The Inevitable Zombie Apocalypse

A daily roundup of all the undead news that shambles into view… Bookmark the home page or add the RSS feed to your reader for your daily dose of walking dead. Got news tips? E-mail me at cory.casciato[AT]gmail.com.

It’s almost here, but while you wait, enjoy this meaty feature on Zombieland. I’m going to the local midnight showing Thursday, so I should have a review, or at least a reaction piece, early-ish Friday. (Fangoria)

If you’re breathlessly awaiting Resident Evil: Afterlife (and that poll to the right indicates around 15 percent of you are) then good news: it officially went into production today. (Bloody Disgusting)

Enjoy this interview with the good folks behind Dead Space: Extraction. (Dread Central)

The short film Game of the Dead will try to answer the burning question of what zombies do to kill time. My guess: something violent. There’s a trailer after the break. (Quiet Earth)

Edmonton (that’s in Canada, right?) will go all horror festival from October 15 through the 18 with DedFest. Zombie movies on the bill include I Sell the Dead (not a zombie movie per se, but zombies in it), Return of the Living Dead and Night of the Living Dead: Reanimated. (Dread Central)

Another trailer for Duty of the Living, the soldier-themed zombie short, is out. And you can find it after the break. (Quiet Earth)

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Mr. Director? The zombies are ready for their closeup

Romero. Fulci. Jackson. O’Bannon. Wright. These are all hallowed names among zombie directors, and fine directors in their own right. But despite loving the zombie above and beyond all other film genres, I do watch other kinds of movies. And while I watch them, sometimes I can’t help but notice, “Damn, this director is great.” And then, loving the zombie the way I do, I can’t help but think, “What if these guys made a zombie movie? “ I’m talking about people who have never made a zombie movie – not people who should make another (that’s another list…) Here’s my list of the top ten directors I’d like to see shoot the zombie – with a camera that is. When the apocalypse comes, we’ll all be shooting the bastards in the traditional, bullet-y way. (Photo above by flickr user lebovox; original photo here.)

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A daily roundup of all the undead news that shambles into view… Bookmark the home page or add the RSS feed to your reader for your daily dose of walking dead. Got news tips? E-mail me at cory.casciato[AT]gmail.com.

If you’re in Chicago, Houston, Dallas or LA, you can go to a zombie walk and free screening of Zombieland over the next couple of days. But nothing for Denver. Boo!

Also, Ain’t It Cool News is hosting Zombieland screenings in a few more cities. Miami, Chicago, Minneapolis, NY, Philly, Seattle and San Francisco — still no Denver. (AICN)

And Bloody Disgusting has an interview with Zombieland star Jesse Eisenberg. (Bloody Disgusting)

And then there’s this short feature on Zombieland and its director Ruben Fleischer. (CanMag)

The “Crash Course” DLC for Left 4 Dead has arrived on Xbox Live and Steam. (L4D Official Blog)

Artistically inclined? Then take a hack at designing a poster for the Corbin Bernsen-directed, Bill Moseley-starring Dead Air. Winning poster gets shown at the premiere, signed by the principals and shipped to its creator. (Fangoria)

Give your eyes a rest with Zombie Influx, an audio-only simulation of a zombie apocalypse. Ambient sound effects, radio broadcasts and music tell the tale of the inevitable zombie apocalypse. (FEARNet)

DVD art and special features info for Deadlands 2: Trapped is available, as is the news that the limited edition HD-DVD version is nearly sold out. If you’re a fan of zombie movies on zombie formats, better act fast. (Horror-Movies.ca)

Not really news, since we’ve known for months, but Resident Evil: Afterlife was officially announced today. (Shock Till You Drop)

A daily roundup of all the undead news that shambles into view… Bookmark the home page or add the RSS feed to your reader for your daily dose of walking dead. Got news tips? E-mail me at cory.casciato[AT]gmail.com.

