The Inevitable Zombie Apocalypse

Ken Foree is Peter in Dawn of the Dead

Four more days, four more movies! Without further ado…

Dawn of the Dead (1978)

I got to watch the original Dawn of the Dead  in a theater, with an audience, for the first time ever! It was sweet. You notice the funny stuff more with a hundred and fifty people there to laugh when they hit. Before the show there was a good Q&A with Tom Savini and Ken Foree. Mostly standard stuff, but they told a funny story about the shooting. Seems that the Brown Derby bar in the mall stayed open until 2 a.m., so zombies would go in there and drink. One night, two of the zombies got loaded, “borrowed” a golf cart, and ran it into a column, causing about $7,000 worth of damage. Funny stuff. Oh, and I interviewed Ken Foree, too.

Also, Dawn of the Dead is never not fantastic.

ParaNorman

So, yeah, they make zombie movies for kids now. Wild, huh? I am not a big kids’ movie fan, despite having kids, so I wasn’t too sure about this one. That said, I do feel it is a sacred duty to see all the zombie movies, so… The thing is, this was pretty entertaining. It’s about a kid who sees and talks to dead people, and the obligatory kids’ movie message is about accepting people different than you for who they are, which a freak like me can get behind easily. Nice stop motion animation, too. You could do a lot worse for your kids’ “My First Zombie Movie.”

Frankenweenie

Since there are two kids’ zombie movies out, I figured I might as well just knock them out back to back (also, I’d watched two previously seen films back-to-back for logistical reasons, so this seemed like a good way to get two new ones out). This one is barely a zombie movie. More like a monster movie with one sort-of zombie in it. Still, kid resurrects a dead dog, that’s a zombie dog, right? It was just okay, I thought, but my wife liked it. She’s a Tim Burton fan, I am not, so that probably explains it.

When it was over, my wife leaned over and asked, “So, is Frankenstein a zombie movie?” to which I could only reply, “That is an excellent question that I have been meaning to address.” And I do mean to address it someday, but it is a deep topic, so I don’t have time to go into it now. Let’s just say “Sort of” and move on, shall we?

Night of the Living Dead (1990)

Last time I watched the 1990 remake of Night of the Living Dead I quite liked it. This time… well, less so. The zombies didn’t look as good as I recall (spoiled by The Walking Dead‘s zombies, I guess) and the acting was way worse. The writing too. It’s like half as smart as the original, which makes it pretty dumb. It was still a decent watch, and it belongs at the top of the middle, mediocre third of zombie movies, but that’s as good as I can do right now. I still think Savini should have gotten a shot to direct again, but I guess I can see why no one was too eager to hire him.

That brings us up to speed. Pretty sure tonight I am going to brave the depths of awful presented by Beyond Re-Animator. I’d like to believe it will be good, but Bride of Re-Animator was the worst piece of shit, so my expectations are basement level.

You can thank Italy for this classic moment

The modern zombie movie is a thoroughly American invention, forged in Pittsburgh by George A. Romero. But like rock and roll and nuclear weapons, it wasn’t long before foreigners had a look and decided they just had to make their own homegrown versions. Before the blood was even dry on his incredible undead innovation, zombie began popping up all over the world, a trend that continues to this day. Once you’ve finished picking the corpse of Romero’s canon clean, had your brains eaten by Return of the Living Dead and devoured Zombieland  and are ready to travel the world in search of new zombie thrills, this handy guide should get you started. It’s by no means comprehensive—that’s a book, not a blog post—but it should serve as an intro to what the world outside of the good old USA offers the zombie aficionado.

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Photo by nicolas genin

George A. Romero. The father of the modern zombie. Arguably the most influential filmmaker in the horror genre. Legend. Icon.

And, as it turns out, a pretty nice guy.

When I first launched this site, one of the biggest things I hoped it would eventually lead to was a chance to talk to George A. Romero (my very first post was a happy birthday message to him!). This past weekend, it did and I got 20 minutes with the man himself. It wasn’t long, certainly, but it was still pretty fucking great. We talked about The Walking Dead, video games, what he’s working on and lots more. I’m sure I don’t have to sell you on reading this — if you’re reading this site, you love zombies. If you love zombies, you’re going to want to read this. So onward…

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Return of the Living Dead 3

Yesterday marked the halfway point of the fifth annual Zombie Movie Marathon Month, so it seemed like a good time to check in. For those of you who haven’t been reading since last time, ZMMM is my annual month-long zombie-a-day film fest: one zombie movie a day, every day, for an entire month. For those who have been reading a while, you may be wondering why the hell this is happening now, rather than in June as it has in years past. My reasons are twofold:

1) My wife has long petitioned for me to move the marathon to a fall/winter month, arguing (rightly) that we have too much going on in summer — camping, travel, friends visiting — to give up time every day in June to watch a zombie movie. This might have been reason enough but then something came along to seal the deal…

2) We had a baby May 29, two days before I would have ostensibly started the marathon. Let me tell you, having a newborn in the house makes it pretty hard to get something like this done. It’s been hard enough now, and she’s almost five month old! Bottom line is, June was out, so October is in! And let’s face it, October is a more fitting month anyway.

