Best Horror Movies

In the middle of the British contemporary society Shaun (Simon Pegg) works for a small electronic company in order to make enough money for the weekend and rent. Shaun does not have any dreams or expectations on life more than walking down to the Winchester, the local pub, and gulping a pint of beer. This is something that annoys and bores his girlfriend, Liz (Kate Ashfield), as she gives Shaun one final ultimatum to change his life perspective and do something with his life. This is easier said than done as Shaun quickly realizes when Liz drops him like a bad habit.

Troubled Shaun tries to find a way to fix his relationship with Liz, but it is all in vane as she wants nothing to do with him. In the backdrop of Shaun’s love issues he misses crucial news, as he usually does, relating human attacks on other humans are taking place where they try to bite or eat each other. Instead Shaun and his best friend, the freeloader Ed (Nick Frost), who spend the days at Shaun’s place playing video games, go to the Winchester to drown their sorrows. Simultaneously as London is stricken by an outbreak of zombies, Shaun gets drunk, works on his hangover, and goes to the local convenient store for a soda.

Shaun’s first contact with the zombies is hilarious as they assume that the person is excessively drunk as the zombie is moaning and stumbling towards them. However, when the two slackers are attacked, the film turns both gory and bloody. This could affect some of the audience as it sometimes is brutal, yet amusing. For example, Shaun and Ed try to kill the zombies with vinyl records by throwing them at their heads while deciding what record to throw and what record to keep.

Shaun of the Dead is a horror film that exploits horror with a crude level of comedy as the lazy attitude of Shaun and Ed infects the audience with belly aching humor. The humor is very real as many know and recognize Shaun and Ed in people they know, or in themselves. The love story between Liz and Shaun is also an element that brings further amusement to the audience as it is something to which the audience can relate. The ingredients that surround Shaun spice up the horror with a philosophy, or maybe a lack of, to which most viewers can connect. It is this connection with the audience that enhances the cinematic experience of the film. Ultimately, the comedy and horror bring together a light cinematic event, which should be enjoyed as it offers something for everyone.

Day of the Dead (also known as George A. Romero’s Day of the Dead) is a horror film by director George A. Romero, the third of Romero’s five Living Dead movies. It is preceded by Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead, and succeeded by Land of the Dead and Diary of the Dead. Steve Miner directed a remake which was released on February 15, 2008.

Day of the Dead deals with the fictional zombie assault on a military establishment, satirizing the military mindset in the process. The survivors in the film fear that they are the last humans on the face of the Earth. Day plays on the theme that humanity is a greater danger to itself than any outside threat. The living characters in the film are made up of three distinctive sects who have their own ideas regarding their predicament: soldiers who want to destroy the zombies, scientists who want to study them and find a resolution to the epidemic, and civilians who want nothing more than to live out their last days without care.

The film was widely criticized upon release, though in recent years, it has become a cult classic and developed a reputation as one of the best films in the series. Fans of the previous films were disappointed as the plot is less sweeping in nature and the film sported a much darker tone. The characters were also portrayed as unsympathetic and unpleasant.

The film is set within an underground facility that now houses two warring factions of the living: a small group of scientists who are studying the living dead in hopes of stopping whatever is reanimating them, and a small group of soldiers who are growing increasingly despondent and volatile. The commanding officer is the dangerous Captain Rhodes (Joseph Pilato), who is verbally abusive, progressively psychopathic, mentally deranged and shows signs of being on the verge of a complete nervous breakdown. Sarah is one of the main scientists, and her lover is a soldier named Miguel Salazar.

The helicopter pilot John and his friend William McDermott live in a small trailer deeper inside the tunnel, away from the others, and remain neutral in the disagreements between the two other factions. Sarah learns that John and William have a simpler outlook on the situation, believing that the scientists are wasting their time when they should be finding a way to enjoy whatever life they have left. They would prefer to find an island some place and live as comfortably as possible.

As the arguments continue, one of the scientists, Dr. Logan, continues to attempt to control the zombies. One of his main test subjects, named “Bub”, shows much progress, evident by his ability to resist eating Dr. Logan when he is given an opportunity, and eventually learning how to use a gun. Captain Rhodes however, becomes infuriated with the Doctor and when he learns that Logan has been rewarding Bub by feeding him the remains of soldiers who have died, he shoots Logan to death. Soon, a stand-off occurs between the two factions, while Miguel, who was previously bitten and had his infected arm amputated, intentionally allows the zombies to invade the military base, sacrificing himself in the process. As the zombies come down the elevator into the bunker, Rhodes runs and takes a mini electric car in order to escape faster and get more ammunition thus leaving Steele, Rickles and Torrez to fend for themselves. First Torrez is overpowered by zombies and he is torn apart then Rickles is seen struggling to keep them off with his gun, he is eventually pinned down and he starts to laugh hysterically as he is decapitated by the zombies. Steele is seen shooting at zombies as he heads for the lab corridor and sees that Rhodes has locked the door forcing him to shoot it open allowing the zombies to flood into the lab area as well. Bub, who had escaped from captivity and had also acquired a gun, starts shooting blindly in the corridor causing Steele to enter a side room. Bub then appears outside the door and as Steele prepares to shoot Bub, zombies attack Steele from behind. When Steele realizes that he has been bit blesses himself with his gun and then shoots himself in the mouth. Meanwhile Bub follows Captain Rhodes, shooting him multiple times. In a final turn of events, Bub salutes Rhodes as he is torn apart by the attacking zombies. Then Sarah, John and William escape to a desert island with their helicopter. The final scene shows Sarah marking the 4th of November on a calendar.

