Movies
Did You Spot the Robot Zombies in Zack Snyder’s ‘Army of the Dead’?
There are many questions proposed by Army of the Dead that Zack Snyder intentionally fails to answer, including strong suggestions that the zombies are actually aliens along with the revelation that zombies in this movie’s world, well, they can actually… have sex and get pregnant? And what about that whole time loop thing? Is there any legitimacy to that?
These are the questions Snyder will surely be asked time and time again as he continues making the rounds while promoting Army of the Dead, but one of the biggest (and strangest) questions has actually already been answered by Snyder. Sort of, at least…
At a couple different points, you may have noticed that some of the zombies that litter the apocalyptic Las Vegas setting in Army of the Dead don’t actually appear to be conventional zombies, making them different than both the surprisingly intelligent Alphas and the more traditional Shamblers. These zombies, well, they might not actually even be zombies at all.
We’re talking about the film’s Robot Zombies, one of which is most glaringly present in the casino shootout that takes place about 1 hour, 53 minutes into the movie. As our heroes gun down hordes of Shamblers, their heads mostly explode in the way you’d expect them to, spewing blood all over the place. Except for one of them, shot in the head by Mikey Guzman.
Raúl Castillo’s character fires a shot into one zombie’s head and rather than blood, it seems to be an oil-like substance that spills out. Underneath his skin, making things even stranger, looks to be a Terminator-esque metal skeleton. And it’s not a case of unfinished effects work, we assure you, but rather Snyder intentionally teasing the existence of Robot Zombies.
As Snyder explained to Movie Web back in April, “I had the idea from the beginning that these zombies were going to embody an evolution, that they were on their way to becoming something else, not stagnant like the zombies we’re used to. It was a way to make them fresh, while still delivering the zombie canon in some ways. I really wanted this sort of weird ambiguity to their origins – which, of course, we’ll explore in the animated series. If you pay close attention, there’s a number of zombies that are clearly not zombies.”
Snyder continues, “You see normal zombies and then you see some robot zombies. Are they monitors that the government has placed among the zombies to monitor them? Are they technology from the other world? What’s happening there?”
It would seem that Snyder has a massive mythology for the world of Army of the Dead that he only lightly touched upon in the movie itself, with the upcoming prequel animated series and live action prequel movie set to expand upon that universe. And if Snyder has his way, he’ll also be making a sequel to Army of the Dead, which he’s already mapped out in his head.
Alien Zombie Robots, man. They freak me out.
Jump to 6:30 in the video below to see one of these bizarre mashup monsters in action. And let us know down in the comments if you spotted any other Robot Zombies in the film…
Judging from the unprecedented box office success of Kane Parsons’ Backrooms adaptation, you’ve likely already seen the liminal horror hit that managed to make audiences afraid of empty hallways and bad wallpaper. And now that so many of us have already entered the yellow labyrinth (some of us more than once), the time has come to discuss the spoiler-filled details that make the movie so fascinating in the first place.
And if there’s one element here that makes the Backrooms movie stand out from any previous lore/mythology, it has to be the genius addition of the Still Life entities. Warped recreations of real people that somehow wandered into the Complex, these misremembered creatures are responsible for some of the most disturbing imagery of 2026 – as well as laugh-out-loud memes created by one of the film’s very own concept artists.
However, true to Parsons’ word that the movie would rely heavily on practical effects, each of these distorted monsters was brought to life by real actors under heavy layers of makeup and prosthetics (with the occasional splash of CGI enhancements). While Anora and If I Had Legs I’d Kick You actress Ivy Wolk wasn’t among these performers, despite what Letterboxd might have you believe, the creature cast did benefit from veteran players with plenty of genre experience.
For starters, Alien: Romulus alumni Robert Bobroczkyi (who previously brought that film’s horrific Offspring to life during its most memorable sequence) plays the flick’s main antagonist, the Still Life version of Captain Clark. And though there was some obvious CGI involved in making the character’s peg-leg and nightmarish face more believable, Bobroczkyi’s monstrous performance and his natural 7’7″ frame helped to make that final chase sequence a clear highlight among this year’s genre offerings.
The film’s Texas-Chain-Saw-inspired “dinner” scene also features a freaky collection of less-aggressive Still Life creatures in the form of the Bearded Man, the Red-Headed Woman and, strangest of them all, the cheekily named “Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life” (who earned this title among fans and crewmembers as a reference to his apparent affinity for lamps).
While this was the first major horror outing for both Patrick Baynham (The Bearded Man) and Dana Mahmood (Archibald), Rhiannon Roberts has worked as a stunt performer in everything from Yellowjackets to HBO’s The Last of Us adaptation – which is probably why The Red-Headed Woman is the most active out of Clark’s impromptu “family.” That being said, the Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life is my personal favorite of the bunch simply because his anachronistic outfit suggests that the Backrooms phenomenon might be a lot older than the Async Foundation. I also love how hard he tries to be helpful with that little light of his!
That might be it for the Still Life entities, but I think horror fans will also be pleased to hear that the film’s Found Footage prologue stars none other than Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City star Avan Jogia as Naren Warne – and American Mary herself Katharine Isabelle also shows up in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo at Mary’s house party towards the middle of the story (though I have a feeling that she originally had a bigger part that was likely cut for time).
At the end of the day, Parsons’ Backrooms may have been an auteur-driven project motivated by the young director’s unique take on the classic creepypasta, but film has always been a collective artform, so it’s fun to see just how many talented performers it takes to bring this kind of supernatural nightmare to life in a way that connects with so many people.
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