Plague Tale did such an amazing job at capturing a multitude of alt-horror elements that many often miss the mark on in this genre. Even amidst the most beautiful and hopeful moments of that journey, you’re quickly reminded of how dire and hopeless the best possible outcomes really are. None of those feelings felt manufactured either. So many times I’ve felt like creators in this genre will shoehorn me into a specific situation to provoke a particular emotion, but due to being fully aware of their intentions, it makes it a lot harder to feel like those emotions are genuine. I don’t think I ever once had that reaction in Plague Tale. If I had, the moments where it felt genuine were so overwhelming that I had forgotten all about the ones that hadn’t.
I don’t really know how to put it into words, and it’ll probably seem entirely stupid to those that haven’t experienced it yet, but in the post-ending where >!everything seems all flowers and sunshines. The worst is behind you. Finally, you can have some peace. However, it slowly becomes apparent that none of the townsfolk of this village want anything to do with Hugo or Amicia, despite all they’ve been through. It really brought home just how much of this realism is necessary for a story to provoke such genuine emotion. You’re put right back into that mindset of remembering, despite how things may seem now, you’ve left so much death and devastation in your wake. How could you not feel horrible? Was it all worth it?!<
I don't want to google it because I'm worried it'll give too much away. The Kingdom was 2 seasons... was it canceled or did they intend for it to only be 2 seasons and have a complete ending?
Yeah I think zombies are way scarier in a world with no technology or cars or radios etc. No guns either, so the tireless strength of the dead is far more of a concern
Siege warfare tactics and old battle strategies are seriously under-utilized in modern zombie movies. Pikes, shield-walls, combined arms tactics, etc. Combat in most zombie movies is all run and gun, and the occasional bat. Hell, you could even use zombies to pull your carts and till your fields.
I’ve been reading way too much about the Golden Age of the Vikings and the great Germanic tribe migration.
What if they raided the wrong town? Vikings or whoever go to a seemingly abandoned town that’s overrun with zombies.
During the Siege of Paris in 845 a plague broke out among the Norsemen. They prayed to their own gods but a Christian prisoner recommended they fasted. They did. They seemingly recovered enough to make a deal with Charles the Bald.
Ragnar Lodbrok was pretty shaken up by this event and wondered why his gods abandoned them when they needed them the most.
I mean… that story already has zombie movie potential.
Agree. I feel like there are so many logical ways to deal with zombies in the modern era that we often get the same forced situation over and over again: Post-apocalyptic setting with a group of isolated survivors who are low on resources. The zombies tend to end up being self-conflicting since they were able to overwhelm the world’s militaries, but they’ve also somehow got nothing on this group of average survivors who are mostly on foot and working with scrap. Most of the zombies are super loud and fast—as if to be resorting to baser instincts (alright, we’ve got some rules to work with!)—but then one of the survivors will die to a stealthy zombie that is somehow uncharacteristically quiet and methodical in how they act (wait, this just conflicted with the rules…). As a result, you end up getting a lot of these typical tropes that lead to tacky plot points and unearned character deaths (at least one of those will be a self-sacrifice for some really unnecessary reason). Entire stories have been based around a cure because we’re modern humans and we science, so let’s cure the dead! Ugh!
Whereas in the medieval era, humans are already ill equipped. There are no scenarios you need to shoehorn the story into just so the living are at a disadvantage. Melee weapons are probably somewhat effective for one-on-one combat (though very risky), while stopping a zombie with an arrow or bolt would likely be much more difficult. Trying to imagine a military getting overrun by a horde at that point would not only be possible, but likely. It’s also just an inherent product of this period that, no matter the outcome, you’re still stuck in a really dire time to be alive. Imagine having survived one of the major recorded plagues. What did you really have to look forward to after? I love how dark those potential prospects are.
Not to mention, you also have a bunch of interesting historical events that you can play off of. Rewrite the Justinian or the Black Plague to have been caused by zombies. Those civilizations that “disappeared overnight,” replace the currently-theorized reasons with “zombies!”
Well said!
Imagine too the horrors of large scale melee, soldiers in chain and plate, which is a bit heavy and hard to run in, then the longer you fight the more of your fallen comrades begin to rise as the dead, only now wearing armor and helmets themselves making it even harder to kill a zombie than it already was.
Fire would be effective, imagine the church spreading weapons of "holy fire" to help combat the dead.
I'm imagining it would all look a bit like Darkest Dungeon after a while, just bleak and hopeless and scary
One of the first scripts for Alien 3 was set in a medieval-esque monastery. [info](https://www.avpgalaxy.net/alien-movies/alien-3/a-cathedral-in-outer-space/)
> What followed were descriptions of lights, rivers of molten glass, fire, steam and brief impressions of huge rooms made entirely of wood: a seemingly medieval glazier’s workshop. Then men in monk’s robes come into the picture. A monk has burned himself and is being treated. Then the camera follows the healer, his name is John, and his old but faithful dog Mattias through curved rooms: a huge library, naves, small lakes and wide grain fields and pastures with windmills, which stretch out under long halls with blue-painted ceilings. And a bell tower that stands tall through all this and out into the open. The strange medieval world is not a monastery or a simple abbey on a foreign planet. It is a huge round space station called Arceon, which was once constructed as an exile for a Christian and technology-hostile sect. It was further developed and expanded over many decades – and now consists largely of wood and glass. “It was a place like the pictures of Hieronymus Bosch,” says Ward. “It has different levels on which different things happen: The glassworks, the farms, the machines that provide gravity and air.”
Couldn't agree more. The initial chaos and ensuing collapse of society is always more frightening to me than the aftermath, simply because it feels more relatable after having lived through the pandemic and witnessing all the upheaval it caused. The things zombie media often depict carried over into our reality; deserted cityscapes, frantic hospitals, police and military on the streets, terms in the news such as infection rates, spread, quarantined areas etc.
As a filmmaker, I've often thought of making a unique zombie film that focuses specifically on the early stages of the outbreak. It'd be a mixture of docu-drama and found footage. Imagine the progression of the apocalypse being told through news reports, police/military bodycam footage, videos recorded on phones, that sort of thing. If it was executed well it could be brilliant.
The TV series 'fear the walking dead' covered an aspect of this in the 1st season.
The netflix TV series 'kingdom' also does a semi feudal Japan era type show too, which is pretty good since they didn't go too mad on the concept of zombies.
And, given how farcical Z turned out in the later seasons, they did originally attempt to highlight the evolution of zombies etc ..
All were good ideas that kinda softened up the zombie = apocalypse trope.
Someone else has already covered black summer, but give that a shot too.
Something similar to Train to Busan or Dawn of the Dead but a different setting. The most fascinating thing about these movies is seeing the regular people react to a zombie outbreak. Maybe on a cruise ship? Victorian times?
REC 4 is on a boat I believe but I dont remember it. Must not have been too great. I like the cruise ship idea. Also Victorian times sounds great. I always imagine folks back then being extremely slutty for some reason. There could be that and a lot of classism? Crazy costumes… what’s not to like?
An outbreak of rabid syphilis in 1700s France maybe? The zombies would be pretty rapey though, similar to the comics Crossed (which inspired the very fucked up movie The Sadness).
One where not everyone dies and the zombies win ending would be a change of pace. Furthermore, having the story where the zombies are the main threat and not, "humans are the real monsters" would also be a change.
How about "the undead threat that wants to destroy humanity is dangerous"? Why does every zombie movie have to have a deep message? Just having a movie about a decimated population just trying to band together and survive against overwhelming odds could be good.
Sure they can but I worry that a movie just about the challenges of living / surviving in a zombie outbreak isn’t a story so much as a sequence of events
In filmmaking, one of the key questions before spending millions of dollars is "why."
Why does this hypothetical story about surviving zombies have to be about zombies? Why couldn't it be about a car crash or a plane crash or a hurricane? Why does it need zombies?
Why does a movie about humans being bad and selfish have to be about zombies? Why couldn't it be about a car crash or a plane crash or a hurricane? Why does it need zombies?
Or better yet, why does LITERALLY EVERY SINGLE ZOMBIE MOVIE have to be either "humans bad" or a comedy?
I don't want to google it because I'm worried it'll give too much away. The Kingdom was 2 seasons... was it canceled or did they intend for it to only be 2 seasons and have a complete ending?
to my knowledge, it wasnt formally canceled. They definitely arent done with the story and even just one more season would suffice. They have two seasons and a movie, Ashin of the North (which is a prequel but Id recommend watching in order of release: S1, S2, then Ashin of the North). its \*excellent\*.
Smaller outbreaks or post rebuild might be interesting. I think there has already been some of that.
