The Last of Us Season 1

In 2003, a mutated fungus which had managed to make its way to human hosts through contaminated crops caused a global outbreak. In mere weeks millions were infected and driven by the urge to spread the infection. The Cordyceps Brain Infection wrought havoc on the globe and forced humanity back into fortified strongholds, leaving those who could not flee behind its walls to fend for themselves in a crumbling wilderness.

On the day of the infection, Joel (Pedro Pascal), his brother Tommy (Gabriel Luna) and his daughter Sara (Nico Parker) are trying to flee like so many others, only for tragedy to strike and his daughter dies in his arms. Twenty years later, he is estranged from his brother and living in the Boston Quarantine Zone (QZ) working as a smuggler alongside his love interest Tess. He gets an offer to transport a girl named Ellie (Bella Ramsey) to the headquarters of a group of freedom fighters called the Fireflies. In doing so, he might just save humanity.

Thus begins probably the greatest videogame adaptation of all time in The Last of Us. Spoilers follow!

The opening episode is one of the best adaptations of a game I've ever seen. Expanding on game material and the constraints of live acting, it delivers an amazing rendition of the chaos of the early infection and the loss suffered by the characters. It establishes the bleak tone of this post-apocalyptic world, fleshes out our main characters, and gets the message of grim reality across amazingly well. By the end I couldn't wait to see episode two and what might happen next.

The Last of Us, through its first few episodes, had moments before the opening credits rolled that set up how the virus was scientifically feasible for fiction purposes, as well as showing us some events from before the outbreak. The very first episode opens with a fake TV interview from 1968 in which two scientists talk about their fears over the future. One, portrayed by John Hannah, presciently warns that in a warming Earth many terrible diseases, but also fungus, could well end up infecting humans. In the second episode this is also done through the reaction of a mycologist in Indonesia discovering the first victims of the infection mere days before the outbreak. While a few pre-outbreak moments take place in other opening episodes, it was a sad thing to see that it was dropped across a few and we instead got into the immediate opening credits. I had hoped that each episode would open with some backstory, a cool scene spinning the pre-outbreak world or the post-outbreak aftermath before the present, but I can understand the time constraints.

In episode three, we have one of the bigger divergences for possibly the best post-apocalyptic love story ever told. It's the meeting of lone and closeted survivalist Bill (Nick Offerman) - who has effectively turned himself into Robert Neville from I am Legend - is bunkered down in an abandoned town. One day a trap is set off by Frank (Murray Bartlett) and the two develop an unlikely romance. In a short film style we explore their relationship, problems, and introduction to Joel and Tess. It was a bit of a departure from the full plot, but it expands the emotional stakes for Joel and Ellie each, while also telling one of the most tear jerking stories I've seen in a while. Simply a phenomenal episode.

Episodes four and five are a smaller arc where the characters take a detour through Kansas City only to be caught up in the aftermath of a violent revolution against the old authorities. Kathleen (Melanie Lynskey) has inspired her followers to rebel and take the city from them and is engaged in a brutal series of reprisals. Here the two leads meet Henry (Lamar Johnson) and Sam (Keivon Woodard) who must work together to escape. In an action packed finale, we see that the wages of revenge are death, and just how bleak this world is! Wonderful series of scenes and acting which made it all come together.

Episode six sees Joel and Ellie meeting up with Tommy again, and meeting his new wife Maria (Rutina Wesley). In some extremely humorous explorations of survivor politics and ideas, we see the brothers reunite and Jeol and Ellie bond. It sets up the ending quite well.

Another small arc in episodes seven and eight address the final bonding of the pair, and an effective flashback to Ellie's discovery of her immunity. It also giving us one of the most iconic game villains, the cult leader David (Scott Shephard). David is an excellent foil as the sinister leader, and his introduction was a magnificent turn around and play on expectations while being supremely well acted. His creepy obsession with Ellie and desire to dominate her is fiendishly portrayed, and the final showdown is perfect. Joel's rampage through his followers sets up the final act of the show quite well.

Episode nine is probably the most divisive for me personally. It's very short for one, probably one of the shortest episodes. It also hews extremely closely to the game which, while very inspiring as an adaptation, felt like it missed some opportunities to do some legwork for the second season. Well done and effective at tugging your emotions, it could have been better I feel.

Overall however, the show is amazing. The acting of Pascal and Ramsey is stupendous with Pascal bringing out the jaded survivor in Joel and the ferocious protectiveness of a father who has already lost one child. Ramsey's portrayal as the 14 year old Ellie is really well done, and she's hilarious to watch, while delivering some amazing lines and well acted scenes. Her chemistry with Pascal is also excellent, making the pair an effective onscreen team.

The supporting cast is also amazing. One of the best performances I felt was given by Lynskey as Kathleen, where she hammered home how brutal this world is, even just between people.

The chemistry of the characters was superb, and we saw many important bonds formed. This was, ostensibly, a zombie show. However, the infected do not take center stage and are mostly an environmental threat, not the drivers of the plot. While the infection is omnipresent, zombies and killing them is not the point of the show. That made it a nice departure from The Walking Dead, but also allowed viewers to focus on the story and the more human element. It added something to the genre that really hadn't existed for a while.

Departures from the game and additions to the story we well done, and for myself, pretty universally well received. I think this is destined to go down as one of the best adaptations of all time, with an amazing story being told and being visually stunning. Definitely one to watch!

Ghost Run

In this fourth installment in the Day by Day Armageddon series, we once again join Kil as he is taking a lonely tour through the zombie haunted wasteland that is the continental Americas.. I purchased this book earlier this year with the explicit goal of reading it, along with all the others in the series, for Halloween. Last night I wrapped up my reading and got some closure to the world of Day by Day Armageddon which I had been needing for a few years.

Does this struggle across the dead land once known as the United States amount to much, or is it the last hurrah of a survivor who was unable to control his urge to explore? Find out, in Ghost Run!

From goodreads.com

To begin with, this story does get back to the strength of the original novel. Its' a fixed first person narrative, told in the journal style. Less concentrated, but told in a very similar manner. It does tell a more personal story, one which covers a range of issues from addiction, the devolving of society, and seeing echoes of a formerly strong world now covered in decay, both natural and unnatural. It does have a wonderful series of action sequences with spectacular zombie kills. From knives to wrecking balls, we do see some good work taking out the undead.

However, it does manage to only harken back slightly to what made the original novels so good. Without a real overarching mission, the humanity and the community which was built across the first two installments, it felt lacking in terms of the hope and drama which propelled me through the first books. Then it's much shorter, with precious little preamble to the meat of the main story. Shorn of the tighter narrative, broader supporting cast, and overarching sunny, but gray, tone, it made for a less compelling read than the previous three volumes.

Our ending here too, felt rushed. It didn't have the same oomph which added power to the story of Shattered Hourglass, or Origin to Exile which, while each had their dark moments, the sense of hope and humanity established in them allowed me to hold hope for something more than mere survival. Instead, in this story, we almost get a sense of the lights going out one by one, the field of view narrowing, and no hope anywhere else in the world. It was, to be frank, a tad disappointing.

If you've read the rest of the series and would like resolution, I definitely recommend checking it out. However, you may feel better just reading the end of Shattered Hourglass. It's an ending, and it comes from two strong initial installments which created one of the best zombie stories I've ever read. So ends my saga with this terrifying series!

The Walking Dead Season One

Ten years ago, to the day, The Walking Dead premiered on AMC. It was, for a good while, a cultural phenomenon. The zombie genre had reached new heights, with it taking over popular culture for all intents and purposes. Truly, you couldn't find anything that didn't have zombies in it, from video games to cinema. George Romero was even making his film finale in his Living Dead film series. However, it was Robert Kirkman's The Walking Dead which spilled the zombies onto the serialized small screen.

My first brush with The Walking Dead came from high school. I actually have fond memories of flipping through a friend's copy of the first issue of the comics, Days Gone By, as we excitedly chatted about the board game Zombies!!! and gushing over this comic series my friend had brought to our attention. I quite liked it and remember briefly borrowing them from him and drawing nostalgic connections to Issue 3, Safety Behind Bars, and events from Max Brooks The Zombie Survival Guide.

