Zombies Review Superpack

Alright! After a two-year hiatus and working on the backlog for three months, I'm now back in the writing groove and working on reviews for movies like Lilo & Stitch, TV shows like Stranger Things 5, and a few epic essays on Avatar: The Last Airbender and "When the Movie Has A Soul." Counting it all up, I have over 60 drafts to work on (And, since I release posts weekly, that's over a year's worth of writing). 

I say all of this so you can understand the magnitude of this week's review. Despite everything else actively screaming for my attention, one thing stood above them all. I was first introduced to it during a trunk-or-treat by one of my younger friends, who was dressed as a daywalker from this 2025 smash sensation. Further investigation led me to watch, alongside my thirteen-year-old sister and her best friend, all four Disney Channel Zombies movies. 

Zombies

 

The very first Zombies, released to instant global popularity in 2018, is about a small community called "Seabrook." 50 years earlier, a power plant explosion led to the birth of mutated zombies and resulted in a bitter battle between the humans and these abominations. 50 years later, the zombie population is given government regulation wristbands called Z-Bands that block their brain-eating primeval instincts. They've been living in a civilized peace for quite some time now in their half of segregated Seabrook, Zombietown. This year, legislation has passed that allows all zombie teens to go to high school with their human peers at Seabrook High, bringing the mayor's daughter and star cheerleader, Addison, into contact with an aspiring football player zombie named Zed. What unfolds is a star-crossed lovers' romance that must overcome prejudice, segregation, and bitter social norms. 

On one hand, we have the zombies, who are a good-natured bunch. Our male lead, Zeb, is a charming and naturally talented kid trying to go pro through the new experiences that high school will allow him. As a ploy to win football games, he disables the Z-Band to gain supernatural zombie strength (think "Hulking out"), creating a potentially disqualifying secret he has to guard. His best zombie friend, Eliza, fights for justice and equality by loudly complaining to everyone around her. His other best zombie friend, Bonzo, is still struggling with English and talks in grunts. They come into contact with Addison, a good-natured and incredibly accepting young woman who is hiding a dark and terrible secret: she's not actually blonde; she wears a wig to cover up the fact that she is platinum blonde. To show her allyship with the zombies in the climactic football game, she reveals this secret and removes her wig, leading to social ostracization. Throughout all of this drama, Addison and Zeb come into contact, fall in love, and end the movie as the first mixed-monster couple in Seabrook history. 

For most of the viewing experience, I found myself trying to improve it to no avail. Maybe if the music was more memorable, maybe if the acting was better, maybe if the writing wasn't as cringeworthy, maybe if it was more original, and on and on the great "maybe if" went. But then I realized I was looking at it wrong: That wasn't the point of the Zombies movies. No one was trying to make a scary, horror-defining zombie thriller; no one was trying to reinvent the Romeo & Juliet dynamic. It is a Disney Channel original movie about a football player and a cheerleader who fall in love despite societal and familial pressure; the fact that one is a zombie is just the frosting on a very familiar cake. 

With this mindset, Zombies is a phenomenal film. The actors are attractive enough, the script has enough funny moments, the message is topical enough, the romance is believable enough, and the songs are... there. It was obviously successful enough, given that there are three sequels and probably a fourth on the horizon. Zombies is literally everything that it was meant to be, perfectly realized, completely fulfilling the measure of its creation. It is a perfect, no notes, 10/10. 

Are there specific aspects of the movie that are questionable? Of course there are! The zombie makeup plays it too safe with nothing more than pale skin and green hair. The tagline "Zoms vs. Poms" is genuinely awful, and the fictional Zombie-Tongue language jokes fall flat each time. Even more ridiculous is that generations of prejudice over a very real war with very real casualties are completely resolved through a high school romance, an idea so cliché that you involuntarily eye roll from the idea. 

