The Last man on Earth
As we continue to look at the zombie movie down the decades we focus on the sixties and seventies, one of the golden eras of this genre of film.
1960
1964 - The Last Man on Earth: Robert Morgan (Vincent Price) is the last man on earth, as far as he can tell. A plague killed everyone else on the planet several years ago. He was immune to it, and can only guess why. Vampires that were formerly human attack Morgan's home every night
Morgan's days are spent shoring up his home against the vampire hordes, picking up supplies in the abandoned city, and eliminating his enemies by searching out and destroying the bloodsuckers while they sleep.
He maintains mirrors and garlic strands around his house and fashions stakes on his lathe to use on the walking dead. He also conducts experiments on the bacteria that caused this plague in an effort to find a cure.
1966 - Plague of the Zombies: Young workers are dying because of a mysterious epidemic in a little village in Cornwall. Doctor Thompson is helpless and asks professor James Forbes for help. The professor and his daughter Sylvia travel to Thomson.
Terrible things happen soon, beyond imagination or reality. Dead people are seen near an old, unused mine.
Late people seem to live suddenly. Professor Forbes presumes that black magic is involved and someone has extraordinary power. He doesn't know how close he is: the dead become alive because of a magic voodoo-ritual, and so they must serve their master as mindless zombies.
1968 - Night of the Living Dead: Seven people secluded in a Pennsylvania farmhouse face relentless attacks by reanimated corpses seeking to eat their flesh.
The group, which includes a married couple and their daughter, a pair of young lovers, and an African-American man, try to keep their sanity as the living dead keep trying to enter the house.
Radio news reports tell of the plague taking over the eastern United States, while the ever-decreasing band of survivors rapidly loses ground in the battle to both keep peace with one another and stay alive.
Directed by George Romero is the first of five Dead films and has been remade twice.
1970
1973 - Horror Express: In 1906, in China, Professor Alexander Saxton (Christopher Lee) discovers an ancient frozen fossil in the remote Province of Szechuan. He brings the remains of the being in a box to Shanghai and boards a trans-Siberian train, where he meets his acquaintance Dr. Wells (Peter Cushing).
During the trip, a life force trapped in the frozen creature is released, killing and stealing the memories of the passengers.
1978 - Dawn of the Dead: Picking up where Night of the Living Dead left off after securing an apartment building overcome with flesh-eating zombies, two Philadelphia area SWAT team members, Peter (Ken Foree) and Roger (Scott Reiniger), flee to a television station, where they escape in the station's helicopter with Francine (Gaylen Ross) and Stephen (David Emge), two station employees.
Seeking refuge from the zombies and the ensuing hysteria, they land on top of a Pittsburgh area shopping mall, despite the fact that the undead seem to be flocking there.
What begins as a stop for supplies becomes a longer stay as the four become embroiled in a futile war within the mall to keep their flesh to themselves and remain alive.
Quarantine is out now