There’s a spoiler-laden interview with REC/REC 2 co-creators Jaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza at Bloody Disgusting. The spoilers are well-labeled, so you can read the non-spoiler bits safely. They also have an awesomely gory new still image. (Bloody Disgusting)

Get on the red carpet for Zombieland. (Fangoria)

Some intriguing news from George Romero — if Survival of the Dead does well, he’d like to do at least two more Dead stories based on characters first introduced in Diary — and introduce some “new rules” to his mythos. (Dread Central)

Have a look at the first test image for Night of the Living Dead: Origins, the forthcoming NotLD 3D CGI prequel. I did — it looks okay. (Dread Central)

Award-winning zombie short Dead Exit is coming to DVD. You can read more about it here. (Fangoria)

Sherlock Homes faces the zombie menace in Victorian Undead, hitting comics stores November 18. (io9)

Pittsburgh’s plans for World Zombie Day (October 11) – another world-record attempting zombie walk, zombie ball, zombie mall crawl in original Dawn of the Dead mall. Sounds fun to me. (Horror-Movies.ca)

If you’ve visited the site before today, you undoubtedly notice a few changes. Today marks the official launch of the newly redesigned Inevitable Zombie Apocalypse. In addition to some spiffy new graphics, courtesy of the one and only Alert, the entire site has been redesigned to both look better and make it easier to find the best content on the site. If you want to read about what’s new, it awaits you after the break.

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A daily roundup of all the undead news that shambles into view… Bookmark the home page or add the RSS feed to your reader for your daily dose of walking dead. Got news tips? E-mail me at cory.casciato[AT]gmail.com.

Continue to build anticipation for Zombieland with this account of a press junket for the film. (Dread Central)

A bunch of info hit today on Dead Rising 2. Seems it’s set in part of some kind of zombie-killing game/reality show. Details are still unknown as far as the single player campaign, but IGN has a multiplayer preview and says its “American Gladiators meets Night of the Living Dead.” WTF? I don’t know how I feel about this… There’s a trailer and some gameplay vids after the break — and I have to admit, the pitchfork-shotgun in the single player video is just awesome. (IGN plus Giant Bomb and Zombie-o-matic for additional vids)

And Kotaku got into the question of duct tape in Dead Rising 2. Apparently, there’s a lot of it. They also have a screenshot gallery with some plot speculation and a brief hands-on preview. And more video. Ye gods, enough already! (Kotaku)

There’s an upcoming book called Zombies: A Record of the Year of Infection and io9 has a preview. Or you could just skip straight to the publisher’s preview and read a few pages. (io9)

Danielle Harris has been cast as Barbara in the forthcoming 3D CGI Night of the Living Dead: Origins movie. (Brutal as Hell)

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The day Left 4 Dead 2 was announced, I posted a wishlist of five things I wanted from the game. Now, in light of my recent post rounding up everything known about the game thus far, I thought it was a good time to look at my original list and see how well Valve succeeded in fulfilling my wishlist.

1. Give us four more interesting characters – It’s too early to say that they’ve succeeded here, but things look good. The clips I’ve seen indicate that the spoken lines are well-voiced and indicate personality. Eurogamer called it “grand slam calibre backchat” in one preview. A Rock, Paper, Shotgun preview revealed that characters will develop over time and there will be plenty more back-and-forth chatter, thus improving one of the original game’s strengths. Also, I already love the gambler/con-man character Nick. Verdict: Looks like I get what I want, but only time will tell for sure.
2. Give us more of the back story – An early IGN preview reported that the game starts in Savannah before the outbreak And an Ars Technica interview with writer Chet Falizskek quotes him as promising, “We’re telling the story of this world, we’re seeing how things fall apart, and a new way of interacting with the infection.” Verdict: Looks like another win. I’m sure I will be left with some questions, but I am equally sure I will have a  much better idea of how the world fell apart and why.
3. Connect the dots a little better – I wanted to know how one campaign connected to the next — how I got from point A’s rescue to point B’s jeopardy.  And in numerous previews we have been promised an overarching narrative that connects all the campaigns and a sweet, zombie-infested hell-ride/roadtrip through the American Deep South. Verdict: Two words: Fuck. Yes.
4. Don’t tamper too much with the bosses or add a bunch of new ones - I was concerned that a bunch of new, outlandish bosses, or wildly different behaviors for the old ones, would ruin the delicate suspension of disbelief of the background fiction. Well, there are new bosses. Three at least, and probably a fourth although it may come in downloadable content. And at least one, the Witch, has significant new behavior — wandering in daylight. Oh, and there are six so-called common uncommon: level specific infected that have some special trait such as fireproofing, given through what they were wearing when they went zombie. Verdict: Not all wishes can come true, obviously. But I have slowly warmed up to the idea of new bosses. I don’t know that thy are necessary, strictly speaking, but it doesn’t bother me the way it did before. Oh, and the common-uncommon are brilliant. Of course a dude wearing Kevlar when he gets infected is going to be a bulletproof zombie. Them’s the breaks! So I didn’t get what I want, but I am okay with what I am getting.
5. Give us more, period – I wanted at least a “few more” campaigns. There will be five. I wanted all three modes (survival, co-op, versus) to be playable on all campaigns, out of box. They are. I wanted a new mode. There will be one, though it isn’t announced yet. And I wanted more guns, for variety’s sake — specifically, I asked for a “real” grenade and maybe a RPG. Well, neither of those has been announced (yet) but there is a grenade launcher, explosive and incendiary bullets, and more than 25 new weapons, including ten or more melee weapons. There are also some new accessories like adrenaline and ammo packs. Verdict: Yeah, they hit that one out of the park. The 25+ new weapons, the melee stuff, new ammo, new mode, all out of box? Thanks! Still would have liked another campaign or two. Oh well, there’s always DLC…

