Why do we have this undying interest in the dead? The zombie movies and shows, and in general the shows with some sort of apocalyptic setting, appeal to us a lot. Something about the dead not being dead and the dead coming back to life and taking the living with them is something that has all of us in its gravity, and no one is trying to escape it either. Sometimes, zombies can carry more significant metaphors on their disintegrating shoulders, such as “Shaun of the Dead,” which depicts our increasingly wired yet increasingly isolated post-internet world.
However, some zombies are simply zombies: corpses on the move. The zombie: without pity or remorse, driven by a single hunger, and nearly impossible to put down permanently. There have been times since their debut in films in the 1930s. The typical dilemma and frenzy around how one has to survive the grim days, the consumption of human meat, the brain, and the wide-scale spread of the infections, turning everyone into one of their kind, the fever is high, from folklores to the classics like The Walking Dead, we all love to watch Zombie shows and movies.
Nowadays, there has been a trend of making movies and shows and publishing books about the apocalypse, the end of the world, or the human race, which is intriguing. The gory fight sequences, the chaos that ensues from the deep mysteries, and the nail-biting twists and turns make this genre very appealing to the masses.
Various industries have ventured into this genre, trying to produce and create something that can take everyone by storm. This article has compiled a list of zombie and apocalyptic shows you can watch right now.
All Of Us Are Dead
The Korean entertainment industry is on the rise right now. The number of K-drama lovers is growing exponentially. K-drama also ventures into a lot of genres, from romance, comedy and drama to psychological thriller and horror; there are no genres in which this industry has not given some fantastic shows and movies. Recently, some of the K-dramas became popular globally. Squid games was a huge success, and everyone from all around the world loved it. Then another Korean Web Series, All of Us Are Dead, took the world by storm.
The zombie apocalyptic show was so compelling that it made all the fans go berserk. Countless zombie movies and TV shows now populate the horror sections of streaming platforms. Few, however, can compete with Korean dramas’ production values and diverse plotlines. The setting is about the students of a high school trying to survive a zombie outbreak. The show also managed to become one of the most-watched shows on Netflix, and not only in Korea but worldwide.
There is also news that season two of All of Us are dead is also being made, so now there is a lot to look forward to for all the fans.
Happiness
This series is another one of Korea’s most anticipated and liked series. The series was set in the near future when the world is marred by the coronavirus, and it covers the light of the people because of the worldwide spreading of COVID-19. The scientists and the doctors, in order to find a cure to save the world, ended up creating a defective and dangerous virus. This virus was named “Rita”. The virus quickly led to numerous infections that soon started spreading. The symptoms included extreme anger, wrath and bloodlust, similar to how zombies reacted.
While the population and the masses were already trying to save and protect themselves from the deadly Corona Virus, this new virus gave rise to a new set of fears, mistrust and dangerous apprehensions. In particular, there was a new building constructed, and here the people were kept under observation and quarantine, but they also ended up being extremely wary of everything happening in their surroundings. This series is very gut-wrenchingly melancholic; it takes all the viewers on a roller-coaster ride, and the acting by the top Korean actors is spectacular. The series also has a whooping rating of 7.9 on IMDb.
ALSO READ: 10 Movies Like The Wonder That You Cannot Afford To Miss!
Kingdom
This show is available on Netflix. The plot of this show is quite dense, and the story is set in the Joseon Era between 1392 to 1910. The area has had a mysterious outbreak, and the scene sequences give significant chills. The crown prince in that era was sent out to clarify the situation and find out more about the outbreak. This was practically like a suicide mission for the crown prince after they found out that the king was being plagued by the virus. Soon, he realizes that he himself has turned into a zombie. The crown prince, along with trying to find the cause of the virus, also had to fight against the rivals. The plot and the story are enough to keep you sitting at the edge of your seats the whole time and grappling your head with all these emotions.
This zombie action thriller intermixed with historical period drama is a must watch.