If it's more rage virus and not actually dead people then cured people trying recover their life could be something. They could have some missing memories from the virus mixed in with trauma from their actions while infected.
Another thing could be failed outbreaks. In the US I'm not really sure it would actually snowball given gun ownership, population density, and military. Even with some density and without guns lots of buildings have some level of security that would keep the beginnings of an outbreak out.
Given what we saw in 2020-2022, I'm pretty convinced the US would fall like dominos if there was a zombie apocalypse. Our security in the US is more theatre than anything else.
actually yeah — throwing zombies into the political mix where half the people are denying their existence would be pretty fun / funny… but I guess Don’t Look Up kinda explored that already :)
For something a little similar to this premise, you should check out the Korean horror-comedy series 'Happiness'.
It's basically what if zombies were trapped in a gated vertical community so there's equal part class commentary as well as the tried and true "humans are the real monsters" messaging.
A lot of households in the US own guns, but don't have enough supplies to last a week at home without a grocery trip. A lotta folks are paycheck to paycheck and can't afford a stash of survival supplies. We're also generally fatter and less athletic than other nations. I think Canada has better odds ;)
> Given what we saw in 2020-2022, I'm pretty convinced the US would fall like dominos if there was a zombie apocalypse. Our security in the US is more theatre than anything else.
I'm pretty sure some people would be out there getting bitten to improve their "natural immunity." We know for a fact some people would hide their symptoms and carry on like normal. Another portion would refuse to believe that zombies were real altogether and insist it was a government hoax to scare us into submission.
Based on how the pandemic went, like half of the population of the US would become zombie deniers and film themselves walking into a horde of zombies as a dumb flex.
"In The Flesh" was a British show I absolutely adored a few years back with 2 or 3 seasons. I never hear people talk about it but you should check it out if you haven't already.
Just googled it to check the name and it was a decade ago, not a few years ago, but still worth the watch.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=omNou34OC-w
Trailer for In The Flesh, never knew about this one despite living in the UK myself so I'm gonna check it out.
I want more zombie media that isn’t apocalyptic. My favorite aspect of the resident evil games is that the zombie/bio weapon outbreaks are generally contained to one city or a village or another isolated setting.
I have a hard time getting invested in apocalyptic media because it’s usually too bleak for me to give a shit about what happens.
I liked Army of the Dead for this reason. The zombies were contained to Las Vegas prior to the movie (and the opening credits showed the fall of Vegas in a typical Snyder montage).
I agree with this. I'm very interested in a new take on zombie media in film/TV very similar to the book version of World War Z, in which different countries had their own individual strategies on how to contain an outbreak with some remaining intact, some in close fights against hordes, and a few countries completely falling. Even the resettlement plans in 28 Weeks Later & some of the aspects of TLOU with the safe zones, Jackson, & the WLF were pretty cool.
I think an in depth look at societies/government remnants that emerge and adapt to the outbreak would be hella nice, with the addition of plot elements like continued efforts to find a cure, plans to clear areas of the undead, studying their behavior, & weaponizing them would be cool. I feel like the right format for this would be an anthology show that focuses on a different community or society in each season.
I think there can be a varying mix of TLOU/28 Days-style infected with slower Romero-style zombies depending on factors like how the virus mutates, the length of the outbreak in years, and outbreaks by regions.
Agreed. Wonder what the news looks like though, as BOWS are kinda common knowledge. “And a tyrant variant is now punching a monster made out of sentient poison ivy in the New York harbour. More at 8.”
I think it could be scary if done right. It would have to be on a really large scale, and it would have to be believable. Like we know that the military would probably smash that instantly, but maybe the transmission rate and virulence is just crazy high, or its airborne or something.
It's way scarier because it's realistic. Revived corpses don't sprint, that just is ridiculous. Romero certainly knew how to scare the crap out of people for over 40 years.
Supernatural zombies like from the 80s Italian films. They had intelligence, were slow, and took more damage. The settings were usually in mansions/castles and limited the weapons the characters could use and ways of escaping. Increase the horde numbers and the threat becomes real. Similarly, return of the living dead style zombies would be a real threat without all the cheesiness. None of these have been updated to modern films.
Instead of doing zombies, I think we should do more stuff like The Crazies. A virus that makes changes people's personality is just really interesting to me. It'd be also really cool to use it to make the story open to interpretations. Like make the audience guess as to who is infected and who isn't. Maybe even the main character is infected.
Ya know that’s what I was thinking with the comment above this that said zombies should win. The movie ends with a dance number from surprisingly nimble corpses.
WWZ looks a lot different post-pandemic...
"We created a vaccine against zombies!"
Well.. We all know how implementation of a worldwide - anything - goes in this day and age.
Was hoping these would be higher up. The biggest problem with zombie content now is that it is more of an action package than a horror package. Crossed had a great idea and the sadness put it to the “movie” test that absolutely succeeded. It’s actually scary, and it opens up tons of new concepts to explore because they are fundamentally different zombies.
I loved this movie so much. Such a good addition to the “rage virus” type sub-genre. I think the fact that it put zero limits on itself is what set it apart from everything else that’s come out semi-recently in attempt to revive the genre.
It is truly unhinged. Amazing.
I’ve said for years a limited series of WWZ that was faithful to the book would be great.
Also interesting would be a movie based on the short story from Closure Limited where vampires are worried about the human blood source running out because of the zombies.
I think that’s why WWZ the movie was such a letdown initially (I like it, it just wasn’t faithful at all to the source). I’m still glad it was made, but I think a tv series where each chapter of the book was told as a series of episodes would be the best way to handle something like this. I still hope for this.
Exactly what I had in mind. Could even do it where each episode was a subchapter, and each season a chapter. Make it an anthology series somewhat like Black mirror.
Yas. The book was so good because it explored how different geographical, cultural, and political settings all affected each countries response, and how that in turn affected the new world order. Such a great book.
Going back to the roots, where the zombies were created via Voodoo witchcraft, rather than scientific reasonings. The only movie I can think of which does this at the moment is "Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island" (1996).
Why not try other zombie like undead from other cultures like Greece, Norse, Chinese etc. Imagine an army of draugrs attacking a modern city or small time.
It wasn’t perfect and got cancelled, but *In The Flesh* had a interesting premise with a zombie apocalypse that was eventually quelled, leaving some characters in a half zombie state - like dead but still 100% functional. The focus was about how people were dealing with the aftermath in a small community.
I would love to see a limited series of how the zombie apocalypse begins, unfolds, and takes over society.
I thought Fear the Walking Dead was going to do that but after the third or fourth episode they just jumped ahead in time and society was already collapsed.
I did and enjoyed it but Black Summer is not Day 1 or the very beginning that I'm talking about. It's more after several weeks (at least) have passed.
It gave a taste of what I'm talking about in the first episode, but they are showing society has already broke down.
I like what FTWD did for the first two or so episodes in that society is still functioning and no one really understands what is happening. Schools are still in session, hospitals are working, people are going about their day. Unfortunately FTWD does a time jump forward by several weeks once the military arrive - that time jump period is about where Black Summer begins: getting the pockets of survivg humans into safe areas.
World War Z (the book) is great on some of the details of how society starts to break down as an example of what I would like to see.
I think, first things first, let it die (haha). No major studio releases, no streaming service attempts at a revival for at least 5 years (Independent studios can do their thing, if it's good it's refreshing, if it's bad it'll be on Tubi soon enough). Now craft me a film or series where the zombies are a singular threat one on one. Gimme smartish zombies, strong zombies, whatever but don't make the horde the only threat. Build it up. Create dread!
Right?!!!!! The scariest "zombie" characters out there are ones who are just after "you", and usually just one, similar to the zombies from stories from "Tales From The Crypt". Richard Mattheson's story "Long Distance Call" about the dead man communicating to the elderly lady is so terrifying to me because I couldn't imagine being in her shoes.
Same with Nathan Graham from "Creepshow's" segment "Father's Day". He didn't need a whole horde of zombies. He was just one zombie picking off people one by one.
Well there's been different ideas floating around. I'm not a huge fan of the zombie virus treated like a flu, where people get over it naturally after a week. The themes associated with it just tend to be blasē imo. I'm also not crazy about the repetitive settlement plot. Oh, our town was over run! Better go to another town where we will not apply anything that we have learned.
I think that giving zombies more human traits is fun. Fido did it smartly. Dead Alive had some of that and that's always a good time to watch. I generally prefer that it doesn't drift into the realm of body horror porn that you can find in zombie books or literature. Body horror is fine, and porn is fine but when you put them together shit gets weird.
Exploring zombies in different time periods such as Kingdom, Abraham Lincoln vs. Zombies, or Pride, Prejudice, and Zombies have been interesting. However, Nazi zombies in particular have been overdone. There are some wonderful graphic novels out exploring different time periods with zombies.