Having read the first few issues way back when, and now in 2020 having finished the series with the fantastic conclusion to Kirkman's comics in 2019, I've now re-watched the 2010 pop-culture phenomenon that is The Walking Dead. This is just my own reminisces from ten years on, and why I think this show managed to become so popular.

This story opens in presumably the not too distant future or past of our own world in rural Georgia. Sherriff Rick Grimes and his partner Shane are discussing life and Rick's strained marriage when they get a call about a high speed chase in progress, and along with other officers, respond. In the ensuing shoot out, Rick is shot and badly injured. He lapses into a coma. 

Roughly a month or so later he wakes up in the hospital. He finds it abandoned, in a state of serious disrepair, and sees signs of fighting, badly mutilated corpses, and a field of bodies. Though first he stumbles on one of the major changes of the series, finding a door which reads, "DON'T OPEN DEAD INSIDE" which produced one of the most visually arresting shots in the whole show, which sticks out to to people who haven't even watched the series. 

It's actually one of the first changes from the comics where Rick instead wanders into a cafeteria full of zombies and, through blind luck, manages to extract himself from a life threatening altercation with the undead. 

Escaping to his family home, he finds it empty of his wife Lori and son Carl, instead he is found by fellow survivor Morgan and, after a brief interrogation, discovers the sudden fate of the world. The dead have risen to eat the living, civilization has collapsed, and his family has headed to what they hope is the safety of Atlanta where the government has tried to establish a safe zone for refugees. After arming up, he rides off into the new world, and is almost immediately nearly devoured by a horde of ghouls before hiding in a tank. On a walkie talkie he gets in contact with a survivor observing him from the outside and finds his way to, relative, safety.

Upon doing so he meets Glen, Andrea, Meryl, T-Dog, Jacqui and Morales. They devise a way out of the city, in a very good departure from the original comics which leads us to a more drawn out escape, but some clever looks at the fall of Atlanta and the dynamics of surviving the zombie apocalypse. And our first big plot conflict emerges as Meryl, an unrepentant asshole, is left behind in the escape.

When they do make it back to camp, they encounter the rest of the survivors. In a very heartwarming scene, Rick finds his wife and son, who have been protected by his former partner Shane. This little community manages to have a few good days, but are interrupted by the return of Darryl, a show only character and the brother of Meryl, which prompts another expedition into the city. Though a success, all good things come to an end when walkers attack and kill many of the survivors. In the aftermath, there is a dispute about where to go, and it's a toss up between Fort Benning and trying for the CDC headquarters in the city.

In a very different take from the comics, the show has a fascinating look at how the virus started, the failed study for a cure, and some interesting science behind how the virus is spread. It's a welcome change, which made for a very fresh take on the show and a fantastic final episode. It was quite ambitious for both a finale and in how bold the decision was to depart from the original material.

At only six episodes, the first season is extremely short and, I would argue, that's to its overall benefit. The Second Season, at the time almost universally hated, but in recent years remembered fondly, was stretched over thirteen episodes, which with only one location and a radically different cast and story was bound to frustrate fans and new audiences with its slower pace. The Third Season set things back on track however, hewing closer to the original story and then making it a massive television success. Though the shows viewership has declined markedly from Season Seven onwards. I'll personally say that I have only watched intermittently beyond Season Five.

This being said, the First Season was a real tour de force with an opening episode which really drives home the suddenly changed world. Gory visuals and some simply fantastic zombie killing action. The acting is wonderful, and the show was done in a way which turns your expectations from the comics against you so very well. Re-watching it I was struck by how much my initial expectations were happily raised by the departures from the original comics. Darryl became such a fan-favorite that he is the face of The Walking Dead now. In only six episodes we managed to get a great new story, some unexpected surprises, and no matter what you think of the show now, ten years later those six episodes still stand out.

Definitely worth a viewing this Halloween!

Shattered Hourglass

The third installment of J. L. Bourne's Day by Day Armageddon series manages to bring our story to an international world, and tie off some loose threads which we have been dealing with since the dead first walked. In a story that provides the best of Robert Kirkman, George A. Romero and Tom Clancy, we see the end of the world from the Arctic to Honolulu in Shattered Hourglass. 

Minor SPOILERS for the last two installments follow.

In this next installment of the series we have a new look at the world ravaged by the zombies created by the "anomaly" which causes the dead to rise and seek to devour the living. This story switches from previous first person narrative as journal style to a multi-POV, third person style novel which has more in common with fiction usually found in this genre. The main protagonist is still Kilroy, but now we have Special Operators, some of the original Hotel 23 survivors like John and Tara and scientists trapped in an Antarctic Research outpost. It's a dizzying array of characters providing a greater look at the global zombie outbreak. We get hints of what happened in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. 

Our focus though does remain on Kil and his drafting into Operation Hourglass, which is a mission charged with finding out what the Chinese government was working on prior to the dead rising. Inside a secret facility on the Chinese mainland, there may be a way to cure humanity and prevent the dead from continuing to rise. Meanwhile, special operators working in support of the remaining US government are working to both sustain Operation Hourglass, and to deal with the shadowy organization known as Remote Six, which may put our embattled protagonist in mortal peril. Finally, his former Hotel 23 family lives onboard the USS George Washington while trying to aid the remaining US military command and keep the American Dream from fading into undeath. 

I will admit that beginning the third installment was a bit jarring, as I had immensely enjoyed the original journal style entries and the intense focus on our single protagonist. However, the sheer scope of this tale and the many complex moving parts did necessitate an expanded cast to keep things going. It did add some freshness to the story which kept my expectations high, and allowed for more varied and scary plots. From the isolation of the Antarctic research team, to the constant running and gunning the Special Operators had engage in, I found that this story never had a dull moment.

The final twist to the story though, in my opinion, made this really worth it. There was a great set up, and an answer, to why the world suddenly became the way it did. I won't spoil it, but if you want something that works as a zombie virus story, and perhaps helps keep you in the world and a high stakes international mission, this was a great way to do it. It honestly combined everything good about Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six novel and Robert Kirkman's The Walking Dead for an exciting high stakes plot.

While I didn't enjoy it as much as the original two installments, I will admit I had a great time reading this book again for Halloween!

I will be discussing some spoilers below the cut, so if you haven't read the first two novels, I highly recommend checking them out and you can find my reviews for each, here and here. SPOILERS below! 

World War Z

 A few years ago I had the misfortune to see the Bradd Pitt film, World War Z which was extremely loosely based on Max Brooks phenomenal 2006 novel of the same name. The book though, as is often the case, is undoubtedly better. Rather than the swift running, barely discernable from their victims, monstrosities we saw in the film, here we have the classic Romero zombies which have slouched their way into my nightmares since I was a child. The world is stumbling towards its demise and consequently it becomes engulfed in the great Zombie War.

Welcome to the real World War Z

This book is, in essence, set in a similar world to the authors first novel, The Zombie Survival Guide which details the zombies seen in this story. I picked up the Zombie Survival Guide in high school, having had a recurring series of sleepless nights and nightmares regarding the undead thanks to games like Resident Evil (and its attendant film) and Dawn of the Dead. This semi-serious and slightly comedic guide to dealing with the undead really helped me overcome a semi-childish fear of being eaten alive by the undead. When I learned that there was a novel coming out set in a world besieged by the undead, it was a no brainer I was going to get it!

I also, unsurprisingly, agree with Max Brooks on why zombies are scary: "They scare me more than any other fictional creature out there because they break all the rules. Werewolves and vampires and mummies and giant sharks, you have to go look for them. My attitude is if you go looking for them, no sympathy. But zombies come to you. Zombies don't act like a predator; they act like a virus, and that is the core of my terror. A predator is intelligent by nature and knows not to overhunt its feeding ground. A virus will just continue to spread, infect and consume, no matter what happens. It's the mindlessness behind it"

With that in mind, Brooks sets out to write this fear very well. From the first bite, to the expanding hordes, we see the zombies grow in threat and menace. In a world too similar to our own!

