by recently discharged combat veteran Tom Savini, who spent much of the war experimenting with make-up on soldiers.
- 1992 VOTES
Wither
- Photo:
Wither combines the plot of Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead with a Swedish folklore about undead creatures for a gore-fest that occurs when a group of young adults spends the weekend in an abandoned cabin in the woods. As the dead begin to rise and they are forced to fight for their lives, a hunter named Gunnar (Johannes Brost) arrives to aid them, having already lost his wife and daughter to the threat.
Wither lacks the comedic elements the Evil Dead films are famous for, but it makes up for it with a plethora of practical effects and tense horror sequences. Although Wither was incorrectly advertised as being the first Swedish zombie film, it was the first to be shown in theaters and to reach an international audience. Despite lacking originality, Wither is an obscure zombie gem deserving of being discovered by fans of the sub-genre.
- 20100 VOTES
- Photo:
Despite them looking and acting very differently from the creatures seen onscreen today, White Zombie was the first zombie movie ever made. Loosely based on The Magic Island, a racist 1929 non-fiction book about Haitian culture written by William Seabrook, White Zombie turned the author’s anxieties about voodoo and cannibalism into an early progressive horror film addressing issues of labor, class, and race. Although there are zombies in the narrative, the true villain is a white voodoo master known as "Murder" Legendre, played by Bela Lugosi fresh from his successful performance in Dracula (1931).
Legendre uses mind control to turn the locals into a zombified slave labor force, which nobody seems to mind. It isn’t until he attempts to turn a white woman named Madeleine Short (Madge Bellamy) into a zombie that Legendre’s practices are challenged, in a surprisingly profound statement about race for a film released in the early 1930s.
More White Zombie- #300 of 399 onThe Best Horror Movies Of All Time
- #80 of 124 onThe Top 100+ Zombie Movies Of All Time
- #25 of 51 onThe 50+ Best Movies In Public Domain
