The Six Best Performances From Zombies

Fido: Fido

Fun fact: Director Andrew Currie decided to direct this film after meeting its star and being so impressed with how well he presented himself. At no point did Fido try to bite Andrew and that alone was a huge selling point because he knew how closely the two would be working for the next few months.

And that is not the only surprising part to this story, the craziest part is that Fido is actually a pretty much true to life telling of Fido’s actual story! Though not told in his words, the writers did the best they could to interpret his grunts and moans as and transcribe it into a somewhat cohesive story.

When the dead first came back, as you can all remember, it was a pretty daunting time. Fido, it seems, was one of but a handful of the undead who just never got aggressive toward humans. Well, never is being a bit lenient, but you get the point.

Putting on chap stick with precision is clearly not his strong point.

It was clear that Fido wanted to act, and not maim, and who are we to keep someone (or something) from their one true calling?

It was also surprising to most how funny he ended up being in real life, oozing charisma, or some say, a liquid very similar.

All Kidding Aside: This is a gem of a zombie film that too few of you have seen, so no excuses, go watch ti now Funny thing is, I saw this movie without having any idea that Fido was Billy Connolly, and only enjoy the film even more now that I know. A surprisingly sweet movie and a great performance, per usual, from Billy Connolly.

Zombie Girl: Dawn of the Dead (Remake)

This is the film that caused Zack Snyder to turn his back on horror, and it is said that it is due to his miniscule amount of time working with zombie girl, who is remembered for being the first zombie we actually see in the film. But as wild as she is in the scene, there are rumblings that much of what happened on screen was improvised, at the cost of one actor’s life.

Yes, you read that correctly. The scene in the beginning of the movie where the little girl comes in and rips out the throat of the lead character’s husband was not written that way at all.

The girl was actually supposed to bite his hand, and his change was supposed to happen over the course of the film, but the girl, who they had found wandering a mall in a leash (*ironically), went feral when Snyder yelled action.

They always look so cute, until they tear out your throat and move like a ninja.

The sad aftermath was that actor Louis Ferreira, who played the husband, was actually bitten and turned into a zombie in that scene, and they leave it in the film.

When asked about why he chose to reshoot, he said: We already had the footage. And Lou was a great guy who would have wanted it this way. How many actors can say they turned ON FILM? I just changed film history. I bet I could remake Watchmen now… and then Snyder just trailed off, staring at the wall for a few minutes, mumbling something about a dream within a dream.

All Kidding Aside: I have, and will always say, that the first ten minutes of a horror film can be the most important. Zack Snyder knew that when he shot this intro, because it instantly climbed the ranks as one of the greatest openings to a horror movie, ever. That is thanks in no small part to the performance by Hannah Lochner, who plays the young girl turned zombie, Vivian. Whenever I see that scene of her when she jumped up onto her feet from laying on her back, and then does dash at the door like an animal, I get chills.

That scene, and that little girl, proves to me why I would last about thirty seconds in an actual zombie scenario.

Shark Fighting Zombie: Zombi

This one is going to get some people mad, and we know that, but to not honor this remarkable zombie would be a sin to both mankind and zombiekind.

Though director Lucio Fulci still claims the zombie was coherent and chose to do it, a lot of zombie advocates have said otherwise, stating a zombies inability to truly communicate would make agreement on a scene impossible. Some who were there that day say Fulci just lifted him up and threw him overboard, and already had underwater cameras set up so they could immediately film the exchange between two of nature’s most fearsome beasts: the zombie and the shark.

What happened next is the stuff of urban legends, but it is said a shark that had been gorged on horse meat and tranquilizers was introduced to the scene, where it then had a tense, on camera exchange with this underwater zombie.

httpv://youtu.be/uOSN2s8FY8Q

You had to get a clip of this one, it’s too cool to talk about and not show.

The worst part for many to stomach was the fact that the zombie, when it was brought back onto the boat, just sort of waterlogged and felt apart. The special effects coordinator for the film is quoted as having said “Imagine a log, rotted through, with termites and water damage, just sort of decomposing in front of your eyes and you can see what we saw. I still have nightmares about it.”

Can you hear my printer printing this out right now?

But to zombies, that waterlogged zombie is the stuff of legends. That one zombie actor who was not afraid of dying for his craft, he is sited by many undead thespians as inspiration for them to pursue acting as well.

All Kidding Aside: It may be a ghetto scene, but it is a mind blowing one.

It is said the shark really was stuffed on horse meat and sedatives so it would not attack the actor, and some rumors even go so far as to say they shark had its teeth removed before the scene, but I only know 3 shark dentists, and they all said that was unlikely. This is the one scene I show people when arguing why CG sucks, though, because something this filled with badassery would NEVER happen now a days. Now it would be a CG shark, and a CG actor, lit against some green screen. MADE OF CG!

So you see, anyone can summon a good performance from a living actor, but it takes an incredibly talented director to get performances this awe inspiring out of dead people.

Seriously, though, at different times in my life, all of these zombies have stood out to me for entirely different reasons. And as much as I have joked, conveying emotion while caked in makeup and wearing colored contacts only makes the job that much harder, and that much more impressive when these actors still do it so flawlessly.

The zombie market may be over saturated now, but these 6 still rise to the topsoil.

Ok, sorry about that pun, too.