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Dystopia
31 titles |
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The British horror renaissance
2,666 titles |
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Inspired by this piece from the Garudian:
So this list deals with the last decade (and counting) revival in the fortunes of the British horror movie (you can monitor new releases here, and there is one for short films), I'm sure the creative people were out there but it was 28 Days Later than got the purse strings loosened. Defining "British" is always going to be subjective, Hammer, for example, made a return in 2007 but some of the films they've produced have been co-productions filmed abroad (like Let Me In), but we'll include them as this this list is partly to show the strength of the British film industry when it comes to horror films. For that reason I will also include movies filmed in the UK as it all helps bolster the home-grown efforts (like World War Z).
Of course, that isn't to say that all these films are great, some of them are awful, but the level of quality is higher than I've found on most of my other lists.
Also making 2002 a cut-off is pretty arbitrary as it includes Dog Soldiers and Deathwatch that can't have benefited much from the 28 Days Later effect, and it excludes many interesting films that pre-date it, like The Bunker and Lighthouse, but it is still a good line in the sand if we want to look at recent British horror films and it does seem to be a genuine phenomena.
See also: Contagious violence, it shouldn't be a surprise, given the film that kickstarted everything that a lot of the films here also feature over there but the sub-genre (and zombie films) are easy to do with simple make-up and effects, and there is also an explosion in them in general. Also hoodie horror films feature strongly as a reflection of modern concerns. In addition there are quite a few films that fit into the backwoods horror and folk horror, both of which are undergoing a resurgence too (both of which can also be done on a limited budget). In fact, in most sub-genres I've been tracking, a big hit film has combined with improved distribution and cheaper technology to give a spike in the number of films produced.
Links: British horror revival blog from MJ Simpson, the co-founder of SFX magazine and the author of the upcoming book Urban Terrors: New British Horror Cinema 1997-2008, a guide to the 114 key films of that period. I only found it part-way through making the list but it has proved invaluable for filling in the gaps here (it also helped confirm I was on the right lines with the list name), so if you like this list follow his blog and be sure to pick up his book (if it goes well there is chance of a sequel - there are clearly going to be more films in the few years after 2008 than in the decade before). He has also provided round-ups of the releases in 2010 and 2011, noting that in 2001 there were 3 British horror films but in 2010 there were 48 (the 2010 round-up only includes 32 because he discovered more afterwards) and in 2011 there were 41 (not counting further revisions), my count below is different but the proportions are similar. There were more again in 2012, 14 of them zombie films, more than one a month and more than the annual total for most years (in fact so many I made a list for British zombie films). Which does flag up that something is going on here. Frightfest is also worth keeping an eye on, it is the UK's leading horror film festival (I have yet to attend but I will one day) with a strong focus on British movies and, even if you can't make it, because it is run in conjunction Film4, they run a week's worth of films and interviews on their TV channel (it is where I first heard about Kill List, for example).
The count: I have gone through and counted all the full length British horror films and put them into a spreadsheet and graph.
Which really does show an upwards trend, from less than one a month to one ever 3 days, just in the noughties - rapidly passing the levels of the boom period for British horror: the 60s and 70s. If you look back further you'll see that horror film production in the 90s were often down to similar levels to the early 50s when we were shaking off the effects of a world war (the chilling effect of the video nasty era? after all hardline BBFC chief James Ferman retired in 1999 and it was only then that a lot of the banned movies started to be passed uncut). A really impressive upswing , although it makes it impossible to keep up with all of them even if you wanted to. However, the number do suggest the renaissance was under way before 28DL, even if the success of films like it (Shaun of the Dead, etc.) have inspired film-makers and made financiers take British horror films seriously, helping to build momentum. I'd also flag up my comments above, as the growth in some horror sub-genres parallels what we see here, suggesting that the ease of film-making and distribution now means there will be more films but there is also clear evidence for successful films have an important effect on the types of films being made (the best example of zombie films - the first 3 Romero films created a spike in zombie movies with a lag of a year or two - I have rather a fine graph to prove my point).