Dawn of the Dead is a 2004 horror remake of George A. Romero’s 1978 film of the same name. The remake and original both depict a handful of human survivors living in a shopping mall surrounded by swarms of zombies, but the details differ significantly. Directed by Zack Snyder, the film was produced by Strike Entertainment, released by Universal Studios and stars Ving Rhames, Sarah Polley and Jake Weber with cameos from original cast members Ken Foree, Scott Reiniger and Tom Savini. It was released in the United States on March 19, 2004 and in the United Kingdom on March 26, 2004. The film was Rated R in the U.S. for “Pervasive strong horror violence and gore, language and sexuality”. In Australia it was edited for content and is rated MA15.

Ana, a nurse, finishes a long shift at her Milwaukee hospital, then returns to her peaceful suburban home and waiting husband Louis. The next morning the couple is awoken by their neighbor’s zombified daughter entering their room, who they mistake as the victim of an animal attack. The young girl kills Louis, who reanimates as a zombie. Ana flees in her car, before an attempted hijacking sends her crashing into a tree and knocks her out. Accompanying the opening credits, a bleak news-video montage depicts swarms of zombies overwhelming human civilization worldwide.

Upon awaking, Ana meets Kenneth, a police sergeant. They and three others – jack-of-all-trades Michael, petty criminal Andre and his pregnant Russian wife Luda – break into the nearby Crossroads Shopping Mall. Inside, a scuffle with a zombified mall security guard results in Luda getting a minor bite-wound.

They confront three living security guards – C.J., Bart and Terry – and give up their weapons in exchange for refuge. After the group secures the mall, they head to the roof and “meet” another survivor, Andy, who is stranded alone in his gun store, across the mall’s zombie-infested parking lot.

The next day, Terry sides with the new arrivals, C.J. and Bart are disarmed, and the inhabitants of a delivery truck are allowed into the mall, among them the driver, Norma, selfish Steve and bitten Frank and his teen daughter Nicole. The group determines that bites are how the zombies multiply; after Ana and Michael argue about what to do with the rapidly-deteriorating Frank, the man is isolated in a store with guard Kenneth. Michael and Ana achieve an awkward reconciliation, which is interrupted by Kenneth’s shotgun blast as he kills the reanimated Frank.

Though the mall provides many material distractions, and Michael and Ana edge towards a romance, the undead surround the refuge in ever-increasing numbers, eventually filling the parking lot. The mall’s power goes out and C.J., Bart, Michael and Kenneth enter the underground parking garage to turn on the emergency generator. After they meet an unaffected dog, a zombie swarm kills Bart and traps the others in the generator compartment, where they douse the zombies with gasoline and set them ablaze.

Meanwhile, Andre, faced with the fact that Luda’s bite-wound is inexorably killing her, sinks into denial and has Luda tied to a bed. Even as she gives birth, she dies and reanimates. Norma checks on the couple, discovering the zombie-Luda and the deranged Andre. Norma shoots Luda, causing Andre to snap completely; they exchange more gunfire, killing each other. Ana arrives and opens the bundle Andre was clutching to reveal a zombie baby. She pulls her revolver and a single shot rings through the mall.

The remaining survivors decide to flee the mall, fight their way to the local marina, and from there travel out on Steve’s yacht to an island in Lake Michigan. They reinforce two shuttle buses from the parking garage, while chainsaws, propane tanks and other supplies are loaded onboard. Meanwhile, Andy is starving, so the mall survivors strap a pack of food on “Chips”, the dog from the basement, and lower him into the parking lot. Chips reaches the gun-shop untouched, but a zombie gets in as well and badly injures Andy. Nicole, distraught over Chips, takes the delivery truck and barges into the gun store, where she is trapped by a now-zombified Andy.

A team led by Ken head into the sewers. They reach the gun store, kill the zombified Andy, find Nicole and Chips, and stock up on weapons and ammunition. They escape back to the sewers, but the zombies pursue them, and thanks to assigned guard Steve’s negligence, break into the mall, forcing an immediate evacuation. The survivors pile into the buses and smash out into the parking lot, where a propane bomb is used to clear a path through the waiting horde. A horrible accident with a chainsaw splatters blood across the windshield of one bus, causing driver Kenneth to crash. Steve flees the toppled bus and is attacked by a hitchhiking zombie.

The others scramble for the second bus, meeting zombie-Steve on the way. Ana kills him, then lingers to get the boat keys off his corpse, allowing more zombies to catch up with them. Ana flees to the bus, and Michael helps her in. After a struggle, they pull away and speed to the marina, where they crash the bus and dash for the boat. C.J., cornered in the bus, detonates a final propane tank, blowing up the vehicle, more zombies, and himself. The remainder of the group gets on the boat, except for Michael, who was bitten while helping Ana. Ana watches as Michael draws his pistol, places it under his chin, and pulls the trigger. As the closing credits roll, interspersed with short clips from a camcorder found on the boat. They show the boat reaches an island after a grim journey across the lake, only to be met by a new swarm of zombies. The group attempts to flee back to the boat but the film ends with their ultimate fate unknown.

Braindead (New Zealand 1992), released as Dead Alive in North America, is a zombie comedy splatstick horror film directed by Peter Jackson. The film is widely regarded as the goriest movie ever made; and it currently holds the world-record for the most fake blood used in a single movie.

Braindead is in the same vein as Jackson’s earlier works Bad Taste and Meet the Feebles but Braindead is rather more polished, with a budget of around $3 million. Although it starts with the capture of a zombie-creating creature on the eerie Skull Island, the movie is relatively low-key in its opening half. Only in the second part does it spiral out of control into a blood-filled zombie film.

Jackson reused the song played on the organ as the mourners wait to enter the church prior to the embalming scene. It is Sodomy from Peter Jackson’s previous film Meet the Feebles (1989).

