Maybe you can resist remix talents, like AXWELL, which flocked to her music and turned it all house techno, but I really doubt it.

AZEALIA BANKS sings, raps and makes suggestively offensive noises on her track 212 featuring LAZY JAY. It’s all flirting and fighting, sex and threats, but that works for me. Notice the heavy drum-n-bass techniques applied to hip-hop production. What a fantastic mix mash of styles, which somewhat remind me of THE CLIPSE’s agressive synth beats.

No, it’s not duck season or rabbit season. Rather, it’s time to sample Tex Avery cartoons and apply some super massive dubstep drops to the Elmer Fudd and his trigger-happy self. MISSHIN rocks the remix with style and grace. Z-Props to whoever re-edited the animation. This track bangs like a 30 foot gong.

Glitch-Hop is a funny little label for such a diverse genre of music. TORO Y MOI do a fantastic job applying a’80s R&B persona to the new glitchy category based on heavy crossfade action with manically altering beats and truncated samples. Very danceable stuff.

Sounds like Phil Collins on mescaline, no?

TWO DOOR CINEMA CLUB, like a lot of pop rock, sound great when remixed as dnb or dubstep. Again, already great tracks live an extended life when the YouTube musical democracy gets at it. Rude internet trolls don’t always have the best taste in music, still the voting remix/mashup community can really critique and even encourage new beats. Listen to FEED ME’s remix of “What you Know.”

First of all, I love KID CUDI’s production, which is not all hiphop nor all R&B. mixed in are vocals from Canadian rapper DRAKE, who sings over hooks like a character from Peter Pan. I’m more than a fan of this remix, therefore I had to make an alternative music video using the timeless animation of UB IWERKS, whose proto-Disney character FLIP THE FROG inspired the design of MICKEY MOUSE, long before Disney was a known brand. The eye design and walk cyclce came directly through the character FLIP, making UB IWERKS the originator of the Disney style, meanwhile his name gets scrubbed from the title cards of early Disney cartoon shorts. Know your animation roots.

Band PHOENIX gets a remix treatment worth a few listens. The original is a quality track, but don’t forget to check out what clever folks have done with the  source material. DEF STARR’s version of “Fences” has to be my favorite of what remixes I’ve discovered.  Zombies like this sort of meta-music.

Z-Props to any hiphop producer sampling the squeezebox (re: Madvillian’s Accordian) which got a live cover from Weird Al and the Roots.

ROTLD takes viciously wild punches at most all of the standard clichéd tools used in horrific monster movies, especially those featuring flimsy teen characters prone to vice. Those wacky teenagers, an endlessly excitable bunch prone to poor decisions and quick retribution. Meanwhile every character in Return of the Living Dead lacks all motivation outside the single goal of self satisfaction — sex, drugs, violence — shortly followed by self preservation. One exception: a particularly strange punk rocker played by Thom Mathews (Freddy). Pretty much the youthful protagonist of Dan O’Bannon‘s undead melodrama — the suddenly sympathetic Fred has to deal with a world of occult flesh eaters, government cover-ups and the desires of his recent girlfriend…all this on his first day at work.

Freddy still reveals himself as slightly dumber than a box of hammers, or maybe a bowl of screwdrivers. Whatever simple machine in a container, our friend Freddy ain’t smart and neither is his friendly superior (Frank) played by Clu Gulager. Their combined stupidity is exponential and ever-expanding, especially with the introduction of Frank’s boss (Burt) a selfish dick played by the always intimidating James Karen.

Half of the movie  involves these stooges try their best to maintain composure while every piece of death flesh around them comes back to life, a distracting challenge when you work in a medical supply warehouse, next to a morgue…outside a cemetery.

Our friend Freddy is persecuted, not only by his punk pals, each of them pained by reality’s lack of chaos and sententious pleasures. Even though they’re technically protagonists, you pretty much delight when the punks get attacked by the viral zombie contagion, brewed by our rather incompetent military.

Consider this — our primary fear in the 20th century…you know it. Total nuclear oblivion. The final end of human life, the trigger pulled by a willing human hand. Grab your book, El, because the zombie weapon of self destruct was inspired by plagues…AIDS, small pox, Ebola virus, etc. Something about rapid decay. Our nightmare monster shrunk from the size of King Kong to the nanometer scale. In ROTLD our antagonist originates in a spray of weaponized gas created by the corrupt military industrial complex for which we, the uneducated voting public, are responsible. The best part of all this biting commentary is that the audience sees no heavy hand, just solid comedy and gore.

Deadmau5 is best known for his progress deep house mixes, nevertheless Joel Zimmerman seems totally comfortable changing styles midtrack. In fact, at the five minute mark, this trance track centered around haunting female vocals from Greta Svabo Bech turns into dark dubstep. I love the Franz Ferdinand method of cramming two or more musical patterns in a single song.

If you’re like me, you adore songs that sample horror and sci-fi movies. Check out Moar Ghosts n Stuff by Deadmau5, which samples dialogue from the film The Brain from Planet Arous; “After I’m gone, your Earth will be free to live out its miserable span of existence, as one of my satellites, and that’s how it’s going to be…”

YouTube is rampant with these. Be careful, you could spend a whole Sunday exploring what folks have done sourcing audio and video from the survival horror game Silent Hill.

Hold up, y’all! I must report on the export of American rap into British dubstep DJs’ sample repertoire.  Kid Sister, a young rapper from Markham, Illinois presents her skills with Chicago heavy hitter Kanye West. What started as a pop-rap song about getting your nails did gets a music video remix involving stop motion shorts and military archival footage…plus break dancing finger puppets!

