STIFF COMPETITION

Check out my review, on Phoenix Magazine online, of The Dead Don't Die, the funny but ultimately disappointing zombie movie by Jim Jarmusch...

...along with my reviews of the new Shaft, and the documentaries The Spy Behind Home Plate and Echo in the Canyon.

The Jarmusch movie has me thinking about the cannibal ghoul genre that became so ubiquitous in the last couple of decades that it seemed in danger of chasing away other forms of horror picture. It's taken over TV too, of course, and it hasn't stopped there; a few years ago Mesa Community College hosted a symposium about economics during a zombie apocalypse.

Anyway, I started trying to formulate a top-ten best zombie pictures list, and initially I found it hard to fill out. As compelling as zombie pictures can be at their best, the vast majority of them are unimaginative, unpleasant, low-rent junk. But finally I was able to come up with ten titles that I could wholeheartedly endorse, plus a couple of honorable mentions. See what you think:

Maggie (2015)--Arnold Schwarzenegger plays a farmer whose daughter Abigail Breslin is turning into a zombie. This well-acted movie is a reproach to the idea that a plague like this would anarchic and fun.

Dead Alive (1992)--This early Peter Jackson splatter-fest is a gruesome riot, plus it includes a stop-motion "Sumatran rat monkey."

Day of the Dead (1985)--The third of George Romero's Night of the Living Dead series, set mostly in an underground military-scientific research station, is pretty memorable, between the splenetic performance of Joseph Pilato as the wound-up commanding officer and Howard Sherman as the reflective zombie "Bub."

Zombieland (2009)--Woody Harrelson, Emma Stone, Jesse Eisenberg and Abigail Breslin wander a zombie-ridden America. Over the course of the film Eisenberg enumerates the many rules for survival in a zombie plague; rule number one is simple, and probably wise under any circumstance: "Cardio." Also, as with The Dead Don't Die, Bill Murray's in it.

Shaun of the Dead (2004)--The first and best entry in Simon Pegg, Nick Frost and Edgar Wright's so-called "Cornetto Trilogy" was both the best English comedy and the second-best zombie picture of its year. It was genuinely funny, and by the end, surprisingly emotional.

Shock Waves (1977)--There are zombies, and then there are underwater Nazi zombies. Shipwrecked tourists meet the great Peter Cushing as an SS officer, living on a deserted resort on a tropical island; he's custodian to the remnant of the Totenkorps, undead Nazi soldiers adapted for environments inhospitable to the living (like the bottom of the ocean). Brooke Adams, Luke Halpin and John Carradine are also in this creepy low-budgeter from director Ken Wiederhorn. The shots of the Nazombies rising from the waves are freaky.

Dawn of the Dead (2004)--In Zack Snyder's reboot of George Romero's zombies-at-the-mall classic, the zombies run instead of slowly plod. I'm an old-school zombie purist, but there's no denying that Snyder's movie is exciting, genuinely scary, and possessed of a fine sick sense of humor.

Dawn of the Dead (1978)--Zombies overrun the lower levels of the Monroeville Mall near Pittsburgh; survivors commandeer the upper decks. Directed by George Romero with gore effects by Tom Savini, this is one of the movies that defined the zombie genre, among many memorable moments is the notorious downsizing of the "Helicopter Zombie" (Jim Krut).

Return of the Living Dead (1985)--Dan O'Bannon's "meta" send-up of the Romero classic, in which the zombies are verbal and specifically crave "braaaaaains!" is chilling and hilarious, with performances by veterans Clu Gulager, Don Calfa and James Karen that are not only lovable but truly touching.

Night of the Living Dead (1968)--Nothing especially imaginative or controversial about my number-one choice. The first of its kind remains, as far as I'm concerned, the best of its kind; George Romero's low-budget black-and-white zombie yarn gets the nod not only for its skillful, suspenseful film-making but for its nightmarish yet convincing atmosphere.

Honorable mentions include World War Z, that almost gore-free epic starring Brad Pitt that you could nearly take your Grandma to, zombie rom-coms like Life After Beth and Warm Bodies, and the literary zombie mash-up Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. I'll also admit to a soft spot for the six Resident Evil pictures, though that may have more to do with my deep feelings for heroine Milla Jovavich.