Fear The Walking Dead
This is a prequel to the super hit and supremely loved series The Walking Dead. This series first premiered way back in 2015. It is a story about a high school counsellor called Madison Clark. She was in love with the English teacher at the school. Before they can make this work or take the relationship to a whole new level, they are hit by a zombie apocalypse, and now the game becomes of survival. This show sets the theme and plot for The Walking Dead.
This show also has a more substantial family focus. It’s also a little less post-apocalyptic than its companion show. Which is yet another reason to watch Fear the Walking Dead.
The Walking Dead
This is one of the most famous and well-loved shows of all time. The very famous filmmaker behind the mind-bling movies like The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile, Frank Darabont, came and gave us this fantastic show that has everyone in a big giant chokehold for years. This tv series ran for a total of ten series and the fans still re-watch the entire thing all the time, and it is one of the most famous series of all time. The show is about a group of people who are in a run trying to survive the mysterious outbreak of the zombie apocalypse. They are being led by Rick Grimes. Rick was in a coma, and then he woke up to see there are zombies all around. Then he leads this group of people who are trying to fight their way through all of this and survive this zombie apocalypse.
The most exciting thing about this whole thing was that these zombies were not once in the entire show referred to as Zombies. They are called Walkers, hence the show name “The Walking Dead”. With each episode, the show follows a group of survivors as they fight their way through the treacherous, zombie-infested remains of what was once the United States. This show is not for the faint of heart but a true zombie show. Zombies, gruesome deaths, and drama abound. If you like all that, The Walking Dead will undoubtedly be your tea.
ALSO READ: Top 20 Anime Of All Time That You Must Watch!
Zombie Detective
This is yet another marvellous work of the K-drama industry. The series has an IMDb rating of 7.4. The story revolves around the protagonist Kang Min-Ho who wakes up and realizes that he has been turned into a zombie though he has no recollection of how and what happened that he transformed into a zombie. He tries hard to remember, but it is of no avail. While he tries to grapple with this new identity and amnesia, he has to blend in with the humans again, and so he teaches himself everything from walking to eating to everything again so he can appear normal and no one suspects anything. He also tries to go to the origin of his transformation and tries to understand what his life was before this all and what his past was; when he is already on a journey to uncover his past, he meets Kong Sun-Ji. Kong was a worker in a Current Affairs writing place.
Both of them come together to understand more about this unnatural occurrence; Kong’s co-worker was also attacked by this mysterious thing.
Dead Set
This is an old classic. It was released way back in 2008 and is inspired by another classic film, also known as a cult classic film, called “Dawn of the dead”.
The story is about a group of participants from a Television Reality show called “Big Brother”. While they were at this show, unaware of what was happening around the world, they did not know that there was something weird happening in the world; hell had broken loose, then when the show ended, they had to go out in the world, they realized that the outside world was wholly marred by this supernatural occurrence.
iZombie
This show is one of the best series to watch in this genre. iZombie follows Liv Moore, an ambitious doctor who becomes a zombie and takes a job at the Medical Examiner’s Office to gain access to her favourite zombie food, brains. When the medical student Liv turns into a zombie in a mysterious way, the hell bends loose. Her body has turned into a zombie, but for some reason, her consciousness is still of her old body; she still is not a zombie in her head.
Now, things take a very apocalyptic and weird turn. Since she is a zombie, she has to eat human flesh to survive, so she takes a job in a morgue to satisfy her thirst for human flesh. However, when she eats a human being, she also has to eat their memories, and then it takes a toll on her. However, in iZombie, zombies “inherit” the personality traits of the person whose brain they eat and some of their memories through visions. Then she teams up with the police to solve murders and mysteries through her memories of the people she ate. The series was released in 2015.
ALSO READ: Top 10 Hot Black Female Anime Characters!
The Wailing
This is another tremendous Korean drama that effectively manages to keep you on the edge of your seat. It has a good rating of 7.4 on IMDb. The show can be watched on Amazon Prime. It is a binge-worthy show. It is based in a small village named Goksung in South Korea.
