Zombies 3 was released on Disney+ on July 15, 2022. This popular musical series features Milo Manheim as zombie Zed and Meg Donnelly as Addison Wells as the singing and dancing cheerleader in love. The film follows a similar formula to the first two Zombies installments, but with the addition of new alien characters appearing at Seabrook High School during the international cheer-off competition.
The Zombies franchise shares roots with many other Disney Channel Original Movies, as well as other cult science fiction, horror, and musical films.
High School Musical Franchise (2006-2008)
Streaming on Disney+
These are the movies that popularized the Disney Channel movie musicals and eventually spun off into a TV series. Starring Zac Efron and Vanessa Hudgens, The High School Musical films tell the story of the romance between star Basketball player Troy Bolton and sweet but shy Gabriella Montez.
The movies were the first of many Disney Channel Original musicals that focus on teen romances between seeming opposites. Like the Zombies franchise, they had themes of different opposing groups who normally don't get along brought together by the main couple. The brother/sister duo of Sharpay and Ryan have a lot in common with Bucky, being flamboyant antagonists who want to preserve the status quo.
Teen Beach Movie Franchise (2013-2015)
Streaming on Disney+
The Teen Beach Movies are very campy musicals, much like Zombies 3. The first film focuses on the couple Brady and McKenzie, being transported into the world of Wet Side Story, a sixties beach movie about a feud between bikers and surfers. The sequel reverses the plot and transports the characters of Wet Side Story into the real world.
These films not only feature a similar over-the-top tone as Zombies 3 but a fantastical premise with a love story and groups feuding with each other. They are also fish-out-of-water stories like in Zombies movies, where Brady and McKenzie are confused by the world of Wet Side Story, and the reverse happens in the sequel. Also familiar is the element of sci-fi with mad scientist villain, Dr. Fusion.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992)
Streaming on Amazon Prime
Buffy The Vampire Slayer was the precursor to the hit TV series of the same name, about Buffy Summers (Kristy Swanson), a popular cheerleader who discovers she is the Slayer, the chosen one destined to fight vampires.
Buffy and Addison are both popular cheerleaders who have some kind of otherness about them that they embrace over time. While Addison slowly accepted her different hair and later being an alien, Buffy must come to accept that she is the Slayer. Another similarity is that both movies have fairly comedic lighthearted takes on monsters and the supernatural, in Buffy's case using vampires.
Stepsister from Planet Weird (2000)
Streaming on Disney +
This is another Disney Channel Original fish-out-of-water story featuring aliens. This film is about Megan Larson, a teenage girl whose mother falls in love with an alien, the odd Cosmo Cola, and now it seems his even more eccentric daughter, Ariel will be Megan's stepsister.
Ariel has many similarities with the aliens in Zombies 3, having difficulty fitting in on Earth and understanding Earth culture. There is also the inter-species alien-human romance between more than one couple like Zombies 3. There is also the theme of humans and aliens not getting along but having to work together for the greater good, in this case defeating the tyrant S'Vad.
Halloweentown Franchise (1998-2005)
Streaming on Disney+
Like the Zombies movies, Halloweentown are a series of Disney Channel Original Movies with a positive depiction of a community of monsters. These films told the story of a teenage girl named Marnie and her siblings who find out from their grandmother (Debbie Reynolds) that they are descended from a long line of witches and that she is to start her training in Halloweentown.
Halloweentown movies featured a bright, happy depiction of a town where monsters live - similar to the zombie and werewolf communities in the Zombies franchise. The plot of the third movie Halloweentown High, has a plot akin to the Zombies movies, in that it involves a group of monsters and magical beings coming into the human world and struggling to fit in. Marnie is also very reminiscent of Addison who is both trying to come to with not being an ordinary human and embracing it.
Descendants Franchise
Streaming on Disney+
This series of fantasy musicals share the theme of communities that face prejudice and the teenagers who try to change things. The teenage children of villains who live on the Isle of the Lost are given permission to go to the prep school Auradon where all the children of heroes attend.
Mal, the daughter of Maleficent (played by Wicked's Kristen Chenoweth) has a lot in common with Zed in that she is the POV character from a marginalized group that gets to attend school with the nonmarginalized teens. This is another franchise where the characters from the marginalized group are fish out of water in their new communities, with Mal and her friends becoming heroes in the process.
Earth Girls Are Easy (1988)
Streaming on Amazon Prime
Earth Girls are Easy shares Zombies 3 themes of aliens coming to Earth, trying to fit in, and finding love in the process. In this campy musical sci-fi rom-com, three furry aliens (Jim Carrey, Damon Wayans, and the quirky Jeff Goldblum) come to Earth looking for love after seeing footage of a human woman and crash land into Valerie's (Geena Davis) California swimming pool.
Like the aliens in Zombies 3, they easily get caught up with Earth culture - in this case by watching TV. Unlike the aliens in Zombies 3, they get makeovers to appear more human, which allows them to fit in better. This movie also features an interspecies romance between human Valerie and alien Mac (Goldblum), with the two trying to understand each other.
Voyage of the Rock Aliens (1984)
Streaming on Amazon Prime
This is another sci-fi musical comedy, about aliens coming to Earth and meeting human teenagers. The film features Pia Zadora and Rosemary's Baby, Harold & Maude). Aliens land in the town of Speelburgh, U.S.A to find the origin of rock music. There the aliens' leader ABCD falls in love with Dee Dee, a high school girl in a gang.
Like the aliens in Zombies 3, ABCD and the other aliens struggle with feeling emotions they aren't used to after their "emolectomy" is undone by romance with a human. The aliens also get into a competition with the humans, in this case, a battle of the bands. It also features toned-down (PG-rated) horror elements such as escaped murders and a tentacled monster.
The Ghastly Love of Johnny X (2012)
Streaming on Vudu
This sci-fi musical features both aliens and zombies. It tells the story of Johnny X, the leader of an alien greaser gang banished to Earth whose ex-girlfriend Bliss, stole his Resurrection suit, a strange otherworldly outfit that gives power over others.
The main zombie of the movie is Johnny's long-lost rock star father Mickey O'Flynn (The Office's Creed Bratton) who gives the (second) dying message to don't abandon Bliss as he abandoned Johnny. This offers depth to their relationship and gives a push to Johnny. This film also features an interspecies romance between the alien Johnny and the human Bliss.
Zombie Prom (2006)
Streaming on YouTube
Zombie Prom is another campy sci-fi musical about a high school girl in love with a zombie, also featuring RuPaul. The short film is based on the off-Broadway musical. Jonny is a teen rebel who falls in love with good girl Toffee, but he is turned into a zombie after he rides his motorcycle into nuclear waste - however, he still wants to take Toffee to prom.
This movie has a lot in common with the Zombies franchise. Jonny, like Zed, is a kind-hearted, misunderstood teen zombie who is in love with a non-zombie girl and faces prejudice because of it. There is also a theme of zombie civil rights as the principal Miss Strict (RuPaul) doesn't want zombies at her school. While RuPaul got to have funny lines as The Mothership in Zombies 3, here he had a much bigger role as the film's main antagonist.
