One Cut Of The Dead (2019)
To say too much about Shin’ichiro Ueda’s film would be to ruin its delicious, joyous surprises – but, suffice to say, if the opening minutes come off like a particularly ramshackle horror movie, that’s entirely the point. An out-of-his-depth director is attempting to make a zombie film of his own, when the production finds itself besieged by actual zombies. From there? Well, you’ll have to see for yourself. But it’s a film fizzing with invention, one that manages to turn the zombie movie on its head in all-new ways while displaying real heart. Destined to be a cult classic
28 Days Later (2002)
Purists will tell you it’s not a zombie movie. If they’re technically right, they’re also totally wrong – Danny Boyle’s film about a deadly rage infection reinvented and redefined what a zombie film could be, taking the idea of running infected from Return Of The Living Dead and, er, running with it. It’s a gritty, gripping work with an iconic opening, as Cillian Murphy’s hospitalised Londoner Jim awakens to find the capital city eerily deserted – until it becomes all-too-clear what’s happened to everyone. If the rage infection wasn’t perilous enough, Alex Garland’s screenplay highlights how the surviving humans are just as deadly
Train To Busan (2016)
Four words: zombies on a train. Korean director Yeon Sang-ho takes that elevator pitch and elevates it into a gripping, action-packed horror movie, using cramped interior space (and moments in more wide-open environments) to stage breathlessly tense sequences. Train To Busan’s zombies are mesmerising to watch – aggressive and animalistic, their limbs and spines contorting as they rise up to claim more victims. The result is stylishly-shot and pulse-pounding, with a host of memorable characters – particularly Ma Dong-seok’s hulking hero Sang-hwa
The Girl With All The Gifts (2016)
It takes a lot to make a truly fresh-feeling zombie film – but Colm McCarthy’s adaptation of Mike Carey’s novel is a smart and thoughtful reinvention, with genre thrills to boot. In this case the zombie condition is the result of a The Last Of Us-esque fungal pathogen which has turned most of the population into ‘hungries’. But that remains largely in the background of the story, which instead focuses on young girl Melanie, who’s receiving an unusual education in a heavily-armed facility from Gemma Arterton’s teacher Helen. As a ‘second-generation’ hungry, Melanie still wants to eat human flesh, but can think and feel too – and her mere existence could hold the key to the future.