The story revolves around the life of a police officer named Jong-Goo, who is responsible for the investigation of a mysterious virus. This virus had spread through the entire community, and it was assumed that it was caused by evil Japanese spirits. This show was the best Korean zombie series of its time. The scenes contained gore, a guard dog that was eager to attack everyone. The police officer also had to go through paranormal and uncanny memorabilia about the people who succumbed to this virus.
The show takes a lot of scary turns and twists. It is a very interesting watch.
In The Flesh
This show was released in 2013. The show revolves around a teenager named Kieren Walker, who comes back to life after being dead for a while. When he comes back to life, all his memories from when he was dead also come back to him, and he realizes that he had done a lot of nasty and hurtful things.
The setting is in such a way that the entire world is suffering from this, coming back to life after being a zombie. The government has tried to put in a lot of effective remedies and is willing to accommodate the people who had to go through everything through this ordeal. However, society is still healing from everything that went down, so they are not ready to welcome these people back anymore. And so, the story gets weirder, and the plot thickens here. While the majority of the series on this list depicts the lives of zombies or humans during a zombie uprising, In the Flesh is unique in that it depicts what would happen if zombiism could be cured and zombies could be turned back into humans. That in and of itself is an intriguing approach to the zombie genre, making it even more compelling to watch.
This series was a huge hit and also won the British Television Academy Award for best mini-series.
Black Summer
This show has been here for quite a while and is an exciting take on this whole zombie genre. Black Summer’s structure is a little unusual (but good) in that it shows disjointed, out-of-order timeline vignettes that eventually come together into a cohesive storyline. The production company named The Asylum has created this, and another show called Z Nation is based on this zombie apocalyptic deal. This show is a very healthy mix of horror and apocalypse.
Black Summer is set in the early days of the zombie apocalypse, just six weeks after all hell has broken loose. Jaime King plays the main character Rose. Rose is a mother who has lost her husband and her young daughter Anna. Rose sets out to find Anna, joining a group of refugees who are attempting to survive the brutal summer with the apocalypse upon them. On her way, she finds out a lot of dead and alive people and then she has to navigate through everything.
This served as a prequel to Z Nation, and this show was also renewed for a second season. it was very intense, and that kept growing with every new episode. The connection that the viewers shared with the characters was a very big reason for its commercial success.
ALSO READ: All American Season 5 Episode 7 Release Date: Is The Date Finalized?
Daybreak
This is a series set in a post-apocalyptic world. It follows a group of teenagers who survived the outbreak. It follows a high school student named Josh Wheeler. Josh survived the apocalypse, but he got separated from his girlfriend, and he was trying to look for her in California. He and his crew had to navigate through this new world among a set of these adults who became Ghoulies, these zombie-like creatures.
It has a lot of dark humour and snappy dialogue, so it should be a light and enjoyable watch.
Z Nation
This show is the sequel to the very famous show Black Summer. It was released in 2014. It seems like a comedy, but it has its own set of themes that it explores, giving it an edge. The story is set in a world where there has been a zombie outbreak caused by a virus named ZN1. Those who did not become zombies are doing their best to survive the zombie apocalypse, and the entire world has turned into these brain-eating creatures. However, this one man named Murphy remains unaffected by everything.
Then he is found by a group of scientists who want to find a solution to this crisis that has choked the world. They try to find the solution in his genes.
Sweet Home
This Korean zombie drama is another of the best creations, with an IMDb rating of 7.3; it follows the life of a high-school student named Hyun. Hyun has been an introvert his whole life. He was met with a tragedy when he lost his entire family to a horrific accident. Then he had to move out of his house and he shifted to an old, almost worn-out apartment building. Then suddenly, there is a zombie apocalypse in the world. As he struggles to survive, he becomes trapped in the building with the other residents. Although not strictly a zombie series, the creatures in the show are equally frightening and eerie.
ALSO READ: 10 Movies Like Monica O My Darling That You Should Not Miss!