Just like how hip-hop evolves by the biting of styles, stealing samples and coping turn of phrases, dubstep music eats from multiple genre plate and seems to grows in varying directions. ”Pro Nails” is just decent as a radio-ready rap song, audio property which benefits from a hot injection of beep-boop bass bolstering thanks to the redheaded Rusko out of Leeds, England. The influence of Jamaican sound and strip club trance will no doubt leave the lingering taste of tong in your mouth. Grab a mint and turn it up, yo!

Dubstep is the champion sound, whether you pay attention to modern UK electronica or not. What started with dance hall rock steady, broke off into ska, dub, and reggae. Jungle more or less came and went in the 90′s, meanwhile house and trance converged with rap lyrics and hip-hop sampling style in the form of glitch-hop as well as grime. Once born in Jamaica, crossing Queensbridge and swimming back to the Britain, dubstep exists now as the product of an evolving family of music, one which pulls from nearly every genre. This video is called “Zombie Jig” by Benga.

Dubstep producers to follow: Skream, Hatcha, Rusko, Caspa, Datsik, Diplo, Coki, Nero, Bassnectar

Did you miss it at Fantastic Fest 2010? Well, you can watch it on Fear.net as soon as October 4.

The movie contains nothing truly new to the zombie genre, aside from exotic rural terrain rarely seen on film. My favorite moment involves one of the main characters comically inching around a nearly immobilized zombie, hoping on broken legs. Seems laughable until the severely broken corpses crawls its way to your death. Best to live in the country, rural, outback, boonies. THE DEAD presents a spacious and endlessly hazardous world of the cannibal undead.

The trailer seems to insinuate some kind of racial bias like the poorly considered character aesthetics of Resident Evil 5, thankfully skin color doesn’t play an idiotic roll in the story. Neither does believable acting or compelling action sequences. Not without effort, THE DEAD flops like a dying fish on the stinky boat dock of movie horror. Rent it.

ZZZZOMBIES from David King on Vimeo.

I saw this one during a Fantastic Fest 2010 pre-show at the Alamo Drafthouse.  Simple stop-motion is sometimes so perfect. Z-props to the meticulous artist David King who did it one frame at a time (sexy) in the minimalist short animation ZZZZOMBIES.

Like whoa! Some talented nerd(s) used the software render engine from the video game Left 4 Dead and built out a complete level using my favorite movie theater as a playable map. Even the neighborhood karaoke bar Highball gets rendered in 3D, although I’m not sure how one plays bowling or skeeball with gun drawn.

If you don’t know, let me inform you. The Alamo Drafthouse is the best thing that ever happened to a movie nerd living in Austin, Texas. They schedule the rarest horror flicks with crazy pre-shows and intros from some of the most knowledgeable film experts on the block (which is really saying something in Austin). Obviously, the Alamo is run by true exploitation film fanatics, which is why every year the Alamo Drafthouse puts on the best damn film festival I’ve ever attended — an all genre movie explosion called Fantastic Fest. Nothing but gore, nudity and tantalizingly offensive cinema.

“Digitalis” is the song by the awesome retro-electro rockers of ZOMBI. How cool is it to make new music that sounds like classic euro-horror?

Really not sure why the music video contains so much nature footage of fish, sea mammals, the ocean, etc. Somehow it works for me.

re: “The Cool” — Chiago rapper Lupe Fiasco lays down  a descriptive third-person narrative about climbing out of the grave in search of human brains. Bravo. Now I demand more zombie hip-hop. Get to it, Music Industry.

Z-NEWS: On the way to Gandma’s houseparty, a car vehicle full of chums dressed as zombies wrecked a car on I-84, thus confusing Portland police and emergency response. Really? Their FX makeup must have been fan-forking-gorelicious.

Glad to hear none of these human kids got hurt. Mind you, if the real zombie infection left you intelligent enough to drive around town and socialize with friends, more folks would make the flip and voluntarily pick the zombie lifestyle.

Mr. Romero begins with a philosophical query into the nature of human behavior under stress, as I perceive it, his dead films follow through on questions of human response to disaster & duress. His observation in cinema form fits the model of modern cable news cycles. Think about the ubiquitous distant spotlight on news anchors knee-deep in the fire, flood, terror, tragedy. Slowburn zombies are the stars today, and despite the occasionally mediocre elements,

SURVIVAL OF THE DEAD could absolutely play in black & white, as an old time 1950s creature feature. Something new and something old, that’s exactly what I crave for modern horror. Romero continues legit academic scholarship in the field of the literature of the living dead. 3/5 cannibals in cowboy hats.

To start, I noticed the intro motion graphics for the sequel involves an animated number two squared popping over the previous logo like: [REC]2 , which struck me as oddly meaningless from a mathematical standpoint, but whateva. The sequel could stand completely on its own, although [REC 2] follows an identical internal movie clock of the previous [REC], constantly expanding on the mystery of the fast zombie disease and/or violence haunting which has rapidly overtaken an apartment complex in urban Spain. Try pronouncing ”zombie” in a Castilian accent. Sounds like “thombie.” Yeah!

Anyhoo, the original began with a small TV crew and a first response team of firemen with the unfortunate luck to reach the totally evil cursed-condos before anyone else, and thus getting locked inside by some supra-shady government organization. Here we start out with a group of SWAT-like special operative military types dude. They all have fancy helmet cameras, so that’s convenient for us.