Final Verdict: Valve, did you read that post? Just kidding, most of my requests were not only straightforward but obvious. Still, I asked for a few specific things to improve on an already stellar formula and, for the most part, it looks like they will be delivering in spades. November 17 can’t come fast enough.

A daily roundup of all the undead news that shambles into view… Bookmark the home page or add the RSS feed to your reader for your daily dose of walking dead. Got news tips? E-mail me at cory.casciato[AT]gmail.com.

Here’s a lengthy feature on REC/REC 2 makers Jaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza. (Fangoria)

More Zombieland clips! Damn. By the time this thing hits, will there be any part of it that hasn’t been seen yet? (Bloody Disgusting)

Valve is appealing the Australian ban on Left 4 Dead 2. Hope springs eternal, our poor, put-upon friends Down Under! (Kotaku)

A free, web-based Flash version of Plants vs. Zombies is ready. The original was great (review here) and if you haven’t played it yet, I suggest giving the web version a spin. (Zombie Command)

A synopsis for Outpost II: Black Sun has come to light. It’s your basic NATO forces vs. battalion of Nazi zombie Stormtroopers deal. Sounds exciting, but so did the first one and it was seriously sleep inducing (review of original here). (Quiet Earth)

I’m hopeful that Dead Rising 2 will be a great game and screenshots like this one, of a guy wearing a helmet with antlers and kicking zombie butt with it, are encouraging. (Kotaku)

That Resident Evil 5 director’s cut mentioned yesterday is going to support some fancy-ass new PS3 motion controller. (Kotaku)

The HD-DVD version of Deadlands 2: Trapped has been delayed until November 27. (Shoot for the Head)

Toy collectors can get all hot and bothered about a new Mez-Itz  collectible, black-and-white zombie figure. (Bloody Disgusting)

Godzilla doesn’t really remember what it was like before the zombies came.

Occasionally, he will get a flash of memory, like the smell of juniper, or the sound of children in a swimming pool.

But it fades once the next bullet is fired.

Memory is a luxury.

The zombies come.

What can I possibly add to that? Nothing, that’s what. But I’ll tell you this: I wasted a good two hours on this guy’s Tumbr site, I am your Canadian Boyfriend, and I promise you you’ll see more of his stuff here at some point. You can also find this excellent cartoon in its original context here.

A daily roundup of all the undead news that shambles into view… Bookmark the home page or add the RSS feed to your reader for your daily dose of walking dead. Got news tips? E-mail me at cory.casciato[AT]gmail.com.

DreamWorks is in negotiations to buy the rights for Xombie, the animated series turned graphic novel about a zombie cop trying to save the remnants of humanity. Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci are in talks to produce. (Reuters)

An exclusive interview with the writers of Zombieland, mostly about the process of writing and making the film. (Shock Till You Drop)

Zombieland clips incoming! This one has a clown attack. This other one has a hold up. Both are embedded for you after the break. (Dread Central)

There’s an interview with the lead designer of the impending zombie defense game Fort Zombie.  It covers details about the gameplay and how the game is put together, with a bit about influences, and you can read it here. (Rock, Paper, Shotgun)

The next Max Brooks zombie book, the graphic novel Recorded Attacks, is imminent — October 6 sees it arrive in stores. To celebrate, some New Jersey zombie walkers are doing a giveaway of a Brooks- signed poster. You have to give blood to enter. (Dread Central)

Can’t wait until November 17 to play Left 4 Dead 2? Get a taste when the demo hits October 27. No word yet on what platform (PC or Xbox) it’s for or whether it’s for preorder folks or what, but hey, we have a date at least. (Kotaku)

Our pals at Zombie Command have a trailer and a few details for Duty of Living, a low-budget zombie flick that seems to draw parallels with the Iraq war. (Zombie Command)

If a leaky voice actress is to be believed, there will be a director’s cut of Resident Evil 5. (VG247)

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