I did also stumble across this piece about horror fiction and Tory governments:
So we can see a big spike in British horror films after 2010 (a jump of 50%) but there is usually a lag of a few years between inspiration and realisation, plus the Thatcher/Major years (1979-1997) saw a real dip in output between high points of the 60s/70s and the current upswing. So I'm not buying this when it comes to films, and if we are talking about fiction then... show me your numbers - I've shown you mine after all.
Caveats: There could be a recentist bias to an internet movie data base but IMDB has been going since 1990, so you'd imagine that'd be smoothed out by now and the British horror film industry isn't that large, but does attract a lot of rabid fans, so you'd imagine it'd be difficult for too many films to fall through the gaps. The opposite might also be a problem - there might be a bias against more recent movies as it can take a while for information to trickle through. However, this seems to largely apply to tagging and working out what sub-genres films fit into which are user added features and can be a bit arbitrary and subjective, while the location of production company is going to be a well-defined fact and much more likely to be properly registered here when the film is added (I have found a couple of examples so far when compiling this list, but not many). So I suspect neither is so serious to make a mockery of the numbers, as is a big enough sample that a few films won't make any difference (famous last words, I'm sure). One factor I do think might have an impact on the current year peak is that I've already seen some unreleased films shifted back to the following year or just whenever. So I expect the patter of each year is the peak will grow, as the full slate of films in production becomes clear, and then it will drop a bit as some get rescheduled or disappear into development hell, never to be seen again. Which means the current year is always going to be provisional until we reach the end and perhaps do a little tidy up too, so there might be a drop off of a dozen or so, but that might be compensated for after the inclusion of some films that might not get listed here until they're released.
Other films: There are some adult films that I'm wary of listing as they seem to cause problems for the list: Cathula 2: Vampires of Sex.
Length: Sorry it is a long list and this might be a little off-putting but you can use the filters to break it down if you don't want to browse through all the pages (even if I recommend you do it at least once). So you can, for example, rank only the feature films by quality if you were perhaps looking some of the better movies on the list to watch (even then you should do your homework, because some obscure films don't have many votes which can lead to people gaming the system).
Videos: I've tried to provide links to online videos of films where they appear to be official, if you want me to add a video or remove/swap a link then leave a note in the comments.
Comments: As I don't have a Facebook account I cannot interact with the new comments system, so have switched it off and replaced it with a thread on the message board.
Interest in homegrown horror was rekindled by Danny Boyle's film 28 Days Later in 2002 and grew with the success of Shaun of the Dead, Neil Marshall's The Descent and Christopher Smith's two films Creep and Severance.
So this list deals with the last decade (and counting) revival in the fortunes of the British horror movie (you can monitor new releases here, and there is one for short films), I'm sure the creative people were out there but it was 28 Days Later than got the purse strings loosened. Defining "British" is always going to be subjective, Hammer, for example, made a return in 2007 but some of the films they've produced have been co-productions filmed abroad (like Let Me In), but we'll include them as this this list is partly to show the strength of the British film industry when it comes to horror films. For that reason I will also include movies filmed in the UK as it all helps bolster the home-grown efforts (like World War Z).
Of course, that isn't to say that all these films are great, some of them are awful, but the level of quality is higher than I've found on most of my other lists.
Also making 2002 a cut-off is pretty arbitrary as it includes Dog Soldiers and Deathwatch that can't have benefited much from the 28 Days Later effect, and it excludes many interesting films that pre-date it, like The Bunker and Lighthouse, but it is still a good line in the sand if we want to look at recent British horror films and it does seem to be a genuine phenomena.
See also: Contagious violence, it shouldn't be a surprise, given the film that kickstarted everything that a lot of the films here also feature over there but the sub-genre (and zombie films) are easy to do with simple make-up and effects, and there is also an explosion in them in general. Also hoodie horror films feature strongly as a reflection of modern concerns. In addition there are quite a few films that fit into the backwoods horror and folk horror, both of which are undergoing a resurgence too (both of which can also be done on a limited budget). In fact, in most sub-genres I've been tracking, a big hit film has combined with improved distribution and cheaper technology to give a spike in the number of films produced.
