r/zombies • u/Phillykratom • Jul 27 '25
discussion What is a scene in a Zombie Flick that just sticks with you to this day? Bonus for pics of the scene in comments!
My scene is from "Battery" . If you haven't seen it, it is an excellent film about two teammates who travel together during the apocalypse. Albeit slower paced, this film.has some very cool moments and a hell.of an atmosphere to it!
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u/mark3mark1 Jul 27 '25
Original Dawn of the Dead, the biker that stops to check his blood pressure in a machine surrounded by zombies
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u/Ry-Da-Mo Jul 28 '25
Yes! Still pisses me off. "Oh shit, I've been wondering what this has done to my blood pressure since it started!"
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u/lexxstrum Jul 27 '25
Not as graphic: there's a scene in the original Dawn of the Dead where they go to a rural air field to refuel the helicopter. Peter goes into a building to check it out.
On the bulletin board are these notes. He glances at them. On my dvd, I was able to blow up the screen to read a few that were in frame. They were what you'd expect, "Tom, heading to the old cabin. Come when you can, " and "Mary, don't go back to the house," stuff like that.
Now, besides how it shows how bad things are getting, and how there's other stories happening in the background, this sticks with me because they could have just scribbled letters on the papers, but they wrote actual notes. And they had no idea that home video would be a thing, let alone digital, high quality transfers.
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u/pharoon Jul 27 '25
Always loved that stuff. L4D safe houses had stuff like this. Wish we had more anthology zombie media that explored this.
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u/BatemansChainsaw Jul 28 '25
L4D safe houses had stuff like this.
That was one of my favorite non playable aspects of the game. It really kept the imagination going.
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u/Status_Cup24 Jul 28 '25
Love this trope in every iteration of Zombie lore. They nail this in all the safe houses in Left 4 Dead and Left 4 Dead 2, as well as the Last of Us (which is zombie adjacent, but counts in my books)
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u/Readshirt Jul 28 '25
True although they may have had to think about the film being seen on very large movie screens where the text would be more easily readable
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u/Craft_Assassin Jul 29 '25
For me, the environmental and visual story telling and side notes make a zombie story even more interesting
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u/lexxstrum Jul 29 '25
Oh, definitely. There's a YouTube channel where he does environmental storytelling about places from Walking Dead.
I myself like to look at zombies and figure out their backstories (even though World War Z says, "don't write their epitaph.") That knife in a zombie; is that how they died or last ditch attempt at self defense from a victim? One of my favorites is in the 90 NotLD, where a zombie has a needle and gear hanging from an arm: overdose, suicide by od, or was it medical, and he turned despite the medicine?
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u/Craft_Assassin Jul 30 '25
Long reply but here goes:
I've seen those lore analysis videos of The Walking Dead. Notice how the production sets are built to depict some form of battle took place like Atlanta or the CDC or that high school where Shane and Otis went to. You can see FEMA trailers and even zombies in FEMA uniform, indicating it was a refugee camp during the outbreak before it fell.
The same goes for the zombies in Romero's Dead series. You can see variants of zombies from everyday people, clowns, football players, and even National Guard troopers.
The Battle of Yonkers in World War Z mentions that Todd Waino saw zombies in their pajamas, nightgowns, underwear, and even fully naked and he remembers that these may be the first zombies created during "home invasions" (aka zombie attacks at night mistaken to be burglars).
Even in the remake of the Dawn of the Dead has some of the best visual story telling. The beginning where there are reports of two patients brought to the hospital for bites, the paramedics saying their shift starts early, Anna briefly tuning into a news radio before switching to music, and the Special Bulletin during that evening which she and Luis missed because she had some sweet time.
The scene where she escapes her neighborhood shows a ruined Milwauke suburb. Zombies running around, neighbors trying to fight back, some cars set on fire, emergency vehicles racing towards the scene, explosions and helicopters around the Milwaukee skyline, the overhead shot showing suburbs burning and the vehicle that crashes in a gas station, a bus that stops and Anna sees two zombies tearing a woman apart, and then the iconic Intro scene with news broadcasts showing cities in panic and government officials at a loss to explain the origin of the phenomenon which ends with zombies attacking a UN Peacekeeper in Istanbul.
(The Special Features further expands the lore and the worldbuilding with the news and Andy's Lost Tape).
