8 Smartest Decisions In Zombie Movie History

6. Taking Matters Into Her Own Hands - Maggie

Shaun of the Dead
Lionsgate

Few zombie movies are quite as heartbreaking as Maggie. Again offering something rather different to the norm of masses of the undead being sliced and splattered for 90 minutes, Maggie serves as somewhat of a minimalist character study on what somebody goes through in the days and weeks after being bitten by a zombie.

Setting the table for the film, Abigail Breslin plays the titular Maggie, a young girl who is in the process of slowly turning into a flesh-craving zombie. Alongside her, we have Arnold Schwarzenegger in the most poignant role of his career as Maggie's widowed father.

Managing to convince the authorities to let Maggie remain at home rather than be quarantined until her inevitable 'turn', Arnold's Wade accepts the heartbreaking reality that he himself will have to take on the responsibility of eventually killing his beloved daughter in order for her to be allowed to see her final days out at the family home.

Rarely has a zombie movie been so emotional, as we see both Wade and Maggie struggle with their own inevitabilities. While it wasn't a wise decision that necessarily saved the day so that all could live happy ever after, a decreasingly human Maggie manages to muster up enough self-control to give her sleeping father one last kiss before throwing herself off her roof and to her death - saving her troubled father from having to do something that he would never, ever recover from.

Senior Writer
Senior Writer

Once described as the Swiss Army Knife of WhatCulture, Andrew can usually be found writing, editing, or presenting on a wide range of topics. As a lifelong wrestling fan, horror obsessive, and comic book nerd, he's been covering those topics professionally as far back as 2010. In addition to his current WhatCulture role of Senior Content Producer, Andrew previously spent nearly a decade as Online Editor and Lead Writer for the world's longest-running genre publication, Starburst Magazine, and his work has also been featured on BBC, TechRadar, Tom's Guide, WhatToWatch, Sportkskeeda, and various other outlets, in addition to being a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic. Between his main dayjob, his role as the lead panel host of Wales Comic Con, and his gig as a pre-match host for Wrexham AFC games, Andrew has also carried out a hugely varied amount of interviews, from the likes of Robert Englund, Kane Hodder, Adrienne Barbeau, Rob Zombie, Katharine Isabelle, Leigh Whannell, Bruce Campbell, and Tony Todd, to Kevin Smith, Ron Perlman, Elijah Wood, Giancarlo Esposito, Simon Pegg, Charlie Cox, the Russo Brothers, and Brian Blessed, to Kevin Conroy, Paul Dini, Tara Strong, Will Friedle, Burt Ward, Andrea Romano, Frank Miller, and Rob Liefeld, to Bret Hart, Sting, Mick Foley, Ricky Starks, Jamie Hayer, Britt Baker, Eric Bischoff, and William Regal, to Mickey Thomas, Joey Jones, Phil Parkinson, Brian Flynn, Denis Smith, Gary Bennett, Karl Connolly, and Bryan Robson - and that's just the tip of an ever-expanding iceberg.