5 Essential Zombie Movies Every Horror Fan Has To Watch At Least Once

Bar the windows. Lock the doors and check anyone you're with for questionable flesh wounds. Those are the first steps any savvy soul who has braved a zombie outbreak will consider before aiming for heads that are profusely moaning and groaning. Then again, if you're not well-versed in avoiding the undead, don't panic. We've found five spectacular films from the genre that offer essential tips for just such an invasion.

From bite-riddled groundbreakers to terrors that took the well-worn zombie formula and gave it a little more kick, these five zombie films need to be checked off the list by even the most casual horror fans. Sure, everyone loves the occasional slasher or a possession movie with some head-spinning scares, but there's something about an unstoppable army of the dead that always hits the spot. Often bringing chaos and carnage, they prove that the most monstrous villains in the story are the ones who are still alive. Zombie films might seem brain-dead, but they always have something more to say.

But therein lie some of the key ingredients that make these movies consistently enjoyable watches over time. To begin our carefully collected compendium, we've gone back to what many consider the zombie movie that mapped out the rotten rulebook by which all those that followed look to. 

If we're going to compile a list of essential zombie movies, you have to include George A. Romero's original outing with the undead from 1968. Shot on a shoestring budget and unknowingly laying a path for future generations, "Night of the Living Dead" sees a trip to the cemetery turn deadly as its most recent occupants, and anyone else without a pulse start, go on the march after human flesh.

An indie film that established a new identity for sub-genre horror movies, "Night of the Living Dead" still carries a shuffling edge that would be replicated in other meat-munching monsters of its ilk for years to come. There's a lot more to it than that, though. For one, it's among the first films to cast a person of color — Duane Jones — as the lead hero, who keeps his cool as danger ambles up the hill toward the abandoned farmhouse, while more horror brews in the basement.

It's this casting choice that echoed through the ages, turning this battle with the brain-hungry monsters into something more significant. It transformed "Night of the Living Dead" into a reflection of the civil rights movement at the time, even though its director assured this was never the intention. Romero told Sight and Sound in 2017 that "A lot of that was by accident." Even if it was, the casting and the trend-setting movie it was a part of, thankfully, have remained and exhibit no signs of staying dead.

Some might see it as sacrilege that the original "Dawn of the Dead" hasn't made it on the list. Tell those people they clearly are allergic to the ferocious level of bloody fun the Zack Snyder-directed remake — also penned by James Gunn, who is now co-managing the Warner Bros. DC Extended Universe – had as soon as it gets going. Kicking off with perhaps one of the best openings to a zombie movie ever, the 2004 remake of "Dawn of the Dead" isn't attempting to match the cerebral undertones of the original, and instead splits it open to reveal an anarchic, action-packed upgrade.

Like all great zombie flicks, Snyder's initial take on the gut-munching genre has a great ensemble cast of strangers stranded in a living nightmare. Ving Rhames is the reluctant gun-toting hero butting heads with Michael Kelly's trigger-happy security guard, while Sarah Polley is the moral compass of this motley crew, found checking for bites regularly. Even after all this time, there's enough to argue that this is one of the divisive director's best movies to date, providing a story that barely gives you a second to breathe. Throw in zombie babies and a final act escape plan that involves poorly managed chainsaws, and "Dawn of the Dead" is a high-powered zombie movie that asks you to leave your "braaains" at the door.

When esteemed director Danny Boyle took to the barren streets of London in the Alex Garland-penned horror "28 Days Later," he brought with him a brand new breed of zombie that the world hadn't seen before. The RAGE virus turned standard shoe shufflers into Olympic-level track runners, whose disease turned those infected into blood-spewing monsters in seconds, not hours. It was an immensely effective alteration to the standard zombie trope that had us far more fearful for Cillian Murphy's Jim, a bike messenger who wakes in a hospital to learn the British Isles has gone to hell.

Joining him in this nightmare are Naomie Harris ("Skyfall") and Brendan Gleeson ("In Bruges") in a film that perhaps feels the most realistic on this list, courtesy of Boyle's choice to film on digital. It isn't a found-footage film, but even after all this time, it still feels like one. With its raw sights of a dead central London and a siege on a mansion in its final act, "28 Days Later" is a zombie movie with dirt under its nails — not just in its dread of a new undead, but in the horror of isolation. It would explain why both Boyle and Garland have finally revisited the franchise with "28 Years Later" and the highly anticipated "28 Years Later: The Bone Temple."

A zombie film that shows its funny bone and the occasional exposed organ, Edgar Wright's undeniably brilliant "Shaun of the Dead" is perhaps one of the best films on this list because of how well it balances the giggles and the gore. Fueled by the genre it clearly respects, the British zom-com sees Simon Pegg as middle-aged man-child Shaun, who fights for his future at the end of the world when, according to his Mum (Penelope Wilton), everyone gets a bit "bitey." Joining him in this fight for survival is Shaun's best mate, Ed (Nick Frost), whose contribution to this daring mission is to head to the Winchester and wait for all this to blow over.

"Shaun of the Dead" might constantly be making references to other great zombie movies, but there's enough originality in Wright's wonderful attempt at his own undead film to become one in its own right. Just like "Evil Dead's" Ash Williams (Bruce Campbell) or "The Walking Dead's" Daryl Dixon (Norman Reedus) made chainsaws and crossbows acceptable weapons of choice for a zombie apocalypse, Shaun and Ed made a cricket bat and a shovel just as sufficient, as is killing a neck-muncher to the tune of Queen's "Don't Stop Me Now." Other movies have dared to try and bring laughs to the zombie genre, but none deliver as many side-splitting moments as Shaun's trip to the pub.

At a time when found-footage horror movies were on the rise, "REC" stormed the building and moved twice as fast with its zombies, making a rare venture into the supernatural as opposed to the post-apocalyptic. The film follows a documentary team that is recording the nightly activities of a fire station in Barcelona. Things take a turn for the terrifying when emergency workers get a call about a screaming woman trapped in her apartment, and it quickly becomes clear she should've stayed there. Very soon, the camera crew, fire team, and the tenants of a cursed building — one that's holding a dark secret — are running for their lives as a virus spreads through the premises, turning those infected into super-fast and incredibly ferocious zombies.

A joint effort from directors Jaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza, "REC" often looks like it's shot on a pogo stick, given how frantically our doomed cameraman and his host (Manuela Velasco) are running around the building. Nevertheless, the viewer never gets lost with the expertly handled geography of the quarantined apartment block that we're flying through at a lightning pace, right until the final act that shifts into unexpected territory. It might've sparked three sequels and an abysmal American remake in 2008, but none of them play quite as well as this original unholy entry. Also, if you're still alarmingly hungry for more zombie action, check out our list of six other zombie movies shows and movies to watch.