There are also more than a few cringe-inducing lines, of which I have picked my favorites: 

• "Now, what up, everybody? Let me set the scene/Fresh new start for your boy, Young Z"
• "Not your average guy, but you know I'm fly (Fly)/So alive just on a different side (Side)"
• "No! Come on, let me hear you say/We're fired up, you're fired up/We're fired up"
• "Ready for action, yeah, we're 'bout to blow up/Party's going down, but we're about to go up"
• "Oh-oh man, oh man, oh man, I'm the man/You just can't do it like I can, I can"

There's also one specific scene I found very touching: Addison follows Zed to an underground zombie mixer (Because you have to have one of those in a movie like this) and meets his little sister, an aspiring cheerleader. The two quickly bond over cheer, and Addison is left questioning everything she knew about zombies - her meeting Zed proved that they could be personable and even charming, but meeting his little sister teaches that they, too, have dreams and aspirations that only complete desegregation will allow. It's a nice moment in an otherwise predictable movie musical. 

Zombies 2

Zombies 2 is my least favorite of the four. It continues the epic romance of Zombies but takes us through all the inevitable relationship drama that comes from adding werewolves to the mix. Will Zed and Addison stay broken up? Will Zed become class president? Will they go to prom together? These are the questions Zombies 2 poses, and you probably know all of the answers already. 

Basically, let's recap: After an opening prologue that reveals the settlers of Seabrook had to fight off werewolves for an energy rock, we open to Addison returning from cheer camp. Zeb intercepts her on the way to ask her out to prom (called "prawn," and she says yes). When the bus accidentally crashes, Addison is given a split-second view of a werewolf in the woods (teens with fur coats, leather pants, and white streaks in their hair). When she relates this experience to her mayor mother and the other concerned adults, monster fear is spiked, and they make a split-second decision to reinstate the segregation laws. 

Not the laws that prevented the zombies from going to school with the humans, mind you. The monster curfew isn't even a big deal until over an hour into the movie. For whatever reason, this official law from the city government seems to specifically and only prevent zombies from going to Prawn, and the only way to change that is for Zeb to win class president against Addison's cheer captain cousin. 

...Yes. 

What Addison doesn't know is that the werewolves have a prophecy that foretells a white-haired "Great Alpha" that will lead them to the energy rock (The Moonstone), which has been missing for generations. The werewolves enroll in Seabrook High to get close to Addison, who they believe to be the messiah, and Addison, more than happy to help out an impoverished and discriminated group (and also desperate to have a personality other than "basic blonde cheerleader"), is more than happy to be their alpha. 

The werewolves give Addison a necklace and tell her that, should she choose, she will be transformed into a werewolf. Despite being very much defined by her social standing as a cheerleader and being very popular in Zombietown, Addison feels like she doesn't belong anywhere and considers the option, so Zed steals the necklace to prevent her from biologically changing herself to fit in with strangers she met two days ago. He goes on to win the presidential election, but the stolen necklace causes his Z-Band to short out (science), so he goes full zombie mode, and the scandal costs him the election. 

Then the gang gets to the power plant where the moonstone has been all this time, stop the demolition crew from destroying it, Zed turns off his Z-Band to lift a heavy rock, they make up, Addison puts on the necklace, but it turns out that she's not a werewolf, they kiss, and then it's the end of the movie. The werewolves stay enrolled in high school for... reasons? 

I don't normally do full plot breakdowns of movies, but the Zombies movies are just too iconic. The review is in the movie; it's exactly what you expect. The nuance is what's visible, so a plot walkthrough is the best way to understand the movie's quality. Just imagine an autotuned and poorly synced pop song every time there's an expositional or emotional plot beat, and you have the gist. 

Zombies 2 is my least favorite because relationship drama is never done particularly well, especially from Disney Channel movies. They will obviously end up back together by the end, so the entire plot thread feels like an exercise in futility. It's especially painful in Zombies 2, where the only thing the movie has going for it is the romance between Addison and Zed. Unless they're planning some great Empire Strikes Back-level breakup cliffhanger, the entire plot thread feels superfluous. 

The monster plot of the movie also isn't as interesting as the first one. Retcons are the easiest way to annoy an audience, so the idea that Seabrook already had contact with monsters 50 years ago is quite annoying when the first Zombies led us to believe this was an isolated incident and the first of its kind. The design of the werewolves is also downright disappointing, as their black leather/fur outfits feel completely uninspired and none of them transform into wolves... y'know, the main shtick of a werewolf. I saw more werewolf justice in Twilight. 