The first scene of the movie sets up the danger of the Sumatran Rat-Monkey, a hybrid that (according to legend) resulted from the rape of tree monkeys by plague rats: Stewart (Bill Ralston), an explorer returning from the depths of the island with a rat-monkey in a cage, is stopped by his native guides. Seeing the mark of the monkey’s bite on his right hand, they immediately hold down the infected explorer and amputate the appendage. A bite mark is then seen on his left arm, which swiftly results in the removal of that limb. Finally, they see a set of bloody scratches on the Stewart’s forehead and kill him. The title screen follows the man’s dying scream, and as the opening credits roll the captured rat-monkey is shipped to Wellington Zoo in New Zealand.

Wellington, 1957, Lionel Cosgrove (Timothy Balme) lives with his domineering mother (Elizabeth Moody) and is at her beck and call. To his mother’s dismay, Lionel falls for a local shopkeeper, Paquita (Diana Peñalver), and while snooping the two on a visit to the zoo, Lionel’s mother is bitten by the Sumatran Rat-Monkey. The animal’s bite slowly turns her into a ravenous zombie. Lionel is horrified, but, ever the dedicated son, is determined to care for her.

Despite his efforts to keep her placated with periodic doses of veterinary anaesthetic, his mother starts murdering other townspeople, turning them into zombies. He tries to keep them locked away in the basement, while simultaneously trying to maintain his relationship with the completely oblivious Paquita. His mother escapes, however, and is run over by a tram.

As the townspeople assume she is dead, Lionel tranquilizes the still-kicking zombie for her funeral. After she is buried, he returns to the graveyard to administer more anaesthetic, but is accosted by a gang of hoodlums. His mother bursts from her grave, resulting in more deaths, and zombies.

As their numbers grow, Lionel manages to keep the zombies under relative control with repeated injections, and tries to keep them concealed in his home. However, Lionel’s uncle Les (Ian Watkin), arrives to try and wrangle with Lionel over his mother’s estate. Uncle Les discovers the “corpses” and blackmails his nephew into giving up his inheritance in return for his silence.

Lionel reluctantly administers poison to the zombies (“killing” them) and buries them, just as Uncle Les and a crowd of his friends arrive for a housewarming party. However, the “poison” turns out to be an animal stimulant, and the zombies burst from the ground to attack and infect the party guests in a gory finale.

Lionel, Paquita, Rita and Les are now fighting hundreds of zombies, animated intestines, severed heads, and disembodied legs, until Lionel’s mother, who has become a gargantuan monster, pursues Lionel and Paquita to the rooftop, where Lionel finally confronts his mother about the truth regarding his father’s demise. She picks him up and stuffs him back into her abdomen, and in an over-the-top Freudian “rebirth”, he cuts his way out of her grotesquely changed body and she falls into the fiery house below. Lionel and Paquita escape the burning building, and walk away arm-in-arm, covered in gore.

Army of Darkness (also known as Evil Dead III: Army of Darkness) is an American horror-comedy / adventure film, released in 1993. This movie is rated R and is a sequel to The Evil Dead and Evil Dead II. Army of Darkness was directed by Sam Raimi, written by Raimi and his brother Ivan, produced by Rob Tapert, and starring Bruce Campbell once again as protagonist Ash Williams. Despite being a sequel to the two Evil Dead films, it is not as violent or gory, relying more on slapstick.

The movie had a considerably higher budget than the prior two Evil Dead films. The budget was estimated to be around $11 million; Evil Dead II had a budget of $3.5 million and The Evil Dead a budget of $350,000. At the box office, Army of Darkness was not a big success, barely making back its budget with a gross of $11.5 million domestically. After its video release, however, it has obtained an ever-growing cult following, along with the other two films in the trilogy. Army of Darkness was more well known than The Evil Dead and its sequel.

After a brief flashback to Evil Dead II, which explains the Necronomicon and how Ash got to where he is, Ash is at first suspected of being one of Duke Henry’s men at war with the English knights who found Ash. He is enslaved, his gun and chainsaw confiscated, and is taken to a castle. Ash is thrown in a pit where he fights off a Deadite and regains his weapons from the priest.

The only way to return to his time, according to the priest who gave Ash back his weapons, is to retrieve the Necronomicon. Ash then journeys for the Necronomicon, along the way passing into a haunted forest. An unseen force (the camera presenting its point of view) pursues Ash through the woods. Fleeing, Ash ducks into a windmill where he crashes into a mirror. The small reflections of Ash climb out from the shattered mirror and torture him. One of the reflections climbs down Ash’s throat and becomes a lifesized copy of Ash. Ash kills him and buries him.

When he arrives at the book’s location, he sees three books instead of one. Ash eventually finds the real one and attempts to say the magic phrase, and tries to trick the book by mumbling the missing word, but that re-releases the Evil Dead. He simply grabs the book and rushes back to the castle, while the dead rise from graves all around. During Ash’s panicked ride back, Ash’s copy rises from his grave and unites the Deadites into the Army of Darkness.

Despite causing the predicament faced by the Medieval humans, Ash initially demands to be returned to his own time. Sheila is captured by a flying Deadite, and then raped by Ash’s copy, making her a force for the deadites.

Ash becomes determined to lead the humans against the skeletal Deadite army. Reluctantly, the people agree to join Ash. Using scientific knowledge from textbooks in the trunk of his Oldsmobile, plus enlisting the help of Duke Henry (whom Ash saved after his conflict in the pit), Ash successfully leads the humans to defeat the Deadites and save Sheila. After this, he is brought back to his own time using a potion made from the book.

The final scene begins with Ash back at the S-Mart store, telling a co-worker all about his adventure back in time, and how he could have been king. After this, a deadite starts wreaking havoc on the store (it is implied that he again raised the dead by saying the wrong words needed to travel through time), and Ash defeats it. The film ends with Ash in voice over saying, “Sure I could have been King, but in my own way, I am a king. He then says out loud, “Hail to the king, baby”, while kissing a female employee.