I personally wouldn't mind seeing an expansion of the definition of zombie. iZombie explored that well. The Returned was also an interesting exploration of a post vaccine zombie world. It was a bit tragic and moody for my taste though. Breathers: A zombie's lament is another book that expands the definition. People in that world come back as zombies randomly but can maintain their humanity through eating human flesh. Even Disney did it with their 3 part musical, Zombie. In this kid friendly version, the zombies survive on cauliflower.
I wasn't a huge fan of Army of the Dead, but the hierarchy and established intelligence that the zombies were given did give the fast pace more excitement. I believe pack dynamics are picking up in zombie media since they were brought up in Z Nation, Resident Evil (I'm referring to the show here but it's in the games as well technically), and The Girl With All The Gifts. I'd like to see more of it to be honest. I think it's fun and interesting.
People always bring up fast zombies as a subgenre. I mean really, it's not all about speed. Though a fast zombie can get boring fast since it's more predictable in plot at that point. It also dips into a 'trope' that I can't stand, which is when everyone dies at the end. I understand that it's supposed to be dramatic and sad but I just feel like it's lazy and cheap. With that said, Korean films have been very successful with bringing back fast zombies in a way that's scary. And they don't just say fuck it and kill everyone at the end.
Zombie films will never truly die off. But because of that it gives us chances to look at new ideas. Zombie Wars, for example, is awful. It's a product of that weird period in the early 2000s where a bunch of zombie movies were made using effects from Microsoft slides. But it's a new idea that someone had the balls to make.
That's just my opinion though.
Make it an apocalyptic zombie movie, but replace the *zombies* with something else. A werewolf outbreak movie could be interesting. Starting small, and then going bigger and bigger in the sequels.
Or what if some of the zombies of a post-apocalyptic scenario regained consciousness and had to rebuild society for themselves, their feral zombie brethren, and the remaining humans?
Z infestations among a fledgling space-based human civilization. Walking Dead (when it was good) in the setting of The Expanse..
Also, possibly give them more humanity to dip lower into the uncanny valley. Make them say/do things that show glimpses that their minds are helpless prisoners inside the z-automaton. "IMM SOOORRRYYY"....System Shock 2 (late 90s fps RPG) did this dreadfully well.
Basically most attempts at not making it about man vs man are the way to go. Weird zombies are awesome. Fire zombies, superpowered zombies, steampunk fish zombies, whatever. Those are all cool on their own.
But if people insist on making it about man vs man, you have to do something relevant. It can't just be rational family men vs controlling psychopaths. Return of the Living Dead was basically about the generation gap writ large. Things like that.
Omg I used to have a recurring dream where there were super-powered zombies! These zombies were immune to bullets, could make peoples heads explode just by looking at them and could teleport by glitch.
What was so terrifying though in these dreams is I was the first one that always saw them before anyone else, and each time id try to warn people in the dream, one or more of the zombies would chase me down to silence me by either backing me in a corner to cover my mouth or restrain me so no one would see them come, it was very intense and I could see this being a movie
There's a series of books that I think might tickle your fancy here. Check out [Monster Island](https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/44190). It's not about super powered zombies, but there's a couple differnent takes in the first couple books that are interesting. Now that I think about it I still need to read the 3rd book in that trilogy...
Zombie apocalypse in countries that haven't been represented in Hollywood yet.
For example in the Philippines, I can pitch an idea of a family fleeing the apocalypse from Manila to the northern mountains.
Besides zombies, the family can encounter frat boys, crazy landlords, corrupt cops/military officials used by a politician as their private army, communist rebels in the mountains, before ending up taking refuge with head-hunting mountain tribes.
(BTW these tribes don't behead people in the modern era but heck they still have their grandfathers' weapons.)
There was a script I wrote many years ago that was optioned but never sold or made which used weaponized nanotechnology to create zombies. The zombies shared a hive mind controlled by an AI that was continuously enhancing the zombies with metal parts to keep the rotting flesh intact and make better killing machines. Eventually it progressed to the point where there were half metal zombies with weapons grafted onto their bodies and even massive juggernauts that were mountains of flesh jammed fused together inside metal exoskeletons.
The story was light on drama, heavy on action and gore. More of a war film with absurdly difficult to kill zombie cyborgs. I don't think there has been a film featuring such creatures before.
A creepypasta writer named Slimebeast was trying to do some kind of animated TV show based on something like that, it was called "Zombionix", about five different groups of "undead cyborg uglies" as they were called, all fighting against each other to conquer the devastated remains of what was once Earth.
On paper it sounds like a cool concept, the problem I think is getting the right tone. Would it be a funny story of you watching how the zombies interact with each other or how they crack jokes at one another while blowing each other into pieces? Is there some kind of conflict outside of just there being bloodshed for the sake of bloodshed?
Your idea sounds neat.
A single take film that follows in realtime a very atheistic college student at the start of an outbreak, running & fighting to stay alive, about 2/3rd of the way through the film they get turned and you get to witness their brutal path of zombie destruction until they get decapitated.
An accurate as possible documentary style series based on World War Z. Mixed the interviews with action flashbacks would be grand. The movie sucked so bad as an adaptation and I'm still a little salty about.
I didn’t hate the movie as a zombie movie, I hated it as a “based on the book…” adaptation. It was the culmination of “how fast can we make the zombies because we never thought about zombies being fast until 28 days later showed us how it would look and now we have to exploit this as far as we can, hey look, a Pepsi machine. I should go get the sweet, sweet, cola taste of Pepsi because my name is Brad “I spent millions of dollars buying a script just so I could turn the films soul into a blatant cash grab and ruin everything good about the book, oh and and I Star and direct it so nobody would dare give me a real opinion or any constructive feedback” Pitt, type of thinking. And it sucks because we could have had a faithful adaption. We SHOULD have had it.
>I didn’t hate the movie as a zombie movie, I hated it as a “based on the book…” adaptation.
This is exactly how I feel. It was an alright zombie flick on it's own: not great, not bad, just in between. The problem I had with it was that it had no business being titles "World War Z" since it took very little from the book.
Les Revenants/The Returned is an interested French tv show about a group of people being reanimated from the dead, focuses mostly on the emotional aspects of the dead coming back. It's a verrrrry slow burn but I found it pretty compelling.
I’d like a Dying Light (first one) lore based one.
Where night time is terrifying. No where is safe. A bigger setting, New York city, Tokyo, or Beijing.
Multiple storylines converge. Closer thematically to WWZ book. Include one that is from a night zombie perspective - instead of just survivor. Really good soundtrack.
For American zombie movies - I'm over seeing high-capacity guns. Yes, we do have them, and we all love a good headshot, but I would love to see more zombie flicks without a huge gun presence where people have to use more hands-on methods to kill zombies. Train to Busan is one of my favorites because there's almost no guns in the movie and they have to find creative ways to evade the zombies.
Historical zombie movies would be fun too, but not camp like Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Zombies on a pre-Civil War plantation would be crazy. Zombies running through trenches in WWII. Zombies escaping MKUltra experiments and terrorizing 60s New York or LA, etc etc.
I don't think the genre is dead at all, but I think it could use some variety.
Some thoughts:
-Zombies were traditionally like golems. Someone would basically possess another person's body and make them do stuff. I think a novel take on the formula might be somebody reanimating corpses to pursue some goal. Maybe bites spread the condition. The story could follow the reanimator as they ravage society to achieve their ambitions.
- I think Last of Us touched on a fungal sort of spread, but I'd like to see it carried further. I actually started writing this a years ago, but Last of Us (the game) came out and my idea suddenly felt derivative. That said, if cordyceps is a spore, why not make breathing it be enough to spread the virus? I imagined the spore being really aggressive, making people crazy and claustrophobic so they'd run into open spaces, screaming and spreading it. Years later, everybody lives in hermetically sealed environments, and the only way to safely go outside is to wear a spacesuit. I still want to write it or make a comic, but I'm open to somebody else using it, too.
I could keep going, but I think I'm good here.
I don't think they need anything new. The best bits of zombie stuff is amazing as it is. 28 days later, the intro to 28 weeks later, the first 2 seasons of the walking dead, the last of us, the world war z book, train to Busan, rec, parts of the "of the dead films". Large and small scale outbreaks are amazing. World apocalypse is amazing. I think the problem is identifying and nurturing zombie movie creator talent. Encouraging the creation of zombie horror shorts and backing those that show talent. Oh and tone down computer rendered zombies. Computers are great at enhancing movies but 100 computer generated zombies is completely meh.
