by Richard Hogsflesh

Created on: August 15, 2011   Last Updated: August 17, 2011

What makes a good zombie movie? The short answer is ‘zombies’, which might seem obvious, but somehow passes a few so-called zombie filmmakers by. Here are some of the elements you’ll need if you want your zombie film to be a success. This article contains spoilers.

An overwhelming zombie horde

The first thing you need is a lot of zombies – enough to realistically overrun the world. Think of ‘

Night of the Living Dead’ or either version of ‘Dawn of the Dead’ – there are hundreds of visible zombies in those films. Compare them to cheaper zombie movies like ‘Let Sleeping Corpses Lie’ and ‘Burial Ground’. These films do not contain nearly enough zombies to credibly end human civilization. Part of the horror of a zombie film has to be that it is irreversible – that the world we knew is gone for good. You need a generous helping of zombies for that to be the case.

Apocalyptic and bleak

The future for humanity should not look rosy at the end of a zombie film. Whether it ends like the original ’Day of the Dead’, with the last three humans flying off into an uncertain future, or like ‘Zombie Flesh Eaters’, with the undead horde streaming into New York, one has to be left with the feeling that things really aren’t going to get better.

Real zombies, not living people with a disease.

Zombies should be undead. They should not be living people with a zombie-related disease. Films like ’28 Days Later’ try to pass off diseased people as zombies. This will not do. These films – and video game franchises like ‘Left 4 Dead’ – belong to a different tradition. Films in which disease turns people into deranged maniacs originated in the early 1970s, in films like ‘The Crazies’ and ‘Shivers’. They are similar to zombie films, but they are not zombie films.

Zombies should not run

The pacing of a good zombie film is important. It should be slow, so as to build up maximum dread. Zombies are re-animated cadavers; their motor skills should be limited. And they are scary because, however inept individual zombies might be, they’ll get you in the end through sheer weight of numbers. A zombie overtaking you in a sprint and jumping on you is scary, sure. But it’s a lot scarier, more grueling and crueler if you’ve spent hours out-running shambling zombies only to eventually collapse with exhaustion

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