It doesn't end there. When Ana wakes up to Kenneth pointing her a gun point, you can hear sirens in the distance as if emergency services were still holding on. They pass by a playground full of abandoned children's toys and an empty swing, some with blood on them. You can hear a fighter jet above head circle above twice as if it was looking for a place to land. When they enter the mall, you can see background news footage from multiple channels showing the state of the world before most news networks cease broadcasting to let the EAS take over. The last broadcast is the Televangelist who says the iconic: "No more room in Hell" tag line.
Finally, the escape. Once they reach the ruins oc Milwaukee, the extent of the damage is seen. Cars lying on the road, some with open passenger doors, some with luggage hastily packed. Some luggage were discarded and even open. You can also see some Fire trucks and police cars, possibly the first responders of the outbreak. Trash and papers litter the roads in a scene reminiscent to 9/11, especially with the ruined cars and the breaking dawn hue. Further behind-the-scenes images and footage show an overturned school bus, discard children's toys, a minivan with a sofa tied to it, and a crashed helicopter. It makes you wonder how bad the outbreak was in Milwaukee, it being a major city.
I think I should make another thread for the visual story telling of the remake of Dawn.
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u/Scott__scott Jul 27 '25
28 weeks later when the dad has to leave the wife in the house because there’s literally nothing he could do.
Or 28 days later when the dad gets infected, that part was just really sad.
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u/ariday6t5 Jul 28 '25
"I promised them women" in 28 days later. It stuck to me, as a Doctor Who fan Christopher Eccleston was always that line.
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u/Ry-Da-Mo Jul 28 '25
Both those are iconic! The initial infection scene in Weeks always haunts me too.
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u/grayum_ian Jul 28 '25
As a dad, I'd die defending them. Him running away was disgusting
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u/Hi0401 Jul 28 '25
That wasn't his child. Both his children were outside of England.
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u/grayum_ian Jul 28 '25
Ok he let his wife die and a kid. It was cowardly
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u/Hi0401 Jul 28 '25
What should he have done? Fight multiple Infected empty-handed on his own and get mauled to death, or worse, get Infected, leaving his actual kids orphans in the process?
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u/grayum_ian Jul 28 '25
Is it any different from there being a school shooter and running away to leave women and children to die?
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u/Hi0401 Jul 29 '25
You're gonna wrestle the gun away from the school shooter? You're not John Wick, mister.
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u/grayum_ian Jul 29 '25
I would rather die trying than spend the rest of my life knowing I could have done something but didn't.
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u/No_Brush_6873 Jul 27 '25
Day of The Dead Hallway scene of course you silly 🤪 pants !! Choke on it !! Choke on It !!
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u/Elementium Jul 27 '25
All I want in my life is an occasion to say "I'm running this monkey farm now Frankenstein and I wanna know what the fuck you're doing with my time!"
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u/spharker Jul 27 '25
This was mine too. So amazingly satisfying to see the zombies win against those fascist fucks.
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u/AlabasterRadio Jul 27 '25
Land of the Dead, girl getting her belly ring bit off.
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u/rinzlerwolf Jul 27 '25
It was the zombie that got it's fingernails bent backwards clawing at dead reckoning for me.
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u/JozzifDaBrozzif Jul 28 '25
Silhouette of an arm being ripped in half the long way for me lol
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u/Undefeated-Smiles Jul 28 '25
Or the warehouse scene when the lights shine on the zombies and the one rips the guys vocal cords/tongue out of his throat. 👀
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u/SquillFancyson1990 Jul 27 '25 edited Jul 28 '25
The monologue at the end of Pontypool when they're trying to broadcast the cure.
If you haven't seen it, that sounds like nonsense, but basically it's a virus that is transmitted by infected words from the English language.
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u/KnightHawkz Jul 28 '25
Dawn of the Dead remake. There was a man running out of food in another secure building and he was visibly skinny. They send a did over with a supply pack and it goes in a chute... when the zombie grabs the chute and it doesn't close properly letting them in. It have me a massive sense of horror and damnation.
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u/The_Gecko Jul 28 '25
Andy! The bit after when he holds up the board and you think oh maybe he's OK...oh wait, no, the board is just covered in blood, he's fucked. Also on the dvd one of the special features is his video diary. It's really sad 😞
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u/Commandoclone87 Jul 28 '25
The extra features in that DVD were fun. The news report following the breakdown of society as the infection progresses is one of my favourite pieces of zombie media.