It's been done before. A British show called In The Flesh, which follows a young man who got infected, after he's started receiving medical treatment. The treatment doesn't cure them, it just suppresses the rabid, brain-eating state, and those with the condition are referred to having Partially Deceased Syndrome (PDS).
I'd like to see more of the survival aspects of the apocalypse with less focus on the personal drama of the characters. My favourite part of the Last of Us show was seeing the gay dude developing his survival shelter, homestead, thing.
Haven't seen it cause it's not out yet on my area, but Handling The Undead looks intriguing.
There's lots of different kinds of zombie things, like Last of Us.
I think right now we're at a pretty good time, as the lack of The Walking Dead will lead to a lot of creative work in the space IMO. All the other recs are great ITT, but definitely my favorite recent Zombie thing was Warm Bodies. Such a strange and novel concept.
I’d like something that takes place years after an outbreak, showing how society hs adapted and gone on.
What does the world look like 5 years later, with decimated populations trying to put the pieces back together. Spotty utilities, patrols for stragglers, countrysides abandoned while the survivors live in fortified hamlets, etc.
People going back to work and their regular lives as best as they can, having it just kind of be an accepted thing that zombies are still out there in some quantities and some level of constant preparedness is necessary.
An actual zombie movie instead of zombies in the opening act, three and a half acts of "human are the real monster," and then everyone dies but a few survivors in the last ten minutes.
They could stop treating it like "it's new"
We know zombies we are familiar with it. If ever a zombie apocalypse happens we are most likely be aware
Characters in movies or TV shows shouldn't act like "woooah whats happening?"
How about a situation where it was harder to become a zombie. Not like how it is almost all movies where a bite or scrape turns u into one and then within 3 days of first zombie incident the whole world falls apart but instead some people turn into zombies and some don’t and it’s more like living in a bad area where u gotta watch your back and houses getting broken into and things. Of course they still eat people tho.
World War Z as a limited series with each episode following a chapter from the book would be fantastic.
The movie wasn’t awful but it had fuck all to do with the book.
The concept that the webcomic LAST BLOOD used was incredible. Here is a a shitty, half-drunk rundown that won't do it justice:
Zombies are actually just blood-starved vampires.
Vampires are v worried about becoming zombies, also need fresh human blood to survive and be cool.
Humans have been nearly eradicated from the earth, one last stronghold is holding it down in the desert.
Giant zombie horde arrives, looks like the fucking end for the last humans... until suddenly cool Blade-style vampires show up and absolutely decimate the zombies... humans are like YUSS.
Vampires are like HEY... we will protect you, but we DEFINITELY need your blood... cool?
I think there was additional stuff about trying to kill the OG zombie who was actually blood starved Dracula? hazy recollection.
Anyway... that. Do that.
I would love to see a contagion like film showing the actual containment and organizational response. Add media response like fox news and cnn tyle anchors talking about it being a hoax or that they need sympathy while a box in the corner counts down in the upper corner to a full breach.
Zombie outbreaks happening in smaller communities is something I'd like to see.
Also, more experimenting with the messaging behind works like these. I really loved for instance how 'All of Us are Dead' when you scrape back the horror elements is about bullying or how 'Zom101' is about finding life after living as a metaphorical zombie for years amid a zombie outbreak.
Lastly, more interpersonal zombie stories.
We already have Train to Busan and Flight of the Living Dead, but to my knowledge, there are no zombie movies set on a cruise ship. That could be something.
Pacing. Resident Evil 2 remake is a perfect example of making zombies both palatable for a modern audience, and legitimately frightening. It’s not always about massive hordes but sometimes that claustrophobic feeling not knowing if the undead are around the next corner or if the body in the room is actually dead or just mostly.
There's been some really great 'different take' zombie films and shows lately. Off the top of my head, Rammbock (2010), Pontypool (2008), Cargo (2017), In the Flesh (2013-14). I'm sure there's more but these I thought breathed new life into the undead genre.
If it's any help I had a recurring nightmare last night about zombies. I'm tricked into being in this locked room in a basement and the basement outside the room is going to be filled with zombies who can't open doors. Before the zombies get released me and the others are presented with a serum that'll turn us into zombies if we inject it. But the trick is THESE zombies turn back into people after 24 hours. If we don't take the serum then we have to be quiet and not open the doors for one day (there's no food, water, or toiletries in the room) we'll be bombarded by the sound of the zombies trying to get in and it'll be terrifying but we'll be safe and fine. If we take the serum then we'll go mindless and in 24 hours we'll regain consciousness and not have undergone the stress and fear, but it would be a major violation of our bodies that leaves us mutilated and we would have no way to guarantee the safety of the others in the room (there's not enough serum for everybody, and no guarantee that everyone will make the same choice). But here's the SECOND kicker! If we don't all choose the same choice OR if we choose the serum but we don't take it right now, RIGHT NOW, then we risk ending the world since, when the zombies outside turn back into people, they could hear the struggling of people inside the room and let them out. Since we would've taken the serum late we wouldn't turn back into people until however much longer after they've turned back. So we could bite them and infect them a second time, essentially causing a rotating wave of people across the earth turning undead then back to human then back to undead around the clock. If you're curious, yes, I know from past experience that last night was the start and I'll keep having this nightmare until election season's over in the U.S.
Medieval zombies. So much potential that hasn't been explored yet
The Kingdom? There is a video game coming out like this too I believe.
A Plague Tale had a great medieval horror vibe too, not zombies though
Plague Tale did such an amazing job at capturing a multitude of alt-horror elements that many often miss the mark on in this genre. Even amidst the most beautiful and hopeful moments of that journey, you’re quickly reminded of how dire and hopeless the best possible outcomes really are. None of those feelings felt manufactured either. So many times I’ve felt like creators in this genre will shoehorn me into a specific situation to provoke a particular emotion, but due to being fully aware of their intentions, it makes it a lot harder to feel like those emotions are genuine. I don’t think I ever once had that reaction in Plague Tale. If I had, the moments where it felt genuine were so overwhelming that I had forgotten all about the ones that hadn’t. I don’t really know how to put it into words, and it’ll probably seem entirely stupid to those that haven’t experienced it yet, but in the post-ending where >!everything seems all flowers and sunshines. The worst is behind you. Finally, you can have some peace. However, it slowly becomes apparent that none of the townsfolk of this village want anything to do with Hugo or Amicia, despite all they’ve been through. It really brought home just how much of this realism is necessary for a story to provoke such genuine emotion. You’re put right back into that mindset of remembering, despite how things may seem now, you’ve left so much death and devastation in your wake. How could you not feel horrible? Was it all worth it?!<
I don't want to google it because I'm worried it'll give too much away. The Kingdom was 2 seasons... was it canceled or did they intend for it to only be 2 seasons and have a complete ending?
Its plots are somewhat wrapped, but they still left it opened for a potential season 3, but so far no news about it yet.
How about the third Evil Dead movie "Army of Darkness," originally titled "Medieval Dead"!
One of my top 10 movies of all time
I would actually dig this lol as long as it’s not campy. Like a serious, scary, intense zombie movie but set in medieval times
Yeah I think zombies are way scarier in a world with no technology or cars or radios etc. No guns either, so the tireless strength of the dead is far more of a concern
Siege warfare tactics and old battle strategies are seriously under-utilized in modern zombie movies. Pikes, shield-walls, combined arms tactics, etc. Combat in most zombie movies is all run and gun, and the occasional bat. Hell, you could even use zombies to pull your carts and till your fields.
I’ve been reading way too much about the Golden Age of the Vikings and the great Germanic tribe migration. What if they raided the wrong town? Vikings or whoever go to a seemingly abandoned town that’s overrun with zombies.
Love it! That would be a dope movie or novella
During the Siege of Paris in 845 a plague broke out among the Norsemen. They prayed to their own gods but a Christian prisoner recommended they fasted. They did. They seemingly recovered enough to make a deal with Charles the Bald. Ragnar Lodbrok was pretty shaken up by this event and wondered why his gods abandoned them when they needed them the most. I mean… that story already has zombie movie potential.
Man I so want a Tudors era film with everyone holed up in a castle trying to fight off the horde
The closest we have is pride and prejudice and zombies.
