Opinions from new zombie fans

[Furiousbunny]

I've visited this site off and on since 1999 and it just occurred to me that people have been born and practically adults by now. So, I was wondering how those individuals rank their favorite zombie flicks? Also if you're old as dirt like me have your opinions changed over the years?

[Neil]

I've visited this site off and on since 1999 and it just occurred to me that people have been born and practically adults by now. So, I was wondering how those individuals rank their favorite zombie flicks? Also if you're old as dirt like me have your opinions changed over the years? I used to like Dawn most... Now it's Day

[Trin]

I recently (within the last couple of years) watched all the Romero movies (Night through Survival) with my oldest son, as well as a few of the non-Romero remakes and other zombie/post-apocalypse stuff. We did a big compare/critique after each. So I can speak for myself growing older and for the younger generation. My son liked most of them. So, he's not a bad kid. He liked Dawn '78 ... but liked Dawn '04 better. After I was done pacing the room and muttering, I got down to why. He said that the characters were better. I just stared at him. I mentioned running zombies. He asked why I was scared of shamblers. I brought up stupid girl chasing dog. He brought up swat guy getting bitten between parked trucks. I countered with zombie baby. He mentioned pie fight. At some point I realized that my love of Dawn '78 had some serious nostalgia built in. He gravitated towards the faster action and better effects of Dawn '04 and how runners were more legitimately threatening. He thought zombie baby was okay. Plus, giving it an objective critique, the characters in Dawn '04 are more fleshed out. I kinda have to give him that point. For myself, I've started to see the cracks in the original three. And I've softened on the later three. I enjoy popping in Land every so often just for that epic first 15 minutes, and for the sense of place and scenes of desolation in and around the city throughout. I have learned to ignore the plot craziness.

[Neil]

I recently (within the last couple of years) watched all the Romero movies (Night through Survival) with my oldest son, as well as a few of the non-Romero remakes and other zombie/post-apocalypse stuff. We did a big compare/critique after each. So I can speak for myself growing older and for the younger generation. My son liked most of them. So, he's not a bad kid. He liked Dawn '78 ... but liked Dawn '04 better. After I was done pacing the room and muttering, I got down to why. He said that the characters were better. I just stared at him. I mentioned running zombies. He asked why I was scared of shamblers. I brought up stupid girl chasing dog. He brought up swat guy getting bitten between parked trucks. I countered with zombie baby. He mentioned pie fight. At some point I realized that my love of Dawn '78 had some serious nostalgia built in. He gravitated towards the faster action and better effects of Dawn '04 and how runners were more legitimately threatening. He thought zombie baby was okay. Plus, giving it an objective critique, the characters in Dawn '04 are more fleshed out. I kinda have to give him that point. For myself, I've started to see the cracks in the original three. And I've softened on the later three. I enjoy popping in Land every so often just for that epic first 15 minutes, and for the sense of place and scenes of desolation in and around the city throughout. I have learned to ignore the plot craziness. I assume after your son gave all those very logical comparisons and reasoning's you then kicked him out of the house and disowned him? Joking aside, that's actually very interesting and insightful!

[MinionZombie]

He said that the characters were better. I just stared at him. Plus, giving it an objective critique, the characters in Dawn '04 are more fleshed out. I kinda have to give him that point. *head explodes* Seriously? Some of the characters literally have no name. A bunch of them turn up and die within 10 minutes (e.g. the father of the stupid girl who goes chasing after the sodding dog!). The hot chick turns up just to wear lingerie and get porked. The old dude wears some ladies shoes and that's your lot. The old lady smokes a lot. Ving Rhames is just doing Ving Rhames. About the best you get is Sarah Polley and Jake Weber's characters, but even then they just say "oh sod it" eventually - Weber's character is all about getting themselves prepared and hunkering down, but then suddenly on a dime he just ignores every single sound piece of advice he gives out and goes along with the bus plan. The characterisation is shoddy at best, and only surface stuff. /rant

[JDP]

*head explodes* Seriously? Some of the characters literally have no name. A bunch of them turn up and die within 10 minutes (e.g. the father of the stupid girl who goes chasing after the sodding dog!). The hot chick turns up just to wear lingerie and get porked. The old dude wears some ladies shoes and that's your lot. The old lady smokes a lot. Ving Rhames is just doing Ving Rhames. About the best you get is Sarah Polley and Jake Weber's characters, but even then they just say "oh sod it" eventually - Weber's character is all about getting themselves prepared and hunkering down, but then suddenly on a dime he just ignores every single sound piece of advice he gives out and goes along with the bus plan. The characterisation is shoddy at best, and only surface stuff. /rant The escaping to the marina to MAYBE find an island out there that was safe is a harebrained scheme already, even if they had better vehicles to attempt to make the trip through that army of zombies. They still had plenty of supplies in the mall, the place was very safe, there was no need to abandon it. I don't buy the "I don't wanna die here" nonsense excuse that was used for them to take such a huge risk. The last surviving characters in the original movie had to abandon the mall because it had been invaded by the zombies again (thanks to the biker gang's assault that left the mall open again for the zombies to enter), there was no choice. Makes much more sense and is more realistic. People have a strong natural tendency for self-preservation and not wanting to take unnecessary risks.

