Too Many Zombies,
Not Enough Time

Zombies, as we all know, are forever. And they’ve been here, as far as popular culture goes,’ for almost 75 years. Today, three quarters for a century after the first cinematic Rising, there are a couple of tons of zombie-themed things out there — movies, TV shows, books, toys, costumes, comics, podcasts, and on and on — that just keep coming (much like the zombie horde itself)

It’s really too much. Quite literally: too damned much

The Zombie Gift Guide is an attempt to point you towards the best (and wonderfully worst) of all those thing, separating the gold from the horde (again, quite literally) of crap that’s out there. It’s certainly not everything – that would be nuts! – but that’s the goal: the ever-expanding, ever-evolving Best of the Zombie World.

We hope that a lot of what you’ll find here will be delightfully new to you, and at the same time will wave you away from the inevitably mediocre and just plain bad mass that normally fills your field of vision — you know, all that stuff that isn’t truly wonderful or gloriously awful but just … there. We don’t want you wasting your money or your time (or your friends’ and family’s hard-earned resources) on mediocrity,

And we realized early on that there’s just so much stuff, we had to  get organized. So first, we split it into media groups:

• • Movies

  • TV Shows (TV movies, mini-series, episodic TV, etc.)

  • Books (including audiobooks, comics, and podcasts)

  • Games (video, mobile, board, etc.)

  • Apparel (Tee shirts, sweatshirts, hoodies etc,)

  • Costumes (Cosplay, masks, make-up)

  • Toys (dolls, stuffed animals, action figures, etc,)

  • Cool Stuff that doesn’t fit anywhere else

Next, we wanted to break it into the various kinds of zombies we all know and often love. There’s zombie speed, that breaks down as:

• • Shamblers (i.e., slow zombies, like George A. Romero’s classics from 1968)

  • Strollers (i.e., zombies that move about the speed of the not-yet-dead, like Disney’s Zombies and so many others)

  • Sprinters (i.e., fast zombies, like Danny Boyles’ Rage-infected swarms from 28 Days Later

  • Swarmers (i.e., the super-fast army-ant, completely non-human waves, like the tsunami of the undead in World War Z)

And of course there’s the issue of just how smart — or not — the Risen are. Think of it as a gas tank more than a brain. You’ve got walkers that have:

• • An empty tank, like your classic Romero or Walking Dead type

  • Half a tank, like the beloved Bub of Day of the Dead or Fido of, well, Fido

  • A full tank, like the ‘lovers’ in Warm Bodies

There’s also the era in which the story is set. You’ve got stories about:

• • The Outbreak/strong>, like the ground-breaking Day of the Dead movie and now TV series

  • The Aftermath, set days or months or years after the Outbreak, like everything from Z Nation to a wide range of good (and often not-so-good) books and some movies

  • One-on-One Tales – stories about folks turning into or coping with zombies in the family, in the neighborhood, in the basement – everything from the lovely weirdness of Fido and Warm Bodies to the dark tragedy of Deadgirl

We also felt like we had to take a crack at evaluation. So we came up with these categories of quality. You’ve got products that are:

• • Essential

  • Adequate

  • Underrated

  • Recommended

  • Inexplicably Popular

And here’s the best point: every item in the Gift Guide is categorized in one (and often more) ways, so if you just want a list of movies, or just a list of all things — books, TV shows, movies, podcasts — about fast zombies, or some suggestions on lesser-known gems, you can find them with a click or two right here. And of course, we’ll supply links to where you can buy the item we’re talking about at the best possible price. What kind of Gift Guide would we be if we didn’t do that?

And of course … we need your help!

Obviously, a curated list like this is just a big, bad bundle of opinions. And like various other parts of the anatomy, we know that everyone’s got one of their own. Or two. Believe it or not, there are even people out there, as misguided as they may be, that don’t think Evil Dead 2 is a zombie movie, or don’t think Joe Bob Briggs is a national treasure. We get that. So feel free to tell us what you think, when you think it. And give us suggestions, too (beyond the anatomically impossible, please). Drop us a note here

Finally: we all know there are new zombie things arriving on the scene all the time. That’s why Brad Munson and Sha Sims have created Zombie World, a weekly podcast on zombie news and a close-up on some of the best, worst, and most outrageous items available. Every Tuesday. You can learn more here, on Zombie World’s own site, or subscribe on iTune here (or wherever else you’d like. We’re not picky.) And follow us on Instagram or Twitter or Mastodon or other social media. while you’re at it. Why the hell not? Oh, and if you want updates on our newest info or products? We also offer the inevitable (and of course free) newsletter, but we only publish it when we actually have something to interesting or important to say. Sign up below.

Okay, enough of this. You kids go have some fun now. Glad to have you here!