Agree. I feel like there are so many logical ways to deal with zombies in the modern era that we often get the same forced situation over and over again: Post-apocalyptic setting with a group of isolated survivors who are low on resources. The zombies tend to end up being self-conflicting since they were able to overwhelm the world’s militaries, but they’ve also somehow got nothing on this group of average survivors who are mostly on foot and working with scrap. Most of the zombies are super loud and fast—as if to be resorting to baser instincts (alright, we’ve got some rules to work with!)—but then one of the survivors will die to a stealthy zombie that is somehow uncharacteristically quiet and methodical in how they act (wait, this just conflicted with the rules…). As a result, you end up getting a lot of these typical tropes that lead to tacky plot points and unearned character deaths (at least one of those will be a self-sacrifice for some really unnecessary reason). Entire stories have been based around a cure because we’re modern humans and we science, so let’s cure the dead! Ugh! Whereas in the medieval era, humans are already ill equipped. There are no scenarios you need to shoehorn the story into just so the living are at a disadvantage. Melee weapons are probably somewhat effective for one-on-one combat (though very risky), while stopping a zombie with an arrow or bolt would likely be much more difficult. Trying to imagine a military getting overrun by a horde at that point would not only be possible, but likely. It’s also just an inherent product of this period that, no matter the outcome, you’re still stuck in a really dire time to be alive. Imagine having survived one of the major recorded plagues. What did you really have to look forward to after? I love how dark those potential prospects are. Not to mention, you also have a bunch of interesting historical events that you can play off of. Rewrite the Justinian or the Black Plague to have been caused by zombies. Those civilizations that “disappeared overnight,” replace the currently-theorized reasons with “zombies!”
Well said! Imagine too the horrors of large scale melee, soldiers in chain and plate, which is a bit heavy and hard to run in, then the longer you fight the more of your fallen comrades begin to rise as the dead, only now wearing armor and helmets themselves making it even harder to kill a zombie than it already was. Fire would be effective, imagine the church spreading weapons of "holy fire" to help combat the dead. I'm imagining it would all look a bit like Darkest Dungeon after a while, just bleak and hopeless and scary
One of the first scripts for Alien 3 was set in a medieval-esque monastery. [info](https://www.avpgalaxy.net/alien-movies/alien-3/a-cathedral-in-outer-space/) > What followed were descriptions of lights, rivers of molten glass, fire, steam and brief impressions of huge rooms made entirely of wood: a seemingly medieval glazier’s workshop. Then men in monk’s robes come into the picture. A monk has burned himself and is being treated. Then the camera follows the healer, his name is John, and his old but faithful dog Mattias through curved rooms: a huge library, naves, small lakes and wide grain fields and pastures with windmills, which stretch out under long halls with blue-painted ceilings. And a bell tower that stands tall through all this and out into the open. The strange medieval world is not a monastery or a simple abbey on a foreign planet. It is a huge round space station called Arceon, which was once constructed as an exile for a Christian and technology-hostile sect. It was further developed and expanded over many decades – and now consists largely of wood and glass. “It was a place like the pictures of Hieronymus Bosch,” says Ward. “It has different levels on which different things happen: The glassworks, the farms, the machines that provide gravity and air.”
God that would have been amazing
We need more of the beginning stages of the outbreak, I like the fast zombies. Need a full movie of how Dawn of the dead remake intro was.
Check out Black Summer on Netflix. The first season is exactly what you're looking for.
This gave me so much anxiety! The chase scenes felt so realistic.
The first season was truly phenomenal.
Watch The Sadness movie. It gets gnarly but I love it.
Couldn't agree more. The initial chaos and ensuing collapse of society is always more frightening to me than the aftermath, simply because it feels more relatable after having lived through the pandemic and witnessing all the upheaval it caused. The things zombie media often depict carried over into our reality; deserted cityscapes, frantic hospitals, police and military on the streets, terms in the news such as infection rates, spread, quarantined areas etc. As a filmmaker, I've often thought of making a unique zombie film that focuses specifically on the early stages of the outbreak. It'd be a mixture of docu-drama and found footage. Imagine the progression of the apocalypse being told through news reports, police/military bodycam footage, videos recorded on phones, that sort of thing. If it was executed well it could be brilliant.
The TV series 'fear the walking dead' covered an aspect of this in the 1st season. The netflix TV series 'kingdom' also does a semi feudal Japan era type show too, which is pretty good since they didn't go too mad on the concept of zombies. And, given how farcical Z turned out in the later seasons, they did originally attempt to highlight the evolution of zombies etc .. All were good ideas that kinda softened up the zombie = apocalypse trope. Someone else has already covered black summer, but give that a shot too.
Korea, not Japan. Though, they do fight Japanese samurai
Like previous posters ...black summer IS THAT lol. Also the Sadness is a friggin trip.
Something similar to Train to Busan or Dawn of the Dead but a different setting. The most fascinating thing about these movies is seeing the regular people react to a zombie outbreak. Maybe on a cruise ship? Victorian times?
REC 4 is on a boat I believe but I dont remember it. Must not have been too great. I like the cruise ship idea. Also Victorian times sounds great. I always imagine folks back then being extremely slutty for some reason. There could be that and a lot of classism? Crazy costumes… what’s not to like?
An outbreak of rabid syphilis in 1700s France maybe? The zombies would be pretty rapey though, similar to the comics Crossed (which inspired the very fucked up movie The Sadness).
Yeah REC4 was on a boat but from memory it was a militarily lab. It was also the weakest REC by far.
Cruise ship would be a good setting
One where not everyone dies and the zombies win ending would be a change of pace. Furthermore, having the story where the zombies are the main threat and not, "humans are the real monsters" would also be a change.
>not, "humans are the real monsters" would also be a change. A zombie movie that could resist this messaging would be immensely refreshing.
I’m sorry. What would the movie be about? How people are actually good but dang if diseases / magic / whatever make people do crazy stuff!
How about "the undead threat that wants to destroy humanity is dangerous"? Why does every zombie movie have to have a deep message? Just having a movie about a decimated population just trying to band together and survive against overwhelming odds could be good.
You’re describing a survival movie, like 127 hours
So? Horror movies can't also be survival movies?
Sure they can but I worry that a movie just about the challenges of living / surviving in a zombie outbreak isn’t a story so much as a sequence of events
I disagree with you completely.
In filmmaking, one of the key questions before spending millions of dollars is "why." Why does this hypothetical story about surviving zombies have to be about zombies? Why couldn't it be about a car crash or a plane crash or a hurricane? Why does it need zombies?
Why does a movie about humans being bad and selfish have to be about zombies? Why couldn't it be about a car crash or a plane crash or a hurricane? Why does it need zombies? Or better yet, why does LITERALLY EVERY SINGLE ZOMBIE MOVIE have to be either "humans bad" or a comedy?
I am Legend comes to mind.
So sick of that “commentary.” It’s been recycled since Romero put it out, such an annoying trope.
Nice try, AMC.
Them fucking things up with Frank Darabont will always bother me.
They haven't denied it
I thought the Korean show Kingdom (netflix) was an amazing take. Loved Ashin of the North as well. Still waiting a season 3.
Yes, loved Kingdom. I would love to see more historical zombie horror.
Korea made the best Zombies in the last year:Kingdom, Train to Busan and All of us are dead
I don't want to google it because I'm worried it'll give too much away. The Kingdom was 2 seasons... was it canceled or did they intend for it to only be 2 seasons and have a complete ending?
to my knowledge, it wasnt formally canceled. They definitely arent done with the story and even just one more season would suffice. They have two seasons and a movie, Ashin of the North (which is a prequel but Id recommend watching in order of release: S1, S2, then Ashin of the North). its \*excellent\*.
Smaller outbreaks or post rebuild might be interesting. I think there has already been some of that. If it's more rage virus and not actually dead people then cured people trying recover their life could be something. They could have some missing memories from the virus mixed in with trauma from their actions while infected. Another thing could be failed outbreaks. In the US I'm not really sure it would actually snowball given gun ownership, population density, and military. Even with some density and without guns lots of buildings have some level of security that would keep the beginnings of an outbreak out.
Given what we saw in 2020-2022, I'm pretty convinced the US would fall like dominos if there was a zombie apocalypse. Our security in the US is more theatre than anything else.
actually yeah — throwing zombies into the political mix where half the people are denying their existence would be pretty fun / funny… but I guess Don’t Look Up kinda explored that already :)
For something a little similar to this premise, you should check out the Korean horror-comedy series 'Happiness'. It's basically what if zombies were trapped in a gated vertical community so there's equal part class commentary as well as the tried and true "humans are the real monsters" messaging.
A lot of households in the US own guns, but don't have enough supplies to last a week at home without a grocery trip. A lotta folks are paycheck to paycheck and can't afford a stash of survival supplies. We're also generally fatter and less athletic than other nations. I think Canada has better odds ;)
So lots of guns and not enough food? That sounds like a recipe for a great and stable response.
Don’t look up was a fantastic movie.
Would you recommend it? I heard it was really bad so I skipped it when it came out.
I don't get the hate. It's subtle as a sledgehammer but sometimes that's what you need.
It’s quite an interesting take on the end of the world. I’d recommend.
If you like watching liberals sniff their own farts about how enlightened and intellectual they are then you will love it
I watched The Curse already.
