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The way I went about compiling this list was to consider a couple of factors. First, the look of the zombie was considered. If a zombie doesn’t look cool and menacing, then she/he has no right to be on this list. Secondly, I took into account the importance the zombie has within the movie he/she is from. There have been a lot of cool looking zombies in the background of lot of movies, but in the grand scheme they weren’t important. Lastly, please remember that this is my list. I’m sure that the majority of readers will disagree with my choices or their order and that’s fine, but please don’t email me hate mail just because your favorite zombie isn’t one of my favorite zombies. 
It’s been a while since I last seen Zombie, so I don’t remember if the cover zombie is important in any way to the plot. I think he’s just a background zombie, but what makes him standout is that he is on the box. Plus he is super cool looking. How many zombies have maggots in their eye sockets instead of eye balls? Now that’s a badass zombie! As well, this zombie is the prototypical Italian zombie, so a lot of North American horror fans may not see zombies like this too often.
Zombie Ed didn’t kill anyone on screen, but he is important to the overall theme of Shaun of the Dead. Once he is a zombie, Ed represents Shaun’s old way of life and how it’s dead and a thing of the past. But Shaun can still occasionally revisit his old ways, and this is shown by Shaun playing video games with zombie Ed at the end of the movie. Regardless if you agree with this view of the movie or not, zombie Ed will always have a place in zombie history as the first video game playing zombie.
Big Daddy ends up leading a bunch of his zombie brethren to the proverbial promise land. Actually, I guess it was a literal promise land too… Big Daddy wasn’t the first smart zombie in the genre, but he was the first zombie to organize an army using only a series of grunts, moans, and crude hand gestures. And when you think about it, that’s damn impressive.
To my knowledge, this baby was the first zombie infant in the history of zombie movies. Was this zombie baby used as darkly as the zombie baby in the remake of Dawn of the Dead? No, but hilarity ensued in just about every scene of Braindead that this zombie baby was in. Add in that we got to see, to my knowledge, the first scene of two zombies mating ever, and you got yourself an important figure in the history of zombie movies.
How many headless zombies could do what Doctor Carl has done? Sure, he still controls his body, but not having his head attached to his body is still a massive handicap. Doctor Carl is so badass that he comes back in the second Re-Animator movie without any body at all. He just has some bat wings sewed to his head and away he goes. A flying zombie head… now that’s the stuff dreams are made of…
Vivian isn’t the most crucial zombie in terms of plot, but she is damn creepy. Any children zombies should be very creepy, but Vivian takes it to the next level by biting a chunk of Ana’s husband’s neck off. Add in the awesome makeup effect on her face when we get a close up, and you got yourself one heck of a memorable zombie. Keep in mind too, that Vivian was so creepy looking that she is actually on the cover (or poster, I can’t read Japanese) of the Japanese version of the movie.
As a makeup/special effect, the Tar Man is almost untouchable in terms of coolness. In terms of plot, he’s the zombie from the canister that accidentally breaks open. He partial melts when the air hits his decomposing body. For some reason he still has a perfect eyes and tongue, which I never understood, but that just adds to the awesome look of this character. Would the plot of Return of the Living Dead have been drastically different if the Tar Man had been replaced with some generic looking zombie? Probably not, but I think the movie would have been a lot less memorable without the Tar Man and his lust for brains.
Braindead has lots of zombie zaniness and action, but it is also about Lionel’s struggle to become an individual separate from his mother. She doesn’t like that and eventual becomes a super zombie, which creates an impressive visual. How many zombies were morphing into giant monsters long before the Resident Evil video games/movies? As far as I know, just Lionel’s mother, which makes her a super badass zombie.
To me, the idea behind Bub remains one the most revolutionary in zombie movies. Bub wasn’t just another smart zombie, he was domesticated. Bub showed that zombies still had parts in them of who they were pre-zombie, and that these parts could be utilized to turn zombies into “good little girls and boys,” to quote Doctor Logan. I wish Romero would have done more with this idea in Land of the Dead, but I guess Big Daddy is the next logical step after a zombie like Bub. However, to me, the idea of Bub and domesticating zombies is much more interesting than a zombie like Big Daddy organizing a zombie army.
What can I say? I have a weak spot for the classics. Cooper’s daughter viciously kills her mother with a gardening spade and then starts to eat her recently dead father. For a movie that was made in 1968 these grisly acts were much more hardcore than anything done before. Add in that she looks so incredibly creepy that she’s been featured on the cover of numerous editions of the movie, and you got yourself a true classic zombie. |
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