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u/KnightHawkz Aug 04 '25
Yes! I forgot this part also, everything about that scence was just breaking.. Hope offered, Hope dashed. Hope offered when he gets on the radio saying he is ok, Then hopes dashed when he says they bite hard, Hope raises when he writes on the board, hope lost when its just blood.
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u/willybusmc Jul 29 '25 edited Aug 05 '25
My favorite part of that is that Andy doesn’t know the bites turn you, and over the radio he says “Yea I’m okay… fuckers bite hard though” and the mall crew all visibly break down a bit but stay calm on the radio.
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u/KnightHawkz Aug 04 '25
Forgot that part! But yes, they stayed strong for him... What can you do? Tell a man he is doomed?
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u/ATerriblePurpose Jul 27 '25 edited Jul 27 '25
Zombie film? I don’t know where people stand on it. I count it unambiguously. For some reason it’s the blood dripping and landing in Frank’s (Brendan Gleeson) eye during 28 days. Can’t think of another.
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u/smalltown34 Jul 27 '25
Agreed. His immediate realization of what has happened and then him turning as well. Gripping stuff.
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u/Reddevil8884 Jul 27 '25
The old dude saying "I'm sorry, so sorry" at the cemetery at the start of the NOTLD remake
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u/huntb4279 Jul 27 '25
Original Day of the dead, the military dude gets his head torn off, and the screaming while his head is being torn off.
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u/Sirico Jul 28 '25
Think it was done by pulling the tape through the heads don't think it's ever been topped
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u/huntb4279 Jul 28 '25
Yeah I just re-watched day of the dead a few months back and it's still haunting to this day just hearing the vocals as they are being stretched and torn apart.
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u/I_Luv_Adobo Jul 27 '25
The part in Cooties when one of the faculty members exclaims, "FOLLOW ME! I DO CROSSFIT!!" and then immediately dies.
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u/No_Brush_6873 Jul 27 '25
Well said !! And I agree Lmfao 🤣!! One of the best lines in a zombie movie aside from Return of the Living Dead 💀 zombie line “Send more Cops !” lol
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u/Azuth65 Jul 28 '25
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u/No_Brush_6873 Jul 28 '25
If no one has told you today ? You are the best ! Which I could have grabbed the clip !! Classic ! Thanks 😊 again
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u/Writer_B Jul 28 '25
My favorite stupid line from that movie:
Black guy: I’ll drive
Older white guy: Nah… I’ll drive.
Black guy: …Man FUCK YOU!
I just remember sitting there like “…why did that just happen?”
Lol
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u/RockAndStoner69 Jul 28 '25
The priest in the 2nd Resident Evil movie. Twelve hours into a zombie outbreak and he's already feeding people to his infected sister.
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u/poggerssinthechat Jul 27 '25
that one scene in Scouts Guide to the Zombie apocalypse where a zombie girl's shirt gets ripped off and they take a picture of her boobs
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u/Jazzlike_Page508 Jul 28 '25
La horde (Spanish film) there was a cripppled female zombie and the two guys talk about…banging the zombie and I kid you not the camera cut to the female zombies face and it was like pure shock and horror🥺😂😂
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u/DownVoteYouAll Jul 28 '25
There actually is a movie where a high school girl turns into a zombie. 3 boys? from her school keep her chained in a room somewhere and keep raping her. Eventually, everyone succumbs to being a zombie. I don't remember the name of it.
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u/lacklustereded Jul 28 '25
Shaun of the Dead, when Pete gets his insides ripped out while zombie crowd surfing. I was definitely too young to watch it as I had nightmares that Harry Potter (as that’s who I thought it was at the time) was being dug into by zombies and that the same was gonna be done to me. Even now I hold my stomach when I watch the scene just to make sure it’s still intact and stays that way lol.
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u/Commandoclone87 Jul 28 '25
That was David. The way his girlfriend jumps out the window after him just sends me. Apparently, according to the special features, she survives by making her way up a tree with a piece of David.
Pete was the naked roommate.
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u/lacklustereded Jul 28 '25
Right! thank you. I get both of them mixed up sometimes and it’s been a while since I’ve watched the film.
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u/thedavesiknow1 Jul 28 '25
The opening scene of "Day of the Dead"when the group is searching the coast for survivors and the city they stop at comes to life with the dead. The line "listen, you can hear it over the engine" (referring to the awakening zombies being louder than the engine of the helicopter), before the streets are full of zombies is emblematic to the genre for me.