Just like the many reboots of successful video game franchise HALF-LIFE, each time we’re shown through a new pair of eyes. REC2 start in the tightly confined space of an army transport and, like said video game, showing you various first-person-perspective camera work to get you adjusted before the real narrative begins. If you’ve seen the original, it will be especially fun to watch the narrative timing of the sequel collide with the original REC movie. Sadly, some big studio of idiots will likely poorly remake it in English like QUARANTINE, because they think Americans won’t read subtitles. Lame. I prefer the version en Español.

Growing out of a small town in frosty rural Canada, the PONTYPOOL flavor of zombism reeks of social collapse. Communication becomes the killer means for infection: madness, murder, feeding. For all those haters claiming the genre of the comeback corpse dies an unimaginative death at every new zombie book, movie, video game. Wrong. No. Het. Incorrect. Sorry, the zombie story is continually reborn in new mythologies thanks to directors like Bruce McDonald and writers like Tony Burgess.

5 of 5 undead radio DJs. Watch it, you damn zombie!

Quality bloodwork means a lot on super grainy 16mm film stock. And while there’s something beautiful about cheap film, I can’t help but to think that $25,000 Canadian dollars would have gone farther shooting in an inexpensive proconsumer HD format.

Bad dialog and bad acting permeate the film. With the exception of a bullet hole POV cam, most of the shots stink of lazy photography. Two zombie feet (out of five rotten foots). View the trailer

Lot’s of zombie in recent days. First off, I’m reading a delightful novel Breathers: A Zombie’s Lament by S. G. Browne. Think first-person zombie Fight Club. Details of steady decay are illustrated with humor and winks o’ plenty. It reads like a classic, as if the book were written years ago despite frequent references to modern technologies.

Whether you’re a hardcore zombie freak or a fair weather zombie friend, you’ll totally dig Breathers. If you’re a preteen girl, you’ll most likely enjoy the angst-ridden romantic tension and profound friendships between zombie friends and lovers.

Also, zombies cameo like mad in web comics…

Z-Props to Tim Rickard of Brewster Rockit.

Strangely enough, Waldo is anatomically quite unique, as he only contains three internal ribs!

No doubt, Waldo of the Living Dead would look great airbrushed onto the hood of a Bitchin’ Camero.

Ah, poor life choices.

Z-Props to: ugliesttattoos.com

Watching THE ROAD entertained me on a purely exploitation film, pulp comic, dirty magazine level. Cormac McCarthy, like 1930s radio drama THE SHADOW, knowz what evilz be lurch’n da hards o’ dah menz. If only some wise person would reboot the original radio series, detective stories in LOLCat speak.

Anyway, THE ROAD has zombies…of a sort. More like pseudo zombies. Unzombies. Ugly, messed up, malnourished humans in the fallout of an unspecified apocalypse. No food. Everything is tainted and covered in ash – very much in a SILENT HILL manner. In the face of the devastating societal madness that comes with human extinction, cannibalism becomes more and more reasonable.

This gets to the heart of what I love about the zombie narrative. Mass disaster = humanity under stress. Especially after the collapse, after the pain of the initial shock, right into the survival and acceptance as you navigate a new kind of existence. Watching any disaster movie, for me, involves the hypothetical question of my own survival potential.

Could I live with zombies clawing outside my door every night? Sure, at first. With time, would madness wash over me until I give up at high tide and throw myself to the hordes of undead?

In most cases, I come to the conclusion that I ain’t the hardy survivor of my post-humanity fantasies. Guess I better team up with some skilled zombie killers when the time comes.

I imagine aliens must know what they are doing if they are capable of controlling and consuming the whole zombie race, though I can’t imagine that a decomposing monster would taste very good. Aliens must have a futuristic spice rack of herbs and seasonings to prepare the undead properly. Is there an alien cooking channel?  Surely there’s an alien equivalent of Anthony Bourdain, some snarky but talented tentacled chef who shows the other aliens how best to serve a cannibal corpse at important alien get-togethers. You know, when the alien in-laws arrive during the stressful alien holidays demanding perfectly steamed zombie fingers and lightly fried zombie toes.

What scares me about the intergalactic food pyramid is that plants and vegetables are left untouched by aliens, leaving the immune carrots, beets and collard greens to evolve into giant sentient carnivores. After sprouting arms, legs and their own form of plant-to-plant communication, monster veg will reduce major cities to rubble, overwhelm the zombie population (which is incapable of battling giant grapefruit and fanged asparagus), and thus the alien vs. vegetable wars begin!

Z-Props to FFFFound & young zombie-killer Lucinda.

]]> http://www.thinkzombie.com/2009/11/29/zombiealien-food-pyramid/feed/ 0 http://www.thinkzombie.com/2009/11/09/graph-of-super-zombies-spooky-religion-choose-your-own-fictional-afterlife/ http://www.thinkzombie.com/2009/11/09/graph-of-super-zombies-spooky-religion-choose-your-own-fictional-afterlife/#comments Mon, 09 Nov 2009 19:14:48 +0000 funkypope http://www.thinkzombie.com/?p=337 I always had a hunch that Jesus McChrist was a super-zombie. Spear him in the side and crucify him, but he’ll just come back to life. Except Jason, Myers and the other super-zombies won’t show up to your party, daring you to stick your finger in their wound holes. Pretty gross, Son of God!

