If there ever was a genre that the wife and I truly enjoy it would have to be zombie films. Good, bad, ugly; it doesn't matter to us. Because each zombie movie is generally the same one could say the basic appeal is the overall fear of life after death not being as pleasant as our religious leaders have been telling us. There's also a basic fear of something that's virtually un-killable (aside from the usual decapitation/shot to the head/spine breaking) and completely immune to reason.

However, certain movies require specific analysis:

George Romero's "Living Dead" movies
These were the classics that started it all. The concept was rather simple at first. You had a few random people that had to deal with the zombies and they had no clue what was happening. In the first movie the whole cast dies and it's revealed that gun-toting rednecks will save the world. In "Dawn of the Dead" you get to see how a small group is able to survive by working together against the common foe. And, in "Land of the Dead" you can see how society is able to cope after the world is overrun with the walking dead.

The "Resident Evil" trilogy
Based on a highly successful game series which features zombie, this game mostly brings out the fear of not only the undead, but of giant heartless corporations doing whatever they feel and treating people like nothing more than test subjects. Plus, there's all those great action sequences with Mila Jovovich.

The "Evil Dead" films
Sam Rami decided to take a new spin on the zombie theme by adding comedy to the mix. The movies were totally over the top and had some of the best lines from any horror films to date. They also helped to catapult Bruce Campbell to near stardom.

"Sean of the Dead"
This 'Romantic Comedy - with Zombies' was an instant classic when it came out. Not only was it a great romantic film, but it was chock full of homage's to many of Romero's films and some brilliant dialog. The best part was that the cast wasn't filled with ordinary citizens that suddenly become a crack commando unit capable of dealing with hundreds of undead. Nope, they were just ordinary people with little to no experience that could barely hold their own.

"Dead and Breakfast"
Not necesarily a zombie film, but it did feature quite a bit of walking dead people in it. It also featured, two Caradines and one Perkins (Anthony's son, Oz), an amazing set of original songs, and some pretty good writing. Highly recommended for any fan of the genre.

"Zombie Honeymoon"
The wife and I found this one on the 'buy-one-get-one' rack at the video store and decided to give it a go. We prefer to consider this movie to be the 'free' one because if we had paid for it we would have sued the producers for taking away not only 90 minutes of our life, but the $5.00 we paid for it. This movie was terrible. It's about a couple that just got married and on their first day at their nice beach house, the husband is infected by a random derelict on the beach. The wife tries to ignore the fact that he's running around killing and eating people because she LOVES him. This sounds like it would make a nice plot, but when you see the actual movie you find out it isn't. Watch it if you really want to, but don't say I didn't warn you.

Zombie movies are lots of fun to watch as long as you're willing to suspend your disbelief, lower your expectations, and are willing to not take them seriously. In other words, feel free to shut down your "BRAINS!"

Learn more about this author, David Furritus.
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