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The opening scene is almost breathtaking: a boy rides through a wasted town on his BMX, the sun is shining and everything is quiet, he’s carrying bow and arrows on his back. Of course I already know this is a zombie movie and the scenery indicates that he’s not on his way to practice.

By the typical zombie conventions, he’s probably on a food run or something – but no. He arrives at his friends’ house where a zombie has been tied on the lawn. They’re taunting it, threatening it, slapping it as it growls helplessly back at them.

The film is really thoughtful; in stead of focusing on zombies and the danger/horror they’re able to instigate, it comments on humanity and (as I see it) the development of trans-apocalyptic cultures by focusing on a group of kids: This is a world where (most) kids grow up fast.

Blue-Tongue Films‘ I Love Sarah Jane was written by Spencer Susser & David Michôd and directed by Spencer Susser.

Big up to the acting!

Via Jonathan Miles (Twitter)

No Comments | In: horror | tags: short, short film, zombies. | #

Again, I must warn of spoilers, this time, they’ll appear after the image. If you like, you can start out by just reading Andrew Drilon’s What the Cigarette Said, and maybe return later to read this post.

When your cigarette starts talking to you about ancient spirits living in the city and you are all alone in a dark room, don’t you think it’s time to quit? Or would you believe and heed the cigarette?

The protagonist from Andrew Drilon’s webcomic - What the Cigarette Said - does the latter. Bereaved of his love, trying to return to normality, he suddenly relapses, hallucinates and finally loses it. Or is there truly a spirit talking to him through the cigarette? - What the Cigarette Said is inconclusive; leaving its readers in hesitation.

The main character, however, (perhaps because of the comic’s relative brevity) seems unaffected by this ambiguity, wandering off into whatever we as readers eventually decide is the fact: insanity or Elysium.

I realize this post might look as if I were lambasting the comic because of its middle-of-the-road ending, but in fact I’m not. In fact, I like it. I like being left in hesitation.

1 Comment | In: Comics, horror | tags: horror, webcomic. | #

I promised myself I would write about Dead Frontier. I’ve played it for a couple of hours now and I seem to be drawn to it. It is really dark an bloody, just the way anything with zombies in it should be, and I think that is, at least part of, why I find it so fascinating.

The game was released in May 2008 by Jagged Blade Games. It features a city overrun by zombies and the survivors trying to cope with it. It is really nifty, I think, that the game is partly shooter, partly role-playing; it kinda reminds me of the good old Fallout days, back before you had to buy a new computer, or even console, to play “The Next Game”. The role-playing part of the came of course means that you get to earn both experience for stats and money for guns and other handy things like crowbars, armer etc. When you create an account, you also chose the look and the previous occupation of your “survivor”. Obvious professions such as police officer, scientist and soldier are naturally available, but so is accountant, athlete, priest and several others.

Contrarily to the old Fallout Games, however, Dead Frontier is RTS (Real Time Strategy), which of course makes it the hell of a ride.

I think the term “survival horror” is quite apt for this game since everything is about survival from the horrors the undead always seem to shamble with them. You will die at some point in the game, you will die because I did an no one is better than me. In that case, you do not want all your money in your pockets (in fact none, as far as I know), you want them in your “bank”. Additionally, when you die, you have to wait for at least one minute before being able to play again. While that is cool because it means you do not squander your precious life away, it is still a bit annoying that you cannot do anything else while waiting because the browser goes haywire – this may, of course, just be the case for me and my rotten-fish powered computer.

Where was I?.. Oh yeah! you do not have to register to try it out, there are three “nights” you can play before investing hard earned time.

Dead Frontiers is free to play but still in development. Yet presently, I cannot for the life of me  recommend a better way to spend your wee hours (and what else the back-pockets of your time-jeans might contain).

No Comments | In: horror, post-apocalyptic | tags: games, horror, zombies. | #

Ever wondered how you’d do in a zombie attack? Sure, there are tests you can take, but do you really trust them? Isn’t it better to see it for your own self? Why take a boring and faulty test when you can just click your way through a short movie?

As we all know, movies portray reality much better than tests do since they also have pictures and sound. That’s why Nemobay highly recommends hauling your ass over to The Outbreak’s page to take the ultimate test - and watch a zombie short too!

I don’t know what else to say really. This is really something else and I’m kind of sorry I can’t supply much more information about anything, but the page is not that big on information. However, there is a MySpace page you can check out if you want to know more.

I will though add that The Outbreak, according to Bloody-Disgusting, was created by “Chris and Lynn Lund who run the Portland, Oregon web design-and-animation studio SilkTricky (www.SilkTricky.com).”

Kudos to James Melzer, author of Zombie Chronicles for bringing this to the Bay’s attention via Twitter.