If you choose to live in superstitious fear of a resurrected monster, I would personally pick a more realistic mythology…like zombies. Honestly, the old and the new testaments both read like poorly compiled horror anthologies. And how silly and uncreative is the concept of hell? Oooh, a fiery pit of endless torment straight out of my worst imaginings: Like watching a never ending romantic comedy? Or getting trapped in a Walmart without exits? Or being forced to listen to a hateful & narcissistic televangelist drone on about who does and doesn’t hold the golden ticket to heaven? No thanks, I’d rather be a mindless cannibal.

Z-Props to Blag Hag

Eating zombies hasn’t occurred to me since SURVIVAL OF THE DEAD. Don’t bite that Z-Boy, you don’t know where he’s been.

Z-Props to NotMartha.org and special thanks to my corpse bride, Clee.

Watching The Revenant bestows a bit of that original terror I experienced when first exposed to the potential existence of the living dead. For me, it began rockstar zombiemakers like Sam Raimi, Peter Jackson & Dan O’Bannon who cinematically bitch slapped us in the face with The Evil Dead, Braindead (aka Dead Alive) & Return of the Living Dead.

I grew up in a smallish Texas town and found salvation in the form of late night cable horror and VHS rentals based on whatever b-movie cover art looked the best. Hastings, Two Day Video,

The Revenant (2009)

Randall’s & Albertson’s Family video rental…BLESS Y’ALL. My friends would take turns paying the rental/late fees and generously offering their parents houses for weekly late night screenings.

Tapes rewound. Tracking adjusted. Popcorn & Dr. Pepper  in hand. Horror movies, along with the good company of a few friends, saved my adolescence.

Back to The Revenant – an adventure to watch the characters discover a new, difficult-to-classify vampiric zombie lore. Iraq War veteran returns home in a casket and later shows up at a friend’s apartment.  Weird, dark, undead buddy-comedy film gets stranger and stranger. The zombies in The Revenant are unlike all others I’ve seen before. They retain their cognitive abilities (despite decomposition), shoot guns, commit crimes and ingest copious amounts of drugs – which begs the question: Can the dead get high?

Good acting, good gore and comedic moments that stick like superglue. If this film doesn’t get the wide theatrical distribution it deserves, it will nevertheless be a huge sleeper hit at the rental store, Netflix, DVD, Blu-Ray, etc.

Four and a half zombie thumbs up for The Revenant & the unafraid filmmakers who build new mythologies from dead scratch.

So I’m thinking: “Why is this movie so goddamn good?”…And ya know what I found? That old Wiki sez:

The Revenant is written, directed, produced and by Kerry Prior, who also supervised the visual effects on the film. The film is co-produced by Jacques Thelemaque and Liam Finn and edited by Walter Murch.

Walter “Maniac Editor of APOCALYPSE NOW” Murch!!! Are you kidding me, Wiki? For the sake of Sweet Zombie Baby Jesus, no wonder The Revenant is so damn good.

Exhibit ZED (Lyrics of “A Time to be Small” from the Antics album)

A time to ease your solace, a time to be so small

We saw you from the urchin’s side, from under the boat
We saw you making knots, we saw you get the rope
The boy appearing on the deck and making it lurch
The bubble of your interests ready to burst

He whistles and he runs

We saw you in distraction: a sleeping, slow despair
Rehearsing interaction, he wasn’t even there
A creature is a creature though you wish you were the wind
But the boat will not stop moving if you tie him up until the end

He whistles and he runs so hold him fast
Breathe the burn, you want to let it last
He might succumb to what you haven’t been
He has a keen eye for what you didn’t see

When the cadaverous mob save their doors for the dead men, you cannot leave
When the cadaverous mob save its doors for the dead men, you cannot leave

Fancy summer’s stall, a time to be so small
To the urchin, see a mirrored time for all
A summerside way of life, a time to be so small
Stronger from the urchin’s side, a time to be so small

Urchin will lurch into there, for the facts
Urchin will lurch into there, for the facts
Urchin will lurch into there, for the facts
Urchin will lurch into there, for the facts

When the cadaverous mob save their doors for the dead men, you cannot leave
When the cadaverous mob save their doors for the dead men, you cannot leave

Searching, still searching
Urchin will lurch in there, for the facts
Urchin will lurch in

It’s all in the faded past
The bottom of the unwind
It’s the end of the world, the past
The bottom of the unwind

Trust any movie that allows for a slow motion father-son zombie sack race. Zombieland stays goofy like Evil Dead II while constantly supplying high quality bile-spewing gore. Coming from backgrounds in music videos, late night talk shows & reality TV, the director/writers team decided to segment cinematic moments into mini rock n’ roll montages. Perfect for a zombie fan with a short attention span.

Normally I shutter at the Hollywood habit of gluing disjointed episodes together and charging box office prices, as was the case of the wayward Resident Evil movie franchise. Here, it works!

Zombieland holds up from start to end, most especially for those well-versed in the mythic language of the zombie. Jesse Eisenberg narrates in a coming-of-age tone a la Wonder Years, plainly laying out the rules to survival in a post-human world dominated by the walking dead using a playfully comic motion graphic text. My favorite rule: “Double Tap” -– meaning committing one extra bullet or blunt object-to-the-head in order to make extra sure that Mr. Zombie doesn’t relive for a final dramatic attack.

Zombies of this world maneuver with inconsistent speed and intelligence. Director Ruben Fleischer explained that each zombie turns at a different stage of rigamortis and decay, thus producing a variety of zombies types. Zombieland is not going to change your political outlook or stop you from fucking that chicken. What it will do is entertain both the horror novice and the most jaded zombie expert.

There’s a wonderful celebrity zombie cameo… Don’t look it up, just see the damn movie!