[MinionZombie]

The escaping to the marina to MAYBE find an island out there that was safe is a harebrained scheme already, even if they had better vehicles to attempt to make the trip through that army of zombies. They still had plenty of supplies in the mall, the place was very safe, there was no need to abandon it. I don't buy the "I don't wanna die here" nonsense excuse that was used for them to take such a huge risk. The last surviving characters in the original movie had to abandon the mall because it had been invaded by the zombies again (thanks to the biker gang's assault that left the mall open again for the zombies to enter), there was no choice. Makes much more sense and is more realistic. People have a strong natural tendency for self-preservation and not wanting to take unnecessary risks. THIS! THANK YOU! I was screaming at how asinine the "oh sod it" decision making process was for all those characters when I first saw the movie. It really was the dumbest shit. And for the plan, as scant and risky as it was, to then be accelerated in a big panic because of that stupid bint chasing after the dog ... I mean FFS! Like I said: the dumbest shit is in that movie.

[JDP]

THIS! THANK YOU! I was screaming at how asinine the "oh sod it" decision making process was for all those characters when I first saw the movie. It really was the dumbest shit. And for the plan, as scant and risky as it was, to then be accelerated in a big panic because of that stupid bint chasing after the dog ... I mean FFS! Like I said: the dumbest shit is in that movie. Interestingly enough, one of the characters, Steve, is the only one who is laughing his ass off at the whole rather implausible "plan". He even says he was JOKING when he made the proposition of going to the marina for a cruise on his boat. The weird thing is how all the other characters accepted the JOKE as a great "plan" rather fast. Even Steve himself eventually accepts it! This would have made more sense had they been starving, in a desperate situation to leave the mall, but as they were the whole idea of leaving the security of the mall was nonsense. No one in their right mind would go for that unnecessary risk.

[Furiousbunny]

The issue I have with runners is that it defeats the whole purpose of zombies, to me they symbolize a creeping unavoidable image of death. Losing ones self to a primal state till you've rotten into the ground. In Dawn and Day you can see the fear in the characters at even the prospect of becoming one of “them”. Rhodes loses his mind when Logan shows him they still have some sort of cognitive ability- you have to think how many of his soldiers , friends, and family he has put down. I say there are plenty of speedy monsters already leave the zombies alone. Also they are freaking dead they can't move fast it just doesn't make any sense at all. The reason people like the newer movies is just that- they are newer, the effects are updated (although not necessarily better), and simply have better exposure. - - - Updated - - - I like to think they fast forwarded through Dawn and just heard the marina line from the beginning, saw zombies, and a mall then decided they were capable of making a better movie.

[Moon Knight]

When someone says the zombie runners in Dawn 04 are better than Shamblers just point out the scene in 04 when the zombies are running up the stairway after the survivors; after having to escape the further away gun shop, watch how the zombies just pause in fear as Kenneth reloads his shotgun. Zombies don't act like that. Lol. Anyway, I still enjoy the remake. Dawn 78's small cast of heroes will forever be my favorite survivors.

[JonOfTheShred]

Still love zombie movies, still my favorite sub-genre in horror, still think a lot of people milk zombies (not like that you weirdos) and make half-assed material despite the fact that, when used effectively, zombies can be the most chilling premise of any in a horror film. I still like Land a whole lot, still love the first 3, dig the NOTLD remake more than the original still (it's just more entertaining to me, and love that synth soundtrack), I went from enjoying Diary to thinking it's Romero's worst film, and I still maintain Survival of the Dead would have been 1000x better if they hired a competent composer to make a dark soundtrack. A good movie is hiding under the Danny Elfman knock-off soundtrack they went with for Survival, I swear.

