The Inevitable Zombie Apocalypse

A daily roundup of all the undead news that shambles into view… Got news tips? E-mail me at cory.casciato[AT]gmail.com.

It’s just days until the first batch of DLC hits for the zombie apocalypse trainer/simulator Left 4 Dead. It’s adding a new Survival mode and enabling Versus play on two new maps. If you weren’t already excited enough, go get hyped with this Left 4 Dead developer blog explaining how the new Survival mode works.

Now we know when the weirdo zombie madness of Pontypool and the Norwegian zombie madness of Dead Snow will hit theaters! It’s May 29 for Pontypool and June 12 for Dead Snow (a snowbound zombie flick in the middle of summer? Whatever…). If your city isn’t cool enough to warrant a theatrical showing, despair not, they both come to on-demand on the same day they release theatrically. You can read all about IFC’s plans for the films, or read my review of Dead Snow. I’ll review Pontypool just as soon as I can lay hands on a review copy.

Can’t get enough zombie Christmas? How about some more info and images from Silent Night, Zombie Night?

If you’re a fan of video games and big numbers, you will be thrilled to read that Resident Evil 5 has sold 1.5 million copies.

A daily roundup of all the undead news that shambles into view… Got news tips? E-mail me at cory.casciato[AT]gmail.com.

The undead classics keep coming, because I guess if you hate classic literature, you will hate it less with zombies? Read all about the stage play of William Shakespeare’s Land of the Dead.

What’s the science behind zombies? To figure that out, you’d need someone really smart, like a Harvard neurobiologist, to explain it to you in a cool video of some sort. Like this video on the neuroscience of zombies.

Japan weighs in on the undead again, and now you can get it here in the U.S. as Tokyo Zombie is released on DVD domestically. As soon as I can lay hands on a copy, I’ll have my own review, until then Fangoria has the info and a review of Tokyo Zombie.

After the jump, embedded trailers for Silent Night, Zombie Night and Mutants Read the rest of this entry »

I came across Night Zero today, an interesting new zombie tale told in the innovative (for the U.S., anyway) format of fumetti, which are comics that utilize photos rather than illustration. Specifically, Night Zero uses high dynamic range (HDR) photography and a process called tonemapping to produce its images. The results are interesting, an almost hyperreal look that still has a “comics” look. It seem like they are still working out the kinks, as some of the panels look markedly better than others.

Format aside, Night Zero is set in a world that has collapsed due to a plague of “scratchers,” zombies of the infected and crazed type, similar to 28 Days Later. The first two chapters are available, along with a third vignette. So far, it’s an intriguing story that centers around a Land of the Dead type “city on the hill” stronghold. The city is run by a group that doesn’t exactly see eye to eye on everything and it looks like the intrigue between the various factions will drive the narrative, similar to the political intrigue that drove Battlestar Galactica. One amusing detail is booze seems to stave off the infection — an idea I’ve seen once or twice elsewhere that never fails to amuse me.

There isn’t enough there to give it a full review yet, but my initial impression is that it shows some promise in its narrative structure and a well-developed setting, while the characters seem a little two dimensional (no pun intended) and the format may not be up to displaying the degree of action that will be necessary to pull the story off properly. Time will tell if I am right. For now, considering it’s free and available online, it’s definitely worth a look. I’ll be watching it and you can expect a full review at some point in the future.

Read it and judge for yourself at the Night Zero web site.

I was concerned that the recent bonanza of zombie movies was slowing to a trickle, but here are a handful of trailers arguing against that hypothesis. Admittedly, these look to be low budget, foreign and indie affairs, rather than the big-budget epics of the past few years (although World War Z is still on the horizon…). The best looking of the bunch is Zombies of Mass Destruction, but I refuse to get too excited about it. It’s as rare as hen’s teeth for a movie to be as good as the trailer and even though the trailer looks pretty good, you can see some rough acting and questionable humor in it. It’s another zombie comedy, this one poking a little fun at America’s terrorism hysteria. Okay, okay, they’re about six years too late for this to be really relevant, but there’s plenty of people who are still sure there’s a bioweapon under every bed just waiting to spread some kind of virus, zombie-making or otherwise. I just wish the movie’s web site had some real information, like a release date, whether it’s coming to theaters or straight to DVD or what. Oh well, I’m sure that will come presently. Until then, enjoy the trailer. Then, hit the jump for three more trailers.

Read the rest of this entry »

Here’s one of the more original ideas in the zombie milieu — Lost Zombies, a site that aims to create a community-generated zombie documentary via a MySpace/Facebook like social networking site. They’ve got a pretty clever back story, outlined via the timeline on the site and an innovative method of farming out the pieces (a grid of needed submissions, where anyone can take a hack at whatever piece interests them). They’re also getting a fair bit of attention, thanks to some SXSW exposure. It looks like thus far they aren’t particularly close to being done and I can’t find any indication of what the target date of completion for the finished project is, but in the meantime it seems like a good place to meet fellow zombie devotees. Naturally, I signed up for a membership and you can find my profile here. Supposing I can find the time and a project that suits my talents, I will even participate. I haven’t been able to find a contact link for the project’s leadership, but if I can, I intend to interview them for the site. Stay tuned.

Resident Evil 5, the latest in the premier zombie franchise in the world of video games, hits retail today and I couldn’t be sadder. This is because there’s no way I can afford to play it (nor would I have the time to play it if I could, but that’s another matter). Hell, I haven’t even been able to afford picking up Left 4 Dead yet. Still, I couldn’t let such an important zombie event pass without noting it and still aspire to being the world’s best zombie blog. I’d have to turn in my zombie union card if I did.

In non-zombie related news, next time someone tells you video games are a recession-proof industry, smack them for me, preferably with a copy of either Left 4 Dead or Resident Evil 5. Also, I will have a review of Resident Evil: Degeneration up later today so I can stay in the spirit of RE:5 day. Anyone who’s playing RE:5, feel free to torment me with tales of how awesome it is in the comments section…

It never fails. On any given day where I don’t have time to do my usual surfing, some kind of big news breaks. Yesterday, apparently Dead Rising 2 was announced and the sweet, sweet trailer above was released. I am immensely excited about this. The original Dead Rising is one of my favorite games ever and one of the all-time classic zombie video games. And unlike movies, sequels are frequently better than the original titles in the world of video games. If that’s the case, this will be my game of the year in whatever year it comes out. I will officially start salivating now…

Today is George A. Romero’s birthday, and what more fitting day to launch what is destined to be the greatest zombie blog ever conceived and executed by man? No need to answer, that is a rhetorical question. Stay tuned for everything zombie related you could ever ask for.

In the meantime, happy birthday to you, Mr. Romero. Your films have been changing the world for the last forty years and I hope you get forty more, even though you’d look like one of your more decrepit zombies by that point. Thanks for everything!