Bush Vs. Zombies (youtube.com <- new window)

I just have this bad feeling in my stomach that this film is going to be pretty terrible. I usually don’t get that stomach turning nausea, but this film seems to be eating people alive (har, har). I remember awhile back that there was great whoops of delight when Natalie Portman had agreed to star in it, but she seems to have gotten a bad feeling as well and dropped out of the production last year.

This is probably going to be one of those movies that takes a crap load of work to get made and it will be almost a relief to the producers of the film when its done – even when it bombs. I read excerpts of the book and found it funny but not something I’d want to see in the theater.

I’m wondering if the filmmakers are having the same feeling that as well.

Craig Gillespie Confirmed To Direct Pride And Prejudice And Zombies (spinoff.comicbookresources.com <- new window)

Well, in honor of Minecraft, a group of fans created this pretty kick ass video about a zombie apocalypse. I gotta say, besides the funny inside jokes about Minecraft, the video itself is really well made. It starts with a view of a post-apocalyptic looking city with the simple words, “13 Days After the Infection” and it gets better. Honestly, I would love to see this crew make a bona fide zombie film. Hell, even a buddy picture zombie film a la Zombieland except without the last half of the movie.

For those of you who haven’t played Minecraft, here’s a couple insights to the jokes but you might want to read them after you see it lest I ruin it for you.

First of all, everyone is dressed in what looks like block outfits. That’s because everything in Minecraft is rendered in cubes. Even your own character looks blocky. It’s the graphical style of the game and while it may cause some people to chew their own eyeballs, it becomes endearing after awhile. You may say this is the result of Stockholm syndrome and since the creator, Markus “Notch” Persson lives in Stockholm, I’d have to agree with you

The pork chops are used to restore health in the game. You have to kill pigs in the game, collect the meat, and then cook it. I always carry a ton of it when I go exploring because I usually end up pretty far away from my in game house when night falls. And when I find myself caught outside, I tend to mix it up a bit with the bad guys. By mix it up, I mean that I run away with my tail between legs, sounding like Curly from The Three Stooges.

There’s a bit in the video where the survivors are in the workshed, putting their resources on the table. That’s the crafting part of Minecraft with actual in game graphics. They ultimately make a blue pick and blue shotgun. The blue means they crafted them out of diamonds; one of the best (and rarest) resource in the game. Alas, you cannot make a shotgun.

And finally, the monster that explodes at the end of the clip is called a Creeper. He’s a pretty much a suicidal bomber. He actually doesn’t mind the sun so he’s a big pain the ass. He’s as silent as a ninja and well, likes to creep. Usually, the only thing you hear is his fuse going off which means he’s right behind you and that you are screwed. Big time. He tends to leave large craters in his wake if you are lucky enough to avoid him.

Well, I’m off to city hall to pick up my certified geek card. I hope you enjoyed the clip as much I did.

MINECRAFT – The Last Minecart (youtube.com <- new window)

In any case, Kelly Faircloth puts forth the argument that there just isn’t enough female driven zombie movies. While she does mention that there are strong female characters, often times, these women are shifted to the background so the men can take over. Here’s an interesting quote:

Perhaps an even more frustrating example is 28 Days Later. When we first meet Jim, he’s in no condition to face the new world. Luckily, he’s rescued by survivors Selena and Mark, and it’s immediately clear who’s the boss of that team. Selena catches Jim up to speed, says when it’s time to move and dispatches anyone who’s bitten. By the end of the film, she and Hannah have both become Jim’s responsibility. He’s the one who bursts into the mansion, rescues them from impending rape and reassures Selena that “It’s not all fucked.” Not exactly Father Knows Best, but closer than you’d expect from Danny Boyle.

One movie that comes to mind is the remake of Day of the Dead whereby Mena Suvari leads a group of survivors out of a zombie infected suburb although it was a pretty terrible flick. She was kind of a badass in a boring way. But Kelly does have a point that women are often relegated to the back of the bus. Or in the worst kind of zombie fiction, they become fantasy objects that feels like a male teenager’s wet dream (*cough*Brian*Keene*).