At the time this was written, it was set in an undetermined time some twenty minutes into the future. With 2020 upon us, it becomes a bit of fun alternate history really. But the novel itself is probably the single definitive work on the zombie apocalypse. It takes us through the eyes of people all over the world from all walks of life and deals with how they struggled to survive the Zombie War.

The novel has a very American oriented focus, which simply makes sense. However, it delves into events the world over from China, India, Japan, France and even outer space! It provides a smorgasbord of fascinating little looks into how different countries fought the zombie menace or dealt with the little quirks of fighting zombies. Whether in the infamous catacombs under Paris, the constant de-thawing ghouls of Russia, or dealing with those that roam the sea floor in a terrible form of eternal damnation.

When I first read this book, and when the zombie craze was reaching it's zenith around 2012 when the film was in production, there were numerous discussions on the internet of how plausible the whole set up was. I remember how many people scoffed at how 'no one could be that stupid' or 'governments would not ignore the dead walking' and such other arguments. With others pointing out that accepting the walking dead as a fact of life would be far too difficult for some. Well, I personally think that 2020 has really put paid to the idea that people will react rationally in the face of zombies. The book's "Great Panic" is horrifically realistic.

This Great Panic was, for me, one of the high points of the book. It showed that the zombie problem had become accepted, understood, and out of control. People fleeing with no destination, outbreaks too large for the government to control, and a terrible attempt at a "shock and awe" battle at Yonkers to try and restore faith in the government. The Battle of Yonkers might be the most unrealistic moment, but it was a great piece of writing.

After this we see a series of implementations of the Redeker Plan, where governments retreat behind safe zones, hoping to ride out the wave of the undead so that they rot away. Of course, that eventually changes! And we get to see a new way of fighting the undead, and the genuine fear of the swarms in their hundreds and millions!

With later stories taking place (including one which is essentially The Hunt for Red October meets Dawn of the Dead) above and around the world, you get a wonderful feeling of this being a global war. I did enjoy how this played out in the end, and I loved feeling like humanity was not just curling up behind its walls. The post-war world might have been fleshed out a little better, and one of my personal criticisms is that the 'wrapping up' section was way to American oriented. Some vagueness and a sense of mystery is necessary of course, but for some parts I felt the novel was almost too short!

Overall though, this one is absolutely a standard read for anyone that loves the zombie genre. It's a fast read, full of unique and clever zombie action and thinking, and deserves your time this Halloween!

Origin to Exile

Two years ago I reviewed Day By Day Armageddon and commented on how it is one of my favorites in the whole genre of zombie literature. Here I present the sequel, Origin to Exile (or Beyond Exile) and would like to simply add on why I believe this novel is an amazing sequel to an already powerful first installment.

In the first novel we established that the dead now walk the land. Anyone who dies, for any reason, reanimates as a corpse hungry for the flesh of the living. Following a failed government campaign to eliminate the bulk of the walking dead, we now have to contend with radioactive zombies who not only spread deadly contagion wherever they walk, but also are more intelligent, agile, and deadly than their regular brethren. 

Now we put on our boots, load our guns, and follow our protagonist as he works his way across the horrific wasteland that is the former United States where the casualty rate is 99%. The dead surely outnumber the living, and we see a road to exile.

Spoilers for Origin to Exile follow.

Kingdom (Netflix) Season 2

Last year I was delightfully introduced to a historical drama from Korea. Set against the backdrop of the Joseon Period, Kingdom was an amazing story of a young prince on the run from a conniving minister who sought to supplant him on the throne. In the midst of it all though, a dangerous disease is reanimating the dead into flesh eating monsters who have now overrun the entirety of one province. Can young Prince Yi Chang overcome the odds against him to overthrow the scheming plots of Cho Hak-jo and Queen Yeong-shin jein, or will the tide of the undead sweep over all the realm?

From here out there are SPOILERS so be warned! I will be assuming you have read the first blog post or have at least watched Season 1. If you haven't, drop what you're doing and go watch it now!

From heavenofhorror.com

As a minor preamble, there was a big change from Season 1 where the series was in the original Korean with English subtitles. I assume that the popularity of the show led to the decision for Netflix to make an English dub for a foreign audience. It makes me curious whether they have put the first season on an English dub option, so more incentive to re-watch! I don't mind subtitles or dubs, but this is just to let any potential viewers who might find them distracting be aware!

Zombieland: Double Tap

A few nights ago I was thrilled to sit down and watch a film which comes ten years later as a sequel to one of my all time favorite movies. That film was the unexpected, but much appreciated Zombieland: Double Tap.

The original Zombieland was a surprise hit comedy, poking fun at both the early 2000s and the zombie genre in general. It had a cast of actors who were all up and coming (with the exception of Harrelson, as well as one enormously funny cameo) and has become a small cult classic in the zombie genre. Making over four times its budget it should well be considered a hit, and I still find it an uproariously funny movie to this day. It even spawned a short lived pilot for a television series in 2013 which sadly didn't get off the ground. Though, with the saturation of popular media with shows like Z Nation and The Walking Dead, maybe that isn't a bad thing.

The film is a surprise return to the big screen by some big name actors to a relatively niche production! Jessie Eisenburg, Woody Harrelson, Emma Stone and Abigail Breslin all come back to pick up their roles as Columbus, Tallahassee, Wichita and Little Rock respectively. It shouldn't need to be said that each of these actors has gone on to bigger and better things, that they would be willing to come back to such a strange film is perhaps a testament to how much they enjoyed the original.

Picking up ten years later, we follow our survivors as they traverse the zombie infested ruins of what was once America. We find that the zombies have evolved, the dopey and relatively unintelligent "Homers", the predatory and learning "Hawkings" who can find efficient ways to kill their prey and the "Ninjas" who are silent but deadly hunters. Setting up shop in the Oval Office, the foursome decide that they've found a place to hole up and lay low for a while. However, the strain of years begins to take its toll, Columbus and Wichita's relationship is fraying and the overbearing Tallahassee is starting to rub the all grown up Little Rock the wrong way. Finally having enough, Little Rock and Wichita run off, leaving the two men to each other's dubious company.

Soon though, the come across another survivor, the bubbly, blonde, pink (and somehow not terminally dumb) Madison (Zoey Deutch). Joining the gang, they set out to find the wayward girls, which is made more difficult by more evolved and vicious zombies. Across the wasteland again they drive, also looking for a new home and a clue maybe at the community called Babylon.

From Bloody Disgusting

From there the film does deliver on some fun action scenes, great gore and hilarious comedy. The actors still have it and their chemistry is well put together. They feel like a family and good friends at least. The new additions to the film crank up the comedy in a lot of unexpected ways, and do a good job at engaging and subverting out expectations. Whether it is Nevada (Rosario Dawson) or Berkeley (Avan Jogia) you'll be pleasantly surprised by the characters who turn up.

Is it as good as the original though? Some minor spoilers below if you haven't seen either film!

The Dead Don't Die

As a long time connoisseur of the zombie genre, I was pleased to discover a few months ago that we were supposed to be getting an ensemble, all star cast for a new zombie comedy The Dead Don't Die. Looking like a big homage to the tropes and fun of the best the zombie genre had to offer, its' trailer played well and had me hooked from the first time I saw it. Starring, Bill Murray, Adam Driver, Chloe Sevigny, Steve Buscemi, Tilda Swinton, Danny Glover and Selena Gomez, to name only a few! The cast is actually quite large and very likable, with what I thought were for sure going to be some stellar performances!

Did we get that? Well, we got something...

Set in the town of Centerville (A Nice Place) it follows the work of Sheriff Cliff Robertson (Murray), Ronnie (Driver) and Minerva "Mindy" (Sevigny) and others from the small town as they deal with some inexplicable changes caused by polar fracking. The day is longer, the moon emits a strange 'toxic' glow, and strange things are happening in the cemetery.