Q: What famous zombie would you like to be eaten by?
I wouldn’t mind being disemboweled by past U.S. presidents like Zombie JFK or Zombie Lincoln.

The Revenant (2009)

I’m a little dazed after so much weird, wild, violent, sexy, scary cinema. No, really. I’m quasi-delirious and am a bit unsure as to what is reality and what I saw in the dark of the matinee theater. The other day my wife caught me referring to a story I claimed was told to me by “a friend.” She had to explain that my friend’s anecdote wasn’t real but rather from a fictional film character in one of the movies we’ve seen at Fantastic Fest.

I reacted with a resounding, “Shit, I could have sworn that really happened!”

The wise festival programmers of the Alamo Drafthouse continue to refer to the type of bizarre films they yearly wrangle as “genre films,” claiming FFest is a “genre festival.” Okay, maybe…but don’t all films lands somewhere in a give genre? Sci-fi, horror, documentary,  animation, crime drama, sex film, etc. They’re all genres, GUH!

I think of Fantastic Fest as a yearly face dive deep in the fringes of exploitation cinema, as in the marginal movies which employ extreme sex, violence & taboo subject material. The good exploitation films challenge my sense. The best exploitation films disturb me and shake my way of thinking.

My favorite zombie films of Fantastic Fest 2009 go as follows:

1. The Revenant – Unpredictable zombie buddy action comedy from Kerry Prior.
2. [Rec] 2 – Spanish supernatural sequel to the terrifying original masterpiece.
3. Full Employment aka “Arbeit für Alle” – German short that will grab you by the gonads.
4. Zombieland – Post-post apocalyptic Hollywood horror well worth watching from reality TV & talk show makers.
5. Daybreakers – Not sure if high functioning super-mod vampires driving around in tricked out Chryslers qualify as zombies, but the fanged reanimated dead do drink blood cappuccinos! Totally creative take on old mythology from the talented Spierig brothers who brought us Undead.
6. Doghouse – British mutant zombie comedy /slash/ commentary on gender relations.

My favorite non-zombie films of Fantastic Fest 2009 go a little something like this:

1. Fish Story aka “Fisshu sutôrî” – An apocalyptic tale for true music lovers.
2. Stingray Sam – An episodic musical western in space!
3. Kenny Begins – Basically a live action Space Quest starring the Swedish Roger Wilco.
4. Consoul – Norwegian short done in 8-bit pixel animation.
5. A Town Called Panic aka “Panique au village” – Simple but wonderfully absurd French animation.
6. House (1977) aka “Hausu” – Mind melting with many similarities to Evil Dead.

I’m fittin’ to attend the annual Fantastic Fest – a crazy-disorienting film festival that prides itself on screening nuttin’ but wonderfully offensive sci-fi, horror, shock cinema. As the word “annual” would suggest, this 8-day film showcase takes place yearly in AUSTIN, TX, USA, EARTH.

Zombieland production still

Once again my significant other and I opted for VIP badges, which come with the hefty pricetag of admission (just under $300) but are no doubt always worth it. In fact, this is the only large film festival we attend because we prefer the company of the film-savy gore hounds who frequent the Alamo Drafthouse.

The best thing about Fantastic Fest is that unlike Sundance, Toronto, Cannes, etc. you ain’t gonna find no corporate industry goons lurking around, hunting for the next commercially successful prime time, video game, cereal box franchise. Yup, no one’s out to buy. It’s just the fans.

Zombies, now more than eva…
Not sure if the living dead-obsessed public knows it, but we got a zombie renaissance going on here:

1. Zombieland – Amateur “Cheers” bartender,  Woody Harrelson beats zombies with style and grace.
2. The Revenant – One dead Iraq War veteran returns home to the states to fuck shit up.
3. [REC 2] – Note the first [REC] (2007) remains awesome and then some. Although to enjoy the film, one must read the Castilian lisp-heavy dialog with Spanish subtitles. So…what followed the next year was a soulless shot-for-shot Hollywood remake called Quarantine (‘cus we Americans can’t read them squiggly words what spell). Yes, I’m excited about this! Damnit, the original freaked my shit out without the hindrance of any boring expositions, explanations, or expected plot conventions.
4. Doghouse – A cannibal disease sweeps through a small British town predominantly populated by women. Coincidentally, some sexist dudes decide to travel to this same town in the hopes of gettin’ totally laid. Looks like buckets o’ blood and gore a plenty!
5. Survival of the Dead – Veteran zombie auteur George Romero goes for the 1-2 punch after his redemptive Diary of the Dead, which happened to premiere at the 2007 Fantastic Fest. I actually got to meet this creative giant (literally & figuratively). Mr. Romero was friendly, articulate and chill, an impressive feat in the face of an army of anxious fanboy zombie nerds. Speaking of which, I had the opportunity to ask (or axe) the man a question that had been bothering me:

REC production still

Me: “Do your zombies ever die or starve to death due to the eventual exhaustion of their food resources.”

George: “In my films, I will never answer that question. I think that is one of those fill-in-the-blanks we must each individually resolve on our own.”

At first I found this an unsatisfying response until a friend later explained her theory on zombie longevity. She said, “Zombies are simply the new dominant species. Humans had their chance…” Basically claiming a new biological paradigm enters with the arrival of the zombie apocalypse and the rapid demise of the human race.

Regardless of your personal theories on undead biology, stay tuned. I’m going to be reviewing the above zombie films and more from upcoming Fantastic Fest 2009.

