The Inevitable Zombie Apocalypse

George A. Romero is the undisputed master of the zombie genre. There’s simply no arguing that anyone else has ever — or likely will ever — come close to his contributions. So the release of a new Romero zombie film is always a big deal, even if his latest offerings have received mixed reactions from critics and fans alike. And if you were expecting Survival of the Dead to buck that trend, allow me to let you down now: this is not a return to the majesty of Dawn-era Romero. It fits firmly in with his post-2000 zombie offerings Land of the Dead and Diary of the Dead.

That being said, I didn’t hate either Land or Diary. I came to appreciate Land after several viewings, and I really liked Diary from the beginning, although my enthusiasm waned to some degree after additional viewings. That said, I think neither of those films is as bad as their detractors claim. Both have merit and both are at least as good as 90 percent of the zombie films out there.

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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.

George Romero will be present at a showing of Survival of the Dead next Tuesday, May 11 in LA. You can win tickets from Dread Central, and presumably you can buy some somewhere, too, if you don’t win. (Dread Central)

Get more details on the girl detective/urban fantasy/romance-dramedy comic I, Zombie coming from Vertigo. (Monkey See)

Running, jumping, leaping zombies abound in the “performance-enhancing drug makes super zombies” action/horror extravaganza Devil’s Playground is done. Quiet Earth has exclusive stills and a teaser trailer (you can find the trailer embedded below). (Quiet Earth)

A snowy highway, a mysterious hitchhiker and mysterious brood of dead, flesh-eating children are the elements that make up French horror film The Pack. It will debut at Cannes. (Twitch)

Walk like a zombie in St. Petersburg, Florida on June 12. (Facebook)

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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.

The cast for the TV version of The Walking Dead continues to expand, adding Laurie Holden (The Shield, The Mist) as Andrea and newcomer Steven Yeun as Glenn. Adam Fierro has joined as a consulting producer. (The Hollywood Reporter)

Learn what it’s like to be a zombie on a George Romero film, from a man who’s been there, done that. And taken pictures! (Dread Central)

There’s a new German zombie/infected movie called Rammbock coming and it looks amazing. The plot concerns a man looking for his ex-girlfriend and a young stranger he teams up with amongst the zombie-fueled chaos. Trailer is embedded below. (Quiet Earth)

If you’re going to be in Toronto on May 27, you can catch a screening of an uncut 35mm print of Lucio Fulci’s City of the Living Dead, complete with a pre-show leccture on its importance by Fangoria editor-in-chief Chris Alexander. (Fangoria)

Producer Don Carmody talks about the making of Resident Evil: Afterlife. (FEARnet)

If you like board games (and personally, I love them) then Inevitable, a board game about an insane supercomputer, a dystopic future and zombies, might be something you’re interested in. (io9)

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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.

There’s a cool new poster for Romero’s Survival of the Dead from Walking Dead artist Charlie Adlard. (Splash Page)

Get to know indie filmmaker Joshua Bell, the man behind the upcoming zombie comedy Beverly Lane. It’s about being stuck at the office, during a zombie apocalypse, with a bunch of people you hate. Including mimes. There’s a trailer embedded below. (Dread Central)

More info emerges on the high-school-football/zombie tale Play Dead. The book hits today. The film is a short that evolved from a commission to shoot a trailer for the book, but they’re hoping to shoot a feature if they can raise the money. And the plot concerns a violent rivalry that leads to the death — and subsequent revival as zombies — of one team, who must then win the state championship or be banished to hell. (Fangoria)

The post-nuclear-apocalyptic zombie Western Devil’s Crossing has a new trailer, which you’ll find embedded below. It’s a Western about a man trying to redeem his soul from the devil in the face of the devil’s zombie army trying to take over the post-nuclear wasteland. Original, at least! (28 Days Later: An Analysis)

The remix-culture inspired Night of the Living Dead: Reanimated, which tasked animators to work together to “remake” the classic film, will get an official bootleg release soon to build anticipation for the official, deluxe special-edition DVD release. (Bloody Disgusting)

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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.