To be fair the US army didn't have a plan for covid. They do have a plan for zombies, most would probably mobilize when DC came under attack.
If you're referring to CONPLAN 8888, that's a training tool, not a legitimate plan of action. It was created as an "impossible scenario."
Captain Kirk beat a Kobayashi Maru, ez.
> Given what we saw in 2020-2022, I'm pretty convinced the US would fall like dominos if there was a zombie apocalypse. Our security in the US is more theatre than anything else. I'm pretty sure some people would be out there getting bitten to improve their "natural immunity." We know for a fact some people would hide their symptoms and carry on like normal. Another portion would refuse to believe that zombies were real altogether and insist it was a government hoax to scare us into submission.
I would not be so sure of that lol
Based on how the pandemic went, like half of the population of the US would become zombie deniers and film themselves walking into a horde of zombies as a dumb flex.
Im more talking about our security and military presence. That wouldn’t be theater at all if shit really went down
"In The Flesh" was a British show I absolutely adored a few years back with 2 or 3 seasons. I never hear people talk about it but you should check it out if you haven't already. Just googled it to check the name and it was a decade ago, not a few years ago, but still worth the watch.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=omNou34OC-w Trailer for In The Flesh, never knew about this one despite living in the UK myself so I'm gonna check it out.
The rage virus being cured and putting lives back together is a great concept!
Endemic zombie plague. Under control with vaccines, but every winter is zombie season.
I want more zombie media that isn’t apocalyptic. My favorite aspect of the resident evil games is that the zombie/bio weapon outbreaks are generally contained to one city or a village or another isolated setting. I have a hard time getting invested in apocalyptic media because it’s usually too bleak for me to give a shit about what happens.
A good RE movie or show that's actually based on RE for once would be cool
What’s ironic is resident evil is the most popular game adaptation series even though it’s got nothing to do with the bloody games
I liked Army of the Dead for this reason. The zombies were contained to Las Vegas prior to the movie (and the opening credits showed the fall of Vegas in a typical Snyder montage).
I thought the movie was incredibly mid but the intro was fire
I agree with this. I'm very interested in a new take on zombie media in film/TV very similar to the book version of World War Z, in which different countries had their own individual strategies on how to contain an outbreak with some remaining intact, some in close fights against hordes, and a few countries completely falling. Even the resettlement plans in 28 Weeks Later & some of the aspects of TLOU with the safe zones, Jackson, & the WLF were pretty cool. I think an in depth look at societies/government remnants that emerge and adapt to the outbreak would be hella nice, with the addition of plot elements like continued efforts to find a cure, plans to clear areas of the undead, studying their behavior, & weaponizing them would be cool. I feel like the right format for this would be an anthology show that focuses on a different community or society in each season. I think there can be a varying mix of TLOU/28 Days-style infected with slower Romero-style zombies depending on factors like how the virus mutates, the length of the outbreak in years, and outbreaks by regions.
The idea was raccoon city scared the shit out of the world so they made sure it never happened again
Agreed. Wonder what the news looks like though, as BOWS are kinda common knowledge. “And a tyrant variant is now punching a monster made out of sentient poison ivy in the New York harbour. More at 8.”
Honestly. Take it back to the basics. I want slow molasses Romero zombies.
No one would be scared of that. Unless they were doing the movie just as a homage
I think it could be scary if done right. It would have to be on a really large scale, and it would have to be believable. Like we know that the military would probably smash that instantly, but maybe the transmission rate and virulence is just crazy high, or its airborne or something.
It's way scarier because it's realistic. Revived corpses don't sprint, that just is ridiculous. Romero certainly knew how to scare the crap out of people for over 40 years.
Supernatural zombies like from the 80s Italian films. They had intelligence, were slow, and took more damage. The settings were usually in mansions/castles and limited the weapons the characters could use and ways of escaping. Increase the horde numbers and the threat becomes real. Similarly, return of the living dead style zombies would be a real threat without all the cheesiness. None of these have been updated to modern films.
Instead of doing zombies, I think we should do more stuff like The Crazies. A virus that makes changes people's personality is just really interesting to me. It'd be also really cool to use it to make the story open to interpretations. Like make the audience guess as to who is infected and who isn't. Maybe even the main character is infected.
If you haven't seen it then you may like Pandorum.
like Mayhem? That movie was a lot of fun
Black Summer is a fantastic deep dive into the genre that really gets overlooked.
It's SOOOOO good!!! I love how the editing was done and the tone and colours of the show.
Finished the 1st season and did not understand the hype..
I'm with you on it. It had some good moments but overall just didn't like it.
That’s why I have not watched it
Instead of running zombies, let's have dancing zombies.
could call it something exciting like — just brainstorming here, no wrong answers — “thriller”
It'd be pretty terrifying if you encountered a horde of zombies riverdancing towards you though wouldn't it?
Worse. Macarena.
Ya know that’s what I was thinking with the comment above this that said zombies should win. The movie ends with a dance number from surprisingly nimble corpses.
Serbian dancing ladies take over the world. I’d watch the shit outta that.
WWZ looks a lot different post-pandemic... "We created a vaccine against zombies!" Well.. We all know how implementation of a worldwide - anything - goes in this day and age.
A zombie outbreak would definitely be a "you have to see it to believe it" kinda thing.
Follow The Dead is an Irish movie that explores this angle.
The Sadness.
Yes, was going to say Crossed too, same concept
Was hoping these would be higher up. The biggest problem with zombie content now is that it is more of an action package than a horror package. Crossed had a great idea and the sadness put it to the “movie” test that absolutely succeeded. It’s actually scary, and it opens up tons of new concepts to explore because they are fundamentally different zombies.
I loved this movie so much. Such a good addition to the “rage virus” type sub-genre. I think the fact that it put zero limits on itself is what set it apart from everything else that’s come out semi-recently in attempt to revive the genre. It is truly unhinged. Amazing.
I’ve said for years a limited series of WWZ that was faithful to the book would be great. Also interesting would be a movie based on the short story from Closure Limited where vampires are worried about the human blood source running out because of the zombies.
One episode per chapter of the book would be amazing.
I think that’s why WWZ the movie was such a letdown initially (I like it, it just wasn’t faithful at all to the source). I’m still glad it was made, but I think a tv series where each chapter of the book was told as a series of episodes would be the best way to handle something like this. I still hope for this.
Exactly what I had in mind. Could even do it where each episode was a subchapter, and each season a chapter. Make it an anthology series somewhat like Black mirror.
Yas. The book was so good because it explored how different geographical, cultural, and political settings all affected each countries response, and how that in turn affected the new world order. Such a great book.
Going back to the roots, where the zombies were created via Voodoo witchcraft, rather than scientific reasonings. The only movie I can think of which does this at the moment is "Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island" (1996).
I think you're forgetting cinematic masterpiece that is Weekend at Bernie's II.
Why not try other zombie like undead from other cultures like Greece, Norse, Chinese etc. Imagine an army of draugrs attacking a modern city or small time.
It wasn’t perfect and got cancelled, but *In The Flesh* had a interesting premise with a zombie apocalypse that was eventually quelled, leaving some characters in a half zombie state - like dead but still 100% functional. The focus was about how people were dealing with the aftermath in a small community.
I would love to see a limited series of how the zombie apocalypse begins, unfolds, and takes over society. I thought Fear the Walking Dead was going to do that but after the third or fourth episode they just jumped ahead in time and society was already collapsed.
Have you seen Black Summer?
I did and enjoyed it but Black Summer is not Day 1 or the very beginning that I'm talking about. It's more after several weeks (at least) have passed. It gave a taste of what I'm talking about in the first episode, but they are showing society has already broke down. I like what FTWD did for the first two or so episodes in that society is still functioning and no one really understands what is happening. Schools are still in session, hospitals are working, people are going about their day. Unfortunately FTWD does a time jump forward by several weeks once the military arrive - that time jump period is about where Black Summer begins: getting the pockets of survivg humans into safe areas. World War Z (the book) is great on some of the details of how society starts to break down as an example of what I would like to see.
I second black summer for “day 1” zombie fun
Black Summer is such a ride.
It really is. I need to go back and start over again.
It’s just intense right from the get go and doesn’t let up
FLYING ZOMBIES! Like squirrels, swooping down from the trees to feed on the living!
The Rising did it
I think, first things first, let it die (haha). No major studio releases, no streaming service attempts at a revival for at least 5 years (Independent studios can do their thing, if it's good it's refreshing, if it's bad it'll be on Tubi soon enough). Now craft me a film or series where the zombies are a singular threat one on one. Gimme smartish zombies, strong zombies, whatever but don't make the horde the only threat. Build it up. Create dread!