28 Weeks Later is a 2007 British post-apocalyptic action horror film, and sequel to the 2002 film 28 Days Later. The film was directed by Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, and was released in the United Kingdom and in the United States on May 11, 2007. It was mostly filmed in London, England with some scenes also being filmed in the Millenium Stadium in Cardiff, Wales

Don (Robert Carlyle) and his wife Alice (Catherine McCormack) prepare dinner for their family that are the only survivors in a heavily reinforced cottage somewhere in rural, Rage virus-infected Britain. As they eat their meal, they suddenly hear a young boy banging on the door begging to be let in. At first they argue not to open it due to the rage virus’ outbreak. Don opens the door to let the child inside, who says he is from Sandford and has been fleeing his parents who are now “infected”. Moments later, a pack of the Infected discover the hideout and break in, quickly overwhelming the group. Alice refuses to leave without the boy; Don abandons Alice and escapes in a boat, emerging as the sole survivor.

Britain is quarantined.

Over the course of 28 weeks, the Infected have all died of starvation and Britain is declared relatively safe again, allowing for re-population. The process proceeds throughout the weeks.

An American-led NATO force begins repopulating the country with both old and new residents. The chief medical officer of District 1, Major Scarlet Ross (Rose Byrne), is startled by the sudden arrival of children. Among the children are Tammy (Imogen Poots) and Andy (Mackintosh Muggleton), Don and Alice’s children who were in Spain during the initial outbreak. At 12 years old, Andy is the youngest person in Britain, and during their subsequent medical inspection, Ross notes Andy’s heterochromia, a trait he inherited from his mother. Andy and Tammy are subsequently admitted to District 1, a heavily-reinforced, fully functional section of London on the Isle of Dogs guarded by the United States Army, including a detachment from Delta acting as a rooftop unit observation team. With them are a sergeant, Doyle (Jeremy Renner), and an observation helicopter pilot Flynn (Harold Perrineau). The children are reunited with their father Don, who is now head caretaker of the district. Inside their new penthouse, Don tearfully recounts his escape, saying that Alice was killed by the Infected, but misrepresents the truth, saying that he witnessed Alice’s death, to hide the fact that he fled and abandoned her to her fate.

The next day, the two children slip out of the safe zone to return to their old home, where Andy discovers Alice, disheveled but alive. Andy and Tammy are recaptured by the US Army while Alice is decontaminated. A blood test reveals that she is infected with the Rage virus, but not displaying any symptoms, labeling her an asymptomatic carrier, as evidenced by her eye. Though Ross wants to keep Alice alive to seek a possible vaccine or cure, she is overruled by her superior, who wants Alice killed to prevent a further outbreak of Rage.

Don visits his children in a holding room, where they confront him about his version of Alice’s death. He then visits Alice in her isolation cell, and asks for forgiveness, which she seemingly does, but then they kiss; the Rage virus in her saliva immediately infects Don, much to Alice’s horror. Now an Infected, he brutally kills her and goes on the prowl in District 1, attacking and infecting soldiers.

The outbreak forces the area into lockdown. All the civilians are quarantined into a safe room, which Don forces his way into, and begins to infect the confined civilians. Ross manages to rescue Tammy and Andy from containment, and they flee together as chaos spreads to the streets. Doyle and the soldiers are ordered to shoot the Infected, but the chaos escalates into “Code Red”: a general extermination of the populace. The soldiers began shooting everyone due to the execution of code red. Doyle, unable to bring himself to comply with the order, abandons his post and escapes with Ross and the children in the underground tunnel. District 1 is then fire-bombed, killing most of the populace and an amount of the infected and destroying almost every area of District 1. The napalming of District 1 incinerates Alice’s body. Meanwhile, large numbers of the Infected, including Don, escape the initialized bombardment, occupying the city.

Stopping to rendezvous with Flynn’s helicopter at the derelict remains of Regent’s Park, Ross informs Doyle that the key to curing infection is in the children, who may have the same immunity as their mother. Flynn arrives by helicopter to pick up Doyle, but refuses to take anyone else, citing that they would be blown out of the air if he attempts to break the Code Red protocol. Suddenly, one member of the group grabs on to the helicopter skids, screaming at Flynn to take him with him. Flynn attempts to shake him off the helicopter, Flynn then sweeps over approaching Infected, killing them with the rotor blades, and dislodging the man. He then tells Doyle to head to Wembley Stadium, and Doyle heads off with his group of civilians. The group breaks into an abandoned car to escape the Infected and the clouds of chemical gas being vented into the city by the military. In the process of starting the car by pushing it, Doyle is killed by soldiers with NBC suits and flamethrowers. Ross drives into the London Underground to evade a pursuing Apache helicopter, where she, armed with one of Doyle’s rifles, and the children continue on foot. She tries to guide their way with the night vision mode on the rifle’s optic. When they are separated, Ross is ambushed and killed by Don, who has followed them. Don attacks Andy and bites him. Tammy shoots Don and saves Andy from death, though he is infected with the Rage virus. Andy remains symptom-free like his mother, though his eye turns the same as his mother’s was after infection. The children continue to Wembley Stadium and are picked up by a reluctant Flynn, who flies them across the English Channel to France. While flying, they see the incinerated District 1 and the remains of London.

Another 28 days later, someone calls for help over the radio of Flynn’s helicopter, which turns out to be abandoned in a field. A group of Infected are shown running through a subway exit, the Palais de Chaillot toward the Eiffel Tower, revealing that the Rage virus has spread to mainland Europe.