[LivingDeadGuy]

Ive been a fan of zombies since i was 8 years old and i am about to be 27. I really only like the older zombie movies and games from the 70's 80's and 90's and i can't stand all this new crap like Zombieland or Warm Bodies. My top four favorite zombie movies are as follows: Day of the Dead: The grittiest of all Romero's movie. I loved how much detail he put into the zombies and the movie focused on a "cabin fever" type situation with the human survivors slowly going crazy from a feeling of isolation and turning on each other while coming to realize that the world really has ended. Also as somebody who is NOT a fan of the American military I can really appreciate the movie's portrayal of the unpleasant dark side of our soldiers. Night of the Living Dead (remake): The very first zombie movie I ever watched. I actually preferred it over the classic original version because I liked the stronger Barbara better and I wasn't bothered at all by the movie's lack of violence because I still found it to be really scary. Zombie aka Zombi 2: This movie may not have had a serious storyline like Romero's zombie movies but I actually found that to be refreshing. The make up and gore effects were spectacular and the haunting music theme was great I especially loved the part with the zombies crawling out of the cemetery. Hell of the Living Dead: This movie pretty much defines the meaning of 'so bad it's actually good'. It rips off other zombie movies like Dawn of the Dead and The Gates of Hell yet strangely it's more entertaining to watch and it's almost like an unintentional comedy/gory horror combo. I also personally loved the shocking stock footage of tribals eating maggots out of corpses or the saggy topless tribal women seeing real crap like that makes the special effects seem pale by comparison.

[JDP]

Ive been a fan of zombies since i was 8 years old and i am about to be 27. I really only like the older zombie movies and games from the 70's 80's and 90's and i can't stand all this new crap like Zombieland or Warm Bodies. My top four favorite zombie movies are as follows: Day of the Dead: The grittiest of all Romero's movie. I loved how much detail he put into the zombies and the movie focused on a "cabin fever" type situation with the human survivors slowly going crazy from a feeling of isolation and turning on each other while coming to realize that the world really has ended. Also as somebody who is NOT a fan of the American military I can really appreciate the movie's portrayal of the unpleasant dark side of our soldiers. Night of the Living Dead (remake): The very first zombie movie I ever watched. I actually preferred it over the classic original version because I liked the stronger Barbara better and I wasn't bothered at all by the movie's lack of violence because I still found it to be really scary. Zombie aka Zombi 2: This movie may not have had a serious storyline like Romero's zombie movies but I actually found that to be refreshing. The make up and gore effects were spectacular and the haunting music theme was great I especially loved the part with the zombies crawling out of the cemetery. Hell of the Living Dead: This movie pretty much defines the meaning of 'so bad it's actually good'. It rips off other zombie movies like Dawn of the Dead and The Gates of Hell yet strangely it's more entertaining to watch and it's almost like an unintentional comedy/gory horror combo. I also personally loved the shocking stock footage of tribals eating maggots out of corpses or the saggy topless tribal women seeing real crap like that makes the special effects seem pale by comparison. Wow! No Dawn (the original) ??? That was like the "Gone With The Wind" of zombie movies. Hell of the Living Dead also borrowed from Let Sleeping Corpses Lie (a.k.a. The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue.) The "technological accident unleashes a zombie plague" idea is from that movie (as far as I can remember, it was the first post-Romero zombie movie to feature technology-gone-wrong zombies. Romero's Night was never clear regarding what exactly is it that is causing the zombies, so it does not count.) Hell also borrowed from Night of the Living Dead. Even a line of dialogue was lifted verbatim from Night.

[LivingDeadGuy]

Wow! No Dawn (the original) ??? That was like the "Gone With The Wind" of zombie movies. Hell of the Living Dead also borrowed from Let Sleeping Corpses Lie (a.k.a. The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue.) The "technological accident unleashes a zombie plague" idea is from that movie (as far as I can remember, it was the first post-Romero zombie movie to feature technology-gone-wrong zombies. Romero's Night was never clear regarding what exactly is it that is causing the zombies, so it does not count.) Hell also borrowed from Night of the Living Dead. Even a line of dialogue was lifted verbatim from Night. Lol nope. Dawn of the Dead was really not my favorite. Maybe I just didn't like the zombie make-up as much as I did in those other zombie movies. :l And yeah i could see how Hell of the Living dead ripped off Night of the Living Dead too they had the professor on tv talking about the amputated corpse coming back to life and you had the bickering married couple with the infected zombie kid just like the Cooper family. I also think the ending where the zombies ended up in New York City may have been a rip off of Lucio Fulci's ending to Zombi aswell.

[MinionZombie]

I also think the ending where the zombies ended up in New York City may have been a rip off of Lucio Fulci's ending to Zombi aswell. Quite likely. The Italians had a big rod on for New York City in general, too, as so many of their exploitation movies in the 70s and 80s would start in NYC and then sod off elsewhere (South America or the Caribbean, for example) once the first act was done and dusted.