Halloween countdown: The best zombie horror movies to stream today

Welcome to week four of our Halloween countdown! In this edition, we’re sharing our favorite zombie horror movies to stream today (or add to your list this Halloween season).

Every Halloween season, we enjoy binge-watching some of our favorite Halloween movies and TV shows, leading up to October 31st, the spookiest day of the year. And zombie horror movies are always at the top of our list! Which Halloween movies to you enjoy watching?

Before George Romero handed over zombie movies to mainstream audiences, zombies didn’t have much of a presence outside of Voodoo lore and the E.C. horror comics of the 1940s. The creatures were rarely seen or used, and when they were, were very different from the cannibalistic flesh-eating undead things they kill in droves on The Walking Dead.

The English word “zombie” was first documented in 1819 in the book “History of Brazil” by the poet Robert Southey. He referred to a West African deity called “Zombi” and the word was thought to define the force of a human soul leaving the shell of its body, and ultimately creating a creature that’s human in appearance but lacks self-awareness, intelligence, and a soul.

One of the first books to introduce the concept of a zombie to Western audiences was “The Magic Island” by W. B. Seabrook in 1929. The novel was adapted into a film in 1932 starring Bela Lugosi renamed White Zombie (1932).

Since then, things have changed a lot and now movies that feature zombies usually show one of three things- how society falls apart without governing laws, how dangerous humans can be (like we need to be reminded of that) and how the walking dead serve as basis metaphors for American class and society.

Zombie horror movies (and more genres) to stream today

5. Return of the Living Dead

Night of the Living Dead introduced us to zombies, but Return of the Living Dead introduced the modern zombie. This 1985 film looks and feels like a spiritual sequel to Night of the Living Dead, it has the same constructive tone and follows a similar, though less serious, outline. If a zombie had a baby with the entire “The Damned” band, you’d get this movie.

4. Zombieland

Zombie movies aren’t only meant to be frightening, there are many zombie comedy movies. Strange, right? But we’re glad they exist!

Set in a post-apocalyptic world where a strain of mad cow disease, renamed “mad zombie disease”, turned everyone in the US into zombies, the few remaining survivors hit the road and learn to adapt to their new reality.

Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg) and Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson) make an odd but practical couple, with Tallahassee being a tough softie obsessed with finding the last Twinkie (don’t worry, he does), and Columbus who is basically Jesse Eisenberg with a shotgun. But their group gets bigger once they encounter two more survivors, Wichita (Emma Stone) and Little Rock (Abigail Breslin), two con-artist sisters living on the road. Despite their clear differences, the four become friends, and eventually a family.

3. Shaun of the Dead

The first in Wright and Pegg’s Three Flavours Cornetto trilogy is a hilarious zombie comedy that Simon Pegg both co-wrote and starred in. Pegg and frequent collaborator Nick Frost star as the unambitious best friends Shaun and Ed who, along with some other survivors, fight off a zombie apocalypse on their way to a local pub that they feel is adequately suited to protect them. Spoiler alert, it’s not.

2. The Wailing

We love foreign movies here at Hidden Remote! They are some of the most frightening movies, and always brilliantly acted. The Wailing is a South Korean horror movie directed by Na Hong-jin about a policeman who investigates a series of mysterious killings and illnesses. It’s the “Thriller” music video stretched out for two hours and 32 minutes.

A combination of horror genres and movie monsters, The Wailing (Gokseong), groups together a bunch of familiar horror movie tropes such as a zombie outbreak, demonic possession, ghosts, creepy children, and magic rituals in a movie that isn’t necessarily scary but it’s certainly spooky. Despite being grouped in with the zombie genre, the real antagonist is a demon that spreads a version of a zombie illness to people.

1. Night of the Living Dead

Released in 1968, Night of the Living Dead changed the horror genre forever and ushered in a new dawn in horror film-making. Written and directed by George Romero, the film revolutionized the genre by introducing zombies as a worthy movie-monster and creating the splatter film subgenre.

Are there any zombie horror movies you think should be on this list? Another fun one that almost made it to the list is 28 Days Later.