These 3 Movies Did Fast Zombies Before 28 Days Later

It's a commonly held belief that 28 Days Later was the origin of the fast zombie on the big screen, but these three films did it first. Zombies are one of cinema's most enduring supernatural villains, from their humble roots as voodoo curses to their heyday as the reanimated undead. Zombies continue to infect horror media generation after generation.

Major turning points in the subgenre include George Romero's Night of the Living Dead, which modernized the zombie, and 28 Days Later, which popularized a fast-moving variety. Danny Boyle's critically-acclaimed horror flick helped revive zombies in the 21st century, kicking off a new wave of popularity that led to franchises like The Walking Dead and Zombieland.

Instead of shambling after their prey, the infected in 28 Days Later moved at an unnatural speed. No longer simply an allegory for the inevitability of death, fast zombies represent a real threat to life and limb. 28 Days Later puts them to good use, delivering some truly terrifying sequences that continue to haunt nightmares more than two decades later. The 2002 release deserves a lot of credit for changing the game.

However, 28 Days Later merely built upon concepts that had been introduced in earlier zombie media. It wasn't the first film to feature the fast zombie, and some movies beat it to the punch by more than 20 years. 28 Days Later may have honed and refined the fast zombie into what we know and fear today, but these movies paved the way.

3 Return Of The Living Dead (1985)

Dan O'Bannon revolutionized sci-fi horror when he co-wrote Alien, and he did the same with zombies in 1985's Return of the Living Dead. The film concerns two hapless warehouse workers who accidentally unleash a zombie infection on Louisville, Kentucky. Unlike the traditional zombies, these ghouls can't be killed by simply destroying their heads.

Return of the Living Dead is the origin of zombies' obsession with eating brains, and it also features a speedy version of the undead. The zombies in the satirical black comedy chase after their prey, and they attack in hordes. It's easy to forget how transformative Return of the Living Dead is because the movie is a weird romp that's more concerned with getting laughs than getting bona fide scares.

2 Nightmare City (1980)

Released all the way back in 1980, Nightmare City did fast zombies more than two decades before the debut of 28 Days Later. The Italian sci-fi horror flick features a city overrun by zombies that have been created by radiation. What's notable about these undead fiends is that they have the ability to run, which allows them to take over the town in record time.

Nightmare City is often overlooked as the origin of fast zombies because it simply isn't very good. It's cheesy in the worst ways, and feels quite inferior to the other Italian zombie movies that were coming out around that time. While it is often credited by movie buffs as the first true appearance of the fast zombie, Nightmare City is not the first time a running zombie was shown onscreen.

1 Dawn Of The Dead (1978)

It might come as a surprise, especially since Romero's films are known for their slow zombies, but he actually did fast zombies in Dawn of the Dead. The beloved film about survivors barricading themselves in a mall is a recognized classic in the horror genre, and it further modernized zombies after Night of the Living Dead a decade earlier. Most of the zombies walk slowly, but not all of them.

In the scene where the heroes stop off to refill their chopper, they are attacked by a pair of child zombies. Instead of shuffling like the other undead, these youthful monsters sprint after their prey and nearly bring them down. It's only a small moment in the larger film, but it marks the earliest point where a fast zombie is shown onscreen. That means that Dawn of the Dead introduced fast zombies nearly 15 years before 28 Days Later.