Links: British horror revival blog from MJ Simpson, the co-founder of SFX magazine and the author of the upcoming book Urban Terrors: New British Horror Cinema 1997-2008, a guide to the 114 key films of that period. I only found it part-way through making the list but it has proved invaluable for filling in the gaps here (it also helped confirm I was on the right lines with the list name), so if you like this list follow his blog and be sure to pick up his book (if it goes well there is chance of a sequel - there are clearly going to be more films in the few years after 2008 than in the decade before). He has also provided round-ups of the releases in 2010 and 2011, noting that in 2001 there were 3 British horror films but in 2010 there were 48 (the 2010 round-up only includes 32 because he discovered more afterwards) and in 2011 there were 41 (not counting further revisions), my count below is different but the proportions are similar. There were more again in 2012, 14 of them zombie films, more than one a month and more than the annual total for most years (in fact so many I made a list for British zombie films). Which does flag up that something is going on here. Frightfest is also worth keeping an eye on, it is the UK's leading horror film festival (I have yet to attend but I will one day) with a strong focus on British movies and, even if you can't make it, because it is run in conjunction Film4, they run a week's worth of films and interviews on their TV channel (it is where I first heard about Kill List, for example).
The count: I have gone through and counted all the full length British horror films and put them into a spreadsheet and graph.
Which really does show an upwards trend, from less than one a month to one ever 3 days, just in the noughties - rapidly passing the levels of the boom period for British horror: the 60s and 70s. If you look back further you'll see that horror film production in the 90s were often down to similar levels to the early 50s when we were shaking off the effects of a world war (the chilling effect of the video nasty era? after all hardline BBFC chief James Ferman retired in 1999 and it was only then that a lot of the banned movies started to be passed uncut). A really impressive upswing , although it makes it impossible to keep up with all of them even if you wanted to. However, the number do suggest the renaissance was under way before 28DL, even if the success of films like it (Shaun of the Dead, etc.) have inspired film-makers and made financiers take British horror films seriously, helping to build momentum. I'd also flag up my comments above, as the growth in some horror sub-genres parallels what we see here, suggesting that the ease of film-making and distribution now means there will be more films but there is also clear evidence for successful films have an important effect on the types of films being made (the best example of zombie films - the first 3 Romero films created a spike in zombie movies with a lag of a year or two - I have rather a fine graph to prove my point).
I did also stumble across this piece about horror fiction and Tory governments:
A cursory glance at the points where horror fiction did enjoy periods of resurgence do tend to follow an upward graph with Tory fortunes.
...
Now, after two years of government by coalition of the Conservatives and the Lib Dems, horror is on the rise again.
So we can see a big spike in British horror films after 2010 (a jump of 50%) but there is usually a lag of a few years between inspiration and realisation, plus the Thatcher/Major years (1979-1997) saw a real dip in output between high points of the 60s/70s and the current upswing. So I'm not buying this when it comes to films, and if we are talking about fiction then... show me your numbers - I've shown you mine after all.
Caveats: There could be a recentist bias to an internet movie data base but IMDB has been going since 1990, so you'd imagine that'd be smoothed out by now and the British horror film industry isn't that large, but does attract a lot of rabid fans, so you'd imagine it'd be difficult for too many films to fall through the gaps. The opposite might also be a problem - there might be a bias against more recent movies as it can take a while for information to trickle through. However, this seems to largely apply to tagging and working out what sub-genres films fit into which are user added features and can be a bit arbitrary and subjective, while the location of production company is going to be a well-defined fact and much more likely to be properly registered here when the film is added (I have found a couple of examples so far when compiling this list, but not many). So I suspect neither is so serious to make a mockery of the numbers, as is a big enough sample that a few films won't make any difference (famous last words, I'm sure). One factor I do think might have an impact on the current year peak is that I've already seen some unreleased films shifted back to the following year or just whenever. So I expect the patter of each year is the peak will grow, as the full slate of films in production becomes clear, and then it will drop a bit as some get rescheduled or disappear into development hell, never to be seen again. Which means the current year is always going to be provisional until we reach the end and perhaps do a little tidy up too, so there might be a drop off of a dozen or so, but that might be compensated for after the inclusion of some films that might not get listed here until they're released.
Other films: There are some adult films that I'm wary of listing as they seem to cause problems for the list: Cathula 2: Vampires of Sex.
