How to Make a Quality Zombie Flick Part 1: What Not to Do

After watching the film 28 Days Later it struck me as keenly as after watching Land of the Dead just how badly zombie flicks have been suffering in recent years. Indeed it is hard to sell the idea of a "Zombie flick" to many audiences now adays, as the very name, which once would induce nightmares in children, is now seen as harmless as Goofy or Donald Duck. The very word itself has lost so much of its meaning, that most films don't even advertise themselves as "zombie movies" any more, but rather "Sci/fi horror movies based on survival", leaving it to the viewer to learn later that the film was about the living dead. This is due, in part, to the fact that zombie films have eroded in quality over the years, culminating in what amounted to be the disappointing Land of the Dead - which continues George Romero's story of an apocalyptic world where the dead rose from their graves and now consume human flesh.

While I cannot solidly state with any level of conclusiveness what has been slowly diminishing the quality of what was once among the scariest and most horrifying titles in the genre, I would like to take a moment to assist those who aspire to write their own zombie flicks - be them novels, novellas, scripts, screenplays, movies, plays, video games, comic books, or just a good 'ol message board story game. The exact format of the story is immaterial, as using the basic template outlined in this guide will help tell any compelling story about our ghoulish friends.

What Has Gone So Wrong?

My first real exposure to the genre was the film Night of the Living Dead - the remake, not the original. It was an ambitious film that helped define my own mental image of our flesh eating antagonists. After that, I found delight in the Resident Evil series of games, which seemed to get everything about zombies just so right (up until of course Resident Evil 4...when they...stopped using zombies). In normal circumstances I find myself criticized for holding movies to too high a standard, but it somehow seems reasonable that I would hold movies to the standard of an 11 year old PlayStation game with terrible voice acting.