Fredrik Strage lists the five best Zombie movies ever

This weekend, Jim Jarmusch zombie comedy The Dead Don't Die at the Cinemas. An unusual film from the American director, known for narrower and slower films such as Broken flowers and Coffee and cigarettes. Unusually, it was also this spring when his film received the honor of opening the prestigious Cannes festival.

But maybe it's in order, for the last 20 years zombies on film have gone from creatures in black and white cult classic or American direct-to-video gore, to the horrific deaths you get used to on the white screen.

The cultural journalist and film critic Fredrik Strage is, to say the least, interested in the genre and the Culture News called him up and asked him to list his five zombie movie favorites of all time. Which he does below, with two additions except the competition.

- That's the only thing I think about, the best zombie movies. So it should be easy. But oh how difficult. The best zombie depiction is not a movie, but a novel. Nobody has captured the dead bodies without soul life better than John Ajvide Lindqvist in The Handling of the Undead (2005). It was to be a film by Kristian Petri but the project has long been on ice. Its sad. In a way, it is similar to Jurtjyrkogården (1984) to the act, that our missing after family members who die is so enormous that we do anything to get them back.

- I can't start with the list right yet. First we have to take a mention of honor. The British miniseries Dead set (2008) by Black mirror creator Charlie Brooker. We have a zombie apocalypse where just about everyone goes under, all except a small group of people who are already isolated, namely the idiots in the Big Brother house. Thus, the last hope of mankind stands as a hopeless hopeless narcissist. In addition, it is recorded in the real British Big Brother studio. Unfortunately, it never gets better than its elevator pitch.

- Okay, now we're driving. In fifth place I have to place the series The Walking Dead (2010 -). It's the most successful zombie depiction ever, and it was truly magical in its prime moments. In some episodes, the zombies worked almost like the water in the Titanic, they just pour in, and the humans behave the same as on a sinking ship, or a collapsing society. They make immoral decisions and resort to foolish forms of leadership and everything goes to hell. But it lost after a while and I can no longer see it.

- Danny Boyle's 2002 movie triggered the current zombie hype. A raw and realistic movie where the director, for the first time in the genre, let the zombies run. I'm pretty conservative in my own right, but I liked the grip. The whole movie is intense and the zombie scene itself is like a violent rabies epidemic. It should also be remembered that zombies at the cinema were unusually sick at this time. There was a filming of Resident Evil with Milla Jovovich the same year and at the premiere I met a friend who never goes to the cinema, he thinks all the cinema is too conventional. "What are you doing here?" I asked in shock. "These are zombies at the cinema," he replied. Then you realize how unusual it was.

- And then you ask "the original or remake"? Both I answer and cheat another movie on the list. It from 1978 is a monumental classic and both of them critically criticize the consumer society. After the disaster, the survivors barricade themselves in a large department store and the human drive to shop is so strong that even though they are brain dead, they only have to take a shopping cart and rush along the corridors to pick up goods. The sequel from 2004 almost a little better. Thanks to his insane pace and the introduction of gritty news pictures reporting on the downfall accompanied by Johnny Cash who sings about the apocalypse's four riders in The man comes around. I regret that I gave it a 4th in DN, would have been a 5th.

- Jacques Tourneur's 1943 film is a classic. It could top the list but I don't want to appear as an intellectual pose. In the first wave of zombie films, it is not viruses or failed scientific experiments that give rise to the zombie infection, but black magic. And the zombies are creepy slaves, dead humans who do everything for their master. The film's action is inspired by Charlotte Brontë's Jayne Eyre and it is extremely beautiful. Though here it is about voodoo and a pale woman walking like a sleepwalker to the sound of suggestive drums in the Caribbean moonlight.

- Although it is difficult to list, this is an obvious choice. The night of the living dead from 1968 is extremely unpleasant, intense and black and white. There is something about really good low-budget movies. When you succeed without money, it automatically gets better than when you succeed with a large budget. Hahaha! My God, I actually have a Night of the Living-Dead t-shirt on me today. I didn't even think about that. There are scenes in the movie that are impossible to forget. Like the one with the little girl with staring eyes eating on her father's body. I actually have a t-shirt with her too, but it is in the laundry. The girl kills her mother with a shovel. That being said, I'm a conservative and zombies shouldn't really use gear, but I apologize to filmmaker George. A Romero, because he has made the best zombie movie ever.