Worst of all was Addison's character in this movie. While I don't wish to belittle the suffering she goes through, her life trauma is wearing a blonde wig to cover up her platinum blonde hair. Aside from that, she is a beautiful girl from an affluent and powerful family, extremely popular at school, primed to become the cheer captain (her life dream), and is constantly surrounded by loved ones and friends, as well as a zombie boyfriend who is 100% dedicated to making sure she's happy. Her feeling of restlessness over not having a clique feels forced, given that her one defining trait is "cheerleader," and the plot often gives the feeling of a basic white girl who doesn't want to be "like the other girls." 

One almost wants to tell Addison, "Just own who you are and stop trying to fit into cliques, you're not defined by them" (Which is what Zed is constantly telling her). She comes off as one of the people who says "I'm German" because "I'm American" sounds too basic, despite the German ancestors immigrating 150 years ago and their Kentucky residence ever since. 

And these are some of my favorite lines: 

• "Oh, Addison, my love/Gar-gar-ga-za forever."
• "We're finally allowed to go to Prawn/Gonna get our zigga-zigga-zombie on."
• "Our freedom isn't up to them, it's only up to us (Us)/I'm the alpha, I'm the leader, I'm the one to trust (Trust)."
• Actually, the entirety of "We Own the Night" is hard to watch.
• "Cut your bangs, leave it on the floor (Woo)/Now wag your tail like a Labrador."
• "Turn up, explain our history/Pull back the veil of mystery."
• "This is how we're livin' our lives/Livin' our lives, livin' our lives, yeah/Can you feel the call to the wild?/Call to the wild, the call to the wild/We are the call, we are the call/We are the call to the wild."
• "Ooh, zigna-doo, ding, badda-doo/Bidda-ba, didda-bo, deeda-za, ba-doo, a-doo-wop."
• "We about to bring it on-on (Ayy)/Watch me shake it like a pom-pom/Yeah, shake it, shake it, shake it/Shake it, shake it, shake it like a pom-pom/Yeah, get sick, get ill/Lean back with the zombie tilt/Ayy, with a zombie tilt/Yeah, with a zombie tilt/Uh, new kids on a new block/Werewolves do the moonwalk/Do the moonwalk/Do the moon (Ayy, ayy, ayy, do the moonwalk)."

Zombies 3

Zombies 3 is a notable step up from Zombies 2 and arguably better than the first Zombies. After grappling with the fact that she is not the Werewolf messiah, Addison is back to being down on herself for being a clique-less cheerleader. But, in an effort to solve the mystery of her platinum blonde hair, aliens from outer space appear in a flying saucer to compete in the national cheer off. But their motivations are not, in fact, cheer-based - no no, these aliens are seeking "the most precious thing in Seabrook," which is prophesied to take them to their promised land. 

So, after interrupting an important football game that would have impressed Zed's college recruiters, the aliens enroll in high school to snoop around. Most humans, as well as the zombie and werewolf populations, are strongly against this, but Addison believes the aliens pose no threat and they are allowed to attend school. 

Because the recruiters couldn't see the game, Zed asks the aliens to use their advanced technology to alter his grades to impress the colleges academically, which they easily do; but, since the aliens are so extraordinary at the school tasks, the learning curve is skewed and Zed's artificially improved grades don't mean anything :( trying to help the aliens, he tells them that "the most precious thing in Seabrook" is probably the werewolf's moonstone, and the aliens attempt to steal it. It goes wrong, they ask the mothership to beam them up, and Addison is (gasp) beamed up alongside them. 

This is when we finally have closure for Addison's clique: in a shocking twist, we learn that Addison's grandmother was actually an alien! And this explains her unnaturally blonde hair! We then continue with Zed's college interviews, which go poorly after the college recruiter is attacked by Hulked-out Zed (because Addison's newfound alien powers cause the Z-Band to go off). But, since these are also musicals, a song is sung, the entire town joins in, and the recruiter is convinced of his good nature. 

