Zombie movies started as a Haitian voodoo horror trope, where village priests would hypnotize victims and then bury them until their brains were dead enough to simply serve their new master. However, things changed in the 1960s when George A. Romero decided he wanted to reinvent the entire genre.
The zombies in movies and TV shows today are the ones that Romero created in his 1968 movie Night of the Living Dead. However, there have been changes over the years since then. One thing that keeps modern zombie movies fresh is when directors change the zombies in interesting ways, keeping fans entertained with fresh looks at old monsters.
Night of the Living Dead (1968)
The zombies in the fields in Night of the Living Dead.
The original zombie movies, such as I Walked with a Zombie and White Zombie, had voodoo-style zombies, and the movie that broke all the rules and created something new was George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead. Romero not only broke all the rules, but he created an entirely new monster.
Romero’s zombies were the dead rising from their graves with a hunger to consume the flesh of the living. The zombies were lumbering and slow-moving, but when they got hold of a victim, they would tear them apart to feast on their bodies. This was like nothing else zombie movies of the past ever did before.
It was a huge success. Romero influenced other filmmakers, such as Dario Argento, who made his own movies using Romero’s creation. Romero even had several zombie movies that followed, with Dawn of the Dead as the GOAT of all zombie movies.
Return of the Living Dead (1985)
A zombie head in Return Of The Living Dead
For over a decade, horror filmmakers copied George A. Romero’s template and brought his monsters into new stories, although few came close to approaching the social issues that were prevalent in the master’s zombie movies. Then, in 1985, everything changed. This was when the zombie comedy arrived.
Dan O’Bannon directed the horror comedy Return of the Living Dead, and he did what made every great comedic zombie movie great. He took the gore and zombie horror seriously, and then added absurdity to the situation. This had the blood and guts of a Romero movie, but had a zombie use a police radio to call for more “food.”
Movies in the future, like Shaun of the Dead, were zombie comedies, and while Shaun was the superior movie, this movie broke the rules of zombie movies in a way Edgar Wright’s movie didn’t. Wright had the comedy come from the living. Return allowed the zombies themselves to deliver some of the jokes.
28 Days Later (2002)
Cillian Murphy as Jim 28 Days Later.
For the next two decades, it seemed that zombie movies had nothing left to give. There were horror films and comedies, and nothing really changed in either subgenre. However, in 2002, Danny Boyle did something different, and this was something that had many fans arguing about whether it was a zombie movie or not.
28 Days Later did not have the dead rise to consume humans. It had the living infected and turned them into mindless rage-filled killing machines. Not only that, but these still-living humans were fast and chased people down rather than lumbering around. It was like nothing a zombie movie had ever shown before.
While some claimed 28 Days Later wasn’t a zombie movie because they weren’t dead, it has all the same beats and tropes of a zombie movie, other than their living status and their speed. It’s a zombie movie, and by breaking all the pre-existing rules, it was also so much more.
Dawn of the Dead (2004)
Zombies running in Dawn of the Dead
It seemed almost crazy when Zack Snyder set out to remake the George A. Romero classic, Dawn of the Dead. That classic zombie movie is still considered the best in the genre, but Snyder wanted to update it for a new generation. Some things didn’t work, but other changes made it a great horror movie nonetheless.
The film somehow missed out on all the social issues that George A. Romero added to his stories, and it was a straight horror film that only cared about the gore and shocking moments. However, Snyder delivered on those shocking moments, including the birth of a zombie baby in the mall.
That said, Snyder followed the path of 28 Days Later and had his zombies move very fast. The Dawn of the Dead remake was not like Danny Boyle’s movie, because these really were zombies returning from the dead, but by keeping the blazing fast speed, he broke one of Romero’s strictest rules.
Fido (2006)
Billy Connolly as Fido in the zombie movie Fido.
Most zombie movies are about the dead coming back to life and the living humans trying to fight for their survival. Not only did Fido change that story, but it also changed the zombies and how they acted around humans. This movie took place after the zombie apocalypse had already ended, and humans won.
Not only did humans win, but a company developed control collars that survivors could put on zombies, effectively turning the walking dead into domestic servants with no other choice but to follow orders. This resulted in zombies mowing the lawn, acting as babysitters, and even living as domestic partners with survivors.
It was like nothing ever seen in a zombie movie, as it was tame zombies. Of course, this changed when one control collar malfunctioned, and a zombie began to kill again, but for a while, it seemed like the zombies were finally neutered.