Robertson is first going after local Hermit Bob (Tom Waites) who Farmer Miller (Buscemi) has accused of stealing his chickens. We then have the the two policemen driving away and leaning very abruptly on the fourth wall when Ronnie comments that the song The Dead Don't Die, by Sturgill Simpson, is the theme song for the film after Robertson comments that it sounds very familiar. Get used to this song, this joke is gonna be overused a lot. There is a pretty cleverly done establishing shot done as the police cruiser goes by all the various locations we will be seeing as the film goes on.

We meet more of the town's denizens at a local diner, Hank (Glover), Farmer Miller, and a scene with some juvenile delinquents locked up in the county juvy center, Geronimo (Jahi Winston), Olivia (Taliyah Whitaker), and Stella (Maya Delmont). There's also local gas store/paraphernalia shop owner Bobby Wiggins (Caleb Landry Jones), motel owner Danny Perkins (Larry Fessenden) and travelling at the head of some 'city hipsters' is Selena Gomez as Zoe. Finally we have Tilda Swinton as the new local mortician, Zelda Winston.

The zombie weirdness begins one night as two 'coffee zombies' attack the diner and devour locals Fern and Lilly in a genuinely unsettling scene. It has some dark humor to it as the zombies recognize coffee and quit their mauling to ineptly swig some back before shuffling on. Now, these two zombies are played by Iggy Pop and Sara Driver, so you'd expect them to show up again. Other than a single scene where they are walking around with the coffee pots... they're kind of irrelevant.

Following this is an amusing sequence where we once again see some well done humor as a three part take with each police officer viewing the scene goes on. Then we finally get some delightful weirdness from Swinton's character Zelda as she wanders around in odd ways, speaks strangely (addressing people by their full names) and has jerky, almost planned moves when she isn't wielding her katana.

Next the zombies begin to follow in waves, and as the undead begin to slowly overwhelm the town. Madness ensues.

Something I should pause to praise is the zombies themselves. While they are the usual undead shamblers, the actors and extras who play them just dig into the roles and damn they do it well! And rather than big bloody sprays of gore, when the zombies are killed they instead shoot out these black dust clouds. It's a unique and very visually appealing touch that I think should be applauded.

From here we get intervening bits of well executed horror, some good bits of comedy, and a lot of flat jokes. Some of it is well executed, especially in the second act as I found myself laughing uproariously at Driver and Murray's banter with Sevigny, then Swinton just stole every scene she was in. But the first hour of the film tends to drag, with only a few well done jokes. Then the finale comes across as, well, confusing.

Now, past this cut there be spoilers, you have been warned. Sadly, it is almost impossible to do a good critique of the film without them.

Black Summer

If you have ever watched the fun/gory Z-Nation on television on Netflix, you'll be pleasantly surprised that the same team behind that have gotten together to put on a great little miniseries in a zombie filled world. However, this time we have a series which is not only terrifying, but an amazing testament to the zombie genre as a whole.

This is the eight episode series Black Summer

Set six weeks into the ongoing zombie apocalypse, we follow a diverse cast of characters who are struggling to survive and find somewhere safe to run. We are first shown a trio of people on the run, waiting for the end of a bombing run in order to be evacuated to a safe zone. On the way, we see many other refugees on the run, and get introduced to a colorful and diverse cast of characters.

Things quickly go to hell though as we discover one of the trio has been bitten. The military immediately bugs out and drives off, leaving a mother and father suddenly without their child. From there, we play catch up as other characters moments intersect and converge, with many unintended consequences and struggles. But as a warning, don't get too attached to any of these characters, the show plays for keeps.

From the cowardly survivor Lance, mysterious Spears, to the non-English speaking Sun, we have a great little cast of characters who are unique and clever. Though having little or no background they aren't completely well rounded. They're acted amazingly though, putting you in their situation rather than their story.

They're not prepared for the apocalypse, at all, and it shows. Rarely are the zombies killed easily, and often they cause lots of trouble and only fail to kill people by their limited intelligence. That the world seems to be in its death throes doesn't help, as soldiers are overwhelmed and it seems all civil government has essentially broken down.

With its short run time, it's an easy binge. Though, with how scary some episodes are you may find yourself not wanting to binge watch!

Each scene is well shot, usually from a close angle which puts you right in the characters head space. We see their facial expressions, and can really feel the terror they are undergoing. The subtle use of music and ambient sounds makes you cringe. Something as simple as the background noise of an air conditioner really got my heart pounding at one point as I just expected a zombie to come running out at the characters on screen!

The conservation of detail too, with characters facing only one or two zombies at a time early on, made it really terrifying. Even one monster was too much to handle for most, and was a totally life threatening situation, even when a character was armed!

One particularly jarring episode takes place in a high school, and let me just say, if you think children are innocent, you may not think so after watching this! The use of little details to perturb, scare, and crank up your expectations really pays off at the end. It culminates in bits of creeping fear and a series of non stop chases which keep you guessing at who will live or die until the very end.

All in all, there isn't too much overarching story beyond a mother looking for her daughter during the apocalypse. That allows for some scant meaningful plot and leaves very little in the way of meaningful details to be examined as the story goes on. It's meant as a short piece which will tug at your brain and leave you wondering when the zombies will show up, or who is or isn't going to make it out.

As a brief horror mini series, I'd happily recommend it. It has all the right scares and all the right tension. Worth a watch.

Kingdom (2019 Netflix)

If you think that media has run out of ways to give us fun zombie stories, whoo boy are you wrong! If Game of Thrones and The Walking Dead had a baby, well it would look surprisingly less Caucasian than you think. I give you the period drama/zombie series Kingdom from Netflix!

From Netflix

This isn't actually the first zombie piece to make its way from Korea. That distinction in popular culture belongs to 2016's Train to Busan which premiered the South Korean zombie genre to Western audiences. Notable for lacking much of the intense gore that zombie films in the West would know, it focuses more on terror and the stress of always being on the run. Kingdom is a similar fair, but with a twist.

Set in the Joseon period, shortly after the the Japanese invasions of the 1590s, setting the story sometime in early 1600. We find the realm is in chaos. The king is deathly ill with smallpox, and his realm is run by his Chief Minister, Cho Hak-jo whose daughter is the young queen of the realm and is expecting a child. The chief ministers clan is unpopular, and events are kicked off by a series of notices proclaiming the king is really dead and Crown Prince Yi Chang should be elevated to the throne. Meanwhile, at a medical clinic at Jiyulheon, nurse Seo-bi is attempting to care for the multitude of sick and hurt while her master is away, and the political fall out of the capital effects her and the struggling populace.

The machinations of the Prince and Chief Minister culminate in the Prince fleeing the capital seeking out Seo-bi's master who was treating his father. Sadly, the master has intimate knowledge of the disease and the unsettling fact it brings people back from the dead. It also gives them a craving for human flesh, which Seo-bi finds out to her horror as the infection arrives at Jiyulheon.

From there the story takes a number of dramatic twists and turns, which will leave you both stressed and excited. The tension between the political drama and the encroaching zombie outbreak is well played, and compliments each story arc well. It also sends a brutal message about the ruling dynasty and elites compared to the poor peasants who begin to take the brunt of the zombie attacks. The aloof elites and haughty disbelievers think they can use the outbreak to their advantage, while the normal people are struggling to survive even day to day after a decade of war and high taxes. The zombies only make it worse.

Taking us away from the modern zombie outbreaks, you get a real sense of terror as you see people armed with only hand tools, swords, spears and bows and arrows struggling to cope with the zombie infestation. Every dead person adds to the ranks of the undead, and with only rudimentary firearms, its an uphill battle to contain the dead. Ratcheting up the tension as its always going to be hard to go for the brain perfectly when all you have is a pointy stick.

Aptly advertised by Joe Abercrombie on Twitter

Come for the zombies, stay for the characterisation, political machinations, and superfly headwear. https://t.co/PQ3BB2Z52h

— Joe Abercrombie (@LordGrimdark) January 31, 2019

It sums up the appeal of the show quite well.

