Howdy, Horror Press reader! You know usually I’d start the article with a folksy aphorism, or a fun story, but Editor James-Michael said “think fast” and threw some sort of rat-monkey into the basement where I type these articles up before shutting the door.  

Long story short, I’ve been bitten by it and I’m having trouble focusing, so right to brass tacks. Today we’ll be highlighting the best zombie films you can watch on Shudder, to make that movie night selection just a little bit easier.

I will also clarify, there are a lot of zombie-like movies on Shudder, with films like Demons, Azrael, and The Sadness filling those ranks. So, for the purpose of defining the zombies, we’re going with ravenous, mindless, undead creatures who specifically infect others by biting or scratching or eating them. So, while Night of the Living Dead technically never calls them zombies (they’re actually some of cinema’s first “ghouls”), it counts as a zombie film.  

The Best Zombie Horror Films You Can Stream on Shudder

ZOMBIE (1979)

“You’re not actually going to start the list with that movie right?”

It’s a list of zombie movies. It’s called Zombie.

More importantly, Lucio Fulci’s cult classic is the quintessential Italian zombie film. Known as Zombi 2 in the rest of the world (since the first Zombi is the Italian localization of Romero’s Dawn of the Dead), it’s a very simple zombie film executed wonderfully. Beyond the legendary underwater zombie versus shark brawl that has made this movie a bit of a meme among horror fans, this is also the stomping grounds of Fulci’s most frequent collaborator: Giannetto De Rossi, a special effects artist so good I considered putting his name in bold for emphasis.

This is arguably the best of Rossi’s work, made most memorable by the film’s iconic scene of a worm-infested zombie rising from its grave. Really, it’s a top-notch highlight reel of all the skills that made Rossi an invaluable asset on a gamut of films ranging from David Lynch’s Dune to Alexandre Aja’s High Tension. If makeup and effects are what makes a horror movie for you, you have to watch this one.

BLOOD QUANTUM (2019)

Now this, this is a modern zombie movie with a whole lot of substance, and a fair bit of sauce.

When a zombie epidemic rips through the Northern reaches of Canada, it turns out one slice of the country’s demographics is completely immune to the virus: the indigenous First Nations people, who quickly set up a reservation fortress to safeguard the community. Jeff Barnaby uses this premise to skewer the unfortunately all too common divide between white Canadian citizens and their First Nations counterparts, the history of which is soaked in heaps of racial violence and an ugly colonialist legacy.

Beyond its thoughtful narrative, Blood Quantum also delivers on some of the nastiest practicals in a zombie movie from the past decade, with some being on par with Rossi’s work above thanks to an award-winning makeup and visual effects team. The action is good, the story is great, and the films’ thematic underpinnings make for a phenomenal watching experience that sticks with you and makes you want to learn more about the film and the surroundings it came up out of.

DEAD SHACK (2017)

When you have deadbeat parents watching over you that you can’t rely on, and you’re left to fend for yourself on a weekend out in the sticks, what are you to do when you find out your neighbor has zombies in her house? Suit up and try to kill them yourself, to hilarious effect.

One of the two horror comedies on this list, Dead Shack reminds me a lot of another highly underrated Shudder offering, Boys From County Hell. It’s got dark humor that’s more slapstick than the dry Irish flavor from Boys, but like that film, it’s supplemented by a fairly strong and charismatic cast of young actors, thrust into a hilarious situation where things just keep going wrong.

NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD (1968)

And in the softest of softball lobs I’ll ever put in one of my recommendation articles, here’s George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead! It is such a classic, I don’t even know what I can say about it that hasn’t been said; it’s just such a core component of horror cinema, every frame has been pored over like an ancient text on how to make low-budget filmmaking legendary.

Having rewatched it for this article, Duane Jones’ performance in this movie is still unbelievably compelling after all these years, and it feels so fresh still because of the vocal command he projects. It’s a masterclass in acting in general and has cemented him as one of my favorite horror protagonists of all time. He’s simply the blueprint.

PENINSULA (2020)

The oft-forgotten sequel to Train to Busan, I wrote a retrospective article about Peninsula last summer for Horror Press. You can find a more in-depth analysis of the film there, but I’ll give a basic rundown here: Peninsula is a massive departure from its predecessor in tone, plot, action—honestly, its entire cinematography is cut from different cloth. Trading in sentimental horror on trains for pulse-pounding action sequences in zombie-filled car chases, director Yeong Sang-ho weaves a wild action-horror film that’s got a high rewatch value. It is an easy-to-enjoy thrill ride through post-apocalyptic South Korea.

ONE CUT OF THE DEAD (2017)

If there’s any country that knows how to do zombie movies better than America, it’s Japan. An independent horror film in a sea of Japan’s bigger budget splatter films, One Cut of the Dead made waves not just for its 37-minute one-shot that opens the movie and gives the film its title, but for the sincerely heartwarming message it has to send about the struggles of making horror movies. I’ve kind of mentally dissociated One Cut of the Dead as a zombie movie because it’s just one of, if not the most, perfect pieces of meta-horror that I’ve had the pleasure of watching. I can’t guide you through this one without spoiling a whole bunch, but I can guarantee that you will leave this movie glad you watched it.

Also, a small sidenote: Harumi Shuhama’s performance in this makes me smile every time I watch it. She’s deeply talented, we need her in more horror movies.

(POM!)

MADS (2024)

Saving the best for last, last year’s MadS is maybe the film I was least excited to watch and the one I was most impressed with the result of.

For a very long time, I would have stopped being impressed with one-take movies a while back (I know it sounds odd because I just sang One Cut of the Dead so much praise, but stick with me). Because when you watch enough one-takes you can see the clear points where they cut. If the simulation breaks, the gimmick kind of just dies. But MadS is not only a true blue one-take (if it is spliced together takes, it’s unbelievably skilled at hiding it), it uses that one shot to build a kind of tension that made my spine start to tie around itself tight. It’s composed in uncomfortable closeups for most of the runtime, but even when the shots go wide, its composition, its lighting, its sound design, and the way director David Moreau makes the camera move makes you feel like you can’t get far enough away.

It made me unironically feel like I had pressure building on my neck as the film makes you watch the infection spread. MadS above all else serves up one of the most harrowing depictions of a zombie outbreak ever, and its tactile effectiveness is a testament to its cinematography; a cinematography that doesn’t let up until that final shot, and sticks to you like superglue with you after it’s wrapped up.