Zombie movies have undergone a fascinating ebb and flow that has seen some years swarmed with the undead and others completely free from the concept. The concept may not be the biggest thing in the world anymore, but creative people still find ways to tell interesting stories in the same worst-case scenario.
The overwhelming cultural dominance of zombies was a surprisingly resilient fad, owed almost entirely to the multimedia juggernaut that was The Walking Dead. The impressive thing about zombie movies is the wild and untamed variety. The term "zombie movie" doesn't prime a viewer for any particular experience, any genre is on the table, and the ambulatory corpse is a background detail of all types of stories.
Shaun
Simon Pegg stars as the eponymous Shaun "Smiley" Riley in the seminal 2004 Edgar Wright comedy Shaun of the Dead. The first piece of the incredible Three Flavours Cornetto Trilogy is perhaps the smartest deconstruction of the zombie horror concept while being an excellent entry in the medium. Shaun is a bored, ambitionless, directionless man whose life is descending after a nasty breakup. He awakes the next morning to find that the world has fallen victim to a zombie apocalypse.
The film is Shaun's journey, he makes an inspiring change from a complacent layabout to a confident hero. His fellow survivors, his slacker best friend, recent ex, and a couple of her friends are all hilarious and fun characters, but Shaun is the unquestioned lead. From unlikely beginnings, Shaun becomes one of the most lovable and most relatable heroes in the genre. Fitting for this masterful work of parody, deconstruction, and apotheosis.
Tallahassee
Woody Harrelson's post-apocalyptic cowboy isn't the main character of 2009's Zombieland, but he is the most dynamic, entertaining, and memorable. The overwhelming majority of the fun anarchic chaos of the film stream directly from Tallahassee's influence. He's a simple man, obsessed with creative violence, Bill Murray, cool cars, and finding Twinkies. He offers a guiding hand to the film's protagonist, cowardly drifter Columbus, and teaches him to blow off steam in the terrible circumstances they find themselves in.
His backstory is communicated in a pair of extremely efficient flashbacks, and easily establishes the man he's become since society fell. Zombieland is a deeply imperfect movie, the less said about its eventual sequel the better, but Tallahassee is one of the most quotable and entertaining characters in the subgenre.
Peter Washington
George A. Romero's 1978 Dawn of the Dead is perhaps the greatest zombie movie of all time. Though occasionally drowned out by Zack Snyder's abysmal remake, the original is the evolution of the format that Romero invented a decade earlier. The film takes place mostly in a mall that is gradually overrun by the undead, as a small group of survivors attempts to continue doing so. Each of the survivors in this film is a fun and identifiable character, but one of them gets the most iconic line in zombie movie history. "When there is no more room in hell, the dead will walk the Earth".
With that line that Peter quotes from his grandfather, he establishes himself as an icon of the genre. He's full of quotable lines, but he's also a capable and engaging character full of fun quirks between his excellent action scenes. Peter stands in a fur coat, giving some of the most memorable lines in any horror movie. He's great, and Ken Foree deserves more credit for his performance in the role. These days, Rob Zombie has put the actor in many of his films, but fans will always remember Peter Washington.
Alice
Strange how few of these characters get first and last names. Resident Evil is one of the tent poles of zombie fiction, and there's only one character that originated in the films that matters at all. Milla Jovovich's leather-clad, shotgun-toting, superhuman zombie killer is, in many ways, more iconic than the films she appears in.
The best Resident Evil film is unquestionably the first, and Alice's sudden turn from security officer to unstoppable super-soldier is one of the strongest elements of the film. The ridiculous action scenes and hilarious superpowers are worth the price of admission, and there's a lot of fun to be had sprinkled throughout those seven films. Alice is the face of the franchise on film, and, for all the terrible moments, leads some fun ones too.
Herbert West
Adapted from an H. P. Lovecraft novella by Stuart Gordon, Re-Animator is a cult classic, and its protagonist Herbert West is one of the most influential characters of all time. Almost every zombie property these days needs a character with the surname West, thanks to him.
Jeffery Combs stars as the brilliant but careless university student who invents a death cure. He's not the first mad scientist most people think of, but he's a fan-favorite. With a dozen or so quotable lines and a wonderfully unhinged performance, West is one of the most entertaining characters ever put to screen. Herbert West is horrible yet lovable in any medium, and he deserves to be remembered as a hero and monster of his own story.