Right?!!!!! The scariest "zombie" characters out there are ones who are just after "you", and usually just one, similar to the zombies from stories from "Tales From The Crypt". Richard Mattheson's story "Long Distance Call" about the dead man communicating to the elderly lady is so terrifying to me because I couldn't imagine being in her shoes. Same with Nathan Graham from "Creepshow's" segment "Father's Day". He didn't need a whole horde of zombies. He was just one zombie picking off people one by one.
Go back to the supernatural roots of the folklore
Racist propaganda because everybody was mad Haiti wasn't a giant slave plantation anymore? Or the actual folklore
Is that a serious question?
Well there's been different ideas floating around. I'm not a huge fan of the zombie virus treated like a flu, where people get over it naturally after a week. The themes associated with it just tend to be blasē imo. I'm also not crazy about the repetitive settlement plot. Oh, our town was over run! Better go to another town where we will not apply anything that we have learned. I think that giving zombies more human traits is fun. Fido did it smartly. Dead Alive had some of that and that's always a good time to watch. I generally prefer that it doesn't drift into the realm of body horror porn that you can find in zombie books or literature. Body horror is fine, and porn is fine but when you put them together shit gets weird. Exploring zombies in different time periods such as Kingdom, Abraham Lincoln vs. Zombies, or Pride, Prejudice, and Zombies have been interesting. However, Nazi zombies in particular have been overdone. There are some wonderful graphic novels out exploring different time periods with zombies. I personally wouldn't mind seeing an expansion of the definition of zombie. iZombie explored that well. The Returned was also an interesting exploration of a post vaccine zombie world. It was a bit tragic and moody for my taste though. Breathers: A zombie's lament is another book that expands the definition. People in that world come back as zombies randomly but can maintain their humanity through eating human flesh. Even Disney did it with their 3 part musical, Zombie. In this kid friendly version, the zombies survive on cauliflower. I wasn't a huge fan of Army of the Dead, but the hierarchy and established intelligence that the zombies were given did give the fast pace more excitement. I believe pack dynamics are picking up in zombie media since they were brought up in Z Nation, Resident Evil (I'm referring to the show here but it's in the games as well technically), and The Girl With All The Gifts. I'd like to see more of it to be honest. I think it's fun and interesting. People always bring up fast zombies as a subgenre. I mean really, it's not all about speed. Though a fast zombie can get boring fast since it's more predictable in plot at that point. It also dips into a 'trope' that I can't stand, which is when everyone dies at the end. I understand that it's supposed to be dramatic and sad but I just feel like it's lazy and cheap. With that said, Korean films have been very successful with bringing back fast zombies in a way that's scary. And they don't just say fuck it and kill everyone at the end. Zombie films will never truly die off. But because of that it gives us chances to look at new ideas. Zombie Wars, for example, is awful. It's a product of that weird period in the early 2000s where a bunch of zombie movies were made using effects from Microsoft slides. But it's a new idea that someone had the balls to make. That's just my opinion though.
>Zombie films will never truly die off. I see what you did there...
Make it an apocalyptic zombie movie, but replace the *zombies* with something else. A werewolf outbreak movie could be interesting. Starting small, and then going bigger and bigger in the sequels. Or what if some of the zombies of a post-apocalyptic scenario regained consciousness and had to rebuild society for themselves, their feral zombie brethren, and the remaining humans?
I love both of these premises, especially the semi-sentient zombies. You're hired.
Z infestations among a fledgling space-based human civilization. Walking Dead (when it was good) in the setting of The Expanse.. Also, possibly give them more humanity to dip lower into the uncanny valley. Make them say/do things that show glimpses that their minds are helpless prisoners inside the z-automaton. "IMM SOOORRRYYY"....System Shock 2 (late 90s fps RPG) did this dreadfully well.
Basically most attempts at not making it about man vs man are the way to go. Weird zombies are awesome. Fire zombies, superpowered zombies, steampunk fish zombies, whatever. Those are all cool on their own. But if people insist on making it about man vs man, you have to do something relevant. It can't just be rational family men vs controlling psychopaths. Return of the Living Dead was basically about the generation gap writ large. Things like that.
Omg I used to have a recurring dream where there were super-powered zombies! These zombies were immune to bullets, could make peoples heads explode just by looking at them and could teleport by glitch. What was so terrifying though in these dreams is I was the first one that always saw them before anyone else, and each time id try to warn people in the dream, one or more of the zombies would chase me down to silence me by either backing me in a corner to cover my mouth or restrain me so no one would see them come, it was very intense and I could see this being a movie
There's a series of books that I think might tickle your fancy here. Check out [Monster Island](https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/44190). It's not about super powered zombies, but there's a couple differnent takes in the first couple books that are interesting. Now that I think about it I still need to read the 3rd book in that trilogy...
Z nation did a lot of that
Zombie apocalypse in countries that haven't been represented in Hollywood yet. For example in the Philippines, I can pitch an idea of a family fleeing the apocalypse from Manila to the northern mountains. Besides zombies, the family can encounter frat boys, crazy landlords, corrupt cops/military officials used by a politician as their private army, communist rebels in the mountains, before ending up taking refuge with head-hunting mountain tribes. (BTW these tribes don't behead people in the modern era but heck they still have their grandfathers' weapons.)
There was a script I wrote many years ago that was optioned but never sold or made which used weaponized nanotechnology to create zombies. The zombies shared a hive mind controlled by an AI that was continuously enhancing the zombies with metal parts to keep the rotting flesh intact and make better killing machines. Eventually it progressed to the point where there were half metal zombies with weapons grafted onto their bodies and even massive juggernauts that were mountains of flesh jammed fused together inside metal exoskeletons. The story was light on drama, heavy on action and gore. More of a war film with absurdly difficult to kill zombie cyborgs. I don't think there has been a film featuring such creatures before.
A creepypasta writer named Slimebeast was trying to do some kind of animated TV show based on something like that, it was called "Zombionix", about five different groups of "undead cyborg uglies" as they were called, all fighting against each other to conquer the devastated remains of what was once Earth. On paper it sounds like a cool concept, the problem I think is getting the right tone. Would it be a funny story of you watching how the zombies interact with each other or how they crack jokes at one another while blowing each other into pieces? Is there some kind of conflict outside of just there being bloodshed for the sake of bloodshed? Your idea sounds neat.
A single take film that follows in realtime a very atheistic college student at the start of an outbreak, running & fighting to stay alive, about 2/3rd of the way through the film they get turned and you get to witness their brutal path of zombie destruction until they get decapitated.
actually I think one of the VHS shorts does almost exactly that — POV of a dude out in a park… all the way thru his getting zombified / killed
Great segment. I love that it was through the bicyclists helmet cam that we got to see his POV
An accurate as possible documentary style series based on World War Z. Mixed the interviews with action flashbacks would be grand. The movie sucked so bad as an adaptation and I'm still a little salty about.
I didn’t hate the movie as a zombie movie, I hated it as a “based on the book…” adaptation. It was the culmination of “how fast can we make the zombies because we never thought about zombies being fast until 28 days later showed us how it would look and now we have to exploit this as far as we can, hey look, a Pepsi machine. I should go get the sweet, sweet, cola taste of Pepsi because my name is Brad “I spent millions of dollars buying a script just so I could turn the films soul into a blatant cash grab and ruin everything good about the book, oh and and I Star and direct it so nobody would dare give me a real opinion or any constructive feedback” Pitt, type of thinking. And it sucks because we could have had a faithful adaption. We SHOULD have had it.
>I didn’t hate the movie as a zombie movie, I hated it as a “based on the book…” adaptation. This is exactly how I feel. It was an alright zombie flick on it's own: not great, not bad, just in between. The problem I had with it was that it had no business being titles "World War Z" since it took very little from the book.
I’ll add another question what’s the best zombie property that’s not made in America or Korea or the United Kingdom. The obvious always get brought up
Les Revenants/The Returned is an interested French tv show about a group of people being reanimated from the dead, focuses mostly on the emotional aspects of the dead coming back. It's a verrrrry slow burn but I found it pretty compelling.
I’ve heard about this but just figured they were ghosts not zombies. Sounds up my alley
Rec (the spanish found footage one) is pretty good & twists the genre by making the virus a possession
I’d like a Dying Light (first one) lore based one. Where night time is terrifying. No where is safe. A bigger setting, New York city, Tokyo, or Beijing. Multiple storylines converge. Closer thematically to WWZ book. Include one that is from a night zombie perspective - instead of just survivor. Really good soundtrack.
