From the moment filmmakers realized that cameras could be used to create fictional worlds, they've been finding unique ways to destroy them. Between older works like Dr. Strangelove and the original Planet of the Apes, and newer examples of the genre like Bong Joon-ho’s Snowpiercer and the Quiet Place movies, there's always something eerie about seeing different visions of what humanity’s end might look like, and what they reveal about the human condition. Nuclear annihilation, worldwide contagions, alien invaders, global warming, the simple consequences of our worst behaviors – at this point, you could throw a dart at a board of nightmare scenarios and find a rich history of movies exploring the idea.
The zombie apocalypse is one of the most ubiquitous, persistent, and horrific ways cinema has envisioned us going out, despite being one of the newest. The term comes from Haitian Vodou, where a zombie is a mindless slave created with magic — it wasn’t until George A. Romero reinvented the concept with Night of the Living Dead (a movie that, ironically, never uses the word zombie) in 1968 that the modern idea of zombies as reanimated, flesh-eating corpses entered pop culture. Not content with just being the creator of the subgenre, Romero built his own apocalyptic canon, depicting the beginning of the infection in Night, the slow societal decay it caused in Dawn of the Dead, and the inevitable, final death toll of human civilization with 1985’s Day of the Dead, which now has a new 4K Blu-Ray from Shout! Factory.
