There are no sure things in Hollywood, but one horror movie genre that always seems to appeal to people is the zombie movie. I think part of what makes zombie movies scary, even older ones with slow zombies, is taboo. They are not human, but they are close enough to mention the cannibalism taboo.
There is something great about zombie movies, which with the influence of George Romero have also become famous for having hidden political and social commentary. This combination makes these horror movies particularly interesting, even above many of their peers. Zombie movies also tend to have a cult following, keeping them popular even years and years after their DVD release.
There are several main factors that make up a great zombie movie.
# 1: Interesting zombies. The best zombie movies have a wide variety of zombies that can be weird, funny, or scary, but the best zombie movies have something that sets their zombies apart from the rest.
# 2: Bloody. Zombie fans can tell you that one of the main things everyone looks forward to is the extremely bloody first death scene. It’s just not a zombie movie without a violent death scene.
# 3: Characters without cliches. Don’t get me wrong, there are always basic cliche characters, but the best zombie movies have one or two characters that really stand out as being unique and different. They’re not just the pretty girl who gets killed or the rich jerk who gets what’s in store for him. “Cemetery Man” is one of the best examples of this.
# 4: Man vs. Zombie. Most good zombie movies have a siege mentality, with humans fighting for survival against the zombie attack. Most zombie movies are also synonymous with “zombie apocalypse”.
# 5: A human psycho / idiot. Usually there is a person who is a psychopath and therefore as dangerous as zombies, or there is an idiot who does something stupid that lets the zombies in.
These are just a few of the things that make a great zombie movie. Not all of these have to always be present, but they definitely help. The new remakes of the old Romero classics continue the new zombie running trend, which is definitely different from all the old school renditions that had strong, but slow zombies.
This is a good base to start a zombie movie. The other interesting trend is the explosion of shorter fan movies which are usually pretty hilarious zombie movie parodies, but that’s for another article.