With 28 Years Later coming out earlier this year, a lot of people may have found a newfound interest in the zombie horror genre. The sub-genre is a classic fixture in horror— mixing together the common underlying fears of illness, corpses, and death with those of a collapsing society.
Stories set in a post-apocalyptic world allow people to explore what the world would be like without the common luxuries that we forget that we constantly rely on, such as standardized electricity and plumbing. Movies that explore these themes intrigue a lot of people, horror fans especially.
This genre also lends well to movies with themes such as isolation and paranoia. While all these movies include the classic horror movie monster of the zombie, a lot of them delve into the horror of what people can be driven to when in desperate situations.
If you are one of these many people wanting to see more zombie movies, you may be itching for more unique films to get your horror fix. I’ve listed five films all over the world with zombies in them, all of them produced in countries outside of the United States.
1) Outside
Outside was produced in the Philippines by Netflix in 2024. It’s a slow moving, more grounded story of a world in the earlier stages of a zombie apocalypse.
The film follows Francis and his family as they struggle to survive. As we watch the movie, we slowly learn more about him, his past, as well as his dynamic between his wife and his two sons. The film is more of a psychological horror than we would expect, and a lot of the tension is not solely due to zombie attacks.
The movie starts out slow, but even in the slower scenes there is a build up of tension as the movie drops little hints here and there. Suspense is weaved into the less action heavy scenes, and the audience starts to get a sense of dread as they think of what might happen next.
The action scenes are also suspenseful and well executed. I especially found this film's interpretations of zombies to be creepy, as the zombies repeat words that they may have said in life. This simple idea allows for some more suspense, as sometimes we are not always sure of who is a zombie and who is not.
Outside reminds us as the viewer that though the zombies are going based on their instincts, the brain inside them once lived a human life just as we did. The zombies live off of their own instincts, but in the end, don’t we do so as well?
The film is about the darkness that lives inside of us and what we can do when we lean into our worst instincts. I would personally recommend viewer discretion, as this movie in particular deals with heavy themes of domestic violence.
Outside is available to watch on Netflix.
2) The Night Eats the World
The Night Eats the World is a French production, though the actors speak in English throughout the film. This seems to me to be a move to get more sales internationally, as English is very commonly spoken throughout the world.
The film is slow moving, and not heavy on dialogue. Rather, it instead silently takes us through what the protagonist, Sam, is experiencing throughout the film.
The movie starts out with Sam at a party, looking for some cassette tapes that his ex kept with her after they broke up. By happenstance, he happens to close his eyes while in the room with his old belongings, which kept him safe from the chaos happening on the other side of the door. When morning comes, he realizes that something is very wrong.
Overnight, the world had completely changed. Everyone present at the party seems to have died, ran away, or else became infected. In a sense, the night that Sam was asleep had ‘eaten the world’ as the title states.
The film focuses on the main character trying to explore the world around him while also keeping himself safe. The complete isolation that Sam feels is emphasized, and the viewers see how the days start to blend together for him. The movie is bleak, making us feel the aching despondency that one would feel in that situation.
The zombies themselves are of the fast-moving variety, but the zombie actors use unusual movement and expressions to make the zombies seem suitably unnatural. The action scenes are well thought out, and the action itself is easy to follow.
The Night Eats The World is available to watch on Tubi.
3) Cemetery Man
Cemetery Man is an Italo-French production, and is alternatively titled Dellamorte Dellamore. Similarly to The Night Eats the World, the actors all speak English.
The film is about a grave-keeper who lives in a cemetery, hence the title. He takes it upon himself to kill anybody who returns from the dead in the graveyard, destroying their heads to prevent them from attacking anybody else. As he lives only with his assistant Gnahgi, he is isolated and feels emotionally distant from the ‘normal’ world, filled with living people.
Though he tries to have a connection with the living, he finds that his attempts at finding love seem to fail him. Dellamorte Dellamore, the Italian title, has both death (morte) and love (amore), hinting at the themes of this movie.