Okay, on to this year!

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Worst. wedding day. EVER.

The third film in the REC series has arrived, and with it arrive some changes. The first film inverted the paradigm of Night of the Living Dead, trapping survivors in a building with zombies. REC 2 turned the dials to 11, injecting a first-person shooter angle into the cinéma vérité mix and upping the adrenaline levels (think of REC as Alien and REC 2 as Aliens and you’ll have a good idea of what to expect.) Now REC 3: Genesis adds something else entirely unexpected: humor. Even weirder is that it works surprisingly well. (The rest of this review will contain the occasional spoiler for the first two films, so if you haven’t seen them and are spoiler averse, stop here).

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A daily roundup of all the undead news that shambles into view… News post by Johnathon Brock and Cory Casciato. Got news tips? E-mail them to cory.casciato[AT]gmail.com. Bookmark the home page or add the RSS feed to your reader for your daily dose of walking dead.

Here’s a nice in depth write up of the indie zombie bromantic comedy DeadHeads which hits DVD February 22. (Canberra Times)

Bill Hinzman, the first zombie to appear in the Romero classic Night of the Living Dead, passed away this past week at the age of 76. I mean this in the most respectful way that I hope he rises from the grave to come and get us all. (We Are Movie Geeks)

Every now and then a trailer comes along that makes us here at the IZA remember why we love zombie movies. Osombie is a movie about the re-animated corpse of Osama Bin Laden and the mission wherein a group of military operatives go to kill him, again. Check it out after the break and get ready for what will be an amazing ride. (First Showing)

It looks like the fine folks over at Machinima have teamed up with Lionsgate and FEARnet to bring season two of Bite Me, the zombie webseries, back to life. (c21 media)

It looks like Tom Savini is really pushing to play the coveted role of The Governor when the role inevitably emerges on The Walking Dead, but he might have some stiff competition ahead of him. Personally I’m hoping he gets the role. (MTV)

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A daily roundup of all the undead news that shambles into view… News post by Johnathon Brock and Cory Casciato. Got news tips? E-mail them to cory.casciato[AT]gmail.com. Bookmark the home page or add the RSS feed to your reader for your daily dose of walking dead.

The Resident Evil franchise had a pretty big week. Capcom released the first trailer for Resident Evil 6 and from the cut scenes and game play footage it looks like the story will be more of a return to the classic environment, with some new action elements that will be a welcome addition. Check it out after the break. (UberGizmo)

The trailer for Resident Evil: Retribution also dropped last week. Check it out after the break, along with a nice interview with Milla Jovovich. It looks like they’re pulling out all the stops on this one. EVERYONE from the previous films returns, and I’m still not sure how that’s possible, but I’m excited. (Hit Fix)

Indie zombie flick Zompocalypso failed to raise the then thousand it needed for production on Kickstarter so now they’ve moved to a new fundraising site in hopes of making twenty four thousand. (Edit: here’s the actual fundraising site, per comment below: http://www.indiegogo.com/CORNBRED) That’s not really how it works, but I wish them the best of luck. I’d link to their trailer, but it’s listed as private on youtube. (Patch)

Here’s a nice write up of the Murfreesboro Anime and Comic Con that I was at this past weekend. None of you came to buy my books, so I’m disappointed in all of you… Shameless plugs aside, the real star of the con was Madison Lintz who plays Sophia on The Walking Dead. I got the chance to speak with her and she’s genuinely a cool, down to earth actress. (Murfreesboro Post)

Zombies vs Robots has been a pretty good seller for IDW comics and they’re capitalizing on that by releasing some direct download digital comics for .99 cents a piece through several e-reader formats. (Comic Book Resources)

After the break, check out a teaser and the pilot episode from the upcoming zombie webseries Livin’ With Steve, an animated comedy that looks better than most of the Fox networks Sunday night lineup. (Horror Movies Canada)

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A daily roundup of all the undead news that shambles into view… News post by Johnathon Brock and Cory Casciato. Got news tips? E-mail them to cory.casciato[AT]gmail.com. Bookmark the home page or add the RSS feed to your reader for your daily dose of walking dead.