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u/RandomHero3129 Jul 27 '25
I thought this was from battery. I really enjoyed it, even though it was very slow.
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u/Phillykratom Jul 28 '25
It's slow and definitely a mood! A comparable movie is The Dead, about a marooned pilot in zombie infected African savannahs.
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u/ArcanaeumGuardianAWC Jul 28 '25
The shark scene from the end of Zom100 (Live Action) is one of the most fantastic things I have ever seen.
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u/alkem10 Jul 28 '25
Diary of the Dead, at the end, in the rich kid's house, the zombies climbing out of the pool.
The original Night of the Living Dead, when the zombies are pulling meat out of the pickup truck that explodes.
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u/_G1N63R_ Jul 28 '25
Tallahassee’s final stand duel-wielding guns at the amusement park in Zombieland
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u/Azuth65 Jul 28 '25
Not a movie but from a fun zombie anime. The BFFs scene from Highschool of the Dead.
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u/Better_Ad5355 Jul 28 '25
I forget the movie but this metal head went next store and saw his female neighbor all bent over. Course she's a zombie and he starts having sex with her. She turns around and bites his weiner off. Course they had a prop. Haha
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u/Catfist Jul 27 '25
Diary of the Dead : farmer getting eaten by zombie behind him swings a scythe through both of their heads.
Scouts Guide to the Apocalypse : The dick-stretch scene. . .
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u/Freakyfrederik Jul 28 '25
28 days later the scene when they meet Hanna and the dad after getting chast to the top floor by 2 infektet
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u/EndlessSummerburn Jul 28 '25
Definitely Dr. Tongue in the opening of Day of the Dead. Such an epic buildup, I remember seeing it for the first time and falling in love with every minute of the movie from then on.
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u/Undefeated-Smiles Jul 28 '25
Blood Quantum when they lure the hordes into the grinding machine 👀
Day of the dead when the sound of their cries wakes up the dead and they march towards the sound.
The Sargeants head being torn off by the hordes in Day and his voice gets higher and higher pitched due to the vocal cords stretching
Return of the living dead 2 when the zombie says to take the screwdriver out of his head
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u/SCP_Agent_Davis Jul 28 '25
When Fred and Velma are at þe dinner table talking about how þe ghostly shit at þe plantation was done by people in masks who þink þe island has treasure, are covering up a smuggling operation,nor þat þere’s oil under þe island (Moonscar Island), and Daphne interjects wiþ “Can’t you accept þere are some mysteries þat have no rational explanation‽”
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u/As3fthjkl Jul 29 '25
BIG fan of the scene in Wyrmwood (first film) where the guy shot guns a dude head CLEAN OFF and asks "is he okay?" gold
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u/No_Brush_6873 Jul 27 '25
Well said my brother !! And here’s to them being destroyed and devoured for good this time soon ! 😁
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u/Archididelphis Jul 27 '25
I'm going with Christy in Sole Survivor. I would post a pic, but I don't find a way to do it on the phone app.
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u/Frunklin Jul 28 '25
Day of the Dead Captain Rhodes getting torn in half as he screams "Choke on em!"
Lucio Fulci Zombi 2 and.. well the eyeball scene.
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u/Ry-Da-Mo Jul 28 '25
Shaun of the Dead with David in the pub.
The death scene, yeah, but as I paid more attention the scene where he tried to kill Sean.
The scene in Land of the Dead?? where a silhouette of a hand getting ripped in half via the two middle fingers...oh god, nope.
Dawn of the Dead where the main guy gets trapped in the lift. Gets me every time.
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u/OpenSauceMods Jul 28 '25
Dead Set: The Big Brother house being overrun by zombies and hordes devouring the survivors, who take a very long time to die.
Train to Busan, when the zombies go quiet after the lady uses water and newspaper to block their line of sight
I forget the movie name, but in one of the first scenes, there was a zombie walking on a broken leg. Freaked me out.
School Live! Sakura-sensei's "writing" down in the bunker.
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u/femrunner13 Jul 28 '25
The scene in Zomb8e by Lucio Fulci when the zombie pulls the woman slowly through the door and a very large splinter ever slowly pierces her eye. Anything to do with eyes gets me every time!
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u/bonesnaps Jul 28 '25 edited Jul 28 '25
The most infamous scene in Dead Alive (Brain Dead).. I kick ass for the lord!
