“Zombie Movies: The Ultimate Guide” by Glenn Kay

This week, I read a zombie compendium called Zombie Movies: The Ultimate Guide.  It was a pleasant surprise.

I feel like books with titles that begin with “The Ultimate…” or “The Complete…” or “The Total…” have the capacity to leave you feeling they promised a bit more than they were able to deliver.  I’m pleased to say that this book delivered completely, however, and was totally comprehensive, well written, and fun.

Zombie Movies: The Ultimate Guide is at once a reference book (over 300 zombie movies are categorized and reviewed), a ranking of the “Top-25” zombie movies ever made (with which, I largely agreed), and a collection of interviews with famous zombie luminaries.  It was these interviews that proved the most remarkable.

To give just one example, the author speaks at length with Antonella Fulci, daughter of Lucio Fulci, about her father’s work on the seminal film Zombie.  In the course of several cool anecdotes, Ms. Fulci reveals that during filming of the famous “Zombie Versus Shark” sequence, her father was horrified to find that the on-set animal handler’s practice was to  pacify the shark by punching it in the face between takes (which is the exact opposite of what I would do if called upon to to pacify a shark).

Anyhow, that’s just one example of the great zombie tidbits to be found in the interviews in Zombie Movies: The Ultimate Guide.

In conclusion, this is a competent and well-written guide.  Easily the best of its kind I have encountered, I strongly recommend it.