Length: Sorry it is a long list and this might be a little off-putting but you can use the filters to break it down if you don't want to browse through all the pages (even if I recommend you do it at least once). So you can, for example, rank only the feature films by quality if you were perhaps looking some of the better movies on the list to watch (even then you should do your homework, because some obscure films don't have many votes which can lead to people gaming the system).
Videos: I've tried to provide links to online videos of films where they appear to be official, if you want me to add a video or remove/swap a link then leave a note in the comments.
Comments: As I don't have a Facebook account I cannot interact with the new comments system, so have switched it off and replaced it with a thread on the message board.
Chinese Hopping Vampire (jiang shi /殭屍) films
96 titles |
Public
Films featuring jiangshi (or jiang shi, chiang-shih, gangshi or kyonshi - 僵尸 or 殭屍). Despite being called vampires they aren't much like the western vampires (although in some films they do sprout fangs), the strict translation of the name is "stiff corpse" and this is what they largely are, dressed in Qing dynasty costumes. The Taoist monk reanimates corpses as this makes it easier to transport them back to their home villages for burial. Unfortunately, something usually goes wrong and hi-jinks ensure.
References: Spooky Encounters: A Gwailo's Guide to Hong Kong Horror by Daniel O'Brien (2003), the best guide to this subject.
Further reading: Taoist Priests and Hopping Vampires a useful overview of the background and the films (also includes a link to reviews, includes a couple of non-CHV films too). There are also a couple of solid overviews here and here. "Hop on Pop: Jiangshi Films in a Transitional Context" (2009) by Stephanie Lam, originally in CineAction #78 page 46. TV Tropes have a page on their appearance in other media, the most significant of which is Phantom Fighter, a NES game based on Mr Vampire.
See also: This is a sub-list of crazy kung-fu horror films, this list helps put the development of the films in more context. I also have a list for zombie movies and Asian zombie films, as, despite the name, they are closest to zombies and there is also some crossover.
References: Spooky Encounters: A Gwailo's Guide to Hong Kong Horror by Daniel O'Brien (2003), the best guide to this subject.
Further reading: Taoist Priests and Hopping Vampires a useful overview of the background and the films (also includes a link to reviews, includes a couple of non-CHV films too). There are also a couple of solid overviews here and here. "Hop on Pop: Jiangshi Films in a Transitional Context" (2009) by Stephanie Lam, originally in CineAction #78 page 46. TV Tropes have a page on their appearance in other media, the most significant of which is Phantom Fighter, a NES game based on Mr Vampire.
See also: This is a sub-list of crazy kung-fu horror films, this list helps put the development of the films in more context. I also have a list for zombie movies and Asian zombie films, as, despite the name, they are closest to zombies and there is also some crossover.
Time travel films
393 titles |
Public
Films with time travel in them.
One thing that didn't strike me until I made this list - quite how many Star Trek films involve time travel.
Further reading: The Best and Worst Time Travel Movies.
See also: Bonkers (as quite a few strange films involve time travel)
Comments: As I don't have a Facebook account I cannot interact with the new comments system, so have switched it off and replaced it with a thread on the message board.
One thing that didn't strike me until I made this list - quite how many Star Trek films involve time travel.
Further reading: The Best and Worst Time Travel Movies.
See also: Bonkers (as quite a few strange films involve time travel)
Comments: As I don't have a Facebook account I cannot interact with the new comments system, so have switched it off and replaced it with a thread on the message board.
Crazy horror films
135 titles |
Public
The strangest horror movies out there. The kind where you get genuinely worried for the sanity of the film-makers, then you start worrying you've gone mad and imagined it all. Or you might question the wisdom of their going for an unlikely monster - a pinata? Is that wise? Apparently not.
Further reading: 25 Strange and Ridiculous Horror Movie Villains: http://horror.about.com/od/horrortoppicklists/tp/25strangevillains.htm
See also: Bonkers, crazy kung fu horror films, New Japanese Gore, witches with flying heads and monstrous births.
The removed: Angel Above - The Devil Below, another "killer vagina" film, this one flagged as porn so it can't be added to the list.