28 Days Later is a 2002 British post-apocalyptic science fiction film directed by Danny Boyle. With a screenplay written by Alex Garland, the film stars Cillian Murphy, Naomie Harris, Noah Huntley, Brendan Gleeson and Christopher Eccleston. Set in Great Britain, just after the turn of the 21st century, the story depicts the breakdown of society following the accidental release of a highly contagious virus and focuses upon the struggle of four survivors to cope with the ruination of the life they once knew.

A critical and commercial success, the film is widely recognised for images of a deserted London, and was shot almost entirely on digital video. The film spawned the 2007 sequel, 28 Weeks Later, as well as the graphic novel 28 Days Later: The Aftermath.

Late one night, British animal rights activists break into the Cambridge Primate Research Facility to free chimpanzees being used for medical research. The local scientist warns the activists that the chimps are infected with what he calls a “rage virus,” but the activists disregard him and set one chimp free. It immediately attacks and infects the activists and scientist.

28 days later, a bicycle courier named Jim (Cillian Murphy) awakens from a coma naked in a deserted hospital. As he leaves the hospital, he discovers London is completely deserted and rife with signs of catastrophe. Jim is soon discovered and chased through the streets by infected people before being rescued by two survivors, Selena (Naomie Harris) and Mark (Noah Huntley), who rush him to their hideout in the London Underground. They reveal that during Jim’s coma the country began to experience mass rioting, mainly in small villages and market towns, which then began to occur in larger towns and eventually the cities. They also reveal the rioting was caused by an infection, which causes a person to become mindless and kill and maim every living thing around them. The government reacted too late to evacuate the cities and by that point it was a matter of just fighting for survival. They tell Jim he’s the first person they have seen without infection for 6 days, meaning the infection spread extremely quickly during that 28 days.

Selena and Mark accompany Jim to his parents’ house, where he discovers that they committed suicide by means of a drug overdose. That night, two of the Infected attack the survivors, and when the fight ends they discover that Mark is injured and is likely infected. Selena immediately kills him with her machete, explaining to Jim that infection is spread through the blood and overwhelms its victims in seconds, rendering them deadly to others. She warns that should he become infected, she will kill him “in a heartbeat.” As the two journey through the derelict city the next day, Selena rules out intimacy between her and Jim, declaring that only the fight for survival remains. They discover two more survivors, Frank (Brendan Gleeson) and his teenage daughter Hannah (Megan Burns), holed up in an abandoned block of flats. Invited to spend the night, Selena and Jim privately debate whether they should remain with Frank and Hannah. Jim says they seem like good people, while Selena fears they will slow her down, warning Jim that putting others ahead of one’s own personal survival is a sure way to get killed.

The next morning, Frank informs Jim and Selena that supplies, particularly water, are dwindling and shows them a recorded radio broadcast loop transmitted by soldiers near Manchester who claim to have “the answer to infection.” The survivors board Frank’s cab in search of the blockade and during the trip bond with one another. Selena’s steely resolve begins to soften, while Jim’s experiences on the trip begin to toughen him up. When the four reach the deserted blockade, Frank is infected by blood from a dripping corpse and is immediately shot by hidden soldiers, who then commandeer the cab and take Selena, Jim and Hannah to a fortified mansion under the command of Major Henry West (Christopher Eccleston). As Hannah grieves, Selena and Jim reach out to each other romantically. Jim discovers that West’s “answer to infection” involves waiting for the Infected to starve to death, while giving hope for community survival by forcing sexual servitude on the female survivors. Shocked, Jim attempts to escape with Selena and Hannah, but is caught by the soldiers, along with Sergeant Farrell (Stuart McQuarrie), who disagrees with the Major’s plan. While Jim and Farrell are imprisoned for the night, Farrell theorises that there is no worldwide epidemic, but rather that the island of Great Britain has been quarantined.

The next day, as two soldiers lead the prisoners into the woods to be executed, Selena and Hannah are trapped by the soldiers. While the two executioners fight about how to kill Farrell, Jim escapes over a wall. He observes the contrails of a jet aircraft flying high overhead and realizes that someone in the outside world is still functioning. After luring West and one of his men to the blockade, Jim runs back to the soldiers’ headquarters where he unleashes Mailer, an infected soldier that West kept chained outside for observation. Mailer attacks the soldiers in the mansion, while Jim stealthily skulks around, killing a soldier and manoeuvring around the growing number of Infected. Selena, held hostage by the last uninfected soldier, fears that Jim may have been infected, watches him savagely beat the soldier to death and hesitantly prepares to attack him; Jim quips, “That was longer than a heartbeat,” and the two kiss passionately. Hannah finds them and the trio run to Frank’s cab, only to encounter West, who shoots Jim. Hannah commandeers the cab and backs it up to the front door, where the infected Mailer pulls West though the rear window and drags him screaming into the house. The three then escape as Mailer shrieks into the night.

Selena and Hannah rush Jim into a deserted hospital, where Selena performs life-saving emergency procedures. Twenty-eight days later, a bandaged Jim is shown waking up in recovery again, this time on one side of a double bed in a remote cottage. Downstairs, he finds Selena sewing large swaths of fabric when Hannah appears. The three rush outside and unfurl a huge cloth banner, adding the final letter to the word “HELLO” laid out on the meadow. As an approaching military jet flies over the landscape, a pair of the infected are shown lying helplessly by the road, dying of starvation. After the jet zooms past the three waving survivors and their distress sign, Selena wonders aloud, “Do you think he saw us this time?”

The recently dead inexplicably began returning to life and destroying civilization. These “stenches” as they are called in the movie multiplied rapidly by adding to their ranks with every new victim. Many years later, the still-living in the vicinity have fled to the city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where a feudal-like government has taken over. Bordered on two sides by rivers and on the other by an electric barricade, the city has become a sanctuary against the undead threat. Fiddler’s Green, the center of this fortress city, is where the rich and powerful live in luxury while the rest of the local survivors live in poverty around them. Paul Kaufman (Dennis Hopper), a tyrannical businessman, rules with an iron fist and overwhelming firepower.

