The horror genre is more fluid than most people think. Many of the rules that we generally associate with iconic monsters are actually recent inventions, with familiar creatures evolving over time as storytellers add to our collective myths in order to make them more effective. That’s why I never understood the genre purists who were […]
The horror genre is more fluid than most people think. Many of the rules that we generally associate with iconic monsters are actually recent inventions, with familiar creatures evolving over time as storytellers add to our collective myths in order to make them more effective.
That’s why I never understood the genre purists who were against the running zombies of 28 Days Later, as Romero himself was a champion of having his creations adapt over time. And in honor of Danny Boyle and Alex Garland teaming up on 28 Years Later in order to once again revolutionize the zombie genre by allowing the infected to evolve, we’ve decided to come up with a list highlighting six of the scariest zombie mutations in horror!
After all, if the oldest and strongest kind of fear is the fear of the unknown, what’s scarier than turning established horror tropes on their head?
In order to make things easier, we’ll be defining “zombie” as any human being transformed into a homicidal ghoul by some kind of viral outbreak, regardless of whether or not they’re actually undead. That being said, don’t forget to comment below with your own mutated favorites if you think we missed a particularly scary one.
Z-Nation may not have been the most serious piece of zombie fiction ever made, but even this wacky Syfy show was capable of terrifying viewers with the occasional undead nightmare. And between unkillable ghouls and radioactive zombies, the show also gifted us with one of the scariest variations of the living dead on television. First introduced in Season 2, the Phytos mutants remain a highlight of this underrated series.
Like some of the other eerie undead on this list, the Phytos mutation is memorable because of the added body-horror element derived from their Swamp-Thing-inspired condition, with these monsters being the result of an accident involving scientists desperately attempting to extract a cure for the zombie virus from certain medicinal plants. This means that these creatures aren’t just scary – they’re also uniquely tragic.
Not bad for a Syfy show!
5. Lickers – Resident Evil (1998)
The Resident Evil franchise arguably perfected the concept of mutating zombies in order to keep them scary throughout repeated encounters. And while the Umbrella corporation has introduced us to many memorable variants of the undead over the years, one of the nastiest – not to mention the most iconic – came in the form of the eerie Lickers.
A secondary mutation occasionally suffered by human beings infected by the T-virus, the Lickers barely resemble their zombified brethren due to their exposed brain matter and oversized claws. However, they’re still a crucial part of the “life cycle” of Umbrella’s fearsome bioweapons, with some fans interpreting them to be a more advanced form of Crimson Head zombie.
The only reason the Lickers don’t rank higher on this list is the fact that we’ve seen them so often in sequels and adaptations that they no longer seem quite as intimidating as they did in the 90s.
4. Tarman – Return of the Living Dead (1985)
Inspired by a novel written by the co-writer of the original Night of the Living Dead, 1984’s
is technically an alternate universe follow-up to George Romero’s classic. This means that these nearly unkillable ghouls are simply the next step in zombie evolution, with all of the film’s infected having been spawned by a single iconic monster that spent decades fermenting inside of a hilariously fragile containment unit.
Tar Man’s disgusting demeanor initially suggests that he’s already on the verge of falling apart, but it’s precisely the idea that a creature this far into decomposition shouldn’t even be able to walk around that makes him so disturbing as a monster. Combine that with his penchant for problem solving in order to find fresh brains (not to mention the glorious practical effects that bring him to life), and it’s easy to see why he makes it onto this list.
3. The Rat King – The Last of Us Part 2 (2020)
The Fungi-spawned undead of the Last of Us franchise are already especially eerie due to the body-horror elements of the infection and the biological plausibility of this biology-inspired outbreak, but there’s one specific variant of the Cordyceps infected that terrified players above all others, and that’s the uniquely disturbing Rat King from The Last of Us Part 2.
Inspired by legends of swarming rats that would end up fused into a single hungry entity after getting their tails tied up in a knot while nesting, the Rat King of TLOU2 takes an already nightmarish concept to the next level by trading in rats for humanoid infected – with the end result looking like something out of Neil Blomkamp’s Zygote.
I’m just curious to see if Craig Mazin is brave enough to include this crawling chaos in the next season of the game’s HBO adaptation.
2. The Witch – Left 4 Dead (2007)
Quite a few of the zombie variants on this list have video game origins. That makes sense when you consider that an interactive medium would get boring pretty fast if you had to face the same kind of enemy over and over again. However, out of all the gaming-related undead on this list, I think we can all agree that Left 4 Dead’s iconic Witch has to be the scariest.
A pale lady zombie that can scream like a Banshee and call other undead to your location when startled, the Witch lives on as one of Valve’s most nightmarish creations despite existing in a game with several other scary zombie variants. Personally, however, I find her lonely sobbing much freakier than her ear-splitting screech.
1. Tristana Medeiros – [REC] (2007)
Jaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza’s [REC] has yet to be topped as the scariest depiction of a zombie outbreak in film, and part of that is due to the filmmakers’ clever decision to combine tropes from both zombie movies and possession flicks in order to explain the origin of the virus here. That’s why this franchise’s take on a “patient zero” is actually the result of a Vatican agent attempting to scientifically study a young woman suffering from a demonic infestation only to end up accidentally creating something infinitely worse.
An evolved form of both a re-animated corpse and a victim of demonic possession, Tristana Medeiros mutated into an oversized monstrosity before proceeding to spread the infection to the neighbors. And if this backstory isn’t scary enough for you, Tristana is brought to life by an unholy combination of practical effects and an eerie performance by genre veteran Javier Botet.