The producers have gone all out to create an authentic feeling medieval Korean set and showpiece, with loving detail put into the costumes, sets, and characters. This, I think, adds to the power of the story by pulling us out of the usual modern setting and plunging us back centuries to when the world was less interconnected and familiar, but no less susceptible to the shuffling hordes of the undead.

That the characters are compelling and three dimensional also adds to it. The human element is more engaging, and feels less forced than anything you see on The Walking Dead, while giving deeper scope than regular zombie movies like Dawn of the Dead. The machinations of the politicians and lords add an extra layer of danger to the series. Ruthless politicians use the outbreak to try and contain their rivals while the Prince himself isn't above politicking and using people, and even those close to him might be giving him away in exchange for a price. You'll just fall in love with these characters and the stories they tell.

As historical fiction, with a zombie twist, it is superb. Definitely put this one on your to watch list!

Day By Day Armageddon

Well for my latest review, I'm going to take you back to a simpler time when zombies were all the rage, and they weren't the stars of AMC's The Walking Dead and the White Walkers weren't threatening to cross the Wall. Instead they were simply coming to eat you from the safety of your own living room.

In that vein Day By Day Armageddon should be considered a classic of the zombie literary genre.

This story by J.L. Bourne is presented in diary format, much like Dracula, but with only one POV. Here we enter into the world of one Kil, a former US military aviator who decides to keep a comprehensive journal as a New Years resolution. This is fortunate because he's just in time to chronicle the end of the world.

Reports begin to emerge of a mysterious virus ravaging the population in China. Though the government tries to hush it up, it soon becomes clear that the virus is very contagious, and extremely deadly to all who catch it. The infected become violent and hostile, attacking the uninfected and... well you can see where this is going can't you?

Kil begins chronicling the outbreak from the comfort of his own home in San Antonio, where he does his best to hunker down and ride out the storm. Unfortunately, he begins to see that society at large is starting to fall apart and as the disease breaks containment, he must begin an epic saga of survival, chronicling it all in his journal. He does this so if he dies someone will know what happened, and so he can remain sane.

That's great for us since we wouldn't have a story otherwise!

The first person narrative gives us a great window inside Kil's head as he struggles to come to terms with a world gone literally to hell around him. He has difficulty adjusting to a world gone mad, and the fact that he has to deal with the dead trying to eat him on a daily basis. Seeking just a little bit of humanity he is lucky, encountering other survivors and working together with them in order to survive the total breakdown of the end of the world. From his enigmatic neighbor John, to other survivors and families he meets along the way, even a dog.

Unable to simply, stay put, he bugs out in order to try and get as far away from a high concentration of the undead as possible. This sets us on a journey across the apocalyptic wasteland which was once the United States, one now ravaged by the zombie apocalypse, and a desperate fight against the zombie hordes by surviving military forces trying to reclaim the American continent from the dead.

One thing I like about the story is that the first person narrative gives us an excellent look into the narrator's state of mind. You feel what he feels, and you see things from his, and only his, point of view throughout the story. The fear is real as he relates escapes from near death, and we feel for his companions as it becomes clear at any moment that they could be eaten. The creepy events he experiences stick with you, and it is chilling reading about his early encounters with the undead.

While it is a central conceit the author survive's if we're reading this journal...that's not a guarantee. Considering the number of other doomed survivors whose logs we come across, it's a scary possibility the story could just pick up from someone else's point of view as they come across his last will and testament. But thankfully the author doesn't shuffle off his mortal coil. In this book at least.

Bourne does a great job of showing the collapse of society. From falling satellites to failing power grids, we feel it as the world we know just falls apart. The internet fails, news broadcasts simply cease, and our ability to interact with our fellow man falls by the wayside as the dead isolate us more thoroughly than we can imagine. With little vignettes of the end of the world scattered throughout (encountering a zombified hiker walking the highway eternally in a thunderstorm, an undead infant in a car seat, a humorous message on a bloody apron, ect.) we get chilling insights into how the world has simply collapsed. Many of which, though we may have questions about them, we will never know the answer to what happened.

That paints a haunting picture of a world where mankind is no longer the dominate species. Eternally on the run from the new top predator and outnumbered millions to one.

Despite this, the story still gives us reason to hope. The protagonists stumble from one place of safety to the next, managing to find some measure of community and solace. They look out for one another and protect each other (none of the typical backstabbing and murder drama that punctuates the almost predictable Walking Dead series) and we even see that some semblance of the US government is around and trying to protect people.

Yeah the world is ending, but people can still be people. Good ones at that.

The zombie killing is fun, and to me killing zombies never gets old. Maybe not as creative with the wanton destructive as some stories, it still reads well and it is nice to see some more practical methods of dead dispatching versus over the top gore fests. We also get some fun revelations that the zombies are not quite just undead automatons, but the whole how and why of this armageddon is a treat the reader should enjoy for themselves.

Mr. Bourne also knows his stuff quite well. He presents Kil's story as one of a man who is used to prepping, and so that shines through. From lists of supplies and ammunition, to drawings and doodles that map out his current location. He also avoids the common trope in this type of fiction of waxing poetically about firearms and their different calibers and whatever, instead distilling things down to the practical level making it a quick and easy read.

Now I was lucky enough to buy this in a two book pack which contains both the first novel, and its sequel Beyond Exile which continues the story. There are two further installments after that, and I think all of them keep things going quite nicely.

Reading this book in October has become a sort of Halloween tradition for me, combining my love of the zombie genre with some fun spooks. I think that if you like a good novel, and even if you're tired of zombies, its worth picking up just to enjoy it!

World War Z (Film)

Well readers here I am critiquing the most recent zombie film of the year. That film of course is the same-title-of-the-book-but-different film called World War Z.

Now as some of you (but hopefully most) may know this movie is based of a book of the same name by author Max Brooks (and yes he is related to that other Brooks) and is a continuation of the mythos set up in the Zombie Survival Guide he wrote some years previously. The film however, is an in-name-only adaptation with the sense that the is a world wide zombie apocalypse going on.

A while ago I saw the first trailer and upon realising it wouldn't be a movie version of the book decided I would cease to put it past Brad Pitt and give the movie a second chance in my mind. I realised that the film would be a mythos unto-itself and felt that instead of criticizing the film for not being enough like the book I would decide to let bygones by bygones and watch it and enjoy it for what it is.

Though what is this film you ask? Well read on and find out!

First off though let me set down two of the films largest pre-showing failures. The first is that in a very controversial move for a zombie film it only has a rating of 14A which is well below the R rating most zombie films get. This of course removes any gore factor the movie could have provided and stops the idea of zombies eating people from being an issue on screen. These two things are bad in and of themselves as it removes the gore/cannibalism factor that is mostly essential to the zombie genre. The second is that the film right off the bat bills itself as more of another over the top action film which looks incredibly cheesy to say the least.

Now the film itself is something that opens up on a rather confusing note playing some very interesting music over a number of strangely irrelevent images of nature and humanity (some showing animals being eaten) but tells us nothing about the plot or where we will be seeing the story set. We then get a cut to a scene of Gerry Lane's (Brad Pitt) children jumping on him to wake him up. Then a thinly done spread of news reports referencing a very vague blink-and-you-miss-it rabies outbreak and the implimentation of martial law...somewhere? I really can't remember. We then cut to downtown Philiadelphia where Lane is stuck in traffic. His mirror is smashed off by a speeding police car and then another police officer is killed when a garbage truck driven by either a man who is turning or being attacked (you can't tell) is smashing through traffic.

Then zombies show up. And by show up I mean some people who you can barely differentiate from the running masses of people around them start attacking people. Due to the restrictions on footage of people being eaten we see the zombies bite people then run off to bite more people. In a 28 Days Later style fast turn the people die and reanimate into zombies (this using the loosest sense of the word) in seconds. They then turn into an unidentifiable mass of running people who tackle others so it is essentially impossible to tell attacking zombies from fleeing people.