The show is based on a webtoon that has the same name. The characters have done extreme justice to the characters, the stellar performances, the intriguing plot, and the subplots of exploring various human emotions and the individual backstories of each character make this show a must-watch on Netflix if you want to watch a zombie drama.
Ash vs Evil Dead
This is a perfect mix of horror and comedy. It is a sequel to the original trilogy of Evil Dead. The series revolves around a man named Ash Williams, a former hero and zombie slayer who now works as a stock boy at the “Value Stop” approximately 30 years after the last film. His mundane existence is turned upside down when he (once again) unleashes a plague on the world and is forced to save humanity with the assistance of some trusty sidekicks, and the whole series is a very interesting and occasionally funny one.
Glitch
This paranormal drama from Australia follows a group of seven people who came back to life after being dead for quite some time. Now they seem perfectly healthy. Then the series follows a police inspector named James Hayes. After discovering his formerly deceased wife walking the streets, police officer James Hayes investigates why these seven people reappearance and discovers an unexpected (and sinister) link between them.
The people are no longer brain-eating, ghoulish creatures. In this show, the undead literally rises from the grave, which understandably freaks out everyone in town.
ALSO READ: Top 15 Fat Female Cartoon Characters Which You Must Know!
Van Helsing
This show is placed on this list. Though it is a vampire show, it is because of the zombie-like characters of the vampires in this show. It is somewhat similar to Z nation. The show has a total of five seasons.
The show revolves around a woman named Vanessa Van Helsing. She wakes up from her coma in a world where the vampires have taken over, and the scenes are quite post-apocalyptic.
The Returned
This is anything but a conventional zombie movie or a web series. The original French series was called Les Revenants. And there was a feature film of the same name, and the series was adapted from there. It is a French show that follows people who get to know that the people, their loved ones, have magically come back to life after being dead for a long time. This all takes place in a small town near the mountains. These people who come back to life after being dead have lost all their memories, and they have no realization of how much time has passed; some of them were a suicidal groom and a local waitress who was killed by a serial killer. While these “undead”, as they are addressed in this series, they do not ooze or eat brains, they do have strangely voracious appetites, enjoy gathering in groups, and have body wounds that do not heal properly. They had no idea they had been dead for all this while.
The excellent storyline, the cinematography and the suspense and the subplots all of them make this a must-watch. You can watch it on Amazon Prime.
Tales Of The Walking Dead
This show is another of the classics. It is based on a horror comedy series created by Robert Kirkman. This is a spin-off to the famous and widely acclaimed series The Walking Dead. This revolves around a lot of characters from the original series, The walking dead, and it is in an anthology format.
ALSO READ: Top 20 Korean Anime To Watch That You Can’t Miss!
The Walking Dead: World Beyond, AMC
This series came out in 2020 and ran till 2021. This is the third instalment in the Walking Dead universe. The Walking Dead is inarguably one of the best zombie series of all time, and it ran for ten long seasons.
This show is set in Nebraska, and it is set ten years later after the zombie apocalypse hit the world. TWD: World Beyond follows the first generation of teenage survivors as they grow up after spending most of their childhood post-outbreak. They leave the safety of their only world to embark on their own journey.
This show is very interesting, and a must-watch too.
Reality Z
This show was released on Netflix in 2020. This served as a brand new adaptation to one of the shows we mentioned earlier, and it is based on Dead Set. The show’s first season had a total of ten episodes, and then there was a huge demand for a second season, but it was never officially announced that there would be a second season. However, the show is huge and popular, so there might be a chance of a new season, but we do not know for sure. Reality Z takes place on the set of the hit reality show Olympus instead of the parent series’ Big Brother. When the zombie outbreak takes over Rio de Janeiro, seven of the show’s contestants are still in the house and are forced to remain in seclusion with each other and the rest of the crew members, with production runner Nina at the helm of their survival.
ALSO READ: Top 15 Ugly Cartoon Characters That We Have Noticed!
