Top 5 Best Zombie Movies

I usually keep my sick fascination with zombies at bay, but with Halloween quickly approaching I decided to let it out and share my picks for the top five zombie movies ever made. Although able to walk around, zombies are undead corpses that lack a heartbeat and the ability to reason. They are merciless, operating on a purely primal level and interested in one thing and one thing only: eating the flesh of others.

The film that started it all, "Night of the Living Dead" was George A. Romero's 1968 thriller about reanimated corpses who emerge from their graves. Although Romero's zombies move slowly, their attack on the inhabitants of a Pennsylvania farmhouse is still terrifying because nothing can deter them from their prime objective, which is to gorge on human brains. The only way to kill the undead is to shoot them in the head and then burn their bodies. This movie spawned (haha, get it? spawned?) many others, and was essentially the prototype for all zombie movies that would come afterwards, with creative license being taken when it came to how fast the zombies could move and what could kill them.

Originally created in 1978 as a sequel to "Night of the Living Dead", "Dawn of the Dead" was modernized and remade in 2004. One random morning, Ana Clark (Sarah Polley) and her husband Louis are attacked in their bedroom by the little girl who lives next door. After being bitten, Ana watches in horror as Louis rapidly transforms into a zombie and goes after her. She manages to escape, and holes up in an abandoned shopping mall with other survivors. Although similar to the 1978 version, some changes have been made. For example, Romero's zombies moved at a slow pace toward their intended target whereas director Zack Snyder's zombies (similar to the creatures infected with the Rage virus in the film "28 Days Later") are allowed to run. Originally, the dead bodies were reanimated for no apparent reason, but in the remake the affliction is blood borne and is transmitted through a mixing of blood when bitten.

I'm probably going to get a lot of backlash from including this movie on the list because technically the creatures in "28 Days Later" are not zombies; they are human beings who have been infected by the Rage virus. Rage is a highly contagious virus that is transmitted through the blood within seconds. Once full blown, the infected becomes a blood spewing murderer with an uncontrollable urge to slaughter others with his bare hands. As soon as their blood mixes together, the victim contracts the virus and becomes a homicidal maniac as well. It's been 28 days since lab monkeys infected with the virus were set free by animal rights activists and the outbreak began afflicting people across England. The main character Jim (Cillian Murphy) awakens from a coma to find a deserted hospital and abandoned streets. He meets up with Selena (Naomie Harris) and several others, and they spend their time fighting off the Infected and searching for other survivors.

Based on the classic Stephen King book by the same name, "Pet Sematary" features Louis Creed as a doctor who is new to the neighborhood. When his daughter's pet cat is run over by a truck, his neighbor Jud tells Louis about a haunted cemetery that makes the pets that are buried there come back to life. Eager to ease his daughter's grief, Louis gives it a shot. What Jud didn't tell him, however, is that the pets are never the same. They are only half alive, angry, and instinctively driven to kill others--animals and people alike. Louis does not learn his lesson, however, and begins resurrecting his family members as well.

It's been 28 weeks since the Rage virus began spreading through England. Most of the Infected have died of starvation, and the U.S. Army has entered to dispose of the dead bodies and hazardous waste, and to help Britain begin to rebuild. Don Harris (Robert Carlyle) is the head of security in the newly repopulated district. He left his wife for dead while he was busy saving himself during an attack. Luckily, his two children were abroad when the outbreak occurred and they are reunited. When the kids leave the secured district to pick up some stuff from their old house, they find their mother hiding out there--alive!! Although bitten, she has a natural immunity to the virus that keeps it from going full blown. But she is still a carrier of the disease, and when she kisses her husband their saliva mixes and he quickly becomes infected, resulting in an outbreak all over again.