The first ten minutes and already the film is looking like a disaster! You can't tell the zombies from their victims and you don't even understand where they came from! This could have been fixed with the whole walking zombie thing. They could be blood soaked shamblers wandering into the crowd and grabbing people forcing them down making for a confusing panic as people run away. That's a big detractor.

Next we amble on into some looting territory as Brad Pitt struggles to get supplies to his family and a UN administrator (Fana Mokoena) agrees to help him get out of dodge on a helicopter. He then stumbles upon a Spanish family who lets them hide in their apartment for the night. The next morning the family escapes and shows an astounding degree of common sense by improvising a bayonet for Pitt's rifle, tying ropes around their wastes to prevent them from getting lost, and having noise discipline. (All pretty survivalist if you ask me). This then leads to a truly great scene where they have to shuffle back and forth from hallways in a dimly lit building and make their way to the roof.

I will admit that even though I knew what was going to happen I was legitimately stressed out and sucked in. To that I give the director props since this will later be a staple of the movie. The scene was done well and you actually felt a sense of dread as the characters stumbled around not 100% sure of their destination. Accompanied by crazy music and wonderful direction this is probably one of the best scenes in the movie, next to the ending of course.

The stressful scenes, great lighting and actor coordination (though not acting) are probably the high points of this film with one scene being masterfully coordinated in each section, from the overrun US base in Korea to the rapid run through Israel, and the well done finale in the WHO research center in Wales. Each scene is a pump action thrill ride as you are kept guessing at which secondary characters will survive (since obviously Pitt can't die) and just how close Pitt will come to serious mutilation. Sadly the zombie killing is either kept to a minimum or is masked by dim lighting and good camera work or cut away shots.

Truth be told I am rather impressed the film manages to make it still feel stressful or the zombies seem scary without the gore and guts.

Though let's take a break to talk about the zombies for a moment. As stated earlier, in the beggining of the film you can hardly tell an attacking zombie from a running human, that isn't helped as time goes on. Sure they start to look more bestial and kinda sickly, but for all intents and purposes they are lame and don't fit the zombie mould other than a few hamfisted attempts at scary makeup.

I guess it could be a zombie, or a really angry hobo.

In the movie they emit cries similar to the necromorphs in Dead Space which while when you can't see them it's scary but when you can its underwhelming. They run, which as zombies go is a problem that deserves a whole other article to express, and they seem to be able to return from the dead in seconds. This isn't the only way they flout science! No they act like African Driver Ants and come in swarms which are able to clog entire streets, or in one infamous instance, form a less that human semi-pyriamid and scale a hundred foot wall...somehow.

Pictured: Zombies...I guess...

Let me now address the two worst sequences in the film. The first is a sequence which takes place in Israel and is basically ripped off part and parcel from the book with the character of Jurgen Warmbrumm and his entire speech ripped straight from the novel along with the whole giant wall section. This feels out of place and shoehorned in since unlike the rest of the film is has something to do with the novel. It was rather annoying to watch since it seemed to contribute nothing to the film (other than adding the character Segen and getting Israel eaten as the zombies come in) other than showing so much changed between even the trailer and the film itself with dialogue going from 'Russia is a black hole' from the trailer to 'India is a black hole' in the film (making an even larger change to seem that unlike in the book the outbreak starts in India, which shows that Hollywood is probably more sensitive about upsetting China and Russia than India).

The Israel sequence is doubly bad since the zombies impossibly scaling the wall is more irritating because the reason they eventually decide to scale it is ridiculous! The film establishes the zombies are attracted to sound, and yet the wall around Israel (not to mention the copious ammounts of traffic coming in) must be carrying sound for miles. Yet when people start singing on a loudspeaker that is when the zombies decide to scale it. It seems to have been added in for no other reason that to give us another thrill sequence, which I didn't enjoy as much mostly for the stupidity of it.

The second worst sequence is the plane incident where the zombies basically crash a plane after one infected soul gets inside and tears shit up. It speaks for itself how bad it is since I decided that it was so boring I could take a bathroom break and I was assured I missed nothing. The ending was basically just any other movie crash.

Then we have the contrived plot twist at the end which saves humanity. After that is some awesome sequences of people running from zombies. If the movie had been like that I would have loved the whole thing! However the amazing stresser sequences still worked perfectly well for my taste and made something that would have otherwise been unbearable, bearable.

Though let's face facts however, this is not a zombie movie. This is a movie where we see Brad Pitt go from one scene to another and run from faux zombies who you never really see. Sure there are some tense and fun moments, and you can get swept up in the excitement of certain scenes, but this isn't really a good movie and there are no characters other than Pitt's who stick out.

For characters there are his bland and mostly annoying family members, a young premier scientist who promptly dies, a semi-useless UN big shot, and a colorful cast of extras who don't do much with Pitt's character leading the way to victory each time. So yeah there never is any doubt that Pitt is the most important person in the world, and we never get to see anyone else do anything amazing save for screw up and leave Brad to save the day.

My final thoughts on the film are that it's ok. It's not great, not terrible, but not to good either. It has its moments, some fun action scenes, and a number of fun bits that can be interesting to watch. Hell I might even see it again when it's out of theatres. If a friend buys it.

Sadly it's not what World War Z could (or should) have been. We don't get the good zombie drama we should have, and we certainly don't get the world destroying apocalypse we were promised. Instead we see Brad Pitt running from place to place never doing anything.

Instead of this:

We get this:

For two hours.

In the end though we just have to remember this film is possibly going to have sequels, and that is the real apocalypse.

2 stars out of 5, and that's being generous.

Gorn (or the Etiquette of Blood and Gore)

Readers let it be known I am no stranger to the concept of blood and gore in stories, nor am I opposed to it. Sometimes though we just have to find a better way to use it. Today I talk about gorn (and boy is the page image for that accurate).

Now of course I'm not referring to the alien from Star Trek.

This alien for those of you who are wondering

No today I instead talk about (as quoted from TVtropes) the 'extreme and sadistic violence, to the point of prurience. A portmanteau of "gore" and "porn". The term can refer to just an extremely graphic scene of bloodshed, or the entire sub-genre of torture films in the spirit of Saw'. And of course if that's not explanitory enough for you, let's just say that it's blood and gore for blood and gores sake.

Now that's not to say that the application of gore is a bad thing, in fact some of the best video games and horror movies use bloody murder to captivate/horrify their audiences and wratchet up the action in the game/film. In fact in some cases it can be downright hilarious! That is, if it is used tastefully and applied well.

Some video games just tend to suffer from over the top gore with blood dripping from the screen, these aren't even necessarily horror games, but action games which have ridiculous ammounts of blood and guts just seemingly for the sake of it! It can be fun, but after a while it is just boring, and incredibly juvenile. You won't see much evolution in gameplay terms as long as developers concentrate on this!

I'm no stranger to liberal gore, some of my favorite video games include the Dead Space series, Gears of War, and Resident Evil. Now none of these games is exactly light on violence. In fact Gears of War is billed as being a violent action game with some of the over the top violence being the selling point. I mean when your using a chainsaw bayonet to saw through a Locust Drone while screaming 'yeeeeaaaaah!' along with the character on the screen you can't exactly claim you aren't enjoying it.

Case in Point, vis Destructoid

Now this is a game which is sold on over the top action along with a mediocre story. Here's the thing though, the weapons and violence sell it. They are larger than life and improbable, which combined with good gameplay mechanics and interesting hammy characters we have something that sells quite well.

Looking at Dead Space, you have something which is basically zombies in space. They have scything talons and go around infecting people by driving a proboscus into the player characters head or removing his limbs from his torso in various gory and creative ways. These are all items that are expected in a zombie style game, and as watchers/players of that particular genre we now expect that people will be messily devoured and zombie heads will explode through high velocity lead poisoning (or plasma cutter related work injuries) and that is pretty much what we watch the genre for. The Walking Dead would not be what it is without the proper application of zombies eating people and zombies being killed by people. Done in proper context and shown well it is what viewers enjoy.

