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a glacial race with two lethargic zombies making horror movie music sounds. Makers of zombie films have not necessarily rejected the idea of this. Quite often they have been inspired by these things.

Where would zombie films be without their goofy entries? These are among the goriest films out there, but in a goofy, cartoonish sort of way. The messages contained in these films are tailor made for the zombie movie enthusiast. These films often have a hero who begins as your normal, everyday guy. The mindless zombie villains allow for a hero who is a thinking man, rather than a man of action. The hero of these films needs to have seen countless horror films so that they might know the rules. Most importantly, these men don't really want to become heroes. They just have an overriding desire to have the comforts of their old life back. They would rather sit back in a La-Z-Boy than have to fight the hordes of the undead. The films speak to the armchair warrior, with tons of sight gags that owe more to the Three Stooges than to Romero. These films, speaking straight to their viewers, have the largest followings of any other films in the genre.

The Evil Dead movies are great examples of this type of film. Ash, the hero representing the viewer, has done a lot for the career of Bruce Campbell, who plays Ash in the film. He starts out as an everyman, but ultimately is cooler and gets hotter chicks than any everyman around. All this with a plot containing elements of H.P. Lovecraft. Horror geeks love Lovecraft (this worked well for another film in the genre, Re-Animator). The zombies aren't as slow or mindless, being not really zombies but people possessed by an ancient evil, but this is still considered a zombie film by fans.

The Evil Dead movies have inspired others with its Three Stooges style mayhem. Probably the most immediate response to these films is Peter Jackson's Dead Alive. Dead Alive takes the everyman and turns him into a bumbling misfit. What geek can't identify with that character? The character is made understandable when it is revealed that he is a mama's boy because his mother is a dominating monster (even before she changes into a zombie). This is probably the goriest film ever made, along with having the most sight gags and physical comedy of any zombie film. The film is also notable for giving the geek hope for finding love, becoming a hero, and, most importantly, moving out of his mother's house.

Shaun of the Dead has also made a great contribution

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