No Comments | In: horror | tags: short, zombies. | #

Everyday Decay follows Emiko (Emi) and Dorian as they try to get by in a world infested by zombies. Despite the fact that the infestation has lasted for years, no one seems to know what really happened.  However, the most prominent theory seems to be that it was caused by a terrorist attack. And no matter what, the zombies keep coming.

I thought the rule was: “Whoever kills it, doesn’t clean it…”

Emiko and Dorian are “married” and live together in a house with Emiko’s beloved dog; Ty Ty. Security is (almost) tight as a drum in the house, however, there is the occasional slip. When the trio go out raiding in the beginning of the story, they meet Matt, a guy who seemingly just moved into the neighborhood. But alas, during a zombie plague, the zombies are not necessarily your worst enemies.

It’s funny to see how the graphic side of the comic evolves through the pages. The skills of Derrick Ravey have improved noticeably, and the comic recently became colorized. Publication of the comic started in August 2008 and the it is still going strong.

I wholeheartedly recommend it to any zombiphiliac out there.

No Comments | In: Comics, horror, post-apocalyptic | tags: postapocalyptic, webcomic. | #

An android wakes up in a scrap yard and realizes she(?) is tied to a wooden “H”. Her chest is marked by a round symbol of two crossed hammers. As she tries to flee the yard (with the “H” on her back; very Christ-like), a big hand places another symbol on her chest and picks up the “H”. The movie is only about two minutes long, but it is very beautiful. The framerate has either been lowered, or it simply is stop-motion. It is made in a grainy sort of black and white, accompanied by quiet music.

“Redite” is directed by Patrick Boivin, a “French Canadian autodidact movie maker” as he calls himself. The subtitle of the movie is “Freedom is hard to handle…”, a relatively ambiguous title because freedom is taken away from the android shortly after she has realized that she is free.

I must say I really like this cute little film, setting and costume is really great. I cannot stress enough how much I’d wish film makers would do this kind of stuff more often. Or at least I would wish I was better at finding it when they do.

Go see it one and all =)

No Comments | In: horror | tags: horror, sci-fi, science fiction, scifi, short movie. | #

Recently, I’ve been wondering why zombie-hunting and -killing is so popular. I mean, it seems like people are very divided when it comes to military fiction, some think its cool, others think its despicable. When it comes to zombies, people are still divided, but the ones that don’t like zombie fiction tend to have issues with its unreal, and not (as with military fiction) moral, qualities.

I haven’t done any real research on this issue, so I’m kinda just winging it here. But if somebody asked me, I’d say that the above was the case. Assuming I’m right, I’d like to make a brief analysis of why zombie fiction tends to have a broader accept and appeal than military fiction.

Personally, I think military fiction sometimes turn a blind eye to moral issues such as civilian casualties and the respect for human rights and other humanitarian conventions. The enemies at worst, even though they are human, are portrayed as barbaric monsters who deserve noting more than a bullet through the head. At best, the enemies become figures for target practice, as if they only exist during combat. Only the emotional consequences of the “heroes” are portrayed. Military fiction that has the above properties tend therefore to glorify war, which, obviously, a lot of people have a problem with. However, it should be noted that some forms of military fiction deviate from the above analysis. Notable examples include Full Metal Jacket, Apocalypse Now and Platoon.

Zombie fiction, on the other hand, seems to be quite another ballgame. Here, I would like to quote Sean Roberts:

• A zombie will, without exception, attempt to devour the living.
• Zombie-ism is contagious. A person attacked by a zombie will, invariably, become a zombie. If the person was killed by a zombie, zombification will be almost instantaneous. Persons wounded by a zombie will take longer to zombify but will, in the end, do so.
• Zombie-ism is incurable.

Zombies are walking dead. Presumably, if something as morally defining as a soul exists, then zombies have no soul. They certainly have no consciousness. All they have is, well, instincts. Zombies by definition don’t care who they kill, they will kill all the living. The living are targets and the only way to avoid having to flee all the time is to “kill” it. Zombies cannot be cured, so “saving” the zombies is out of the question.

Anyone trying to survive during a zombie apocalypse need to know that survival ultimately depends on throwing moral convictions away that would hinder the extermination of the walking dead. As audience, we know this, there are no two ways about it.

Zombies are not evil. Many of us no longer entertain superstitious norms such as good versus evil. If zombies are portrayed as evil, the suspension of disbelief will shatter. Zombies must be killed. If a person gets bitten, she will turn into a zombie and ultimately raise the threat level of her loved ones. It is more correct morally to kill a zombie than to run away from it or try to save it.

The contagious undeadness of the zombies makes any kind of moral questions about killing them superfluous. Unlike sentient adversaries, zombies cannot be convinced to stop their killing, a ceasefire is impossible, negotiations… well, I think you can figure that one out for yourself.

Points so far:

• Zombies are tremendeously dangerous, they will devour you without hesitation. If you hesitate, you die and become a threat to everyone you love. It is, in fact, more moral to kill a zombie than it is not to.
• Zombies cannot be argued or negotiated with, since they’re not sentient.
• Zombies are undead, you cannot kill them in the conventional sense. Because they are undead, what remains in their skulls are not persons, it is simply brain craving instincts.

