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Zombies A-Z: An Alphabetical Guide to the Living Dead

Zombies A-Z: An Alphabetical Guide to the Living Dead

Thanks to ''Zombieland,'' what was once an entrail-strewn footnote to the horror genre is now mainstream. Whether it's your first juicy taste of zombie mayhem or your hundredth, you'll want to devour our encyclopedia of all things undead.

By Clark Collis and Chris Nashawaty

Updated October 09, 2009 at 02:00 AM EDT

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Credit: Michael Gibson

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B IS FOR BRAINS While your average zombie will happily nosh on arms, legs, or intestines (be they upper or lower), 1985's Return of the Living Dead singled out this sweetmeat as their repast of choice.

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Credit: Marvel Entertainment

C IS FOR COMIC BOOKS AMC is developing a show based on the comic The Walking Dead. The giddy, gory Marvel Zombies has proven that even superheroes get cravings. Hulk...eat...brains!

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D IS FOR DEAD If it's a zombie movie, there's a good chance it has this word in the title. See: Dawn of the Dead, Shaun of the Dead, and...

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E IS FOR EROTIC NIGHTS OF THE LIVING DEAD Think you can't mix '80s soft-core porn and zombies? Think again.

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F IS FOR FULCI As in Lucio Fulci, Italian gore-teur whose infamous 1980 epic Zombie, a.k.a. Zombie Flesh Eaters, a.k.a. Zombi 2, featured an unforgettably awesome underwater smackdown between a pasty-faced zombie and a real live shark.

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G IS FOR GOBLIN, the colorfully named prog-rock band who performed the doom-drenched soundtrack to the European version of the 1978 classic Dawn of the Dead.

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H IS FOR HEAD SHOT How do you kill a zombie? Well, you can try kindness. But we'd suggest shooting it in the head.

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I IS FOR iPHONE Can you really put a price on preparedness for the inevitable zombie apocalypse? Of course not! So why not cough up 99 cents for the Zombie Survival Kit iPhone app?

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Credit: Everett Collection

J IS FOR JACKSON, PETER Sure, we all think of the hirsute Kiwi director as the visionary behind the Lord of the Rings trilogy. But before he got rich and respectable, he was a zombie nerd. Exhibit A: his gooey 1993 cheapie Dead Alive, a.k.a. Braindead.

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K IS FOR KARO SYRUP, the key ingredient in fake movie blood for any makeup F/X artist (see ''S is for Savini''). Essential for splatter and viscosity.

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Credit: Michael Gibson

L IS FOR LAND OF THE DEAD Usually a ghetto for no-name actors, the zombie genre got a dose of A-list (okay, maybe B-list) cachet with 2005's Land of the Dead, which starred Dennis Hopper, John Leguizamo, and the dude from The Mentalist.

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Credit: Everett Collection

M IS FOR MONROEVILLE MALL If you take Exit 57 off the Pennsylvania Turnpike, you'll find yourself at the most hallowed landmark in zombie-movie lore — the shopping center from George A. Romero's consumerist satire Dawn of the Dead. Come for the Auntie Anne's Pretzels, stay to photograph yourself eating fake guts. But please don't tell them we sent you.

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Credit: Sveinung Svendsen

N IS FOR NAZIS What could possibly be nastier than zombies? How about zombies that sport jackboots, swastika armbands, and iron crosses? Remarkably, there have been at least three Nazi-zombie films: 1977's Shock Waves, 2008's Outpost, and 2009's Dead Snow (pictured).

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Credit: Bullit Marquez/AP Images

O IS FOR ORANGE UNIFORMS Michael Jackson's ''Thriller'' video brought zombie choreography to the masses — which ultimately included Day-Glo-clad Filipino prison inmates, who re-created MJ's moves in a 2007 viral hit.

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P IS FOR PRIDE AND PREJUDICE AND ZOMBIES ''It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains.'' So begins this year's unlikeliest publishing sensation, a tea-drinking, flesh-eating riff on Jane Austen's romantic literary classic.

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Credit: John Bramley

Q IS FOR QUARANTINE, a Hollywood remake of the terrifying 2007 Spanish POV chiller [REC], in which a TV journalist is trapped in an apartment complex full of infected cannibals. Also: the only zombie movie we can think of that begins with Q.

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Credit: Peter Mountain

R IS FOR RUNNING ZOMBIES Zombie geeks are a pretty peaceful lot. Except when it comes to the heated debate over fast- versus slow-moving zombies. While Romero's old-school series espouses the lumbering-undead model, younger directors such as Zack Snyder (2004's Dawn of the Dead remake) and Danny Boyle (2002's 28 Days Later, pictured) feature zombies that make Usain Bolt look like a slowpoke.

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Credit: Carolyn M. Bauman/AP Images

S IS FOR SAVINI Ever felt queasy watching a zombie film? You can probably thank Tom Savini, the makeup F/X legend whose credits include 1978's Dawn of the Dead and 1985's Day of the Dead.

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Credit: Everett Collection

T IS FOR ''THEY'RE COMING TO GET YOU, BARBRA!'' The most famous line in zombie-movie history is uttered by Russell Streiner, who's attempting to creep out his scaredy-cat sister (played by Judith O'Dea) in 1968's Night of the Living Dead. In a deliciously sick, ironic twist toward the end of the film, it's Streiner who comes for Sis, after being turned into one of...them.

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Credit: Everett Collection

U IS FOR UMBRELLA CORPORATION, the nefarious bioengineering firm responsible for the zombie plague in the Resident Evil videogames and the Milla Jovovich-starring big-screen spin-offs.

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Credit: Peter Sorel

V IS FOR VAMPIRES Yes, they're also undead, but in a dreamy, come-hither, mooning-over-sulky-chicks sort of way (see Robert Pattinson, pictured). We'll side with the zombies in a street fight, thanks.

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Credit: Glen Wilson

W IS FOR WOODY HARRELSON We all remember his cold-blooded shooting spree in Natural Born Killers, and now we're never going to forget seeing the country bumpkin barkeep from Cheers blasting away at the undead in Zombieland.

Woody Harrelson talks Zombieland and more in the Oct. 16 issue of Entertainment Weekly, on sale now.

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Credit: David Gray

X IS FOR X-FILES, THE Given the hit show's monster-of-the-week nature, it was only a matter of time before Mulder and Scully wanted to believe in zombies. The episode in question: a doozy from 1999 in which they investigated a (possibly) zombie-related conspiracy with the assistance of Lance Henriksen's Frank Black.

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Y IS FOR YOUNG ZOMBIES Kids. They won't just eat you out of house and home in zombie movies — they'll eat you, too! One of the many taboo-trashing scenes in Night of the Living Dead had a young girl in a flowered dress taking a chomp out of her father's arm as a snack.

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Z IS FOR ZOMBIE SURVIVAL GUIDE, THE If you want to tie a sheepshank knot, the Boy Scout Handbook is your best bet. If zombies are attacking, try Max (son of Mel) Brooks' tongue-in-cheek guide to making it through World War Z.

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By Clark Collis @clarkcollis
By Chris Nashawaty

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Zombies A-Z: An Alphabetical Guide to the Living Dead

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