The zombies present in this film are just as bizarre as the rest of the film. The effects are very silly, and the rules of them seem to change from scene to scene. In this movie, nothing is what it seems, and it quickly devolves into a chaotic, absurd dark comedy that feels like a fever dream.
The film makes you think about the difference between those alive and those undead in the movie, and what the difference between them really is, if any. It makes you feel like the main character, completely disconnected and disillusioned by the world around him, feeling unable to grasp any reality or take anything around him seriously.
Unlike the other titles present here, this film is very much meant to be comedic. It’s an absurd and dark comedy that makes you laugh too much to squirm at the gory deaths. The effects are low budget, but with the tone that this movie sets, it only serves to further how bizarre the movie feels.
This is a strange and one of a kind film that really needs to be seen to be believed. Love it or hate it, the film is very unique for sure.
Cemetery Man is available to watch on Tubi.
4) REC
REC is a Spanish production. The movie is a found footage film, following Angela, a news anchor on a local Spanish TV program called While You’re Sleeping, as well as Pablo, the unseen camera man who is filming everything happening.While she is following local firemen and filming them for the program, the firemen answer a non-urgent call that leads them into far more danger than they expected as they end up trapped in a sealed apartment building.
As the infection spreads, the group struggles to survive, while also dealing with the terrible creeping paranoia and anger that threatens to divide them. Like some of the best zombie films do, it shows you what people can be pushed to in a life or death situation.
The found footage format allows for an unsettling sense of mundanity, making everything feel all the more real. The opening portion feels like the outtakes of a real television program, which makes it all the more jarring when it devolves into chaos.
With the lighting seeming so natural, it really adds to make the gore and violence feel shocking. It feels disturbing, like you are seeing something you are not meant to see. The film plays into this, showing the darker side that comes with recording and filming horrible events.
The zombies in this film can go from moving very slowly to suddenly lunging or going into a run, which works in this film’s advantage when it comes to sudden, surprising scares. The loud, primal yells of the zombies play into the viewer’s fears, putting them on edge throughout. The editing techniques in this movie are also unique, using the medium of film in creative ways to show how people are viewing the material.
REC is available to watch on Tubi.
5) #Alive
#Alive is a South Korean production. Similarly to The Night Eats the World and REC, most of the film is set within an apartment building. Jun-u is a young man who lives with his parents, who had gotten separated from them at the start of the epidemic.
Jun-u plays games online, uses social media, and is knowledgeable about new technology. This sets the movie apart from the other films on this list, as Jun-u uses technology to his advantage in order to surprise, such as using his drone to fly above the horde of zombies.
He’s very inventive as well as empathetic, so the viewer can easily sympathize with him and wants to root for him to survive. We get a sense of what his life was like before the epidemic, and through small bits of dialogue and context clues, he is well characterized and feels very much like a real person caught up in a horrible situation.
The movie drops us in the action straight away, making use of the idea that zombies are a well-known trope at this point and will quickly understand the situation. The rules of how the zombies work in the universe of this film is very effectively explained, which makes the stakes of the suspenseful scenes in the film clear.
The zombies are fast moving and animalistic. I particularly thought that the actors portraying the zombies did a good job in this film with their body language and facial expressions, as they felt suitably unnatural and uncanny. They definitely feel more like a rabid animal than a human being, which taps into the innate fear we have of disease and a loss of control.
The film is well paced, setting things up and subtly introducing hints of foreshadowing. The action scenes are especially well done in this movie, as the characters use objects in their environment to their advantage. The soundtrack is at times fun and at other times suspenseful, which adds well to the intense scenes of the movie.
#Alive is available to watch on Netflix.
What is your favorite zombie movie? Personally, I highly recommend REC out of all these options, as I find it to be the most effectively scary. All five of these movies are a fun time though, and definitely worth the watch.