My most haunted hellos, fellow zombuffs!
As we get closer to Halloween, I grow more and more powerful. Watch out. I know I am. Anyway, I’ve started on my costume! How exciting! I’ve got a couple of costumes for this year’s celebration, but the main one is a homemade mask of Smiledog. You know, that old creepypasta. The husky. That’ll be me one day. For now, I’m just a girl who has watched so many zombie movies. So, so many. I seem to have been granted some relief by the powers that be, as this week’s batch were all fun watches. Not a single dud in the bunch. I feel like I’m dreaming.
Enough about me – let’s get into the gory details.
For those who are new to the series, I have, against my better judgment, committed to watching every zombie movie ever, and you lucky folks get to join me for the ride!
Each review will include my personal rating, a bit about how effective I think the movie is as a zombie film, a bit about the zombies themselves, and occasionally a few fun facts. Reviews will also include the zombie type (where they originate from), class (features/how survivable they are), and spread (self-explanatory).
Beware: may contain spoilers.
1- Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island, 1998 (4.5/5 brains)
Oh, Scooby Doo. We all love you. We are all you, here at MHC– Daphne or Velma, usually, depending on your opinion of the Five College Consortium. In any case, I was so glad for this excuse to watch some classic Scooby-Doo. The traditional painted backgrounds are gorgeous, the old animation is nostalgic, and the music absolutely rocks, as per usual. I was also pleasantly surprised to find that this movie includes Real Zombies, not just smoke and mirrors. I know Scooby-Doo does it sometimes, usually for specials, but still: color me surprised. There were, however, more cats in this movie than I expected. I’m not complaining, though. Half a brain off for odd pacing and the fact that the zombies aren’t spreading the zombie fun to other people. Major spoilers: I loved how they turned out to be the good guys. A+ hero zombie action.
Type: cursed, Class: shamblers, Spread: evil cat woman curse
2- Scooby-Doo! Return to Zombie Island, 2019 (4.7/5 brains)
I gotta address the elephants in the room. You heard me– elephants. Firstly, kudos to my no. 1 scream queen, Matthew Lillard. LOVE that guy. But you know who’s better than Mr. Lillard and in this movie? Elvira. Yeah. Elvira plays herself on Scooby-Doo. Literally what more could you want? Five out of five brains out of the gate. Actually, I lied. I can’t give it five brains because the zombies aren’t real this time. But they talk about the real zombies in the last movie.
Technically, this movie is beautiful. Smoother, updated animation that still stays true to the original and more modern pacing prop this film up. Don’t trust the reviews online. Trust me. Trust that I really enjoyed this flick.
Bonus: one of my favorite movies of all time is The Fall Guy (2024), based on the show, and Return to Zombie Island pays homage to the series by introducing a stunt actor character named Seavers. I almost dropped dead myself. I love Colt Seavers. It’s like this movie was made for me or something.
Type: fake, Class: actors, Spread: makeup
3- The Amazing Adventures of the Living Corpse, 2012 (3.9/5 brains)
Omg let them cook?
… Which is a reference that is much funnier if you’ve seen this movie. But nobody has seen this movie. No soul alive, but me (and I’m only debatably still living). Actually, watching this thing made me lonely. Because no one has seen it. It’s not even bad. It’s not really good either, but it has more soul put into it than a lot of the other ones I’ve seen. It’s… cute. Not very cute at all. Cute in spirit.
The 3D models may be somewhat crude, and the camera work is insane, but the monster designs are all sick as hell. You can tell that someone really, really cared about this movie. The voice acting is sometimes hard to get past, but I promise, it’s worth it. It was the zombie bodyguard film I was looking for all along… at least for the first half. I’m not sure they knew how to end this movie, but it’s such a fun time that I’m not complaining.
Type: experiment, Class: shambler with one semi-sapient exception, Spread: evil sciencey nonsense
4- Seoul Station (3.5/5 brains. Perhaps I’m judging this too harshly because Train to Busan was so good.)
While the zombies of this movie take a largely background role, this is no doubt a Train to Busan prequel. It’s politically savvy, soul-crushing, and still quite terrifying. While pretty clearly made with sometimes glitchy 3D models, the body language of all of the characters is really cool to see. It’s interesting how stark a difference there is between American and Korean 3D animation, with this movie emphasizing minute human body language that I rarely see on screen. When it comes to the zombies themselves, they’re just as visually scary as their source material, but make some really weird noises that come off as a bit silly. While the live-action zombie effects in Train to Busan were no doubt amazing, there’s some credit to be given to animation’s ability to push expressions and designs beyond human limits that adds to the horror element.
Seoul Station is horribly tragic, terribly scary, and definitely fits into this universe. My biggest complaint is that all of the characters (that make it to the end) are exceedingly stupid.
Type: infected, Class: sprinter, Spread: bite
There you have it. Four zombie movies were knocked off the list. There have never been more than four in these articles; you’re lying.
I had a really good time watching these– they’re all inspired, all good watches in their own way. Very. very different from each other, though. I may have experienced a bit of tonal whiplash. Nothing I can’t handle, I promise you.
In any case, I hope you enjoyed this week’s edition of “Maren tortures herself by watching way too many movies!” I know I did, despite the fact that I’m complaining about it. See you next week, if we’re both still kicking!