Where I disagree is when she states that zombie movies are reflective of reality. I believe we don’t see a lot of women as main characters in zombie films because the majority of zombie literature is written by men. And a lot of zombie fiction is stomach churning. I’m sure if more women wrote in the genre, we’d be seeing stronger female leads. The same goes for film.

Personally, my favorite badass woman was in the book “The Things They Carried” written Tim O’Brien. Check out the story, “Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong” where a soldier’s girlfriend stays with him in Vietnam. She’s all flowers and apple pie until she starts hanging out with special forces guys. She starts joining raids and by the end of the story, she’s wearing a necklace of human tongues. Pretty ‘effin bad-ass, indeed.

The Inevitable Zombie Apocalypse (inevitablezombieapocalypse.com <- new window)
I Demand More Zombie-Killing Female Role Models (io9.com <- new window)

Some time ago in the quaint state of Pennsylvania, a group of young filmmakers had the idea of creating a new type of horror movie. They all pitched in five hundred bucks and formed a company called Latent Image. Their idea centered around flesh eating corpses. A young filmmaker named George Romero was tasked with writing and directing it. They shot the film in a little farmhouse and called it Night of the Flesh Eaters which was later named to Night of the Living Dead by the distributor. Little did Romero know that he and his friends would capture lightning in a bottle.

Years later with a dozen or so movies under his belt and a career that by all accounts was over (by Hollywood standards), George was brought back from the dead when zombies returned to the forefront of the public’s eye. There he went on a zombie making spree, shooting three movies in five years with the last film being Survival of the Dead. Alas, this movie should have remained dead like the walking antagonists.

The movie follows a group of soldiers last seen in Diary of the Dead. The group is lead by a ragged soldier named Crockett. He’s is a grizzled veteran of the undead war. His two black pupils lets you know that there is no soft edges to his character. He’s all kill or be killed. And also, he’s probably the biggest chain smokers in movie history. I’ve never seen a character light up as much as he does. I kid you not … in every scene, he is snapping open his zippo and taking a deep long drag. I’m guessing it’s because he read the script, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves :)

Crockett commands a ragtag group of soldiers who are all by-the-numbers cannon fodder. They pretty much all die in the order that you expect them to. Not that it matters. None of them are very likable. They all do stupid things so when they do die, it isn’t so much a “tragic” moment as it is “duh” moment. They hold long conversations while being attacked by zombies. They don’t mind swimming through zombie infested waters. They don’t like to secure any areas from wandering zombies nor do they believe in searching their prisoners for weapons. Or for that matter, they don’t mind arming their prisoners. In a word, they are idiots. But not just normal idiots, they are famous idiots since robbing the film students in Diary of the Dead which brings me to one of my biggest problems with the movie. The world itself.

Romero does a terrible job conveying his apocalyptic world. He’s trying to show a world going to hell, but the characters still talk about internet fame which implies some sense stability. At another point, the characters manage to acquire a ton of cash and they are excited about being millionaires. Yet, the outbreak is presented as a national one which makes no sense. Money would be worthless, yet Romero doesn’t address these implications which makes for confusing character motivations. And believe it or not, in a Romero zombie apocalypse, YouTube continues to function. Hell, people still get cell service and the power continues to work. That’s what I call a convenient apocalypse.

Well, the soldiers manage to get a boat where they sail out to Plum Island which is inhabited by Americans with thick Irish accents. We’re told it’s a fishing village, but it’s really Ireland displaced in the wild west.

