28 Days Later

Spooky Season is back, and in honor of all things dark and macabre that go bump in the night, we're counting down our picks for the best zombie movies of all time.

Night of the Living Dead (1968)<p> Where to Watch: Max, Peacock, Fubo<br><br> It's right there in the intro and it's largely considered a masterwork of horror so we may as well start with the granddaddy of the modern zombie genre, George Romero's Night of the Living Dead. This flick reworked and reimagined what a zombie movie could be, removing the shambling creatures from the realm of voodoo and black magic and Haitian jungles and placing them squarely in the backyard of middle-class America, with no clear explanation of the ghouls' origins but plenty of sociological and political subtext surrounding the undead things. <br><br> A low budget indie that was, according to Romero, heavily influenced by Richard Matheson's vampire novel I Am Legend and the subsequent Vincent Price film version of Legend called The Last Man on Earth, Night of the Living Dead would prove to be immensely influential itself on everything from modern, high-profile "zombie" pictures like 28 Days Later to countless low-budget cheapie rip-offs to, decades after its initial release, video game franchises such as Resident Evil. Of course, AMC's The Walking Dead is also the perfect example of the impact of Romero zombies. Remember, for a few years it was the most popular show on all of television.

28 Days Later (2002)<p> One of the next big paradigm-shifting moments in zombie horror came with Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later. The zombies here still follow the basic principles of insatiable undead fiends -- they want to kill you, a bite from them will infect and assimilate you, etc -- but these mf'ers would run at you, full speed, like insane hyenas. The Return of the Living Dead, from 1985, may have pre-dated this movie with fast ghouls, but 28 Days Later made it a craze.<br><br> Yes, fast-moving zombies became the new wave in terror. No longer were you surrounded by slow, moseying ghouls. No more sleepwalking hordes. This was like being pursued by a gang of maniacs. <br><br> Our growing anxieties over infectious diseases informed this malicious movie, about a secret laboratory "rage" virus exposed to the public. Starring Cillian Murphy, Naomie Harris, Brendan Gleeson, and Christopher Eccleston, 28 Days Later is post-apocalyptic perfection, reigniting the flames of the then-dying zombie genre and creating all new reasons to be terrified. Especially the idea of a hospitalized character waking up after a month and discovering that the entire world fell into ruin in such a brief window of time (something that The Walking Dead would echo when Robert Kirkman started the comic in 2003).

Braindead - aka Dead Alive (1992)<p> Let's backtrack a tiny by and get goofy with Peter Jackson's 1992 film Braindead -- retitled Dead Alive for its North American release - which is a gore-filled, slapsticky Evil Dead 2-inspired affair about a young man, Lionel, whose mother is bitten by a "rat monkey." She dies and comes back to life as a ravenous reanimated corpse with a rather indiscriminate palate -- she even eats dogs! <br><br> The movie culminates with a sensational battle between a lawnmower-wielding Lionel and a horde of ruthless zombies (including their reanimated body parts), as well as a memorable final showdown with his now-grotesquely transformed mother. Braindead is splatter comedy gold, equal parts hilarious and disgusting. Yes, Zombies could be freakin' funny and Simon Pegg would list this film as a huge influence for Shaun of the Dead.

[REC] (2007)<p> Where to Watch: Prime Video<br><br> Ping-ponging back to something utterly terrfying, Rec is not only a tremendous zombie movies but it's also one of the best found-footage horror films of all time. This Spanish classic stars Manuela Velasco as a reporter who responds to an emergency call at a quarantined apartment building. Inside, an undead infection has spread and Rec becomes an absolutely nightmarish siege/survival story that utilizes the format brilliantly. Skip the American remake, 2008's Quarantine, and check out the original for some ground zero terror. Arguments can be made that the monsters in this aren't "zombies" in the purest sense (it's a mix of rabies and...something biblical?) but we're not that pedantic.

Train to Busan (2016)<p> Where to Watch: Prime Video<br><br> Just when we thought fast-moving zombies may have run their course (after The Walking Dead almost fully dominated the zombie game last decade), Train to Busan dropped and absolutely devastated us. Managing to capture the intensity that World War Z was only partially successful with, Train to Busan is a basic "World quickly crumbling due to zombies everywhere" format done with expert flare and care. It's gripping, emotional, and next-level ferocious. One of the many films of the past 20 years that shined a much-deserved spotlight on South Korean cinema, Train to Busan utilized intense action, full characters, and social commentary to tell the tale of a father trying to get his young daughter somewhere, anywhere safe, as civilization dissolves from under their feet.