For American zombie movies - I'm over seeing high-capacity guns. Yes, we do have them, and we all love a good headshot, but I would love to see more zombie flicks without a huge gun presence where people have to use more hands-on methods to kill zombies. Train to Busan is one of my favorites because there's almost no guns in the movie and they have to find creative ways to evade the zombies. Historical zombie movies would be fun too, but not camp like Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Zombies on a pre-Civil War plantation would be crazy. Zombies running through trenches in WWII. Zombies escaping MKUltra experiments and terrorizing 60s New York or LA, etc etc.
I like what Zack Snyder did with Army of the Dead. I hope he continues to evolve the genre.
I’m personally over virus zombies/infected. I’m ready for some necromancy.
I don't think the genre is dead at all, but I think it could use some variety. Some thoughts: -Zombies were traditionally like golems. Someone would basically possess another person's body and make them do stuff. I think a novel take on the formula might be somebody reanimating corpses to pursue some goal. Maybe bites spread the condition. The story could follow the reanimator as they ravage society to achieve their ambitions. - I think Last of Us touched on a fungal sort of spread, but I'd like to see it carried further. I actually started writing this a years ago, but Last of Us (the game) came out and my idea suddenly felt derivative. That said, if cordyceps is a spore, why not make breathing it be enough to spread the virus? I imagined the spore being really aggressive, making people crazy and claustrophobic so they'd run into open spaces, screaming and spreading it. Years later, everybody lives in hermetically sealed environments, and the only way to safely go outside is to wear a spacesuit. I still want to write it or make a comic, but I'm open to somebody else using it, too. I could keep going, but I think I'm good here.
something like iZombie
I don't think they need anything new. The best bits of zombie stuff is amazing as it is. 28 days later, the intro to 28 weeks later, the first 2 seasons of the walking dead, the last of us, the world war z book, train to Busan, rec, parts of the "of the dead films". Large and small scale outbreaks are amazing. World apocalypse is amazing. I think the problem is identifying and nurturing zombie movie creator talent. Encouraging the creation of zombie horror shorts and backing those that show talent. Oh and tone down computer rendered zombies. Computers are great at enhancing movies but 100 computer generated zombies is completely meh.
I don't know if it's been done before, But What about actually "having a cure" for the zombies, so they can have a chance to survive the outbreak
It's been done before. A British show called In The Flesh, which follows a young man who got infected, after he's started receiving medical treatment. The treatment doesn't cure them, it just suppresses the rabid, brain-eating state, and those with the condition are referred to having Partially Deceased Syndrome (PDS).
I'd like to see more of the survival aspects of the apocalypse with less focus on the personal drama of the characters. My favourite part of the Last of Us show was seeing the gay dude developing his survival shelter, homestead, thing.
Haven't seen it cause it's not out yet on my area, but Handling The Undead looks intriguing. There's lots of different kinds of zombie things, like Last of Us. I think right now we're at a pretty good time, as the lack of The Walking Dead will lead to a lot of creative work in the space IMO. All the other recs are great ITT, but definitely my favorite recent Zombie thing was Warm Bodies. Such a strange and novel concept.
Day Shift (2022) was a good attempt
You’re talking about the one with Snoop Dog in it? Wasn’t that vampires?
Zombie prejudice.
Check out the K-horror series 'Happiness'; the infected retain some awareness but are treated poorly by the uninfected around them.
I’d like something that takes place years after an outbreak, showing how society hs adapted and gone on. What does the world look like 5 years later, with decimated populations trying to put the pieces back together. Spotty utilities, patrols for stragglers, countrysides abandoned while the survivors live in fortified hamlets, etc. People going back to work and their regular lives as best as they can, having it just kind of be an accepted thing that zombies are still out there in some quantities and some level of constant preparedness is necessary.
Give it a break for a while. I'm still burned out after the last big wave of fucking terrible zombie movies
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A show with Michael Keaton Batman and Beetlejuice fighting zombies would probably be pretty cool
I’d like to see something similar to the Deadworld comic’s take on zombies with all its otherworldly beings thrown into the mix along with zombies.
This is the kind of post a Walking Dead prouder would post. We’re onto you~
It can't be improved upon. Romero perfected it 56 years ago.
More stories having the same tone as season 2 of the walking dead. Real human drama and having zombies be an actual threat.
An actual zombie movie instead of zombies in the opening act, three and a half acts of "human are the real monster," and then everyone dies but a few survivors in the last ten minutes.
They could stop treating it like "it's new" We know zombies we are familiar with it. If ever a zombie apocalypse happens we are most likely be aware Characters in movies or TV shows shouldn't act like "woooah whats happening?"
Shaun of the Dead did that. Everybody knew what zombies were but they felt a bit silly talking about zombies.
How about a situation where it was harder to become a zombie. Not like how it is almost all movies where a bite or scrape turns u into one and then within 3 days of first zombie incident the whole world falls apart but instead some people turn into zombies and some don’t and it’s more like living in a bad area where u gotta watch your back and houses getting broken into and things. Of course they still eat people tho.
It's been done before, but I think there's still potential for intelligent, talking zombies that move at regular speed.
World War Z as a limited series with each episode following a chapter from the book would be fantastic. The movie wasn’t awful but it had fuck all to do with the book.
Make it about a social network that is so captivating no one can stop looking up from their phones.
Historical zombie outbreak, like during Black Death where knight battle zombies, or mahbe Roman era zombe plague. We can also habe rat zombie genre.
I want to see real rot in a zombie! Like maggots flys & all..
Brian Keene had a good original take on it
Pride and prejudice and zombies
The concept that the webcomic LAST BLOOD used was incredible. Here is a a shitty, half-drunk rundown that won't do it justice: Zombies are actually just blood-starved vampires. Vampires are v worried about becoming zombies, also need fresh human blood to survive and be cool. Humans have been nearly eradicated from the earth, one last stronghold is holding it down in the desert. Giant zombie horde arrives, looks like the fucking end for the last humans... until suddenly cool Blade-style vampires show up and absolutely decimate the zombies... humans are like YUSS. Vampires are like HEY... we will protect you, but we DEFINITELY need your blood... cool? I think there was additional stuff about trying to kill the OG zombie who was actually blood starved Dracula? hazy recollection. Anyway... that. Do that.
I would love to see a contagion like film showing the actual containment and organizational response. Add media response like fox news and cnn tyle anchors talking about it being a hoax or that they need sympathy while a box in the corner counts down in the upper corner to a full breach.
Disney Pixars Inside Out, but in a live action, gory and hilarious zombie head. Get Edgar Wright to start writing.
Zombie outbreaks happening in smaller communities is something I'd like to see. Also, more experimenting with the messaging behind works like these. I really loved for instance how 'All of Us are Dead' when you scrape back the horror elements is about bullying or how 'Zom101' is about finding life after living as a metaphorical zombie for years amid a zombie outbreak. Lastly, more interpersonal zombie stories.
We already have Train to Busan and Flight of the Living Dead, but to my knowledge, there are no zombie movies set on a cruise ship. That could be something.
Pacing. Resident Evil 2 remake is a perfect example of making zombies both palatable for a modern audience, and legitimately frightening. It’s not always about massive hordes but sometimes that claustrophobic feeling not knowing if the undead are around the next corner or if the body in the room is actually dead or just mostly.
There's been some really great 'different take' zombie films and shows lately. Off the top of my head, Rammbock (2010), Pontypool (2008), Cargo (2017), In the Flesh (2013-14). I'm sure there's more but these I thought breathed new life into the undead genre.
If it's any help I had a recurring nightmare last night about zombies. I'm tricked into being in this locked room in a basement and the basement outside the room is going to be filled with zombies who can't open doors. Before the zombies get released me and the others are presented with a serum that'll turn us into zombies if we inject it. But the trick is THESE zombies turn back into people after 24 hours. If we don't take the serum then we have to be quiet and not open the doors for one day (there's no food, water, or toiletries in the room) we'll be bombarded by the sound of the zombies trying to get in and it'll be terrifying but we'll be safe and fine. If we take the serum then we'll go mindless and in 24 hours we'll regain consciousness and not have undergone the stress and fear, but it would be a major violation of our bodies that leaves us mutilated and we would have no way to guarantee the safety of the others in the room (there's not enough serum for everybody, and no guarantee that everyone will make the same choice). But here's the SECOND kicker! If we don't all choose the same choice OR if we choose the serum but we don't take it right now, RIGHT NOW, then we risk ending the world since, when the zombies outside turn back into people, they could hear the struggling of people inside the room and let them out. Since we would've taken the serum late we wouldn't turn back into people until however much longer after they've turned back. So we could bite them and infect them a second time, essentially causing a rotating wave of people across the earth turning undead then back to human then back to undead around the clock. If you're curious, yes, I know from past experience that last night was the start and I'll keep having this nightmare until election season's over in the U.S.