Thursday, September 20, 2007

First 20 Minutes: "Dawn of the Dead"


The other day I was home for a few minutes on a short break from work. I was updating my iPod so I flipped on the TV and "Dawn of the Dead" was just starting. Score! Seriously, this movie has the most immensely good first 20 minutes that it makes the movie twice as awesome as it would have been otherwise. There's that sort of ominous feeling, the weird patients coming into the hospital, the emergency broadcast in the background during the steamy shower scene and... wham! The creepy infected neighbor kid bites the husband there's screaming and car crashes and ultimate mayhem.

Then the opening credits with Johnny Cash's "The Man Comes Around" over all those clips of society totally dissolving. I don't even really believe in God but that song sure as fuck makes me scared about Judgement Day. So in honor of this wonderful 20 minutes (which made me super late coming back from break but so worth it) I give you a list.

My Top 8 favorite zombie movies (no order):

28 Days Later: Mmm, Cillian Murphy and Christopher Eccleston. Delicious...

Dead Alive: Zany, dirty, hilarious. I triple loved his scheming, crazy uncle.

Evil Dead 1 & 2: Should be counted as one movie, I suppose, but I love the fact that Raimi and Campbell essentially made the same movie twice but on the second go-around they turned everything up to 11.

Shaun of the Dead: Please, like I even need to say why. And while we're at it, have you seen Hot Fuzz yet?

Slither: An absolute must-see. Nathan Fillion and utter hilarity. I thought it would suck but it was so good I bet I've seen it three times in the past year. At least.

Dawn of the Dead: For aforementioned reasons.

Night of the Living Dead: Original. Always Champion.


Funny zombie image source

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Sara, have you seen the 80's punk-rock epic "Return of the Living Dead" or the frat-zombie gorefest "Night of the Creeps"? Both would make my top five-- I dug Slither but it kinda ripped off Night of the Creeps and swapped frat-zombies for redneck ones, right down the skittering orifice-diving demonworms.

But Pam Beesly becomes a zombie in it, so it makes a good companion to House of 1000 Corpses, where Dwight Scrute gets decapitated.

Greg