Haitian Voodoo Zombie: A spicy mix of whip-your-ass missionary technology and several different flavors of indigenous Latin/African religions. They don’t eat your brains but will labor endlessly for the benefit of their master(s). These O.Z. voodoo zombies can carry out complex tasks at the beckoning call. Seriously, you can get these zombies to wash your dirty undies and sell Amway to your neighbors.

Modern Cannibal Zombies: Quite different from the O.Z. (original zombies). These dead predators tend to become overwhelmed with the munchies for human intestines, brains, spleen, etc. Far less intelligent than his voodoo cousin, the modern zombie wanders aimlessly much like an awakened mummy.

Whether your zombie literature of choice dates back to religious mysticism or government-sponsored bioterrism, all zombies are weaponized with eternal existence and a powerful drive to live that most of us shabby humans can only afford after several cups of strong coffee.

Mummy types lay at rest under sand and large sculpture art. Zombie types ponder their dinner 6 feet deep in clay soil with a gravestone atop their heads. If the multitude of literary zombie myths adhere to the consistently singular premise of the medically deceased returning to a quasi-living state, then unequivocally, mummies and zombies exist in the same genus.

Stop hatin’ on my wrapped peeps! Mummies are zombies, too.

Here’s some good advice from our ready-to-panic society about the H1N1 influenza aka swine flu.

Now I’m the first to get excited about a potential zombie virus sweeping the world’s human population, but this whole swing flu nonsense has been a massive ZOMG letdown.

Yes, swing flu may be a lethal threat to the elderly, young children and those with weak immune systems, just like every damn flu that came before it. Though I just don’t see these occasional influenza deaths resulting in the reanimation of dead flesh and the subsequent rampant human cannibalism.

There’s really nothing apocalyptic about a week of diarrhea and vomiting, unless it’s that crazy-fast projectile zombie vomit that’s so popular with the kids these days.

Stay home, drink plenty o’ fluids, and just strap yourself in a chair if you begin to feel the uncontrollable urge to feast on human brains.

Z-Props to probablybadnews.com

Check out the amazing 2D cutout backdrops in “Evelyn: The Cutest Evil Dead Girl.” The video is a bit more adorable angst-ridden goth than sexy suicide girl. Feels like a live action Henry Selick animation. Good work, human slaves!

HURRAY! The rabid zombie-obsessed community has taken to the streets with public zombie art.

I suppose it was inevitable, as most of us humans generally get stuck on ever-anxious fantasies of death & questions of the afterlife. Modern zombism possibly seems like an ugly god fearing christian wet dream for those left behind…or maybe a purgatory (what with the catholic guilt involved with eating your family and friends).

Therefore, the constant obsession over dealing with “real live” zombies has pushed some of us have taken to stencils & wheat paste. Graffiti aka public art is hittin’ yo’ hood, block, street, gated community or whateva. Keep up the good work, deviant artists!

Researchers at Texas A&M and The University of Texas at Austin thereby pose an interesting question; Is it wise to introduce a foreign parasite to remove a nonnative pest? That followed by the no-less-important question: Will these nuclear-powered monster zombie ants be capable of telekinesis a la STARSHIP TROOPERS?

EXHIBIT A: Lucio Fulci’s slowmo voodoo zombie flick comonly known as ZOMBI.

It must be noted that human meat post-zombitization must taste like delicious meat popsicles. Similar to the process of curing meat, the undead body becomes like a walking stick of hickory smoked turkey jerky as a human crosses over and becomes a living corpse.

MMMM. That’s scrumptious zombie!

Left unanswered in the film:
How terrifying would a zombie shark be? Pretty damn frighting is the correct answer.

Beyond the non sequitur shark fight, ZOMBI remains awesome.

Still from ZOMBI: Nothing tenser than a slow eye gouging!

Respect to the Italians who saw what Romero’s NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD and grew the horror galaxy with some of the best gore in cinema history  (re: history’s longest anxiety provoking eye-gouge). Not to omit the eye bleeding found in Fulci’s GATES OF HELL. You don’t see a lot of spontaneous eye bleeding these days, and I’m unsure why….like the frequency of maggots used as props in horror movies. ZOMBI contains its fair share of sleepy zombies lumbering around covered with gross-but-benign fly larva.

So to finally end the discuss: Yes, there is indeed a perfectly good reason why a voodoo style zombie and shark would get all caught up in fisticuffs. Zombies are tasty. You’re just too busy running for your life to sample a bite.

So why wouldn’t the zombies just eat themselves all day? Good question. Well, like junk food, undead flesh is delectable but lacks all of the nutritional properties of healthy living human flesh. Guh!

I also have to root for really slow zombies. They’re really working hard for their meal. Keep on crawling, Mr. Torso Zombie, you’ll get there eventually.

Researchers in Texas are trying an unusual approach to combat fire ants – deploying parasitic flies that turn the pesky and economically costly insects into zombies whose heads fall off.

Phorid flies hovering over ant

The biting, territorial fire ants cost the Texas economy about $1 billion annually by damaging electrical equipment, according to a Texas A&M study. They can also threaten young calves.

But now the researchers are trying a tiny phorid fly, native to a region of South America where the fire ants originated. Researchers have learned that fire ants in their home region are kept under control by as many as 23 phorid species.

The flies lay eggs on the fire ants, and the eggs hatch into maggots inside the ant and eat away at the pest’s tiny brain.

The ant will get up and wander for about two weeks while the maggot feeds, said Rob Plowes, a research

Zombie death from above

associate at the University of Texas at Austin.

