Last updated: May 10, 2021

Zack Snyder's zombie heist movie Army of the Dead will feature a wide variety of different kinds of zombies, including some unusually intelligent ones. The movie marks Snyder's first film with Netflix, and will also be his return to the zombie genre after his very first film as director, 2004's Dawn of the Dead. After a teaser earlier this year that offered a glimpse at the film, the recent debut of the first full trailer showcases a very different kind of zombie movie.

Army of the Dead sees Dave Bautista portray Scott Ward, who is recruited into leading a team of mercenaries into Las Vegas to retrieve millions of dollars for Hiroyuki Sanada's wealthy benefactor, with the city itself being completely overrun by zombies. Unfortunately, the mercenaries soon discover that the zombie horde they're facing is far from a typical mass of the undead. Within the walled-off desert city, the zombies themselves are not only as relentless as ever, but many have developed intelligence and even seemingly formed a society, or rather an army, of territorial zombie warriors.

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Army of the Dead is set for a limited theatrical release and will make its debut on Netflix on May 21st. The film's teaser and first full trailer still keep a lot of the film unrevealed, putting an ironic twist on Judy Garland's "Lucky Day" and Kenny Rogers' "The Gambler" on their respective soundtracks, but with no ambiguity to the scale of the zombie horde that the human team will face during their Vegas heist. Army of the Dead already looks like a zombie flick like no other, with a wide assortment of zombies at its disposal. Here are the different kinds of zombies that will be seen in Army of the Dead.

Alphas

army of the dead alpha zombie

The biggest change-up from the typical zombie formula is the introduction of Alpha zombies in Army of the Dead. As seen in the trailer and discussed by Zack and Deborah Snyder during a set visit, Alphas take the arriving mercenaries by surprise in being far more intelligent than the typical zombie, and even seemingly possessing some level of sentience, as indicated by the line "they're smarter, they're faster, they're organized". There also seems to be a sense of community and even a hierarchy among Alphas, with what looks like a king and queen Alpha seen in the trailer, carrying crude staffs and thrusting their fists into the air as fellow zombies look on. Snyder himself has also described there being "Alpha elites" among the larger Alpha horde.

Snyder has compared the Alphas to wolves and has also said that they are meant to bring some shades of grey into the scenario of human mercenaries blasting away at zombies. Snyder said in an interview with Empire that he wanted to "create this moral ambiguity about whether or not humans that we love in the movie crossed a line." Past zombie movies like Land of the Dead and Warm Bodies explored the notion of zombies keeping and/or regaining their human intelligence to varying degrees, while Army of the Dead will present a new angle of intelligent zombies growing into a tribe and becoming a far greater threat than ever before.

The film will also introduce patient zero, Zeus, whom producer Wesley Coller suggests is not a traditional zombie, saying "whether he's genetically engineered or he has part alien in him, but Zeus escapes from Area 51 and he's like our alpha, he's the king daddy, he starts the outbreak. When he bites you, we get other alphas. But if they bite you, it gets weaker and weaker and we get shamblers."

Shamblers

Army of the Dead will also be home to plenty of Shambler zombies. These are the typical lurching, undead eating machines that are seen in every zombie movie, including Snyder's own Dawn of the Dead. That movie departed from the slow-moving zombies in George Romero's 1978 original, the remake's zombies sprinting after their human prey like ravenous animals. The trailer shows zombies running, and though it's not entirely clear from watching it whether these are Alphas or Shamblers, the movie's zombies overall look very agile and formidable, dodging bullets and blades alike from their human enemies. Fans should expect there to be plenty of zombie Elvis impersonators scattered throughout the film.

Also confirmed is that Shambler zombies are created by other zombies biting humans. Snyder has also stated that the Shamblers in Army of the Dead will be seen in three different stages, with a different color of blood for each. This probably relates to the time since the former human became a zombie and the stage of decomposition their body has reached. No zombie movie would be complete without the Shamblers that made the zombie genre what it is today, and Army of the Dead is clearly going to have plenty of them.

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Zombie Animals

Army of the Dead Zombie Tiger

Humans-turned-zombies won't be the only undead characters in Army of the Dead, with different kinds of animal zombies set to have a fairly significant presence in the movie. The trailer offers a glimpse of this with one of the Alphas riding on a zombie horse, but an even more prominent spotlight is given to a zombie white tiger in the trailer, which is confirmed to get most of the attention when it comes to zombie animals. While there isn't a full picture yet on which other kinds of animal zombies will appear in Army of the Dead, there are some hints by just how infectious the movie's version of the zombie plague really is.

When it comes to the animal kingdom in Army of the Dead, birds alone will be immune to the zombie virus. Snyder has also confirmed that zombie dogs will appear in the upcoming prequel, Army of Thieves, and has even joked about oysters, as well. The number of zombie animals appearing in Army of the Dead isn't known yet, but the mercenary team will surely find itself unexpectedly battling a number of them nonetheless, with the zombie horse and tiger sure to be major players in the action.

At every turn, Zack Snyder has boasted about having a level of creative freedom that he's never known before on Army of the Dead, and it certainly shows from the marketing of the film so far. With different kinds of zombies to play with and the introduction of a more intelligent underground kingdom of zombies now ruling over Las Vegas, the movie is sure to be one of the largest scale zombie movies in recent memory, marrying that concept to a heist movie for something quite different from the average zombie film. With Zack Snyder breaking out so many different zombie variants, Army of the Dead is seemingly set to be 2021's zombie movie to beat.

NEXT: Army of the Dead Character Names And Roles Explained

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