Comments: As I don't have a Facebook account I cannot interact with the new comments system, so have switched it off. I will start a thread on the message board and link it in here shortly.
Further reading: 25 Strange and Ridiculous Horror Movie Villains: http://horror.about.com/od/horrortoppicklists/tp/25strangevillains.htm
See also: Bonkers, crazy kung fu horror films, New Japanese Gore, witches with flying heads and monstrous births.
The removed: Angel Above - The Devil Below, another "killer vagina" film, this one flagged as porn so it can't be added to the list.
Comments: As I don't have a Facebook account I cannot interact with the new comments system, so have switched it off. I will start a thread on the message board and link it in here shortly.
The Eternal Evils of Asia
115 titles |
Public
As mentioned in my crazy kung-fu horror films list, quite a few of those films have as their theme the idea that South East Asia is filled with dark supernatural evil that'll have any poor Chinese travellers pissing maggots before they've unpacked their bags.
Being neighbourly, and not wanting to disappoint anyone, filmmakers in the countries decided to produce films that pretty much confirm the suspicion that, deep in the jungles of southern Asia, there is a witch around every cornering waiting to munch on your unborn child or make insects spew from your urethra. This is a list of such films.
Availability can be poor but people like Mondo Macabro have been giving some of those films a fancy release in the West. However, there is plenty that don't even have an IMDB listing, so this will have to be your springboard to further exploration rather than a comprehensive guide.
See also: Witches with Flying Heads, Asian zombie movies and The Blood Collection. In addition my Folk Horror list has other films from around the globe that mix occult horror and folklore.
Links: Useful blogs: Backyard Asia, Bamboo Gods and Bionic Boys, and Mondo Macabro's blog
Being neighbourly, and not wanting to disappoint anyone, filmmakers in the countries decided to produce films that pretty much confirm the suspicion that, deep in the jungles of southern Asia, there is a witch around every cornering waiting to munch on your unborn child or make insects spew from your urethra. This is a list of such films.
Availability can be poor but people like Mondo Macabro have been giving some of those films a fancy release in the West. However, there is plenty that don't even have an IMDB listing, so this will have to be your springboard to further exploration rather than a comprehensive guide.
See also: Witches with Flying Heads, Asian zombie movies and The Blood Collection. In addition my Folk Horror list has other films from around the globe that mix occult horror and folklore.
Links: Useful blogs: Backyard Asia, Bamboo Gods and Bionic Boys, and Mondo Macabro's blog
Zombies
2,403 titles |
Public
I've been trying to dance around this as it'll be a monster list but... ah well, it was inevitable.
This list is based on an earlier list that I compiled which has done the rounds online, which was brought together from various sources, including a number of the books in the references section (the earlier ones obviously, the original list was from 2004-2005). For this list I have also worked through the IMDB "zombie" tag but I have also been much stricter with my inclusion criteria and have left out films I've previously included, focusing this list on the mindless undead (who became cannibalistic following Romero's Night of the Dead). The films I've left out have been shifted over into parallel lists especially the one contagious violence films, like the 28 X Later ones and The Crazies that are often lumped in with zombie films but don't have the dead being reanimated. Plus there is a vengeful dead list for films where the dead only return for revenge, rather than brains. The focus is mainly on live action films but there are some animated films included where I felt that they were important or just amused me. I have watched about a third of these films so far, so there will be quite a bit of chopping and changing as I work through the rest because this is not only subjective but there might be a few that don't belong at all (probably quite a few from the "zombie" tag on IMDB). So bear with me, this is a work in progress.
Sub-lists: if you want a more focused, less sprawling lists: Asian zombie films, British zombie films, period zombie films and zombie Nazi/Nazi zombie films. There is also one for films from the zombie's point-of-view (or at least they present a sympathetic portrayal of zombies). I also thought it'd be interesting to break the films down by title because there are so many of them with a few high-profile movies that set the standard: Night of the Living X, X of the Dead and X vs Zombies, meanwhile someone else has a list for titles of the format X zombies (so I won't start one for that, as I nearly did before finding it, unless it starts getting outdated). As films flagged as porn negatively impacts on a list's visibility, I have started a list for zombie porn.