“There is no brain left in the ant, and the ant just starts wandering aimlessly,” he said.

About a month after the egg is laid, the ant’s head falls off – and a new fly emerges ready to attack another fire ant.

“They’re not going to completely wipe out the fire ant, but it’s a way to control their population,” said Scott Ludwig, an integrated pest management specialist with Texas A&M’s AgriLife Extension Service.

Four phorid species have been introduced in the state since 1999. They don’t attack native ants or other species and have been introduced in other Gulf Coast states, Plowes told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

But it will take time to determine if the flies are effective in Texas, perhaps as long as a decade.

“It’s not an immediate silver-bullet impact,” Plowes said.

Soon to be undead fire ants

This article appeared on page A – 7 of the San Francisco Chronicle

http://dress-code.co.uk/

Don’t get caught eating brains in any other footwear!

Land of the Dead poster

George primarily sticks with what he knows. Commentaries on social & economic class warfare get delivered in dump truck-sized doses. The wealthy few have managed to hole themselves up in a mall/condo/high rise called Fidler’s Green, an island protected by water on all sides, all made possible by Kaufman (the enterprising capitalist played by the impossibly difficult Dennis Hopper). Everyone else who managed to survive this long is relegated to the drug and disease-ridden slums surrounding Fidler’s Green.

John Lequizombie

As an aside, exactly one month before the June 2005 release of LAND OF THE DEAD, the ensemble genre blending hip-hop troupe THE GORILLAZ released DEMON DAYS which rocks. And how could the album suck with guest spots from some of the industry’s greatest: MF DOOM, Dangermouse, Roots Manuva and Del tha Funky Homosapien to name a few? With heavy sampling of tracks from GOBLIN and Dario Argento’s music

composition from the original DAWN OF THE DEAD (1978), DEMON DAYS remains an impressive tribute to zombie myth and culture. In addition to overt z-tracks like LAST LIVING SOULS, the album contained a strange song called FIRE COMING OUT OF THE MONKEY’S HEAD, which is basically a dark fairy tale narrated by weirdo alien-sent-to-earth Dennis Hopper.

As Romero expands on his own zombie mythos, braking previously established rules, as the undead learn to communicate with gestures and problem solve while mastering tools and weapons. Romero implies that zombies feel empathy towards each other and simply desire to survive. Damn those zombie peaceniks!

While he occasionally employs gorgeous gore via timeless practical effects, Romero opts for CGI more than ever before, with questionable results which already show their age. George returns to the basics in DAIRY OF THE DEAD but will no doubt be forever haunted by the melodramatic z-parody that is John Leguizombie’s performance.

Whether a result of radiation, rage virus or Haitian voodoo, one aspect I adore about the impending zombie invasion is the situational madlib of humor & horror that occurs when soulless monsters take the place of “normal” humans doing “normal” human activities.

For example, a clown at an outdoor birthday party seem like a childhood cliché. Cake & balloon animals. Presents with bows and colorful streamers. But when Z-Day hits, this typical suburban scene turns into an absurd and terrifying display. Cannibal children pass over chocolate ice cream for the neighbor’s Scottish terrier. A decaying grease-painted clown greedily chews at spleen of the a parent slumped over the charcoal grill. No one’s even touching the cake!

Post-invasion, traditional culture and practice are immediately subverted, while our bodies continue wearing a costume of “normal” humanity.

Smaller confines result in an even faster spreading of zombism. As a survivor, there are few places to hide and remain protected. Rural areas work until the zombie hordes see your fire, hear your generator running or simply catch a whiff of your delicious brain. Eventually they will get though the fence, window, basement, back door or just pile on top of each other like a cannibal cheerleader pyramid until they reach you in the attic. Your house is not made of reinforced concrete, so the big bad zombie wolves will find a weak point and break through.

Your best bet remains in big box stores like Target or Walmart, since they can be locked securely and tend to have a sizable stock of preservative-heavy snack foods that won’t spoil for a couple of decades. After all of the sodas, twinkles and candy bars, you may develop diabetes but you yourself will not yet be zombie food.

Ideally, you want to find a prison for it’s maximum security locks, bulk food storage and acceptable cooking/living quarters, which leads me to the irony of the prison yard. Because of the close confines, prisons are highly susceptible to mass zombie infestation. One sickly guard is all it takes. So how do you clean out thousands of shoulder-to-shoulder zombie inmates? Who knows. What if the jail is free of the undead? Now, in order to get to the most secure safe house, you have to break in and coexist with the prisoners still locked inside.

Remember, there is no safe place after the zombie apocalypse. There will never again be a safe place.

“They’re coming for you, Barbara!” – NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD

Emergency Zombie Procedure

Proper protection from impending zed word evisceration is a wide and expansive subject matter. It goes without saying that one should fill a bathtub full of potable water, as zombie contamination is a sure bet. Destroying the first floor stairs and camping out in the attic is another gimme of Z-protection.

Given access to weapons like a shotgun or a hunting rife, how many of us wouldn’t quickly forget procedure and go nutzo-crazy like Sarah Palin? Problem there: zombies can in fact hear and feel the reverberations of those gun blasts from miles away and will inevitably lumber their decomposing asses (fast or slow) to your hideout. Furthermore, you will run out of ammo before you run out of zombies. Period. Comma. Semicolon.

Fire sure is tempting as a weapon. No doubt a flamethrower would be fun, but again, you will attract more undead hordes. Zombies don’t care if they are on fire, and they will keep crawling inch-by-inch towards that juicy brain of yours until you and your stronghold get burn to a crisp.