The role of Lori Grimes has been cast for AMC’s TV adaptation of Robert Kirkman’s Walking Dead. Welcome Sarah Wayne Callies of Prison Break fame to the cast! (The Ausiello Files)

If you want to incorporate zombies into your wedding ceremony (and who doesn’t?), you might follow the lead of this couple who did exactly that in a touching way. (Offbeat Bride)

Get all the details on Weekend of Horrors, May 21-23 in LA. There’s a pretty stocked Re-Animator panel that includes writer/director Stuart Gordon and actors Jeffrey Combs, Barbara Crampton, Robert Sampson, Bruce Abbott and Dennis Paoli. (Bloody Disgusting)

Love Left 4 Dead so much you want to cuddle it while you sleep? Then this plush Boomer toy is your dream come true.

Look below for an embedded trailer for an awesome-looking short film called Serum 1831, about a drug that revives the dead, then visit the website for more info.

Survival of the Dead is available on numerous VOD platforms as of today. If you’d rather torture yourself with more clips, head over here. (Dread Central)

Thanks to Andre Hernandez and Peter Bower for great news tips today!

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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.

Final reminder: George A. Romero’s Survival of the Dead debuts tomorrow on Amazon, Xbox 360 and PS3 VOD. Here are three new pics to whet your appetite. (Dread Central)

And if you are in Chicago May 6, maybe you should enter this contest to see an exclusive screening of Survival of the Dead with a post-show Q&A with George Romero. Awesome! (AICN)

A new political party in the UK is fighting to give zombie equal rights, including allowing them to marry the living. (BBC)

Fight twenty different monsters, including zombies, in Chillingo’s iPhone tower-defense game Monster Mayhem. Word is, it’s the first of four different zombie-related games coming from the developer.

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There have been many milestones throughout the eighty-year history of the zombie in Western culture. In today’s world, where zombies are such a part of everyday life that every college campus is aswarm with games of Human vs. Zombie, zombies are used in advertising and we get a new zombie movie or game released every few months, it’s easy to forget our roots. To make sure that doesn’t happen, I’ve compiled a quick overview of ten great moments in zombie history, from the earliest days to modern times. Without these milestones, we wouldn’t be where we are today. Remember and rejoice.

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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.

With the VOD release of George A. Romero’s Survival of the Dead just days away (April 30!), the final greenband trailer has surfaced. Find it embedded below. (Yahoo Movies)

Speaking of Survival, it premieres in New York City May 16 and you can get in free if you dress up as a zombie and join a flash-mob style zombie walk (well, the first 300 lucky undead, anyway). (Dread Central)

Zombies on a cruise! That’s my four-word synopsis of the utterly ridiculous-sounding Spring Break Zombie Cruise, a new project from writer Matt Pitts (Fringe) supposedly in the pipe for a 3D realization. (Dread Central)

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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.

Everyone’s favorite gaming megablog looks at the trends of science and the supernatural in the zombie mythos. (Kotaku)

PC players can play the Badwater Basin map from Team Fortress 2 in Left 4 Dead 2. Fun! There’s a video embedded below. Even funner! (Kotaku)

A college in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania is doing a medieval play, The Last Judgment, and spicing it up with zombies. Good for them. (The Gettysburgian)

The Japanese poster for Survival of the Dead has been released. It looks good. (Dread Central)

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When the zombies come, what weapons will you take up against them? Many of us in the US have the benefit of easy access to some relatively heavy firepower, thanks to the Second Amendment and our nation’s love affair with guns. But what of the civilized world at large, or those few parts of the US that make owning a gun a chore? And more to the point, what happens when even the most gun-happy survivalist, who might wield an arsenal that would make your typical third-world insurgent group jealous, runs low on ammo?

These are the questions that prompted New Yorker Roger Ma to write The Zombie Combat Manual, a complete guide to hand-to-hand combat with the living dead. In the course of its 300 pages, he covers just about every angle on facing the undead with everything from pole arms to ice picks, including advice on weapon selection, exercise and armor. Ma took some time to answer some questions about the book, his inspirations and what he’d choose to stop the zombie hordes. And at the end of the interview, you can read how to win your very own copy of the The Zombie Combat Manual, courtesy of Roger Ma and the Inevitable Zombie Apocalypse.

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