Many will die for love but how many come back from the dead? There is truly someone for everyone — even the undead! While a zombie apocalypse sets the perfect premise for love to bloom between two protagonists, what with the rest of the world being overrun by flesh-eating monsters and the main characters, pushed together by a terrible twist of fate, certain movies take it a step further and establish relationships between the undead and humans.
Warm Bodies is one such film that established a romantic relationship between a zombie and a human taking star-crossed lovers to a whole new level or Fido which established an unlikely friendship between zombies and humans.
10 ‘Warm Bodies’ (2013)
A unique take on the usual zombies vs humans trope, this 2012 movie starring Teresa Palmer and Nicholas Hoult makes for a terrific watch. It is a heartwarming love story with equal parts romance and comedy.
Hoult plays a zombie who falls for Julie, a human, which is quite endearing to see considering his heart starts beating for the first time when he sees her, minus the eating her boyfriend bit. The movie culminates in R converting into a full human along with the rest of the zombies successfully ending the zombie apocalypse. The movie has everything, subtle and witty comedy, the disapproving father (for obvious reasons), the romance and chemistry with the slight twist of one of the protagonists being a zombie.
9 ‘Zombie Honeymoon’ (2004)
Zombie Honeymoon is the perfect example of your honeymoon going sideways when your husband becomes a flesh-eating monster. If you’ve watched Santa Clarita Diet you’re probably familiar with the storyline. Denise (Tracy Coogan) and Danny (Graham Sibley) Zanders’ honeymoon is disrupted when a zombie emerges from the sea and infects Danny.
The movie pushes the boundaries of true love as Denise tries her best to accommodate her spouse’s new lifestyle. Alas, Danny’s body deteriorates as he finally turns on his wife, unable to contain his cannibalistic hunger. With the final ounce of humanity left in his body, Danny spares Denise, apologizes to her, and succumbs. This is the perfect tragedy with an undead twist.
8 ‘Burying the Ex’ (2014)
Some relationships last a lifetime and some go beyond the grave, much like in Burying The Ex. Max (Anton Yelchin) is in a tumultuous relationship with overbearing and controlling Evelyn (Ashley Greene) — and as toxic relationships go the pair make a promise to stay together forever, unbeknownst to them the promise is made in the presence of a satanic lamp.
When Evelyn dies in a tragic accident, Max tries to move on and pursues a relationship with Olivia played by Alexandra Daddario. Little do they know, Max’s ex has risen from her grave thanks to the satanic lamp and is determined to live happily ever after with the love of her life and things take a turn for the worse. Evelyn goes rogue and Max ends up fatally stabbing her. Evelyn is finally put to rest and Max and Olivia get their happy ending.
7 ‘Life After Beth’ (2014)
Starring the ever-popular Aubrey Plaza as the protagonist Beth, Life After Beth is yet another story of how some relationships just never die. Dane DeHaan, who plays Zach Orfman, Beth’s love interest, is distraught after a snake bite kills her, but a few days later Beth reappears in her house and is kept under wraps by her parents.
While Zach tries to reach out to her, he realizes that Beth is slowly becoming a bloodthirsty zombie and that smooth jazz is her Achilles heel. As her condition worsens Zach realizes that the town is now overrun with zombies much like Beth. The movie ends with a tearful goodbye between Zach and Beth as they say their final “I love you” and Zach ends Beth’s suffering by shooting her in the head. Another bittersweet ending to a zombie love story where the romance was doomed from the beginning.
6 ‘My Boyfriend’s Back’ (1993)
My Boyfriend’s Back features Andrew Lowery as Johnny Dingle and Traci Lind as Missy McCloud. The story follows Underdog Johnny Dingle who is hopelessly in love with Missy McCloud but dies in a ‘fake robbery’ by literally taking a bullet for Missy. However, he gets another chance at love when he rises from the grave.