Plus, who knows what kind of disease/infection could result from inhaling smoldering zombie fumes.

Now is the perfect time to indulge in some back-from-the-grave confections.

“CAN-YOU-DIG-IT?!” -Cyrus

HAPPY HALLOWEEN, Y’ALL!

…new gameplay from the original zombie video game franchise. I hope you have a PS3 or Xbox 360!

Day by Day Armageddon (2004)

Sloppy syntax and misspellings fill the 260 page mass of this post-apocalyptic online journal turned print publication, while the narrative follows the survival of one particularly autobiographical U.S. Naval officer. Extensive time is paid to the referencing of Romero scenarios and the listing of cautionary harm-protection involved in surviving a plague of cannibal corpses. Author J. L. Bourne appropriately credits Max Brooks for his thoroughly detailed ZOMBIE SURVIVAL GUIDE. Also note the descriptive comments on isolation and alcoholism, not just vaguely similar to Richard Matheson’s I AM LEGEND.

Time has pasted. President Bush dies at the hands of an undead horde of ghouls, and first lady Laura Bush orders the nuclear bombing of Austin, Texas among other cities. Of course it doesn’t take. Swarms of radioactive zombies crowd the country. Our Texan protagonist then leaves his fenced in home to steal yellows hummers, motor boats and small planes to caravan back and forth across miles of Texas landscape and spasmodically paced narrative.

Scenes of high action erratically push the story along long lengths of description about the hero’s elaborate new plans, most of which are never acted upon. Although Bourne makes sure to include plenty of dashing but unclear 007-style escapes, one notable example involving parachutes and automatic weapons, the bulk of DAY BY DAY ARMAGEDDON reads like awkward online fan fiction in the mask of legitimate horror.

What saddens me the most is that this book could very well have been an awesome read if the author took the time to trim the fat, cut the overt homages and hire a proofreader. The genre of ‘self-published fiction’ doesn’t have to be the scary red flag that sends horror fans running home to their old Dean Koontz novels.

I give it: 3 radioactive thumbs down (badly decomposed of course).

DEAD WEST is a pulp comic tale of reanimation and revenge penned by Rick Spears and inked by Rob G.

A young Indian named Little Cub rides away from the blazing inferno that once was his tribe’s village. Since westward-moving immigrant cowboys are to blame, the young Indian decides to avenge his family’s death with some wicked hoodoo voodoo, first killing his horse and then performing seppuku in the graveyard at the outskirts of a small western town.

Dead West (2005)

Dead folks start popping up from the ground like crazy (some in full garb, top hats and bonnets included). A hard-boiled cowboy protagonist tries his best to protect the town inhabitants with little success.

Dead West is short on words and heavy on narrowly penciled hash lines, sharply emphasizing broad motions, blood spatters, and the sloughing of rotted flesh with a level of harsh contrast that makes the wild west look as grimy as it should. The pencil style is so fast and loose in moments of glorious gore, the reader tends to finish the ambiguous flash of blood and guts with his/her own imaginings.

Expect the most expected of western subplots, thank Sweet Zombie Jesus the addition of living deadites works brilliantly with the old cowboy conventions.

I give it:

• 3 burning corpses
• 2 legless torsos
• 1 undead pimp who pops out the grave wearing a top hat

I am legend (original cover)

While not technically about zombies or the reanimation of dead flesh, Richard Matheson’s third novel I AM LEGEND (1954) plows fertile soil for the roots of modern zombie fiction. Isolation and routine are the painful truths that accompany a world where the human race is, by all signs, extinct.

I am Lengend (second print)

Lead man Robert Neville struggles in a prison of his own home. Reinforced and decorated with garlic, Robert’s house takes a beating every night when the vampires come to scream and chuck rocks at him. If that didn’t suck enough, Robert has to wake up every morning to face daylight and the total absence of other human life. The cities are empty. All of the material products that human society had to offer before the monsters took over means nothing to Robert without companionship. No doubt, George A. Romero shared writer Matheson’s insight to a purposeless consumer society in his brilliant and heavy-handed DAWN OF THE DEAD (1978).

Omega Man (1971)

Robert Neville’s growing alcoholism and sexual frustration eventually takes a toll on his judgment. The endless daily errands and vampire defense measures wear on Robert’s commitment to survival, alone in a world of monsters.

Charlton Heston turns the acting knob up to 11 with his own brand of tweak out grimaces in the OMEGA MAN (1971). Sadly, this film stands the Hollywood quick-telling of Matheson’s masterpiece. Plus, someone replaced all of the cool vampires with creepy guys in robes, which is creepy but makes no sense.

Vincent Price was responsible for the most accurate iteration of Neville’s character in the original adaptation called THE LAST MAN ON EARTH (1964).

Last Man on Earth (1964)

Tragically, Hollywood’s third and worst version I AM LEGEND (2008) modified the original story beyond recognition, relying on sexy Scientologist Will Smith and slick CGI to tell the story. When will people learn that 3D animation is never 1/3 as scary as latex, chocolate blood, stop motion and creepy camera angles?

When compiling literature that explores the struggles of the post-zombie-holocaust, after the panic and smoke has settled, I AM LEGEND cannot be left out, along with WORLD WAR Z and the WALKING DEAD series of course. Both in narrative technique and social commentary, Richard Matheson’s enduring undead vampire myth has been referenced and ripped off by the even the best of zombie visionaries.

Nice music video recut of Romero’s 1968 classic NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD from high-pitched nerd/cartoon rapper MC CHRIS.