Numbers: I have made a new spreadsheet and graph based on this list of zombie films, as you can see the first 3 Romero zombie films led to a big spike in zombie films (after a 4-5 year lag) which fell off quickly afterwards. However, the most recent 3 of his Dead series come in a period of sustained growth that started in 2003 (two years before the first of those three, Land of the Dead) making it difficult attribute the films to any upswings. You might be better of looking at the success of 28 Days Later or Shaun of the Dead (which seem to have given British horror films and British zombie movies a boost), but a better explanation might be the lowering of the bar to film production and distribution - zombies not necessarily requiring a lot of cash (but it can help), so lending themselves to low budget films. This can be most easily demonstrated by the fact that there have been nearly as many full-length zombie films released in the seven years between 2006-2012 (567) as there were in all the years before that (582).
See also: mummy movies, Frankenstein films and Chinese hopping vampire films (which, despite the name, are just another class of zombie).
References: The Zombie Movie Encyclopedia (2000), The Dead Walk (2000, new edition 2009), Eaten Alive!: Italian Cannibal and Zombie Movies (2002), Book of the Dead: The Complete History of Zombie Cinema (2005), Zombiemania: 80 Movies To Die For (2006), Zombie Movies: The Ultimate Guide (2008), The G.O.R.E. Score: A Review Guide to All Things Zombie, Volume 1, and Volume 2 (2010 and 2011) and Blood Splatter: A Guide to Cinematic Zombie Violence, Gore and Special Effects (2012).
Further reading: Gospel of the Living Dead: George Romero's Visions of Hell on Earth (2006), The Undead and Philosophy: Chicken Soup for the Soulless (2006), Zombie Culture: Autopsies of the Living Dead (2008), Night of the Living Dead: Behind the Scenes of the Most Terrifying Zombie Movie Ever (2010), Generation Zombie: Essays on the Living Dead in Modern Culture (2011), Better Off Dead: The Evolution of the Zombie as Post-Human (2011), The Complete History of the Return of the Living Dead (2011), and Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Zombies (2011).
Links: Websites that I found handy in refining this list include: A French zombie review blog, translated (has a similar breakdown to the one I use here, also made me finally look up the word "nanar" - a film so bad it's good, they really do have a word for everything) and Xzombi a zombie movie database (as the ZMDB is down for maintenance).
Comments: As I don't have a Facebook account I cannot interact with the new comments system, so have switched it off. I will start a thread on the message board and link it in here shortly.
This list is based on an earlier list that I compiled which has done the rounds online, which was brought together from various sources, including a number of the books in the references section (the earlier ones obviously, the original list was from 2004-2005). For this list I have also worked through the IMDB "zombie" tag but I have also been much stricter with my inclusion criteria and have left out films I've previously included, focusing this list on the mindless undead (who became cannibalistic following Romero's Night of the Dead). The films I've left out have been shifted over into parallel lists especially the one contagious violence films, like the 28 X Later ones and The Crazies that are often lumped in with zombie films but don't have the dead being reanimated. Plus there is a vengeful dead list for films where the dead only return for revenge, rather than brains. The focus is mainly on live action films but there are some animated films included where I felt that they were important or just amused me. I have watched about a third of these films so far, so there will be quite a bit of chopping and changing as I work through the rest because this is not only subjective but there might be a few that don't belong at all (probably quite a few from the "zombie" tag on IMDB). So bear with me, this is a work in progress.
Sub-lists: if you want a more focused, less sprawling lists: Asian zombie films, British zombie films, period zombie films and zombie Nazi/Nazi zombie films. There is also one for films from the zombie's point-of-view (or at least they present a sympathetic portrayal of zombies). I also thought it'd be interesting to break the films down by title because there are so many of them with a few high-profile movies that set the standard: Night of the Living X, X of the Dead and X vs Zombies, meanwhile someone else has a list for titles of the format X zombies (so I won't start one for that, as I nearly did before finding it, unless it starts getting outdated). As films flagged as porn negatively impacts on a list's visibility, I have started a list for zombie porn.