Despite zombie killing’s being morally correct. Zombie fiction excells at showing situations where moral conflicts are highlighted. Such examples world be the bitten friend no yet turned zombie, what to do infected areas containing zombies as well as civilians, whether to flee from a gigantic zombie assault even though you leave loved ones behind fighting a lost battle and so on.

Still zombie fiction can saturate the thirst for both violence and military techno-fetishism as we have seen most notably in the “28″ movies.

Additionally, a career of “zombie hunting” may be persued without looking like an action crazed maniac. A quick search on the net reveals that there actually is a handful of quite popular zombie hunter communities on the net. These groups can freely follow their interests in weapons, tactics, military gear, self defense etc. without running into moral problems.

Images:

zombies on the orange line by James Calder

frodoApocalypse by . Athalfred .

Additional links:

Great Questions of Speculative Moral Theology - Zombies on The Feudal Spirit

Zombie Squad

Zombie Survival & Defence Wiki

The Post-Apocalyptic Workout

The Zombie Survival Guide by Max Brooks

3 Comments | In: horror | tags: morals, zombie hunting, zombie killing, zombies. | #

Dead Patrol is a web series available for streaming directly from its page, and its free. It takes place after a plague has diminished the majority of living to mindless flesh eaters. We follow two soldiers from the C.L.E.A.N. (Clear the Living, Evacuate And Nuke) team; Cpl Keenan and the female protagonist Lt. Brigham, during their mission, as they try to get out of the city before a nuclear device is detonated.

“You even lick your lips around me, I will put a bullet through your head.”

The theme for the series is made by Skinny Puppy and the acting is reasonable, although I can’t help feel that the full scale of the emotional apparatus has not yet been utilized.

Even though this might all seem like a great deal, my conviction is that the computer graphic side of the series could have been better. There are a couple of glitches and I think the graphics could have been more gritty to make it more realistic. That’s really a shame because the rest is actually quite good.

So far, there are three episodes up.

No Comments | In: horror, post-apocalyptic | tags: horror, web series, zombies. | #

First of all, I’m sorry if I’ve kept you waiting in what might have seemed endless anticipation. I’ve been a bit lazy lately, well, lazy and I just couldn’t find anything interesting enough to post a blog about. Now I finally have.

Monster Distributes has put the steampunk animated movie (26 min) The Mysterious Geographic Explorations of Jasper Morello on their YouTube profile. If you haven’t already seen it, I recommend that you to so (at a time and leisure of your own choosing, of course).

From Monster Distributes’ webpage:

Set in a world of iron dirigibles and steam powered computers, this gothic horror mystery tells the story of Jasper Morello, a disgraced aerial navigator who flees his plague-ridden home on a desperate voyage to redeem himself.

The Mysterious Geographic Explorations of Jasper Morello is a very beautiful film. Its beauty primarily stems from the intricate systems of clocks and compasses as well as monstrous clunky steam powered blimps, resembling Gothic churches and Swiss clocks as much as airships. Also, I really dig the fact that the characters are all portrayed as silhouettes, maneuvering in a nightmarishly dark environment of infernal devices reaching towards the skies.

It is really well written and mono- as well as dialogues are written in those eloquent pompous gothic Victorian phrases that all us Frankenstein geeks adore so much. Additionally, the voice acting is really great and perfects the whole feel of the movie.

According to Monster Distributes, this is the first of a trilogy. If this is still the case, I wonder where its possible to obtain the last two (it might be here).

(Image from Gravestmor)

No Comments | In: Steampunk, horror | tags: animated, goth, horror, movie, short movie, Steampunk. | #

Late summer of 2008 saw the genesis of James Melzer’s The Zombie Chronicles, since then, Melzer has more or less regularly published podcasts from his novel on his website.

The Zombie Chronicles takes place in the near future where a near miss comet has released a poisonous gas that zombifies people. In the beginning, everything is chaos, but then Government realizes that the zombies may be used as a work force, if only fed people. But hey, you can’t just feed your population to a zombie work force, can you? Maybe there’s a middle ground, maybe if you paid people for their clones and just fed the zombies the clones, you’d be able to avoid the moral problems, because after all, clones aren’t people, right?

Melzer not only writes well, he’s also good at reading his texts aloud and best of all: he’s not afraid of being explicit and cursing a lot.

Additionally, the content is released under a Creative Commons licence, you can share it as long as you give attribution and don’t make either money or derivative works from it. Melzer encourages donating for the show, if you do, 10% of the donation will go to The Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation of Canada.

The only problem is the quality of the sound. Some times, you can hear that it’s not a quality microphone Melzer uses.

So far there’s 13 episodes up.

No Comments | In: horror | tags: horror, podcast, zombies. | #