Missy and Zombie Johnny’s love is put to the test with many hurdles, namely a grisly ex-boyfriend, several town bullies, a doctor with ulterior motives, a murderous town mob and obviously Johnny’s cannibalistic tendencies. Eventually, Johnny begins to decay due to lack of food and dies. Here’s the kicker, the gatekeeper in heaven sends Johnny back with a new lease of life, saying he was never meant to die during the robbery and he and Missy get their happily ever after!
5 ‘Boy Eats Girl’ (2005)
Your typical boy meets girl love story but with an undead twist! Based on a similar plot to My Boyfriend’s Back, Nathan (David Leon) is smitten by a long-time crush and friend Jessica (Samantha Mumba), a romantic misunderstanding, and an unfortunate accident later, Nathan is found dead. In a desperate attempt to bring her son back, his mother uses a forbidden voodoo book.
While her plan initially works, Nathan comes back with an uncanny craving for human flesh, and all hell breaks loose. The infection snowballs and what ensues is a town overrun with teenage zombies. As Nathan turns, he teams up with Jessica and two of his best friends to escape bloodthirsty zombies. In the end, Nathan’s mother comes through with a snake whose bite is the antidote to the infection. Nathan’s back to normal, the other zombies are dead, and Jessica and Nathan kiss and make up. All’s well, that ends well!
4 ‘Return of the Living Dead 3’ (1993)
The third installment in the Return Of The Living Dead series is the zombie love story of Curt Reynolds (J. Trevor Edmond) and his girlfriend, Julie Walker (Melinda Clarke). When Julie dies in a tragic bike accident, Curt uses his father’s military experiment to bring her back to life, this military experiment converts corpses into zombies to use as weapons in warfare.
As Julie goes on a rampage, unable to control her hunger for human flesh, Curt goes to extreme lengths to keep her out of trouble. Even when Julie is captured by the military, Curt attempts to fight the system and free her and gets infected, even then he refuses to abandon her. Curt realizes he’s infected and in the end, they share a kiss goodbye and die by immolation.
3 ‘The Returned’ (2013)
In a world riddled with the zombie plague and a cure that’s scarce, The Returned follows the story of Kate (Emily Hampshire) a physician who cares for ‘The Returned’, humans infected with the plague, however with regular doses of the antidote, ‘The Returned’ live normal lives.
When her own husband gets infected, Kate fights tooth and nail to get him the antidote but after nothing but betrayal and bad luck, she comes up empty. Eventually, Kate’s husband turns and demands to be shot in the head. The film ends with Kate killing her husband with a heavy heart. Beyond love, the film is also strong social commentary on prejudice and discrimination, of the infected despite there being a cure.
2 ‘Fido’ (2006)
Fido takes place in a parallel universe in the 1950s where once bloodthirsty zombies infected by space radiation have now been tamed as menial task servants. There are hardly any instances of romance in the film, instead, the story is the heartwarming journey of a kid, Timmy (K’Sun Ray), who gets attached to a tame zombie named Fido, played by Billy Connolly.
When Fido’s collar, which is used to control the zombies, malfunctions, a series of unfortunate events leads to Fido being taken away from Timmy and his family. The film follows the journey of Timmy and Fido’s friendship as they fight against bullies, and an evil corporation called ZomCon. While the movie doesn’t have any romance, the unlikely friendship is enough of a tearjerker.
1 ‘Maggie’ (2015)
Set in post-apocalyptic America, Maggie is the heartwarming story of a father and his infected daughter, and them holding onto any semblance of normalcy before his daughter fully turns into a zombie.
Infected Maggie Vogel (Abigail Breslin) is brought home against her better judgment by her father, Wade Vogel (Arnold Schwarzenegger) to be cared for, knowing they have limited time left. The father and daughter spend time making the most of their remaining days, remembering Maggie’s mother who had passed away — all while Maggie’s condition progressively gets worse. In the final throes of the film, Maggie resigns herself to her fate and ends her life with memories of her mother.