However, few people want to see a show or game where the zombies win and eat everyone, or all the main characters are messily devoured in pointless ways. Admittedly some people were rooting for the zombies in Land of the Dead (I wasn't) but no one really wanted to see them win!! What they wanted to see was the plucky human characters defeat the evil villains and if the zombies helped do that, great! If not, well, putting a bullet in their brains isn't a terrible idea.

The reason you can't have a zombie as a sympathetic character (most of the time) is that they are human eating machines, and as such are beyond the sympathy of people. You don't want to see them messily devour someone who might be innocent, and you don't want them to win in the end. In fact I've only ever read one series which did this well, is The Rising by Brian Keene.

The thing is though, that mindless gore will be a given when a zombie is the main character, just like if the main character in a movie is a slasher. We will have to sit through ages of the villain/monster killing people, now this can be done well by being downplayed in favor of the horror of this person winning, or it can be done poorly by dragging out the horrible torture for ages.

A point in case of this being done well is actually the first Saw. I personally may not have liked it, but, I will concede that it was not especially gory and used the terror it created in a decent fashion for reeling the audience into the characters awful dilemma. The sequels however, instead turned up the gore and violence and had people dying for no other reason than for us to see them brutally murdered on screen. Another movie which invokes this trope, is Hostel which is literally a movie with no point other than seeing young tourists having sex, then being kidnapped to be tortured to death by foreign rich people. The ludicrous ammount of gore and its ridiculous use (I mean blow torch to the eye?) makes people want to vomit. Literally none of this adds to the movie, and its more disturbing than scary, and not in a good way. It doesn't leave you asking anything about the movie, instead merely wondering who the hell would come up with this plot?

It's hard for people (most people) to sit through a film where teenagers are being slaughtered left and right with no reason. Some movies today will spend mindless ammounts on gore budgets just to get realistic looking slit jugulars or ripped out rib cages. In fact some movies have decided to just ditch the concept of plot or characterization altogether in order to show scantily clad co-eds being ripped apart or hacked up in order to appeal to the lowest denominator in advertising.

This film being a recent offender

You see gore isn't what people expect from a horror movie. What they expect is to be scared or terrified, and in truly well done cases ask fundamental questions about their own humanity and what constitutes a monster. Yes they expect blood, yes they expect murder, but what they don't expect is for the set to be drenched in so much blood you could fill a swimming pool. Sometimes just finding a dead and mutilated body is much better than having to watch that character be mutilated and then have their friends stumble upon the scene moments later. It just saves time and can increase terror.

The fact of the matter is that lots of horror today suffers from a lack of substance and a ridiculous infusion of severed heads and spurts of blood flying around for no reason I could point out. Even in video games (like Left 4 Dead) the gore begins to become an impediment when you can't even see the screen properly through the layers of blood. In fact one of the reasons the Resident Evil series has suffered recently is the fact that it has become self aware of the gory nature of the transformations and monsters and is just playing them up for kicks! This is in no way interesting, and really doesn't appeal to most players who are looking for an exciting horror survival (or maybe in the far future an actualy horror!) game with puzzles.

Crime dramas today are also becoming dependent on gory murder rather than the idea of solving crime. Thankfully however, some shows are coming out which deal less with us following demented serial killers as they butcher people in 'creative' ways (such as in the ever sinking Criminal Minds series) or the psuedo-science and ripped open bodies as seen on CSI, and instead lead us to the enjoyable 'murder as a framing device' plots of great crime dramas and character driven stories such as Castle (which in my opinion is probably the best crime drama on TV right now).

Literature isn't immune from this either. Some series take the gory horror to a ridiculous level. Many modern Lovecraft books begin having freakish monsters messily and slowly disembowling their victims for no real reason. Some novels (like some particular moments in the Sword of Truth series) just have long torture sequences (committed by the heroes no less) and use them for what might have been a metaphor about war, but it is lost in the ensuing random 'heroic' violence that follows.

In fact much of the literary genre of horror has also come to try and depend on gory monster attacks rather than the physical horror of such monsters, or being alone, isolated and under attack by otherworldly creatures! The Slenderman mythos is so scary not because of any gore which might be in it (and there rarely is any) but because of the sense this tall suited blank faced creature can chase you down anywhere and then...well what exactly he does do when he catches you is left to the reader, and that makes it all the more scary!! No gore necessary but maximum scare fest!

It's the unknown or monstrous that usually scares people, not the sight of someone being dismembered or a college co-ed having her still beating heart ripped out and force fed to her. While those images are disturbing I wouldn't call them terrifying in and of themselves. I mean I've seen uncensored battlefield casualty photos which are gorier than these films and while it makes me feel sick it doesn't make me particularly scared.

What writers (and more importantly, executives) need to learn is that you can't just appeal to the common denominator base that looks for bloody gore and sex while expecting to win out in the box office. People tend to quickly tire of that kind of thing, and it ends up with the same repetetive, boring, predictable, and idiotic, plots that people really only go to see from boredom. Just putting bloody murder onto a screen and expecting it to sell is not an incredibly successfull business plan (hell even the classic 'sex sells' mantra fails if you underestimate your audiences intelligence).

What horror and action writers should learn is that you can't abandon plot for silly gimmicks and expect to be wildly successfull in your careers. Hopefully this can end with a thrilling psychological horror movie coming out that serves to scare me because it's actually scary, and not because the script says its scary by decapitating some teenagers.

Now here's a picture of a zombie getting it's head blown off.

Until next time readers!

The Undead Menace

Ah readers, this subject always warms my still beating heart. The undead have always held a special place for me in literature and filmography. Zombies in fact are among some of my favorite things to read/write about. Although I've longed to jump on the recent zombie craze I simply haven't found enough to write about with them, or a story that has really stuck with me. Sadly this is something I shall then have to leave for another time.

However, zombies are not the only creatures that inhabit the shadow halls of the necropolis in which dwell the various monsters that we can count among the legions of the damned.

For a better look at these creatures my task here today is to list them off and examine just what kind of horrors they could unleash upon mankind.

First off let us begin by examining probably one of the oldest and most time honored variaties of the undead around, ghosts!

1# Ghosts

Now I can just hear some of you saying 'Wait! Ghosts aren't the undead!' to which I say, wrong! Ghosts are the spirits of people who have passed on (that is to say deceased)(which is to say, dead) and have returned to haunt the living. If that isn't undead in one form I'll eat my hat!

The ghost has been a popular image and idea dating back for as long as humanity can collectively remember. Evil spirits coming back and haunting the living is no new tale. The ancient Romans even believed you could exact revenge on someone using a ghost by scratching a name onto a note and leaving it on a grave!

Soothsayers and seers have used (or 'used' as the case my be) ghosts to try and predict the future or answer questions for millenia, dating back even to Biblical tales! This idea has persisted up until the 21st century and shows no sign of abating yet among the populace who hungrily seek answers to unaswered questions.

Now for horror purposes ghosts continue to be popular. The souls of the damned coming to haunt people or give warnings (as in the movie Shutter) and they hold a special niche in horror movies as monsters and villains like in The Woman in Black and ghosts certainly hold a special place in Gothic horror simply for its emphasis on curses and mysteries. Well nothing is more gut wrenching or mysterious than trying to unravel the mystery of a cursed house while the formed occupant is trying to kill you!

I myself am not particularly fond of ghosts, but I do get a kick out of ghost stories and the telling of them in the dark. I will also admit that I can enjoy scaring myself with them from time to time. It's a fun passtime, but one that I ultimately don't intend to do much with.

However, we have another type of undead which is also surprisingly common around the world, and has its own mix of legends and tales in different cultures. That my dear readers is, the vampire!

#2 Vampires

As pointed out above, the creatures that are seen in Twilight are absolutely not vampires. They are at best creatures which could conceivably resemble, or share certain traits with these undead creatures, but they are not vampires. While they may have some features which in other works might be considered cool, they themselves are bland, unexciting, and terrible.