In order to ensure his dominance and upscale lifestyle, Kaufman financed the construction of Dead Reckoning, a heavily armored vehicle that can venture out of the safe zone with relative ease. The vehicle is armed with heavy remote-controlled external machine guns, missile launchers, video cameras, and a fireworks launcher to distract the zombies, which are hypnotized by fireworks and will ignore all else to watch them. Riley Denbo (Simon Baker), the designer of Dead Reckoning and leader of the expeditions to retrieve salvageable goods, has decided to retire and leave the safety of the city. Unlike Kaufman, Riley is respected by the citizens of the fortress city for his work to protect them from a dangerous world. Eventually, Riley winds up in jail with his best friend Charlie Houk (Robert Joy), a slow-witted member of the Dead Reckoning team who happens to be a crack shot with his old M1 Carbine, and Slack (Asia Argento), a female soldier who has been pressed into prostitution and who was almost killed in a recent cage match with a pair of zombies. It was freeing Slack from the cage that led to Riley’s incarceration.

Meanwhile, Cholo DeMora (John Leguizamo), the cocky second in command of the Dead Reckoning team, has become a renegade after being denied the opportunity to buy an apartment in Fiddler’s Green by Kaufman, looking to even the score. DeMora hijacks Dead Reckoning and threatens to destroy Fiddler’s Green unless his demands are met. Kaufman turns to Riley to stop Cholo, resulting in Riley, Slack, and Charlie’s release from prison. A trio of soldiers, Pilsbury, Motown, and Manolete, are assigned to assist them, but their mission is to recapture Dead Reckoning, whether Riley and his allies want them to or not. Manolete is soon bitten, and Motown later tries to kill Cholo only to be killed herself by a bullet from Slack, after being assaulted by a zombie, while Pilsbury changes sides and starts helping Charlie and Slack. As Riley finally catches Cholo, he convinces him to allow him to take Dead Reckoning and leave the city to head north, leaving Cholo and his “partner in crime,” Foxy, with a truck to go west. Shortly after this Cholo is bitten by a zombie. Cholo chooses to become a zombie rather than be shot immediately and wishes Foxy luck, letting him drive off.

The zombies are beginning to regain vestigial memories of their former lives: a brass band blows ineffectively on their aging horns, a gardener pushes his rusty lawn mower, a dead couple walk hand-in-hand, and a gas station attendant with the name tag “Big Daddy” lumbers out every time someone trips the pump bell. Big Daddy is particularly intelligent for a zombie (in a continuance of the “Bub” plot-line from Day of the Dead), quickly learning to operate a stolen firearm and becoming the undead protagonist amongst his fellow zombies. He also overcomes the effect of the fireworks, which the other zombies also do after being exposed again. Directing his fellow zombies, Big Daddy leads an attack on the human city in retaliation for the constant raids carried out by Dead Reckoning. With the electric fences proving impregnable to the zombies, Big Daddy realizes that they can simply walk across the riverbed without drowning.

The zombies converge on Fiddler’s Green. Kaufman witnesses his kingdom disintegrating as the zombies overcome the humans in a bloody massacre. As the zombies overtake the city, the humans discover the electric fence that previously kept the zombies out have become walls preventing their escape. When the crew uses fireworks to buy the people time to destroy the electric fences, it works only for a few moments. The zombies are now able to over come the effects of the fireworks.

As retribution after being shot by Kaufman, Big Daddy trails the fleeing despot to an underground garage where Kaufman plans to escape. Big Daddy finds Kaufman locked in his car next to a gas pump and, in a moment of undead “revelation,” begins pumping gas into the cab through a hole in the windshield. Apparently satisfied, he lumbers out of the garage.

Now a member of the undead, Cholo has located Kaufman, shooting at him before grappling with him. However, Big Daddy returns and once again displays his intelligence by rolling a burning road flare toward Kaufman’s gasoline-soaked vehicle. It explodes, hurling Kaufman and the undead Cholo away.

Meanwhile, Denbo and Dead Reckoning have fought to free the inhabitants of the now-overrun city. At the electric fence, the crew discovers a massacre; with nowhere to run, the citizens were killed by the zombies. After destroying the fence and relieving the victims from their final agony, the crew is now despondent, since it appears as if the city has been wiped out. However, most of the city’s lower-class inhabitants emerge from the carnage. While many had simply run and died, these others hid, and emerged unscathed. With the destruction caused by the zombies, the class system no longer exists, leveling the playing field for the lower-class. The zombies withdraw instead of attacking them.

Riley orders Pretty Boy (Joanne Boland), the navigator of Dead Reckoning to refrain from shooting Big Daddy with the vehicle’s weaponry as the zombies leave, because he realizes that, like them, he’s “just looking for a place to go.” Riley and his friends leave the city in Dead Reckoning, striking out for Canada. As they leave, they fire all of Dead Reckoning’s fireworks in a display of celebration.

Dawn of the Dead (also known as George A. Romero’s Dawn of the Dead, Zombie internationally, and alternately called Zombie: Dawn of the Dead) is a 1978 American / Italian horror film, written and directed by George A. Romero. The film stars David Emge, Ken Foree, Scott H. Reiniger and Gaylen Ross. It was the second film made in Romero’s Living Dead series, preceded by 1968′s Night of the Living Dead, and followed by Day of the Dead in 1985. Dawn of the Dead contains no characters or settings from its predecessor, and shows in larger scale the apocalyptic effects a zombie epidemic would have on society. In the film, a plague of unknown origin has caused the reanimation of the dead, who prey on human flesh, which subsequently causes mass hysteria. Several survivors of the outbreak barricade themselves inside a suburban shopping mall.