Freakish
This show was released on Hulu in 2016 and continued till 2017; it is about a group of teenagers who were in detention for a while. But when they come out of it, they realize that the people around them have turned into zombie-like creatures; this was a result of a sudden explosion that occurred in a nearby chemical plant. The explosion caused the mutation.
World War Z
Now, this is one of the best movies ever made in the zombie genre. The film is adapted from a novel written by Max Brook. The movie stars Brad Pitt, who plays the role of a UN Investigator who has to discover the cause of the big zombie outbreak that turned the world into some apocalyptic site. The movie revolves around him trying to find patient Zero.
Night Of The Living Dead
This movie was the turning point in the zombie genre. This was not the first movie ever, there were a lot of zombie movies made even before this, but this one movie by George A. Romero turned the entire zombie scene upside down.
He has tried to explore a lot of contemporary truths with his works, the racism and the class distinctions and everything. The movie is about a group of people who have been put in a small cabin because the undead, or the almost dead creatures, wreaked havoc in the outside world. The main role of Ben is played by a very famous actor of African American origin.
ALSO READ: Anime Releasing In December 2022 That You Should Not Miss!
Final Cut
This movie was released in May of this year. This is a French remake of the famous Japanese horror movie One Cut for the dead. The movie follows a group of people trying to survive the unnatural zombie apocalypse. The movie is sort of a comedic horror.
28 Days Later
This movie came out in 2002 and was created by Danny Boyle. This movie is set in a post-apocalyptic world. The movie is heavily inspired by George A Romero’s work. The film follows a group of survivors who had previously escaped the deadly Rage virus that ravaged England, the riots and destruction that ensued, and the legions of infected victims who roam the streets at night looking for human meat. Then they go through some underground tunnels. And the plot thickens. Any infected person is driven into a state of perpetual homicidal rage, with the sole goal of killing or infecting any uninfected people they come into contact with. The virus was accidentally created by the military while they were trying to create a solution that would pacify their violent criminals, but due to a glitch, it turned into the opposite virus altogether.
Helix, Syfy
The show ran from 2014 to 2015. It is a science fiction horror series with two seasons, each of which has thirteen episodes. The series revolves around two scientists named Dr Alan Farragut and Dr Sarah Jordan.
They worked in a centre called the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The world was being troubled by a viral outbreak and these scientists and doctors were trying to find out why and how the virus was spreading. The virus will either kill you or turn you into dangerous, violent zombies, the latter of which appears to be curable. Then they discovered that the virus would not spread anymore, but they also realized that it could eradicate the entire humanity and that there were more secrets than were on the surface.
ALSO READ: Anime Characters Like Zero Two You Will Love!
Brand New Cherry Flavour
This zombie horror series was released on Netflix in 2021. The story revolves around a woman who wanted to be a film director, but due to unfortunate and unusual circumstances, a man stripped her of this opportunity, and then the story becomes all about trying to get an act of revenge from this man.
There are some shocks and turns in the initial part of the movie, but it is not something that will suit everyone’s taste. The story of the woman is, however, somewhat deeply satisfying.
Anna And The Apocalypse
This is a very interesting movie, it starts off as your regular jolly kind of movie, but soon you realize it is anything but a happy movie. Suddenly there is a zombie infection that spreads around, and then the plot takes a thick turn towards the horror side of the movie.
The movie can be watched on Hulu.
Train To Busan
While we are talking about zombie horror movies, how can we not talk about Train To Busan, one of the most famous and loved modern take on the zombie craze. This south Korean movie not only gives an interesting twist to the zombie genre but also explores the tales of familial love and the sacrifices we make for the people we love. The story revolves around a man and his daughter trapped on a speeding train when there is a sudden zombie outbreak. The blood and the gore in this movie make it very appealing to all the apocalypse fans out there, the fight for survival and the fact that all of it takes place on a moving train make it even more appealing. It was also a top movie in Korea, and it was very refreshing to see Gong Yoo in the lead role.
MUST READ: Vincenzo Season 2 Release Date: When To Expect Its Arrival?