Ahem, end rant.

Real vampires are bloodsucking creatures of the night which feast upon the blood of the living. These range from being cursed creatures, biological infections, demonic powers, or descendents of Lilith. Either way no matter how you slice them these monsters are strong, fast, and drink lots of red stuff.

Going back in time we have tales of blood drinking monsters in every culture. They took many shapes and many forms, but all were known to drink blood, be hideous, horrifying and undead.

In fact superstition about vampires continued well into the 18th and early 19th century with many villages in Eastern Europe going on a frenzy of stakings bu digging up bodies and running them through with iron rods after reports of people rising from the grave. The hysteria came to such a height that the court physician of the Austrian Empire had to personally go to the countryside to prove that vampires did not exist.

However, the idea that vampires still stock the night continues to be very real in some people's minds. For instance there was the Highgate hysteria surrounding a supposed vampire stalking the cemetery, then we have the disturbing case of the Atlas Vampire, and finally the somehwhat perplexing case of the 2007 staking of the former Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic. As one can see, the vampire tradition is alive and well today.

The more modern suave and sexy vampire is a very recent creation. Popularized more by Bram Stoker and before him, Varney the Vampire the standard setter for the genre. However, Stoker's creepy count's castle set the standard for what vampires were for nearly a century. The dark dangerous Dracula would appear in many forms and many realizations beoming the standard for what we now view as the modern vampire.

There are of course departures. Modern takes on vampire literature move it from being some magical curse into the realm of biological virus unleashed on an unsuspecting human populace. From the monstrous and disturbing vampires of The Strain to the military supermen gone wrong monsters in Justin Cronan's The Passage.

In film we also get the lovely monsters of ambiguous nature from 30 Days of Night which have a truly brilliant scheme to run around and kill people in a locale they cannot escape from!

Vampires of course offer the writer a wide variety of possibilities that a writer can use, and with a little imagination can be made to be completely the writers own creation for his particular story!

Now on to a somewhat familiar, yet startilingly different creature.

#3 Ghouls

Now I hear some saying 'wait, aren't ghouls zombies?' well no actually. Ghouls are an entirely different creature despite what some media would have you believe.

The Ghoul as we would know it is very different from the original ghoul of Arabian folklore. Originally sired by Iblis (or Shaytan) they are demons and shapeshifters who most popularly take the form of hyenas and scour the deserts for the lost and unwary. They can take human form, but only that of a person they had eaten, or the most recent eaten depending on your views on the subject.

They would often roam graveyards or battlefields and feed like the carrion and take the form of the dead to then steal from the families of the living, or worse, carry off their children and eat them!!! Truly they were despicable creatures in folk tales.

As the picture above shows their reputation has not improved at all with modern retellings. In fact they have probably gotten worse! From mindless monsters roaming graveyards and sniffing out fresh corpses like human vultures, to mindless cannibal savages under the control of necromancers or simply radioactive monsters they've continued to get a bad wrap.

My favorite portrayals of them are from Fallout as the aforemention irradiated monsters, while some are civilized many are just slavering fiends. They make fun enemies and in certain situations they can be downright terrifying!

Many authors though take them and twist them in their own unique ways, I for one experimented with them in a never finished manuscript by having them as cursed magic users who were forced to sew fresh skin onto their own as they continued to have their bodies rot away. Many other writers have of course taken fascinating looks at what the ghouls can do and it is amazing what some people come up with!

Next on our list comes from a similar region, but with different ideas and abilities.

#4 Mummies

Ever since Howard Carter fell prey to the so-called 'Mummies Curse' after opening Tutankhamun's tomb people have been fascinated by these particular undead monsters. From shoddy horror movies early on to later magical and sorcerous rulers brought back from beyond the grave!

 

As you can tell I prefer this version

Personally I always preffered the films that came later. They gave more depth and imagination to the mummy monster and made it much more terrifying and have better attitude. It also wasn't a shambling corpse in bandages that I could have easily escaped from. Though the curse would have been slightly more problematic if it existed...

Aside from that the movies expanded on not only the Egyptian mummy idea, but also on the idea of mummies from other cultures, most notably the shape shifting former Chinese ruler from the Tomb of the Dragon Emperor who could summon an army of undead warriors and turn into a dragon! Now that my friends is a mummy!

Not well used in modern horror circles, they seem to have tappered off from the modern concious and been swept away by the cheap vampire and zombie tides. Even so you'll be hard pressed to find a good representation of mummies in most modern horror. I myself am hoping for a resurgence in the genre, but it may be a forlorn hope.

However, that is only the tip of the iceberg my friends! We have mummies from different cultures all over the world! From South America to Europe! Heck what I wouldn't give to see a story about a Viking chieftan and his followers rise from the grave! The potential for mummies has not yet been fully tapped!

In fact for a horror story I might just have to make my own mummy tale one day. It could take place anywhere and at any time! It would be a fascinating thing to dream up some more modern mummy tales of horror and see where it could go! Though for now I guess any details would have to be under wraps!

Now while I dodge boo's and thrown tomatoes I'll bring up the next itme. Next up on our list is another creature who has risen from the dead.

#5 Liches

Ah Liches, undead sorcerors who have returned from the dead sorcerous powers intact! I can't believe these aren't used as villains more often! Hard to kill like vampires, yet powerful in the arcane arts! What more could you ask for?

Popularized by Dungeons and Dragons, but then picked up by modern media from Warcraft and other videogames they have become a very modern version of the undead and arguably some of the most powerful!

Personally my favorite liche comes from the webcomic Looking for Group with the evil warlock, Richard. The fire spewing undead hilariously evil magic wielder is about enough to melt my heart on a regular basis.

Though beyond that we also get the powerful undead sorcerors from Warhammer in the form of Tomb Kings and Vampire Counts. I've currently been reading some of the Rise of Nagash novels, and if there was ever a better argument for necromancy using villains, I've yet to come upon one.

As a quick note necromancers will not be discussed in this article, as it is living wizards using magic to summon many undead minions. Liche's are different since they don't have to be necromancers (but it helps).

#6 Skeletons.

No necromancy but might as well talk about skeletons. Whats that? A faint shuffling sound down my hallway? Raggedy bones slowly shuffling forwards? Oh no what do I do!?

*Picks up chair and hurls it*

Oh thankfully it was smashed by that well placed object!

What? Unless skeletons get some substantial help from an outside source they're creep, but pretty useless. I'm just throwing you a bone here, what more do you want from me?

#7 Zombies

Ah finally! The masterpiece of modern undead, the slouching monsters that shamble into our nightmares and devour our dreams, (and sometimes our livers) the zombie!

Ah zombies! Since I've been a wee lad these shambling nightmares have been stumbling through my dreams and into my subconcious. What used to give me nightmares now nourishes the inner writer and lover of the macabre in me! From when I first saw them in the Resident Evil games (the originals and the REmake) I was fascinated by them.

These shuffling corpses have wormed their way into the public mind and infected our literature, our video games and finally major television networks! Ever since their big break in Night of the Living Dead by one George A. Romero they have steadily become cult and popular classics!

Don't think for a second however that zombies started there! They were actually popular waaaay back into the 1930s! They were featured in films like the famous White Zombie which prayed on both the fear of the unknown, and racist fears of things like vodoo and black magic still common at the time. This spawned many movies which would continue the zombie theme, but we can today thank Romero for the cult inspired monsters that have shambled their way into the public conciousness.

They come in many forms, from reanimated servants, to shuffling cannibals, and full tilt sprinting runners who tear apart modern societies, even demon possessed monsters from Hell!

In literature they have a plethora of works to chose from, from Lovecraft's Reanimator to Max Brooks World War Z and the Zombie Survival Guide! There truly are so many choices!

Personally I cannot say enough about zombies! And all my gushing for their brain eating wonder could not be contained to a single list about the undead! So for now I leave you with this list of the monstrous undead, their threat and the truly diverse forms of horror they come in!

So here, after quite a while, is my humble ode to the undead, may they not eat my brains!