The plot centers around two rival clans. One clan wants to kill the zombies whereas the other wants to rehabilitate them. The rehabiltators believe if zombies could learn to eat animals instead of people, people would be safe around them. It’s a completely retarded argument that ignores the fact that zombies will still eat people. And with a limited food supply on the island, it’s just pure insanity for them to feed their livestock to creatures who don’t need to eat. I think Romero was just trying something different with the genre, but the logic doesn’t jibe. Yes, it sucks to kill your undead spouse, but it sucks even more to die of starvation.

The two clans fight each other with the soldiers getting in the way, resulting in an OK corral type of standoff that is completely boring because all of the characters are both unlikable and predictable. The showdown is supposed to be a meeting of ideologies but it plays out with random people shooting each other with the zombies cleaning up the mess.

The movie ends with a pretty weak conclusion with a taped on message conveyed in monotone narration. It’s flat. It’s uninspired. It’s (as my screenwriting teacher would say) “on-the-nose”. Now contrast that with his first film, Night of the Living Dead which ends with a brutal montage set against creepy almost nihilistic music. It is an incredibly effective piece of filmmaking for what was just a simple credit roll.

Survival of the Dead is also a text book example of pointless computer graphics. At one point, Crockett shoots a zombie in the chest with a flare gun, causing the zombie to combust as if it’s internals were fused with gasoline. The zombie’s head catches fire whereby Crockett lights his cigarette off it. The effect is pure agony to watch because the computer graphics are terrible and the moment is pointless. There are so many similar moments that I felt like I were watching a gory roadrunner cartoon. Seriously, do zombie movies need this kind of CGI? In fact, do zombie movies need any kind of CGI?

In summation, Survival of the Dead isn’t worth sitting through even once. Even the gimmicky Diary of the Dead surpasses this film. Where Diary of the Dead took risks, this film phones it in. It’s pretty clear that Romero is bored with zombies and would rather be filming something else. I can’t blame for that, but I can’t excuse the sloppy writing.

Verdict: Skip it

The whole gag is tongue and cheek with the children at one point receiving a letter from the zombie saying that he is coming to get them. The show host seems to be having a pretty good time, doing his best to amp up the tension. And yes, for the kids, this is the real deal. There are moments in the clip where children pass through moments of genuine terror backdropped by a laugh track. Very strange indeed although it was good to see that none of the kids broke down into tears.

I will say they did a good job. One kid just wouldn’t give up the fight and at one point, turns to the show host and accuses him of not doing anything to stop the zombie (which he was right).

It’s a fun guilty watch. I’m hoping next time the show host gives them an axe or maybe a baseball. While the kid’s traps were somewhat effective on the fake zombie, they’d be sushi in real life. Just goes to show you that we really need zombie readiness training in our schools. The earlier, the better :)

Japanese Child Repels Zombie Invasion [Video] (geekosystem.com <- new window)

Thankfully, Netflix has expanded its zombie collection with a wide range of zombie movies. From the well received Zombieland to zombie camp Dead Snow, Netflix has a pretty awesome assortment collection right now. Well … granted, some of these are of the “watch at your own risk” type but I’m sure it will be some good cheese. I’ve created the list of movies beneath the fold that I’ll keep updating as time goes on. If I missed one, don’t hesitate to email me the news.

Note … I’ve included “rage infected” movies as well. Here’s the big list:

American Zombie
Boy Eats Girl
City of the Living Dead
Creatures from the Pink Lagoon
Dance of the Dead
Dance of the Dead
Dead and Deader
Dead Heist
Dead Summer
Dead Snow
Deadhunter
Die You Zombie Bastards!
Dorm of the Dead
Edges of Darkness
Flesh Freaks
Gangs of the Dead
Ghoul School
Hide and Creep
Insane in the Brain
Killing Spree
King of the Zombies
Meat Market
Meat Market 2
Mulva: Zombie Ass Kicker!
My Dead Girlfriend
Otto; or, Up With Dead People
Ozone
Platoon of the Dead
Quick and the Undead
Raiders of the Damned
Redneck Zombies
Return in Red
Return of the Living Dead 2
Revenge of the Living Dead Girls
Severed: Forest of the Dead
Shatter Dead
Shock Waves
Sugar Hill
Survival of the Dead
The Signal
The Astro Zombies
The Dead Hate the Living!
The Dead Next Door
The Plague of the Zombies
The Rage
The Video Dead
White Zombie
ZA: Zombies Anonymous
Zombie Campout
Zombie Island Massacre
Zombie Town
Zombieland
Zombiethon
Zombies of Mass Destruction