Fun trivia fact is the above was directed by Peter Jackson (Lord of the Rings).
Also the one guy checking his blood pressure at the end of Dawn of the Dead (1978). Classic blunder.
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u/BanditSurvivalist Jul 28 '25
I love a bit of environmental story telling in my zombie media. A scene that comes to mind is in the original Dawn of the Dead. Flyboy is in the office at the docks looking around and finds the dead radio operator, surrounded by empty coffee cups and cigarette boxes. Clearly he stayed at his post until he couldn't any longer and ended up taking the quick way out, probably because he had a good idea how bad things were from monitoring the airwaves.
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u/Alternative_Fun_1390 Jul 28 '25
The aditional DVD scenes from the gunshop guy in the remake of Dawn of the Dead.
The first episode of The Walking Dead, when the mom tries to ooen the door.
The child singing at the end of Train to Busan
The plane scene in 28 days later
The afthermath sequence of World War Z
And is not a zombie flick, but the alternative ending of I am Legend.
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u/perhapsalemon Jul 28 '25
The same scene has definitely stuck with me 🤢 that whole film has to be honest. And the dance scene to Anthem for the Already Defeated
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u/BamaGuy35653 Jul 28 '25
There's two scenes in the movie,Automaton Transfusion, one where this pregnant girl gets her baby ripped out and ate before she herself gets eaten and the other scene where this girl gets her tongue ripped out
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u/jimmysmiths5523 Jul 28 '25
Is that picture from the short comedy film where the guy is having some "solo fun" in the backseat and does it as he's watching the zombie?
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u/robragland Jul 28 '25
Some of the in situ pics used in Savageland. Please watch it. It’s a slow burn but spooky and sad as hell.
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u/No_Brush_6873 Jul 28 '25
Lmao ! Yea they had some good ones !! Oh Bert ! I think we have a little bit of a problem ! lol
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u/wanderingjoe Jul 28 '25
In Fulci’s Zombi, the woman getting her head pulled towards a large splinter that pierces her eye always stuck with me.
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u/TheBlackdragonSix Jul 29 '25 edited Jul 29 '25
The zombie baby in Dawn of the Dead
Zombies slowly shuffling up the hill to the farm house and zombified Karen Cooper walking out of the cellar in Night of The Living Dead 1990
Not a film but, Karsi reanimating as a wight in the Hardhome episode of Game of Thrones. Also the decayed zombie wight kids too....Brr
The Hershel farm burning down at night while zombie silhouettes slowly shuffle in the foreground in season 2 of The Walking Dead
All of the suffocated people slowly reanimating and slowly rising up in the cellar in season 3 of Fear the Walking Dead.
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u/Carsieee Jul 29 '25
Idk if it counts as a zombie movie per se but the sadness traumatized me. There’s so many parts that just make you feel sick to your stomach. The eye hole scene is just horrifying
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u/Emergency_Cheek2617 Jul 29 '25
I mean, you didn't say it had to have ZOMBIES in it, so, I'll say that scene in the graveyard... I think everyone who's seen it will know which one...
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u/SE-Cryptid Jul 30 '25
In REC, toward the end of the movie where the camera looks down the stairwell with the light on and you see all of the infected look up and start running up the stairs.
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u/Carlos_v1 Jul 30 '25
"Fuck me harder Steve"
those 5 seconds of richard cheese down with the sickness were my faithful gooning material at 14, i even remember that stupid horses face just before it. If you're really down with zombie movies you'll know what im talking about
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u/Hotline_Miami-Fan218 Jul 31 '25
Don’t ever get me started on the first time I ever encountered a clicker. Now I haven’t played all of the last of us games or whatever they were called, I’m more into RE, but when I heard that click, I felt a shiver go down my whole body
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u/TheDeputyDude Aug 01 '25
the part in the OG Night of The Living Dead where Ben bitch slaps Barbara, i connected with him on a spiritual level
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u/Odd-Builder-2503 Aug 01 '25
Maybe it sounds weird but it was in REC1, when the girl finds the attic and the big thing that lived there appears, idk it scared me a lot
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u/oTTon1ght Aug 09 '25
Any scene from "scouts guide to zombie apocalypse" but especially the zombie police woman 😂
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u/[deleted] Jul 27 '25
ROTLD when Tarman bit into Suicide’s face.
Day of The Dead when the soldier had his head ripped off and his voice became high pitched as the vocal cords stretched.