Zombies

Zombies, released by Disney Channel in 2018 and styled as Z-O-M-B-I-E-S, is a musical television film directed by Paul Hoen. Its screenplay was written by David Light and Joseph Raso. The story takes place in Seabrook, a community that has confined its zombie residents to Zombietown since an accident at Seabrook Power Plant. Zombies wear electronic Z-Bands, devices that regulate their impulses. Fifty years later, Seabrook High begins admitting zombie students, turning the school's opening day into an uneasy experiment in integration. That premise supplies the central conflict rather than treating the zombies as a distant horror-movie threat within Seabrook High.

Zed Necrodopolis, played by Milo Manheim, enters Seabrook High determined to join its football team and prove that zombies belong in the town. He meets Addison Wells, played by Meg Donnelly, a human student with an intense interest in cheerleading. Addison's carefully maintained image hides naturally white hair, which she covers with a blonde wig because her parents and classmates expect conformity. Their friendship becomes romantic while both confront the rules defining Seabrook's human and zombie populations. Zed's ability on the football field gives the school a reason to welcome him, but it also makes the town's prejudice more visible.

Seabrook's cheer squad is led by Bucky, Addison's cousin, who initially resists zombie participation. Zed's friends include Eliza, portrayed by Kylee Russell, and Bonzo, portrayed by James Godfrey. The film also features Trevor Tordjman as Bucky and Emilia McCarthy as Bree, one of Addison's cheerleading friends. When a major football game approaches, Seabrook's leaders fear that zombie students will alter the town's public image. The plot connects that fear to the Z-Bands: manipulation of the bands threatens Zed and exposes how official control has shaped zombie life. Addison ultimately appears without her wig, making her own difference impossible to conceal.

Music is integral to the film's narrative, with characters performing songs including "Bamm," "Someday," "Fired Up," and "We Got This." Manheim and Donnelly lead the principal cast, and their characters return in the sequels Zombies 2, released in 2020, and Zombies 3, released in 2022. The first film's conclusion does not erase Seabrook's divisions through a simple administrative decision; it stages a public change in attitudes during the football event. By pairing a high-school romance with cheerleading, football, and an institutional history of segregation, Zombies frames its conflict around belonging in Seabrook rather than an apocalyptic survival scenario at all.