Meanwhile, the aliens have moved away from the moonstone theory and now suspect the cheer trophy to be their key to getting to the promised land. The aliens end up being disqualified from the cheer performance on account of extreme xenophobia, Addison wins the trophy, werewolves show up and reveal the secret plan to steal it, etc, and we learn that the actual "most precious thing" is... Addison! Her DNA contains the coordinates for the promised land! So she leaves with the aliens, finally having found her clique, kisses Zed one last time, and the movie ends on a sad note... until they then realize that the coordinates are actually Earth, and that the grandmother wished for the aliens to live on Earth. So they do. The end. 

The very first thought about Zombies 3 is that aliens are a weird way to up the anti from zombies and werewolves. If we're going with a supernatural chain, shouldn't it be vampires, mummies, ghosts, or any other supernatural creeper you can find on a Monster Cereal box? Aliens... that's a bit odd, isn't it? And odder still is that, in the original invasion, a plethora of aliens beam down to Seabrook to do a dance-off, yet in every subsequent scene (Including on their mothership), only the three mains appear. It's also unbearably cliche that they enroll in a high school far below their intellectual levels to (sigh) compete in the Cheer Off. They couldn't use their tractor beam on the trophy or something? I dunno, I guess man. 

Aside from fun character work for the main alien lead A-Spen, whose character I greatly enjoyed, as well as the lame puns that come from "mother" ship (voiced by RuPaul), a major blight on Zombies 3 is that most of the characters are operating on repeat. Addison fulfills her arc and finds her people, but the last two movies had already resolved this. Zed does what he always does: move some insurmountable physical object and risk shorting out his Z-Band, his friend Eliza barely appears in the movie, and the werewolves don't do anything other than bare their fangs. It plays exactly as you think it would, but even that is a marked improvement from Zombies 2.

Here are some of my favorite lines: 

• "Set up perimeters here, right now/Move our defenses there, get down/Extraterrestrials all around."
• "Now we really know that we're not alone/It's kinda scary though, but it's kinda cool."
• "Hands down, you made us an enemy/Claws out, we'll find you eventually/Can't run from destiny (Awoo!)."
• "This is our land, our territory/So we will end your part of the story."
• "What if you're wrong, and I bomb this interview?/Zog zig zrog ziggy ziggy zog/True, but what if that's not enough?"
  
• "Now we're a mess of contradictions/Just starting to make sense/And the feeling talking over is so intense."
• "And for me, I'm fine independent/I'm an alpha, don't need no sidekick/When I walk, it's me, myself, and I, yeah/A lone wolf runnin' through the night, yeah."

And, to balance it out, a line that is unironically great: 

• "You speak zombie, and that's a dead language like Latin."
• And, while not a line, the song "Exceptional Zed" has my favorite choreography of any number in the franchise and is a genuine banger. 

Zombies 4: Dawn of the Vampires

Like Friday the 13th before it, Zombies 4 decided that just "4" wouldn't be enough, it needed a subtitle: Dawn of the Vampires. After hearing our minor discomfort with the aliens, the Disney Channel got back into the monster mash with a vampire vs. daywalker conspiracy that our protagonists find themselves at the center of. Will Addison and Zed be able to solve generations of traumatic conflict through camp counseling and song? Well, if the prior three movies are any indication, yes. Yes, they can. 

Zombies 4 starts with our young heroes reuniting after a long first semester at college. It's been a little tense since Zed and Addison have wholly devoted themselves to their extracurricular activities, neglecting both their relationship and their friends. All of this comes to a boil when they get into a mysterious car crash and are separated, eventually finding the daywalkers and vampires. In the first camp, Zed quickly befriends Nova, the idealistic daywalker heir who isn't convinced that violence is the way to a peaceful future, while Addison befriends Victor, the idealistic vampire heir who would prefer to befriend his enemies. When their mutual food source, Blood Fruit, starts to fade, and a mysterious shield appears around the orchard, both groups must work together to ensure their future. 

But, since the adults are all stingy and eager to kill the other, Addison suggests they take the peaceful youth to a nearby cabin and brainstorm how to get rid of the shield and resolve the Blood Fruit rationing. Things get a little heated when the frequent pulsing from the orchard threatens to shorten out Zed's Z-Band, which would leave him in the zombie state forever.

