12 Hidden Gem Zombie Movies You've Probably Never Seen

Following the pattern established by Night Of The Living Dead, zombie movies have always used the threat of shambling corpses as a trigger for making small-scale interpersonal dramas that are low budget but contain an ever-present possibility of an imminent gory death. 2012's The Battery, the debut film from director-star Jeremy Gardner made for just $6000, is such a movie.

An episodic road movie focused on just two guys (Gardner and Adam Cronheim as a pair of former baseball pros), rather than an epic struggle for survival, The Battery largely focuses on its twin protagonists' different attitudes to adjusting to the post-apocalyptic world.

While Gardner's Ben is a dedicated survivalist, using his baseball bat skills to bash in undead skulls, Cronheim's Mickey lives in apocalypse denial, burning through batteries listening to a retro discman. Nevertheless, the two work pretty well together until the introduction of the greatest threat to the status quo in any zombie flick: other survivors.

The discovery of a set of walkie-talkies and the voice of a female survivor on the other end upsets Ben and Mickey's eccentric equilibrium, leaving things spiralling toward a downbeat conclusion.

It is not in these larger plot contrivances that The Battery excels, though, but rather in the minor, well observed little details of the mundane trials and pleasures of surviving in a world in the midst of destruction. Rarely has a character brushing their teeth been treated as such a moment of triumph.