Dawn of the Dead was shot over approximately four months, from late 1977 to early 1978, in the Pennsylvania cities of Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and Monroeville.^[2] Its primary location is set in the Monroeville Mall. The film was made on a relatively modest budget estimated at US$650,000, and was a significant box office success for its time, grossing an estimated $55 million worldwide.^[1] Since opening in theaters in 1978, reviews for the film have been nearly unanimously positive.

In addition to three official sequels, the film has spawned numerous parodies and pop culture references. A remake of the movie premiered in the United States on March 19, 2004. Labeled a “re-imagining” of the original film’s concept,^[4] several major themes, including the primary setting in a shopping mall, remain essentially the same. Cultural and film historians read significance into the film’s plot, linking it to critiques of large corporations and American consumerism and of the social decadence and excess going on in America during the late 1970s.

Following the scenario set up in the previous movie, the film depicts the United States of America struck by a pandemic of reanimated human beings, who now have no other desire than to feast on the flesh of the living. As in the previous film, the cause of the plague is not fully understood by the scientific community. Despite desperate efforts by the U.S. Government and local civil authorities to control the situation, society has effectively collapsed and the remaining survivors seek refuge. Although several scenes show rural citizens and military fighting the zombies effectively, cities, with their high populations and close quarters, are essentially deathtraps. Increasingly infrequent television and radio broadcasts imply that chaos is spreading throughout the country.

The film opens in the television studio of the fictional station, WGON in Philadelphia, where confusion reigns. Following some exposition— in which Stephen (David Emge), the station’s traffic helicopter pilot, and his girlfriend Francine (Gaylen Ross) plan to steal the helicopter in order to escape the zombie threat — the plot turns to another of the film’s protagonists, Roger (Scott H. Reiniger), as he and the rest of his SWAT team raid a tenement building because the largely Puerto Rican and black Caribbean residents are ignoring the martial law imposition of delivering the dead over to National Guardsmen and evacuating private dwellings.

The immigrants are slaughtered by the SWAT operatives and their own dead relatives, who emerge from their rooms after being reanimated by the zombie infection. During the raid, Roger meets Peter (Ken Foree), part of another SWAT team, and the two go down to the apartment building’s basement, where they meet a one legged priest who has just given the undead their last rites. They soon find the basement packed full of undead that the living residents had kept from being seized by the National Guard. After the two kill the zombies with shots to the head, Peter suggests they desert their SWAT team and flee the nightmarish city. Late that night, along with Francine and Stephen, they escape Philadelphia in the TV station’s helicopter, with the intention of reaching the safety of the Canadian wilderness. During their long flight north they pass over National Guard troops and redneck vigillantes who are combating zombies out in the countryside. It is shown that while the fighting in the countryside is being won against the zombies, cities have become deathtraps due to their tight quarters. The group stops for fuel where Stephen and Peter are both almost bit on separate occasions. Stephen tries to save Peter but due to his poor marksmanship, he almost kills Peter instead. Roger steps in and saves Peter with his M-16. Peter reprimands Stephen for almost killing him, but he relents and the group takes off.

They eventually arrive at a mall where they decide to stop and look for fuel and supplies. They climb down through the skylights on the roof into a hidden storage room filled with food. They decide to have a look around and see what else is in the mall. They kill a few maintenence personel and clear out the storage area. Stephen finds blueprints and the building’s keys, allowing them access to all of the stores. Due to the fact that zombies can’t run, they simply dash past them and into various stores to equip themselves with tools.

Stephen takes their last weapon and joins them. After Stephen narrowly escapes a small group of the undead, one of the undead moves up the stairs where Francine remains, making his way toward the weaponless Francine. The men in the group trick the undead toward a department store, then escape through an elevator air shaft. They make it back to the hideout in time to save Francine, but in her shock she is immediately skeptical of their new idea to make the mall their own private sanctuary. Despite her objections, they press on. Their plan to make the mall safe for habitation is to block the large acrylic glass entrance doors with semi trucks to keep the undead gathered outside the mall from entering, then destroying the remaining undead inside with ammunition they acquire from the mall’s gun shop. During the blocking of the mall entrances, the impulsive Roger acts recklessly, leading to him being bitten by one of the undead and dooming him — by the rules set in the previous movie — to a slow death and eventual reanimation.

After clearing the mall of its zombie inhabitants, the four settle in. The group indulges their every material desire as the undead paw at the mall entrances. As depicted on infrequent television broadcasts, society beyond those doors continues to collapse. Roger slowly succumbs to the infection, but asks Peter to wait to kill him as he wants to try “not to come back.” He does reanimate, however, and Peter finishes his friend.

As in other zombie films directed by George Romero, the scourge of living death is not simply spread by bites. In Romero’s films, anybody who dies for any reason – heart attack, cancer, gunshots, etc. – will rise as a zombie, unless their brain has been sufficiently destroyed.

The film skips ahead several months. Stephen has taught Francine how to fly the helicopter. Francine was earlier revealed to be pregnant, and her appearance provides a rough estimate of the time that has passed, as she appears to be near the end of the second trimester. By this time, all emergency broadcast transmissions from the outside world have ceased entirely, though Stephen clings to the faint hope of another broadcast. Stricken with boredom, the novelty of their materialistic utopia wears thin.

