With the release of the film adaptation of Seth Grahame-Smith’s successful mashup novel Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, we started thinking – what other classics would we love to add zombies to? And it’s not just novels. There are plenty of movies that would be pretty awesome if they were zombified, too.
Here are 12 Classic Movies That Would be Better with Zombies.
Back to the Future
At the end of the movie, Biff (Thomas F. Wilson) has become Marty’s (Michael J. Fox) dad’s subordinate, instead of his boss from hell. But wouldn’t it be even sweeter to see Biff turned into a zombie? And what if Marty’s tampering with the timeline didn’t just endanger his own existence, but was also the catalyst for a zombie apocalypse? What if somehow Marty had to get his parents together to prevent a zombie outbreak?
Combining time travel, romance, and zombies would make for a pretty fantastic movie.
The Princess Bride
This would be great partly because everyone has swords – how awesome would it be to see Westley (Cary Elwes) go all Michonne (Danai Gurira) on a zombie horde? Or Buttercup (Robin Wright) for that matter? She does play a bit of a damsel in distress (a feisty one, though), and it would be fantastic to see her take matters into her own hands and kick some ass.
Plus, if Westley and Buttercup could just lure both a group of zombies and Prince Humperdinck (Chris Sarandon) into the fire swamp at the same time, their work would be done. Count Rugen (Christopner Guest) would have to be left for Inigo (Mandy Patinkin) though – of course.
Casablanca
Zombies could either make this movie a lot shorter and simpler, or much more complicated. On one hand, it’s not likely anyone would really care whether Ilsa (Ingrid Bergman) and Victor (Paul Henreid) have letters of transit if they’re fighting off zombies. It would probably be easier for them to sneak onto the next flight out of town when everyone else is preoccupied.
On the other hand, how many planes are going to be taking off during a zombie outbreak? It might actually be harder than ever to get out of Morocco, and Rick (Humphrey Bogart) might have to hustle even more to help Ilsa and Victor escape.
Dirty Dancing
All those snobby parents need to be shaken up a little bit. And nothing would do that better than a zombie attack. Maybe Johnny (Patrick Swayze) could lead the charge to fight off the zombies and save everyone, and this could help Baby’s (Jennifer Grey) dad to realize that what’s important isn’t how much money Johnny has, but how Baby feels about him – and that it’s really just a summer fling, anyway.
Fighting off zombies could actually be good for the uptight parents – it could give them the perspective they need and remind them of what really matters.
Pulp Fiction
What would be great would be if the events of the movie took place right at outset of the zombie outbreak. That way, since the film doesn’t unfold chronologically, we could see Los Angeles in full-on zombie mode at the beginning of the movie, and in later scenes, we’d get to see how the outbreak starts.
Also, it would be awesome to see Vincent (John Travolta) and Jules (Samuel L. Jackson) kicking zombie ass. When it comes to bloody zombie beating, they’d have to rank right up there with Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln).
It’s a Wonderful Life
How cathartic would it be to see Mr. Potter descended on by a zombie horde? Not that we’re promoting gratuitous violence, of course, but he is pretty terrible. Or even better. Maybe when Clarence (Henry Travers) shows George (Jimmy Stewart) what the world would be like without him, what he sees is Bedford Falls being rampaged by zombies.
It would drive the point home even more that George’s life really does have significance. And we’d love to see Violet Bick (Gloria Grahame) leading a team of zombie hunters. With her fiery personality, she’d be a natural.
Top Gun
We’ve all seen that Maverick (Tom Cruise) and his Top Gun classmates are great fighter pilots. It would be fun to see them demonstrate some other battle skills when they go up against the zombies. Would Maverick show the same impulsiveness with zombie fighting that he does with flying? And if we’re doing a Walking Dead-style zombie virus, then presumably we’d get to see a zombiefied Goose (Anthony Edwards) come back from the dead.
Maybe Maverick would be forced to kill zombie Goose, making him feel even guiltier and causing him to doubt himself even more. Or maybe zombie fighting could be what helps him regain his confidence, instead of the firefight near the end of the movie. There’s a lot of potential here, as long as the zombies don’t interrupt that volleyball scene – it’s epic just as it is.
Inception
This could go a couple of ways. The zombies exist within the shared dreams and get in the way of the character’s attempts to pull off the “kicks” – the dream events that awaken the characters from deeper dream layers. This would definitely add even more urgency to the movie. Or they could exist in the real world and we could see Dom (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) infiltrate their subconscious.
We’re not really sure what function this would serve as far as advancing the plot (maybe it will help put an end to the zombie apocalypse somehow?), but come on, how cool would it be to see inside a zombie’s mind? What does a zombie’s subconscious look like? So many possibilities!
Blade Runner
Part of what’s great about Blade Runner is its exploration of what it means to be human. Whereas Deckard (Harrison Ford) hunts the replicants, and Tyrell (Joe Turkel) doesn’t seem to value their lives, Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer) demonstrates an understanding of the value of life by saving Deckard. It would be great to see this theme played up with zombies. Assuming the replicants were immune to the zombie virus, would they try to save the humans, or just get out of town and live their lives in peace?
We like to think they’d try to help. This would really drive home the message that sentience and an understanding of morality aren’t the sole provinces of organic life forms.
The Wizard of Oz
Because Oz is such a weird world, zombies actually might not be that much of a shocker there. We could see them being treated as almost just a part of life, the way they are to a certain extent in later seasons of The Walking Dead. But the potential for Dorothy (Judy Garland) and her crew to use them in their favor is pretty awesome. In fact, since the Tin Man (Jack Haley) and the especially the Scarecrow (Ray Bolger) – who has no brain - would be immune to zombie bites, they could rally and control a horde to fight off the flying monkeys and whatnot.
The Wicked Witch of the West (Margaret Hamilton) would be less likely to mess with them if they had a posse of zombie bodyguards at their disposal.
Titanic
Zombies on a ship would be a little like snakes on a plane. Imagine trying to escape a sinking ocean liner while also fighting off zombies. Pretty terrifying. If we’re doing this iZombie style, where zombies basically function like normal humans as long as they have a steady supply of brains to eat, then maybe Jack (Leonardo DiCaprio) could get bitten as he’s fleeing the ship. As a zombie, he could survive the cold water – plus, there’d be plenty of dead bodies floating around, so there’d be no shortage of brains to stave off his zombie madness while he and Rose (Kate Winslet) wait to be rescued. Maybe they could get their (mostly) happy ending, after all!
Labyrinth
Bowie and zombies – it really doesn’t get better than that. Aside from the oh-so-80s soundtrack and the trippy ballroom scene, what makes this movie exciting is that Sarah (Jennifer Connelly) has to make her way through the maze and beat a ticking clock in order to rescue her baby brother. Zombies would definitely make it more difficult for her to find her way through the labyrinth, upping the suspense factor significantly.
Watching Sarah fight off a zombie horde, then get turned around and have to do it all over again would make it that much sweeter when she finally reaches her destination. But really, there are two words that best explain why Labyrinth made this list: Zombie muppets.
