‘The Walking Dead’ has staggered back to HBO and our dead-hearts. Can’t wait between episodes?

It just so happens some members of Team TODO really really like zombies (we’re not judging), and have shared the best movies and books to keep you scared and the pointy weapons handy.

28 Days series

Dir Danny Boyle
We can blame Danny Boyle for the nightmares induced by zombies who run fast. This one rankles with zombie purists who say they’re not really living dead, but disease-riddled flesh sacks.Potatoes and rotten potatoes we say: either way, this series chronicles the spread of an infectious disease, the quarantine and attempted return to society in 28 Days Later and 28 Weeks Later. Both get points for chilling scenes of an abandoned London, including, in 28 Weeks Later, a house with the heartbreaking ‘I am here’ written on the roof.

Wus factor: High. Massive, red-eyed monster high. Must be watched with lights on, in broad daylight, with all doors and windows securely locked.

Dance of the Dead

Dir Gregg Bishop
Zombies come to the senior prom and the only ones who know how to stop them are the Sci Fi club. Self-consciously cheesy dialogue combines with some decent special effects to make this an entirely watchable zombie comedy, and confirm our suspicions that the nerds shall in fact inherit the earth (or at the very least know how to save the pretty people).

Wus factor: Medium. If you ever thought Pretty in Pink could use a few more scenes with stabbing and the such, this is for you, but the zombies are pretty gory.

Dead Snow

Dir Tommy Wirkola
What’s scarier than a zombie? A Nazi Zombie of course! A group of students vacationing in Norway encounter a mysterious hiker who just so happens to fill them in on the horrible history of the area. . . then stumbles off to be disemboweled. Next, they discover a mysterious box of plundered treasure, and like all idiots in curse-based movies, pocket and lose enough of the items to incite the wrath of the cursed: in this case a whole squad of reanimated Nazis. Hilarity—and gore—ensues.

Wus Factor: Medium. Although there is a lot of gore (why does he cut his arm off with a chainsaw, why?), the zombies themselves aren’t literally falling to pieces and are not too scary to look at.

Fido

Dir Andrew Currie
Leave it to the Canadians to do something quite this twisted. In a Leave-it-To-Beaver alternate reality, humans, with the magic of science and shock collars, keep zombies as pets and servants. This isn’t going to end well, and we know that right from the beginning, although the ending still managed to surprise us.

Wus factor: Minimal. It’s all bright Technicolor and Lassie references (yes, the line ‘Timmy’s in trouble?’ is actually uttered to ‘Fido’, the pet zombie).

Living Dead series

Dir George A. Romero
The Godfather of the modern zombie genre, Romero created the ‘rules’ for zombie movies as we now know them (thirst for brains? Yes. Running? No). The six movies in the series deal with different ways people survive. From the family in the isolated farmhouse in the black and white gore fest Night of the Living Dead just trying to make it through the night without eating dad (hint: they fail) or a feudal community battling zombies who learn and develop in Land of the Dead, to the most recent documentary style Diary of the Dead and Survival of the Dead, he’s covered basically every facet of the genre. There are remakes. We’d prefer not to discuss them.

Wus factor: High. Oh so very high. We’re not sure if it’s the lack of CGI in the early movies or what, but they’re leave-the-lights-on scary.