Apparently George Romero and Tom Savani – the dynamic duo behind the legendary Dawn of the Dead – are batting their eyes at each other over the prospect of remaking Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things. Normally, I’d scoff at the thought of a remake but this actually sounds interesting.

For the record, each time I hear of another re-something, I want to stick my head in the dryer and let the puppy go all night long. It’s gotten so bad that film executives are not just raiding films of yesteryear, but now they are remaking movies not even a few years old as the Hulk and the soon to be Spiderman reboot will testify. But there’s something about a remake of Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things that tickles me. I like the idea of George putting his writing skills behind something that isn’t his own. I think he’s lost the touch in recent years, and working on an already existing property might be a good exercise. Mind you, I haven’t seen the original movie, but people do seem to like it.

And for Savani — he’s always fun to watch so long as his creations are in front of the camera as opposed to behind it (*cough*Night of the Living Dead remake*cough*)

Granted, this could be one expensive lesson on why you should invest in mutual funds instead of George Romero film projects, but I don’t think George is entirely out of the game. He’s been on the record of saying that zombies just don’t do it for him anymore. I can understand the sentiment of losing the love for a genre which is why his recent films have felt as stiff as the corpses themselves. Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things isn’t a traditional zombie film – so I hear – and that prospect of genre intersection might be the shot in the arm he needs to get his old mojo back.

That said … he’s gotta lose the crotchedy “zombies shouldn’t run fast” mantra. Love it or hate it, the genre has expanded to include it and selling bumper stickers that say “Fast Zombies Suck!” is just another way of telling those kids to get off his lawn.

Romero And Savini Collaborating Again? (empireonline.com <- new window)

The movie ended up scoring a meta-critic rating of 43 putting it more on the side of Diary of the Dead as opposed to Dawn of the Dead. It’s a little disappointing to note that the godfather of the modern zombie may have lost its touch. Honestly, it’s not that surprising. When asked during an interview if he could make other types of movies, he lit up at the subject, noting the only reason he’s making zombie films is because zombies are hot right now.

It’s not surprising that such feelings are being reflected in his work. Nevertheless, if you wanted to see his latest work, just swing over to Netflix and tell them that A World on Fire sent you ;)

Survival of the Dead (netflix.com <- new window)

Well, Frank Darabont splashed some cold water on the theory in a great old man Smithers impression that will certainly depress the hardest of the hardcore. “Shooting in February? As tired as I am right now getting season one through post, I’d rather shoot myself,”. Umm … no gray area there.

So the big question … will we see another season of this show? I’d be surprised if we didn’t. The series has generated a ton of hype and the comic appears to be beloved by many out there. I’m thinking the only way for us not to have a second season would be if Darabont just craps his pants with the production. And I’m not talking a little turd, but rather a big smelly dump of colossal proportions.

But wait, you say, that’s impossible. Darabont directed The Shawshank Redemption. The guy can do no wrong! To that I say, people thought George Lucas could no wrong until he made the most expensive Saturday morning cartoon ever made. And also, for every Shawshank Redemption that Darabont directed, there’s a Nightmare and Elm Street 3 and a Majestic just off into the wings that no one likes to talk about. I’m not saying the series will be bad. I’m just saying that anything goes. I do give him good odds based on the source material.

With less than two months to showtime, we shall see soon enough.

