It’s time for UnderSunday: The Zombie Edition

Truth #1: There are way too many zombie movies.

Truth #2: Most of them are unutterably awful. Amateurish, lazy, needlessly gory and humorless OR jokey, precious, needlessly gory and silly.

We’re not talking about the living classics like the original Night of the Living Dead or 28 Days Later. And we’re not talking about the other ones, those blockbuster disasters like I Am Legend or inexplicable moderate successes like Warm Bodies or Resident Evil. We’re talking about that endless shambling mass in between – the low-budget indies, the Netflixations. Most of ’em really are awful. But once in a while…we’re talking UnderSunday material.

So here are five actually pretty interesting zombie movies that never got the attention they deserve:

 Cockneys vs. Zombies. Yeah, just what it says, with some great British actors young and, including an aged but stunning Pussy Galore and that woman from Jekyll and the short-lived revival of Bionic Woman, wherein the tough-as-hell old guys and the brash-as-brass young guys show the walking dead that urban Londoners of any ageare not to be fucked with. Plus: well-kicked zombie babies! What’s not to love? (Available on Netflix here.

Fido. A nearly unrecognizable Billy Connolly in a post-zombie attack 1950’s world where everything is under control – no, really it is – as long as the enslaved zombies keep their shock-collars on. A strangely romantic story with the woefully underrated Dylan Baker, a weirdly happy ending, and one unique answer to what would really happen to the zombie cheerleader and the ‘nice’ guy next door. Available on Amazon Instant Video for $2.99 here.

 Portrait of a Zombie. Some say that every British movie is about class warfare (certainly Cockey vs. Zombie, above, has a big piece o’ that. Portrait lays it all out there: zombies rose five years ago; now there’s a ‘cure’ (as long as the zombies keep taking their medicine), and now they can come back home. But do the neighbors, the town, even the families, really want them? A study in loneliness, tribalism, and ostracism that is tragic and oddly affecting. Definitely high end, but as far from Doghouse as Downtown Abbey is from Benny Hill. We dare you to find it online, tough the POAZ Facebook page promises it will be officially available in 2014. We hope so..

Doghouse. Oh, those crazy British. Imagine a group of disgruntled boy-men who piss off their women-friends to spend a weekend in a remote town that seems to be some kind of a “Whoreland” attraction…but has, unfortunately, been transformed into a zombie Whoreland attraction by a government experiement gone wrong. Full of recreation mysogyny, with more swipes at stupid men than sexy women, as well as some very creation zombie-action. Kind of the black-sheep cousin of Shawn of the Dead. Available on Netflix here.

Carriers. Chris Pine (before Star Trek or much of anything else, Piper Perabo (post Coyote Ugly, pre-Covert Affairs, and a young girl who was on Mad Men and who, inexlicably, did that awful Flowers in the Attic remake, are part of a very isolated, very grim, very sad and very real zombie-as-infection disease scenario. Probably a little too real for most, but a rmarkably effective take. Available to rent for $2.99 on Amazon Instant Video right here.

Any suggestions for underappreciated zombie movies, old or new? Leave your suggestions in the comments below for the next edition of UnderSunday!