Numbers: I have made a new spreadsheet and graph based on this list of zombie films, as you can see the first 3 Romero zombie films led to a big spike in zombie films (after a 4-5 year lag) which fell off quickly afterwards. However, the most recent 3 of his Dead series come in a period of sustained growth that started in 2003 (two years before the first of those three, Land of the Dead) making it difficult attribute the films to any upswings. You might be better of looking at the success of 28 Days Later or Shaun of the Dead (which seem to have given British horror films and British zombie movies a boost), but a better explanation might be the lowering of the bar to film production and distribution - zombies not necessarily requiring a lot of cash (but it can help), so lending themselves to low budget films. This can be most easily demonstrated by the fact that there have been nearly as many full-length zombie films released in the seven years between 2006-2012 (567) as there were in all the years before that (582).
See also: mummy movies, Frankenstein films and Chinese hopping vampire films (which, despite the name, are just another class of zombie).
References: The Zombie Movie Encyclopedia (2000), The Dead Walk (2000, new edition 2009), Eaten Alive!: Italian Cannibal and Zombie Movies (2002), Book of the Dead: The Complete History of Zombie Cinema (2005), Zombiemania: 80 Movies To Die For (2006), Zombie Movies: The Ultimate Guide (2008), The G.O.R.E. Score: A Review Guide to All Things Zombie, Volume 1, and Volume 2 (2010 and 2011) and Blood Splatter: A Guide to Cinematic Zombie Violence, Gore and Special Effects (2012).
Further reading: Gospel of the Living Dead: George Romero's Visions of Hell on Earth (2006), The Undead and Philosophy: Chicken Soup for the Soulless (2006), Zombie Culture: Autopsies of the Living Dead (2008), Night of the Living Dead: Behind the Scenes of the Most Terrifying Zombie Movie Ever (2010), Generation Zombie: Essays on the Living Dead in Modern Culture (2011), Better Off Dead: The Evolution of the Zombie as Post-Human (2011), The Complete History of the Return of the Living Dead (2011), and Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Zombies (2011).
Links: Websites that I found handy in refining this list include: A French zombie review blog, translated (has a similar breakdown to the one I use here, also made me finally look up the word "nanar" - a film so bad it's good, they really do have a word for everything) and Xzombi a zombie movie database (as the ZMDB is down for maintenance).
Comments: As I don't have a Facebook account I cannot interact with the new comments system, so have switched it off. I will start a thread on the message board and link it in here shortly.
They Attack From Below
26 titles |
Public
My subterranean horror list mainly focused on caves, tunnels, sewers, mines, etc. but there are related films in which monsters pounce on their victims by tunnelling or burrowing up beneath them. So here is that list.
Further reading: Fearnet's guide to underground horror also includes these films, which partly prompted this spin off - after all I do like the Tremors films, so I might as well try and group together as many similar films as possible.
Further reading: Fearnet's guide to underground horror also includes these films, which partly prompted this spin off - after all I do like the Tremors films, so I might as well try and group together as many similar films as possible.
The vengeful dead
212 titles |
Public
Often lumped in with zombie movies but these corpses come back from the grave not as mindless cannibalistic brutes, but with one thing in mind: revenge.
In the Cabin the Woods the chief monsters are the Zombie Redneck Torture Family (the Buckners), and the CitW wiki describes them (at the time of writing) in a way which pretty much defines the list:
http://thecabininthewoods.wikia.com/wiki/The_Buckner_Family
See also: Contagious violence (another group of films often included with zombie films).
Comments: As I don't have a Facebook account I cannot interact with the new comments system, so have switched it off and replaced it with a thread on the message board.
In the Cabin the Woods the chief monsters are the Zombie Redneck Torture Family (the Buckners), and the CitW wiki describes them (at the time of writing) in a way which pretty much defines the list:
They are portraited [sic] as rotten, putrid undead human beings, but having some level of cognition beyond of that of a normal zombie. Also, they are clearly shown to have a delight for torturing their victims before killing them. Sitterson points out that they belong to a completely different category to normal zombies
http://thecabininthewoods.wikia.com/wiki/The_Buckner_Family
See also: Contagious violence (another group of films often included with zombie films).
Comments: As I don't have a Facebook account I cannot interact with the new comments system, so have switched it off and replaced it with a thread on the message board.
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