The Walking Dead Season 2? Not Yet, According to Darabont (dreadcentral.com <- new window)

So what are the monsters? I’m not quite sure. The trailer does an excellent job at concealing the hungry beasts, and while some of them looks to be of Godzilla proportions, I’m guessing from the giant “INFECTED AREA” signs means that this parasite crosses over to people as well.

Yeah, so what’s it about? Here’s what I managed to dig up:

Six years ago NASA discovered the possibility of alien life within our solar system. A probe was launched to collect samples, but crashed upon re-entry over Central America. Soon after, new life forms began to appear and grow. In an effort to stem the destruction that resulted, half of Mexico was quarantined as an INFECTED ZONE. Today, the American and Mexican military still struggle to contain the massive creatures… Our story begins when a jaded US journalist (McNairy) begrudgingly agrees to find his boss’ daughter, a shaken American tourist (Able) and escort her through the infected zone to the safety of the US border.

Monsters looks to be following Survival of the Dead’s footsteps by first playing on the web before hitting the theaters in October. The movie will be playing on iTunes, XBox Live, Playstation Network, Amazon, and Vudu so if you have an internet connection not powered by a hamster, you should be able to catch this.

Cool stuff. I’m hoping the movie will live up to the trailer. Finger’s crossed.

Monsters Official Website (monstersfilm.com <- new window)

Thankfully, a much better trailer was released lately in of all its man on horse meets zombie action.

Gotta say this about watching trailers online … I know people gotta make money off their ads. I can’t fault them for that. I have them on my site as well. But is it really necessary to show an ad before what amounts to be another ad?

Being this clip is just over four minutes long, I can cut them a little slack but I’ve seen clips on the web lately where the ads were actually longer than the content I was supposed to be watching. Soon we’ll be seeing ads before ads which contains ads embedded in ads that target each individual with a slew questionnaires to focus the ads in the hopes that you might buy lemon flavor shaving cream. All to see a kitten play the piano for fifteen seconds.

I say, bring on the zombies.

The Walking Dead Trailer Premiers (digitaltrends.com <- new window)

Now I can see some of you rolling your eyes at the thought of Hayden Christensen being in anything after his performance in the George Lucas sci-fi movie adaption of “Who wants to be a Billionaire?”. His incessant whining in the prequels made Luke Skywalker appear to be a stone faced monk. And yes, it was kind of funny to see a guy go from chicken chest to barrel chest at the end of Revenge of the Sith, but I will say – having seen him in other stuff – he’s not a bad actor. He was given a terrible script from a guy who was intent on making the most expensive Saturday morning cartoon in ever made and being that almost every performance was a slow motion car crash, I’m willing to cut the guy some slack.

In any case, this movie looks pretty good with the idea of light playing a central premise. The trailer feels a lot like Pitch Black without a large cheesehead running around in funky goggles. Plus, I’m a sucker for post-apocalyptic movies. The beginning of this trailer sort of reminds me when everything goes to hell in awesome book, Day of the Triffids (ps … if you haven’t read it, get a copy from your library RIGHT NOW. It’s an amazing book that inspired some terrible movies. Kind of like The Postman). Here’s the synopsis I filched from io9:

A mysterious, seemingly global blackout causes countless populations to simply vanish, leaving only their clothes and possessions behind. A small handful of survivors band together in a dimly-lit tavern on 7th Street, struggling to combat the apocalyptic horror. Realizing they may in fact be the last people on earth, the darkness hones in on them alone.

By the way, if you feel want to watch another post-apocalyptic film which looks awfully similar (*cough*cough*) to this one, pick yourself up a copy of The Quiet Earth from Netflix. It’s about a dude who wakes up to find everyone around him gone. It’s well done in a creepy “thank-god-I’m-not-him” kind of way.

I’ll be keeping an eye on this one and break any news as I have it.

