Chances are that
most of you have seen at least one type of zombie movie whether its tone
tended towards actual horror, like 28 Days Later, comedy, like
Shaun of the Dead, or ruining good things like World War Z.
Given that variety, it's surprising that essentially the entire
zombie genre as we know it today can be traced to one film: George
Romero's Night of the Living Dead. This film established
literally every rule about the modern conception of a zombie, as well
as the modern conception of a zombie apocalypse: they shamble about,
their heads are their only killing zone, they crave human flesh. Even
the idea of a zombie as an exclusively undead creature (as opposed to
voodoo zombies, which are basically brainwashed people) owes its
existence to Night. Night's sequel, Dawn of
the Dead, went even further, exploring the breakdown of society
and government in the aftermath of a zombie outbreak, and codified
basically all of the tropes you usually see in zombie apocalypse
movies. Hence, it's easy to see why Night and Dawn are
undisputed classics, even though the effects in Dawn have aged
about as well as DOMA.
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| TOPICAL! |

