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The 10 best zombie movies ever made

If you can stomach the thought of dead folks hungering for your flesh

The 10 best zombie movies ever made

If you can stomach the thought of dead folks hungering for your flesh

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The 10 best zombie movies ever made

If you can stomach the thought of dead folks hungering for your flesh

Movies about the living dead keep getting made for a reason: because zombies are never really just zombies, but metaphor for various themes that haunt the human psyche, ranging from plague, racism, consumerism and mortality. And there's another reason zombie movies are so popular: they're really scary. Just imagine being chased down by a horde of dead folks, eager to chew on your flesh. If you can stomach that thought, then these zombie movies are just for you.

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IFC Films
10

"Dead Snow"

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Combine Nazis and zombies and you've got a really terrible situation. But that's exactly what you'll get in this horror film from director Tommy Wirkola, with undead SS officers stalking hikers in the mountains in Norway.

Universal Pictures
9

"The Serpent and the Rainbow"

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Bill Pullman stars as an anthropologist who travels to Haiti to investigate the rumors of a potion being used by local practitioners of Vodou to bring the dead back to life. It's inspired by the nonfiction account of a Haitian man named Clairvius Narcisse, who spent two years as a "zombie" after being buried alive.

Dimension Films
8

"Planet Terror"

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One half of the Grindhouse double feature release alongside Quentin Tarantino's "Death Proof," Robert Rodriguez's sci-fi-horror epic follows the fallout of a biochemical attack that transforms the residents of rural Texas into deformed zombies, although it's most noteworthy for Rose McGowan's one-legged go-go dancer turned killing machine.

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TriMark Pictures
7

"Dead Alive"

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Long before he ventured into Middle Earth, "Lord of the Rings" director Peter Jackson made his directorial debut with this crazy gore-fest. When his cruel mother is bitten by a Sumatran Rat-Monkey, young Lionel is stunned to see her rise from the dead as a blistering, festering, cannibalistic monster. Can Lionel keep his zombie mother a secret from his new girlfriend?

Columbia Pictures
6

"Zombieland"

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The all-American zombie apocalypse film gets a hilarious update with this road trip comedy that sees college student Columbus heading back home to check if his family is still alive. Along the way, he encounters a gun-toting cowboy named Tallahassee and a pair of plucky sisters ,Wichita and Little Rock. Oh, and (spoiler alert!) Bill Murray, too.

Universal Pictures
5

"Frankenstein"

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Here's a fact: Frankenstein is generally excluded from conversation about the zombie genre. But here's another fact: Without Mary Shelley's original novel and James Whale's horror masterpiece that introduced the world to Boris Karloff's lumbering and reluctant monster, we may very well not have any of the iconic movies about the reanimated undead. Almost a century later, this one still holds up.

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United Film Distribution Company
4

"Dawn of the Dead"

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Zombie auteur George Romero teamed up with Italian horror master Dario Argento for the second film in his "Night of the Living Dead" series, a spiritual sequel to his 1968 original that depicts a zombie apocalypse on a grand scale — and follows a band of misfit survivors who hole up in an abandoned shopping mall to fiend off the flesh eaters.

Fox Searchlight Pictures
3

"28 Days Later"

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Danny Boyle's turbo-charged thriller begins when Cillian Murphy wakes up fully naked on a hospital bed a month after a virus has infected humanity, leaving London a veritable ghost town — that is, one populated by very fast zombies. The survivors must band together to hold off the fiends, infected with "rage," but soon realize that their allies are just as deadly as the infected that are hunting them down.

Universal Pictures
2

"Shaun of the Dead"

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Funny horror movies usually put the emphasis on the comedy as opposed to the terror, but Edgar Wright's directorial debut is a horror spoof that's ultimately as terrifying (and gross) as it is hilarious. The titular Shaun spends his mediocre days shuffling to and from work, playing video games with his best friend and pining for his recently estranged girlfriend. But that humdrum life is instantly spun out of control when a zombie apocalypse takes over London, forcing him to action to protect his best friend, his mother and the love of his life.

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The Criterion Collection
1

"Night of the Living Dead"

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George Romero essentially created the modern zombie film as we know it with this iconic horror film. Shot on a shoe-string budget (making it one of the greatest indie films ever made), the slow-moving undead who roam around suburban Pittsburgh searching for fresh human meat remain some of the most terrifying monsters in cinema history. Come for the terror, stay for the surprising social commentary that brilliantly taps into American racial and cultural tensions.