Well for everyone wondering what happened with the whole Frank Darabont/AMC debacle over The Walking Dead, your questions are sort of answered from one side of things. Sam Witwer, of Being Human fame, gives a video interview (after the break) where he goes into detail about plot ideas for season two that were scrapped due to budgetary issues and says some pretty heated, angry things about AMC and their decision to remove Darabont from the show. Darabont later confirms this story in a letter to the editors. Witwer was the tank zombie in the pilot episode, although his role went uncredited at the time. (Ain’t It Cool News)

JAKKS Pacific, the company famous for those horrible plug and play tv games based on your favorite franchises, is back at it and plan to release a series of shooter style games based on The Walking Dead later this year. I think at this point I can safely say the franchise is getting a little over saturated with unnecessary products. (Kotaku)

With production winding down, we’ve got some more concrete and specific plot details for the fifth entry into the Resident Evil film series. Also, they’ve decided to call it Re5ident Evil: Retribution, which sounds horrible. Horrible. (Bloody Disgusting)

After the break, you have to check out this odd “camera pointed at tv” clip from Class3, the upcoming zombie MMO which will be an Xbox 360 exclusive. If nothing else, this video at least gives some confidence and assurance that the game is actually being made, and so far it looks as good as the previous hype. (Buy Zombie)

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A daily roundup of all the undead news that shambles into view… News post by Johnathon Brock and Cory Casciato. Got news tips? E-mail them to cory.casciato[AT]gmail.com. Bookmark the home page or add the RSS feed to your reader for your daily dose of walking dead.

After the break, check out a sneak peek at the upcoming mid season premiere of The Walking Dead in February. This is going to be a good year, and The Walking Dead is most definitely a reason for that. (Dread Central)

It looks like Asylum, who have brought us amazing straight to video knock offs like Transmorphers and Alien vs. Hunter, are going to give us what we really want and release Abraham Lincoln vs. Zombies on DVD right before Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter hits theaters this year. I think I’ll save $20 and stick with the zombies. Alright, I’ll see both. (Dread Central)

Well Brad Pitt isn’t the only one bringing big zombie dollars to international locations. The Zombie King, which will star Corey Feldman and Edward Furlong in a thrilling adventure of undead…adventure, will premiere in London in August. (This is Somerset)

It looks like the upcoming indie hit A Little Bit Zombie is set to invade the Swiss territories for the 18th annual Victoria Film Festival this year. (Times Colonist)

The team behind Project Zomboid has arisen from their setback earlier last year when weeks worth of development were lost during a robbery and after the break you can see two new videos of their improved lighting and carpentry engine. This is going to be a great game when it’s done. (PC Gamer)

Speaking of games, there’s a new zombie game based on a childhood classic for those of us about 30 or older. The Men Who Wear Many Hats are working to bring us the Organ Trail, where you try to escape the zombie apocalypse (and hopefully typhoid and broken axles) while en route to a safe destination. Check out their Kickstarter page to donate. (Wired)

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A daily roundup of all the undead news that shambles into view… News post by Johnathon Brock and Cory Casciato. Got news tips? E-mail them to cory.casciato[AT]gmail.com. Bookmark the home page or add the RSS feed to your reader for your daily dose of walking dead.

Happy New Year zombie maniacs! Johnathon and Cory here ready to bring you another great year of undead news, reviews, and all the best information that those brain eating bastards have to offer. I’m not big on New Year’s posts so I’ll just say hello, welcome the old readers and the new readers alike, and with that in mind let’s get to the news!

Author Greg Lamberson announced recently that his third zombie novella Carnage Road, about two motorcycle gang members who take their final ride during the last days of the zombie apocalypse, will be released this April. (Horror Year Book)

After it was announced last year there wasn’t a lot of information about The Walking Dead board game that dropped this past holiday season. Well here’s an in depth review of what looks to be a pretty damn good evening if you’ve got three friends. (Comic Book Movie)

After the break, check out this video of slingshot guru Joerg Sprave showing off his latest beauty which is equipped with a few lethal add-ons for when you need to kill a zombie with a slingshot and run out of rocks or ball bearings. (TechnaBob)

Well it looks like, according to Brad Pitt, World War Z will be distributed as a trilogy of films should the initial movie do well. Personally I’m not a huge fan of the changes from the book that are being made but since it’s a new year I’ll remain cautiously optimistic. (L.A. Times)

We can thank the fine people over at Focus Films for picking up Juan of the Dead for US theater and digital distribution sometime in April this year. (Shadowlocked)

In some breaking news, it looks like Lily Collins (yes, the daughter of Phil Collins) will play the lead role of Mia in the Evil Dead reboot. Mia is being described as the “Ash-like character” as well as the character who, as described in earlier news, is at the cabin for drug detox, which explains why no one believes her when she starts noticing the undead attacks on the cabin. (Bloody Disgusting)

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