On the first day of vampire youth camp, tensions are high, and a song is used to break the tension. A second song/dance off ends up being the first key to turning off the gate, and the second is solved when Nova and Victor (who recognized each other due to prophetic dreams) fall in love and have a romantic duet. When they eventually open the gate, the entire group is ecstatic until the adults show up, who end up destroying the orchard in an attempt to sabotage the other group. Zed and Addison are then helpless to watch Victor and Nova separate, and the mysterious electrical pulses are continuing to destroy Zed's Z-Band. 

The teens eventually disaffect from their elders and regroup. Meanwhile, Zed and Addison formulate a plan to fix the orchard's pulsing tree and Zed almost sacrifices himself to fix the physical threat with his brute zombie strength (for the fourth time in a row). Then everyone shows up for a climactic ideological fight between vampire and daywalker philosophies, which, in Zombie tradition, is resolved by the two star-crossed lovers advocating for peace, and centuries of hatred and discrimination are resolved with a cheerful song. Victor and Nova decide to keep in touch but go back to their packs; Zed and Addison decide to spend more time with each other and their friends. 

Also, the werewolf and social activist zombie friend were here the whole time. Their impact is just so minimal it wasn't ever relevant. 

Zombies 4: Breaking Dawn is easily my favorite of the Zombies movies for two primary reasons: first, it is unexpectedly gorgeous. Throughout the runtime, I found myself asking if they had upped the budget by 200% or had finally cracked the recipe for the perfect green screen. The camps where the daywalkers and vampires live are framed by gorgeous beaches, mountains, and caves, and I was shocked to see such amazing cinematography in a Disney Channel movie. "Was it a real beach? Where did they film this?" After the movie ended, I looked it up: They moved production from Canada to Auckland, New Zealand, and features several NZ wonders such as Te Henga, Piha Beach, and Okiritoto Falls. Like The Lord of the Rings before it, Zombies 4 was made infinitely better for filming on-location in the prettiest country in the world. 

I'll go through a few nitpicky things before talking about the second thing I adored about this movie: As a rule of thumb, I expect the Zombie franchise to play it safe with their monsters. After inhibiting the zombie nature with the Z-Bands and the werewolves never transforming into wolves, I imagined the vampires would be neutered... but Blood Fruit? Really? That's the best you can do? The cop-out to the inherently bloodthirsty nature of the vampires was far more disappointing than it should have been. 

I also didn't like the transitions in the movie. Even though the series has always had paper-thin logic and inane plotting, the entire "camp" idea of Zombies 4 is so nonsensical it defies description. Both parties arrive at the blocked-off gate, almost fight to the death, and then somehow decide that Zed and Addison, two strangers, should take all of their teenagers to a nearby cabin so they can work out the gate? Like? What? It was obvious they just wanted a "summer camp" setting and didn't care how it was done. Then we get to do fun camp tropes and talk about how great it is to be a camp counselor. Again, it's basic, but it still works as "whatever" dialogue to give Addison and Zed something to do as Victor and Nova take center stage. 

Speaking of which, I really liked newcomers Victor and Nova, played by Malachi Burton (a long-time Disney Channel star) and Freya Syke (a TikTok singer), respectively. Both are better actors and singers than Meg Donnelly and Milo Manheim were in the first Zombies, making them more than worthy successors should the Zombie franchise decide to retire Zed and Addison.

And that's where we get to my favorite thing about Zombies 4, the reason I consider it the greatest Zombie film, and why the 6-hour commitment is worth it. Zombies 3 features a gorgeous duet between Zed and Addison's called "Ain't No Doubt About It." Zombies 4 uses it at the very end of the movie, as the characters dance atop the grassy mountains of New Zealand, overlooking the ocean as the sun sets. It's gorgeously shot, gorgeously lit, and achingly beautiful. They are then joined by their friends, the music swells melodramatically, they link arms, and leave together into the unknown. 

If this was meant to be a send-off for our main characters before the franchise is handed off to the younger cast introduced, they knocked it out of the park, and I will openly admit that I certainly felt my heart twinge as I watched the iconic protagonists walk away. It's arguably one of the most moving moments from any 2025 release and cements this franchise as "no, wait, it's actually good" after three generic Disney Channel movies. 

Wicked: For Good could never.