10 Great Zombie Horror Movies With A Lone Protagonist

The Omega Man is also based on that 1954 novel mentioned earlier on. If you don't know the name, we're still not giving it away quite yet. Hang in there.

This 1971 film swaps out Vincent Price for Charlton Heston, who, in turn, swaps intelligent apes for infected humans. The "zombies" in this film are actually mutated human beings with a stronger sense of organisation than the brainless wanderers of the Price movie.

They call themselves "The Family" and hunt Heston's character - a scientist immune to mutation - as they believe him to be responsible for the plague that made them.

Big Charlie spends a lot of time on his lonesome, talking to himself and playing chess with a statue of Julius Caesar. He is eventually taken in by a group of survivors who want to use his blood to create a cure for the disease.

So yes, while there are other survivors in this film, it's still clear that the scientist is the main attraction. Heston was a big enough star to carry the picture on his own, and his new friends are little more than set dressing to his action hero antics.