Warm Bodies (2013)
Nicholas Hoult as R in Warm Bodies
In 2013, there was a shocking rule broken in the zombie genre that changed everything the viewers knew about zombies. In most movies, when a zombie rises from the dead, they immediately have an insatiable hunger for flesh and attack anyone around them, even their loved ones. There’s no hesitation.
That’s not what happened in Warm Bodies, which is a romantic zombie comedy. However, unlike zom-coms like Shaun of the Dead, Warm Bodies is a zom-com where a zombie falls in love with a survivor. This zombie, known as R, delivers a voice-over narration in the movie, and he still has his brain in action.
Instead of immediately going into a rage, the zombies in this movie retain their intelligence, but it slowly evaporates as the film moves on. R knows he’s losing his cognitive skills, and he can’t talk, but having a zombie think and describe what’s going on isn’t anything that ever happened in a zombie movie before.
Life After Beth (2014)
Dane DeHaan as Zach kneeling by Aubrey Plaza as Beth in Life After Beth
The year after Warm Bodies came out, another romantic zombie comedy was released called Life After Beth. This was another zombie romance between the living and the dead, but it had a very disturbing twist. This time, the zombie was still able to communicate on a level and was becoming very violent.
Aubrey Plaza stars as Beth, and she dies early in the movie after being bitten by a snake. However, when her boyfriend Zach (Dane DeHaan) finds out that she still might be alive, he goes to her home and, despite her parents sending him away, sneaks in and finds her. However, she’s dead, and she’s turning into a zombie.
This is an interesting story because, like R, Beth has her cognitive abilities, although they’re deteriorating as the movie goes on. She also doesn’t know she’s dead for much of the movie, and when she finds out, that’s when the zombie horror begins. It broke the rules by allowing the zombie to slowly learn the truth about themselves.
The Girl with All the Gifts (2016)
Sennia Nanua as Melanie in The Girl With All The Gifts.
The Girl with All the Gifts is a zombie movie based on a novel that is very similar to Warm Bodies. However, this is not a comedy. This breaks the same zombie rules as Warm Bodies, with the viewer hearing the thoughts of a zombie, who is still cognizant, and knows she’s a zombie, but the change is that she has no control over her surroundings.
This takes the idea and throws it into a more horror-centric drama, as the government has captured children born with the zombie genes and keeps them locked away in a center, testing them. Melanie is a child, and she has a strong relationship with her teacher, who wants to protect the kids, but knows the government will kill them all.
This breaks the biggest rule of all, as the zombies are not only not the villains, but they’re the victims, and the humans are the real monsters. In most zombie movies, the living survivors are the monsters, but here the zombies are the ones who need to be rescued, and that flips the entire script of the zombie genre.
Army of the Dead (2021)
Richard Cetrone as Zeus in Army of the Dead.
Army of the Dead saw Zack Snyder return to the zombie genre years after he broke out with his Dawn of the Dead remake. Once again, he makes his zombies here fast and strong, and keeps up that insistence on not catering to the rules that George A. Romero set when he created these monsters.
However, Snyder also did something else that broke all the rules and helped this new zombie movie stand out from the rest. Like Warm Bodies and The Girl with All the Gifts, there was a zombie here who could think, although the movie never revealed his thoughts and just showed that he was in control.
Army of the Dead broke the zombie rule of having the dead wandering around, looking for food. Instead, Snyder created an Alpha zombie that ruled over all the others. There was an Alpha Queen who led attacks on survivors, and when she died, Zeus, the Alpha, led his zombie horde in a concentrated attack, a change from zombie norms.
28 Years Later: The Bone Temple (2025)
Chi Lewis-Parry as Samson in 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple
28 Years Later: The Bone Temple was the sequel to 28 Years Later, which showed something similar to Army of the Dead. Just like in Army of the Dead, there was a zombie who was able to rationalize and make decisions other than just hunt and feed. That Alpha, named Samson, changed everything.
The one big question people always had in zombie movies was whether a zombie could regain their intelligence over time, something that never happened. In 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, it finally broke that rule and showed that it was possible, as Samson began to regain his humanity.
However, when a zombie movie breaks the rules, there have to be consequences, and that happened here. When Samson regained his memories and began to regain his humanity, other zombies attacked him, and he was no longer safe among his own kind. The Bone Temple broke the rules and changed everything about zombie movies.