Got Brains? My Top 30 Zombie Movies

This low-budget thriller took the popular alien invasion theme of '50s sci fi movies and made the aliens invisible (hence the title), but for some reason, the evil E.T.'s decide to inhabit the bodies of corpses, reanimating them to do their bidding. (This raises the question of why, if you have the advantage of being invisible, you'd bother to make yourself visible.) Their slow, plodding style and sullen look predated George Romero's similar-looking Night of the Living Dead zombies by nearly a decade and may have inspired the director in his creation of that landmark film. The entertainment value of this film, however, unlike Night of the Living Dead, is its pure, unintentional camp.

This outrageous Argentinean film channels the wacky spirit (and low budget) of Sam Raimi's The Evil Dead, with slapstick comedy, splatter gore and kinetic camerawork. Plus a unitard.

Evil is an impressive undead epic from Greece that moves at a breakneck pace, down to the near-immediate turning of people into zombies once bitten, which helps to accomplish the impossible: making a soccer match interesting.

This low-brow zombie comedy is better than it has any right being, thanks in part to a madcap performance by Robert Englund as a neurotic strip club owner who must deal with government-bred zombies surrounding his joint. Not every joke works, but the rapid-fire delivery ensures some laughs, plus the quality gore and, um, "gentlemanly entertainment" make for fun group viewing. Just remember: no disembowelments in the champagne room.

Martial arts mayhem, kooky characters and non-stop kinetic energy propel this oddball Japanese genre-bender. When a group of gangsters arranges a meeting in the woods where they've dumped the bodies of those they've "bumped off," they don't realize said woods have the power to resurrect the dead. Although the latter portion of the film abandons the lighthearted zombie action, Versus remains an entertainingly wacky entry in the perpetually wacky Asian zombie movie oeuvre (see also Wild Zero, Bio Zombie, SARS Wars, Tokyo Zombie). Director Ryuhei Kitamura would go on to lend his unique visual flair to Midnight Meat Train.

To date, Resident Evil has stood as practically the only example of a good -- or at least, an enjoyable -- movie based on a video game, making Uwe Boll's career seem all the more pointless in retrospect. It combines traditional zombie thrills with slick video game action that, despite a couple of silly moments (flying kick of a zombie Doberman Pinscher), doesn't undermine the horror elements.

George Romero's Dawn of the Dead was a landmark, influential film whose gory mayhem inspired a generation of modern zombie films (including Lucio Fulci's Zombi 2, which billed itself as a sequel to the Romero pic, titled Zombi in Italy). However, it hasn't held up well over time. The pace is slow, the zombies are laughable (Hare Krishnas? Green skin? Big, fake-headed Frankenstein zombie that gets done in by the helicopter?) and the social commentary on consumerism lacks punch in an age where malls are so commonplace. That said, the gore still packs a punch, and the movie might best be viewed as a bloody time capsule.

This rural Irish offering is a vegetarian's dream: mad cow disease spreads to humans, turning them into carnivorous zombies. It's surprisingly straight-faced for a film with man-eating cows and a zombie children's birthday party.

Often thought of as George Romero's fourth-best zombie film, Land of the Dead is underrated for its ability not only to make biting social commentary (on big business, the Iraq War, terrorism and the distribution of wealth), but also to deliver literal biting.

28 Weeks Later overcomes a few plot issues (How do a couple of kids just waltz into a quarantined area?) to deliver a worthy follow-up to the great 28 Days Later -- even if the best part comes within the first 10 minutes. If there's ever a 28 Months Later, let's hope it doesn't devolve into I Am Legend.