One night, however, the three survivors refuse to answer a short wave radio call from a malevolent biker gang who know of their presence and are intent on looting. The bikers break into the mall, in the process letting in hundreds of the undead. Angered, Stephen interrupts their plunder and initiates a battle with the bikers. In the end, several bikers and Stephen are bitten by zombies. Peter escapes unscathed. While Francine wants to flee immediately, Peter decides to wait to see if Stephen will return. Stephen quickly bleeds to death from a combination of gunshot wounds and zombie bites. Upon his reanimation, Stephen leads a large group of the undead toward Francine and Peter’s hideout. After killing Stephen, Peter helps Francine escape to the roof but says he does not want to flee. At the last second, Peter decides against suicide and fights off the undead approaching him. He reaches the helicopter as Fran pulls away from the landing pad. The movie ends with the duo facing an uncertain future as they fly away from the mall at dawn in the low-fueled helicopter. As the credits roll, there are multiple shots of the once again zombie-infested mall.

[edit] Alternate ending

The vaguely uplifting finale in the final cut of the film was not what Romero had originally planned. According to the original screenplay, Peter was to shoot himself in the head instead of making a heroic escape. Fran would commit suicide by thrusting her head into the helicopter’s propeller blades. The end credits would run over a shot of the helicopter’s blades turning until the engine winds down, implying that Fran and Peter would not have had enough fuel to escape.^[5] During production it was decided, however, to end the movie on a more hopeful, upbeat note.

Much of the lead-up to the two suicides was left in the film, as Fran stands on the roof doing nothing as zombies approach, and Peter puts a gun to his head, ready to shoot himself with a Derringer before suddenly deciding to live and escape with Fran. While Romero has said the original ending was scrapped before being shot, behind the scenes photos show the original version was at least tested.

Bickering siblings Johnny (Russell Streiner) and Barbra (Judith O’Dea) drive to a rural Pennsylvania cemetery to place a cross with flowers on their father’s grave. Johnny teases his sister, who is afraid of cemeteries, taunting, “They’re coming to get you, Barbra!” A pale-faced man (S. William Hinzman) lumbers toward the pair. The man suddenly grabs Barbra as Johnny rushes to save her. While fighting the man, Johnny falls and hits his head on a gravestone, knocking him unconscious. Barbra flees in Johnny’s car, driving it into a tree. She abandons the car and runs into a nearby farmhouse to hide. She finds a knife and uses it for self-defense and soon discovers that others like the man are outside. While exploring the empty house, she discovers a hideously mutilated corpse at the top of the stairs.

In a panic and attempting to flee the house, Barbra is intercepted by Ben (Duane Jones), who arrives in a pickup truck and attacks the mysterious figures with a tire iron. After subduing one of them, Ben sets the body on fire, scaring off the others. Ben boards up the doors and windows from the inside with dismantled furniture and scraps of wood as Barbra becomes hysterical. He then takes out a couch and sets it on fire, again to scare off the attackers. Ben finds a rifle and a radio as Barbra lies catatonic, incapacitated on a couch in the living room. The two are unaware that Harry and Helen Cooper (Karl Hardman and Marilyn Eastman), their daughter Karen (Kyra Schon), and teenage couple Tom (Keith Wayne) and Judy (Judith Ridley) have been hiding in the cellar. One of the attackers bit Karen earlier and she has fallen ill. Harry wants the group to barricade themselves in the cellar, but Ben argues that they would, effectively, be trapping themselves down there. Ben carries the argument, and the group cooperates (begrudgingly, in Harry’s case) to reinforce the main part of the house.

Radio reports explain that an epidemic of mass murder is sweeping across the eastern seaboard of the United States. Later, Ben discovers a television upstairs and the emergency broadcaster reveals that the murderers are consuming their victims’ flesh. A subsequent broadcast reports that the murders are being perpetrated by the recently deceased who have returned to life. Experts, scientists and military are not sure of the cause of the reanimation, but one scientist is certain that it is the result of radiation emanating from a Venus space probe that exploded in the Earth’s atmosphere. A final report instructs that a gunshot or heavy blow to the head will stop the “ghouls” and that posses of armed men are patrolling the countryside to restore order.

Ben devises a plan to escape using his truck involving all of the men in the house. The truck is in need of fuel, so Ben and Tom leave the house to obtain fuel, while Harry hurls Molotov cocktails from an upper window. Ben is armed with a rifle and torch, while Tom is to drive the truck and man the gas pump. On the way out the door, Judy fears for her boyfriend’s safety and chases after Tom. Upon arriving at the pump, Ben places the torch on the ground next to the truck, and Tom then carelessly splashes gasoline onto the torch, starting a fire that quickly engulfs the truck. Tom tries to drive the truck away from the gas pumps to avoid further damage, but when he goes to exit the truck, Judy gets stuck. Tom goes back into the truck to try and free her, but the truck explodes, killing them both. Ben runs back to the house to find that Harry has locked him out. He kicks the door open and gets revenge by punching Harry repeatedly.

Some of the living dead converge upon the truck and, in a notoriously gruesome scene, begin eating Tom and Judy’s charred remains. Meanwhile, others try to break through the doors and windows of the house, some pounding with their fists while others use bricks and boards. Ben manages to hold them back, but drops his rifle. Harry seizes the fallen rifle and turns it on Ben, who wrests it away from Harry and then shoots him. Harry stumbles into the cellar and dies.

Shortly after, Helen discovers that her daughter Karen has been transformed into one of the living dead and is consuming her father’s corpse. Karen stabs her mother with a cement trowel, killing her, before going upstairs. Meanwhile, the undead finally break into the house and Barbra sees her brother Johnny among them. The resultant shock causes her to lower her defenses and she is carried away into the zombie horde. Ben retreats into the cellar, locking the door behind him (which, ironically, was Harry’s plan all along). He shoots the reanimated Harry and Helen Cooper.

In the morning, a posse approaches the house and proceeds to kill the remaining zombies. Hearing the commotion, Ben ambles up the cellar stairs into the living room and is shot in the head by a posse member. His body is carried from the house and burned with the other zombie corpses.