George Romero’s 10 best zombie kills

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Survival of the Dead opened this weekend, marking filmmaker George A. Romero’s sixth turn at the troft of the almost unstoppable undead (from a box office standpoint, they are unstoppable). From the original Night to Survival, a film that finds secondary characters from Diary and Land front-and-center, Romero has given film-goers a hell of a lot to chew on.

And if you take all six films as pieces of a larger puzzle, he’s also given us a recurring theme (zombies might bite, but people suck!) and a big arc for the whole series: zombies, like primates, can learn.

This was hinted at it his Dawn, and in Day became the driving narrative. He revisited it in Land, with a roving mob of zombies riled into a frenzied cooperation by a mean-ass Mike Tyson-looking zombie king, and featuring another instance of a zombie learning to use a tool. The tool in Day was a handgun (who needs to eat somebody’s face off when you can just pull a trigger?). The tool in Land was a meat clever wielded by a zombie fresh from the butcher’s shop. We also saw an evolution of Romero’s sly often visual humor (making one of Land’s main characters look like, but not actually be, a zombie, for instance). And  we got an evolution of gore too, with the third film, Day, in my opinion, reaching a gruesome high. Romero has yet to top the zombie make-up and general bloody disgustingness of that film. 

And Survival, his latest, makes another evolution very clear: each new film introduces ever more imaginative methods of killing them zombies. In fact, the amount of pure “no way” cleverness brought to the killing of his new undead is one of the best things about Survival. So here’s a look back at the last five films for what I believe are the ten best zombie kills Romero has ever created.

Beyond this point there be monsters. Seriously.

Warning: graphic content!

From Dawn of the Dead. Romero’s sly humor comes through loud and clear. With a head like you’d think the zombie would be smart enough to not climb on a crate beside a helicopter.

Also from Dawn. We’re in trouble when the zombies pretend to be mannequins until you rush by all like, “Look at me, I’m in such a big hurry.”

Also from Dawn. After the hero takes a lickin’ (or a chompin’) and keeps on tickin’, his buddies are left with no other choice. This is a zombie flick motif, and I don’t think anyone’s portrayed it better than this.

From Day of the Dead. Romero and make-up gore-u Tom Savini (along with Howard Berger) really turned the blood-n-guts to eleven this time out. The ol’ “entrails slip out when the zombie turns over” routine never gets tired!

From Land of the Dead, which Romero shot in some sort of eternal twilight. Sure, a shitload of zombies take bullets to the brain, but a few, like sizzle-chest here, buy the farm in slightly more inventive ways.

Also from Land. And a few buy the zombie farm in slightly more elaborate ways. Romero bought himself some snazzy effects with his big budget, and he wasn’t afraid to linger on some of them.

From Diary of the Dead. Going all handheld with this one didn’t make Romero take a different approach to the gory stuff. Even though he’s an old codger, he’s not afraid to explore digital solutions for exterminatin’ zombies.

Also from Diary. Nor has he lost his black, black, black sense of humor.

Also from Diary. Did I say “humor?” I meant HUMOR!

Also from Diary. I’m not certain, but I think that this is the first case of the Popeye “oops” effect in one of Romero’s zombie flicks. For all you fans, it shows up again (thank to a hungry zombie and a fire extinguisher) in Survival, in theaters and VOD now.