Hayden Christensen refuses to “Vanish,” even in the face of the apocalypse (io9.com <- new window)

Reading the blurb on it, Kay mentions how the MPAA forced the creators of the film to trim back some of the more obnoxious special effects else the movie would earn itself an X rating. Having recently watched Angels & Demons – a PG-13 film which features an assassin cutting open an investigators throat, a hanging priest being burned alive, and several officers being shot in the head – it seems rather quaint that a Joe Piscopo move could be slapped with such a warning,

A most excellent documentary aptly titled, This Film is not Rated actually breaks down the MPAA’s rating system with some rather interesting conclusions, noting that the process of rating a film is both opaque and entirely subjective. The films proceeds to compares the difference between an R rating and an NC-17 rating which usually boils down to a few seconds or even less. This Film is Not Rated is currently available on Netflix streaming and I highly suggest you watch it.

In any case, this is what Glenn Kay thought of Dead Heat (note, this entry contains a lot of spoilers):

After entering the subgenre with a segment of Creepshow 2 the previous year, New World Pictures released its first full-length zombie title, this unusual $5 million hybrid of undead horror and buddy action/comedy. The emphasis is on laughs as Treat Williams and Joe Piscopo play L.A. cops who find themselves investigating walking, talking, deceased criminals. After the two discover what can only be described as a large stainless-steel resurrection machine operated by the villainous Vincent Price and Darrin McGavin, \Williams is offed in a decidedly unheroic manner (he accidentally locks himself in an “Asphyxiation Room” and is “decompressed”).

Thankfully, Piscopo places Williams on the wacky resurrection machine, and our hero returns as a zombie supercop, ready to help his partner hunt down the responsible parties — before he decomposes. (They would have been wiser to simply sit by the resurrection machine and wait for the villains to return). “They can’t kill me,” Williams claims, only moments after completely obliterating a fellow zombie without much trouble. More nonsense follows, although the outlandish premise leads to some nifty action scenes. In the most memorable sequence, the resurrection technology is unleashed on a Chinese butcher shop’s wares, and the cops are attacked by angry ducks, pigs, and a gutted cow hanging in a meat locker. As for the comedic elements, the viewer’s appreciation will depend on what he or she thinks of the comedy styling of Joe Piscopo.

The film suffers in the makeup department due to the interference by the increasingly stringent MPAA. By now, the ratings board was threatening to brand many horror titles with X ratings, forcing filmmakers to chop their most outrageous effects to earn a more publicity friendly R rating (NOTE FROM BRIAN: movies will not be shown in 99% of theaters with X or NC-17 ratings). While some films like Day of the Dead (1985) chose to open unrated instead, Dead Heat buckled under the pressure and clipped the gory highlights. Filmmaker retained eye-catching footage of William’s punkish, charred, metal-embedded visage after a traffic accident, but they trimmed the other effects in obvious and jarring ways. For instance, an elaborate gag in which a character melts away on camera was almost entirely excised.

Dead Heat is also hampered by an awful musical score, and it can’t compete with the flashy action of the big-budget cop movies of the period. With a little more money, the concept of a zombie cop could have been more successful, but this feels like a missed opportunity. The film was yet another box office failure, and its soon-to-be defunct distributor, New World Pictures, suffered a costly blow.

Has anyone seen this and what do you think?

Zombie Movies: The Ultimate Guide (amazon.com <- new window)
Dead Heat amazon.com <- new window)

As for the video itself, you might want to wait until some sort of official version is released. The audio sounds like it was recorded from a microphone dunked in a nearby aquarium and the camera dances like the cameraman has had one Red Bull too many. As for the content itself, it looks pretty cool. I like the fact that our lone wanderer puts a horse to good use and the zombies themselves look fantastic. I can’t tell if they are the slow type or the speed-os, but their makeup is top notch.

Btw … io9 warns that there are some spoilers. No having read the comic book, I can’t really tell what is or what is not a spoiler, but it looks no different than any other trailer, unlike say, Avatar where people knew the entire movie without seeing it. In any case, check it out and enjoy.

A closer look at the Walking Dead trailer (io9.com <- new window)