WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Army of the Dead, now in theaters and streaming on Netflix.
Zack Snyder does a lot of world building in Army of the Dead, creating a zombie civilization while also exploring the issues present in the quarantine zones. On top of that, he shows there are different classes of zombies, from shamblers to alphas, but at the top of the food chain is the zombie leader, Zeus; however, he is not the first zombie to organize his fellow undead to fight humanity, and Land of the Dead has one of the best to date.
Back in 2005, George A. Romero, the writer and director behind The Night of the Living Dead, was still making zombie movies. This time he took on the task of Land of the Dead, which takes place in a sanctuary city where class divides give the well off the high life, while everyone else lives a life worse than before the zombie apocalypse. Along with this, a group of zombies, led by Big Daddy, attack the city, and they are successful because of his leadership.
Big Daddy is introduced in the opening of the film, continuing the mindless actions of his job at the gas station, which the film's lead, Riley, believes is because the zombies are trying to be like their human selves. He also picks up on the humans in the area and alerts the zombies nearby, establishing that there is some form of communication between the undead.
It's also in this opening sequence that audiences see that Big Daddy is unlike other zombies, failing to be distracted by the fireworks and shoving other undead out of the way of gunfire. When other zombies are killed, he expresses grief, and Big Daddy even puts one zombie out of their misery when they lose their body. His anger over how the humans treat them causes him to lead a charge against the city, and this is similar to Zeus' motivation.
Between when the apocalypse started and the main events of Army of the Dead, a zombie civilization has developed, with Zeus and the Zombie Queen taking charge and allowing limited human passage if they are gifted a sacrifice. However, after Martin beheads the Zombie Queen, Zeus unleashes his undead army on the main cast out of grief and vengeance.
While both Big Daddy and Zeus have similar motivations, Big Daddy takes his leadership to another level, actively guiding all of his zombie compatriots in reclaiming their agency. From teaching them how to use weapons to leading by example to establish that crossing the river separating them from the city is safe, Big Daddy wants his army to not only succeed but to be on the same level as himself.
Zeus, on the other hand, is the top dog. It's true both zombies are leaders, but where Big Daddy is trying to give other zombies the tools to survive, Zeus uses his undead followers as tools for revenge. They are subordinates to him, and this can be best seen in how he is willing to make a helmet to protect himself, but the same precautions are not seen for his army. However, Big Daddy teaches his zombies how to fight back, tries to protect the undead that he can and expresses anger over the deaths of any zombie, even if he doesn't know them.
Watching Big Daddy learn new skills and pass down that knowledge onto his fellow zombies not only proves how large a threat they can be, but it also guarantees that his people will be able to move on if he were die. The same cannot be said for the zombies in Army of the Dead because the hierarchy created inherently keeps a large population of them as mindless shamblers. Others do exhibit more agency, but they must answer to the main zombie in charge. Another alpha could take the Queen Zombie or Zeus' place, but it would likely take time for them to gain the same power as these two, putting these zombies at a disadvantage, unlike Big Daddy's army.
Thankfully for the zombies in Land of the Dead, Big Daddy doesn't die, and his attack is a success. He not only kills off the city's boss in a fiery explosion, but he also leads his people out of the city as they search for a new life after winning. Meanwhile, the zombies in Army of the Dead are not as lucky, as they never learn to escape the walls of Las Vegas and are subject to the nuclear explosion. Plus, Zeus doesn't survive the film like Big Daddy, deciding to charge head first into his final attack instead of coming up with a plan that would cement his victory and survival.
It's exciting to see another zombie film have its monsters be more than mindless cannibals, and unsurprisingly, Romero's impact on the genre continues to this day. Whether or not this was intentional on Snyder's part, Big Daddy continues to be one of the best zombie leaders to date, and he's paved the way for other zombies, like Zeus, to follow in his footsteps.
Directed and co-written by Zack Snyder, Army of the Dead stars Dave Bautista, Garret Dillahunt, Ella Purnell, Omari Hardwick, Raul Castillo, Tig Notaro, Theo Rossi and Ana de la Reguera. The film is now in theaters and is streaming on Netflix.