ZombieChatter.com

I don’t have an Android phone.  I’m more of an iPhone type of guy.  However, this “Zombie Outbreak” app for the Android has me giving the Adroid a second look.

According to Gizmodo.com:

Pixel Zombies Live Wallpaper, now available for $1 in the Android Market, simulates a zombie outbreak on your phone: The red dots are zombies, the blue dots are zombie hunters, and the green dots are the doughy citizens whose brains the zombies are nom-nom-noming.

You can set the population paramaters of the groups yourself and track how they’re faring in real time. Dropping an icon acts as a nuclear bomb, leveling the playing field.

This is pretty cool if you ask me.  Using your wallpaper to actually have an on-going zombie game seems like it could be on-going simple fun, and is a testament to how more open the Android is when compared to the iPhone.  Don’t worry fellow iPhone friends, I’m not switching anytime soon, but think this is worth calling out all the same.

A week or so ago, I was able to get my hands on the yet-to-be-released Night of the Living Dead: Reanimated screener. I quickly learned that this film is a terribly interesting experiment of where film and art converge.

The premise behind the film:
Using the full original sound track (including voice, music, etc) from the 1968 classic Night of the Living Dead by George Romero, the creators of NOTLD:R replaced the original black and white video portion of the cult classic with a series of artwork from over 100 different artists.

According the NOTLD:R website,

Night of the Living Dead: Reanimated is an art show hung on the cult classic’s timeline. Every scene serves as walls to hang artworks, the audio becomes the ambiance of the space and the original narrative serves as the theme that holds the show together.

One thing of note is that the film is a no-budget creation with 100% volunteer contributed art.  That said, it certainly serves as an experiment in liberal usage of public domain.

The art used with the film is interesting in many ways.  The film uses all types of art forms including animation, puppetry, clay-motion & still imagery.  As a work of art, I believe the film does a great job in showcasing the imagination and re-imagining of a cult classic that has had such a large impact on the genre.

As a movie, I ultimately felt that something was lost.  Romero’s genius often falls within the angles & tension that he can create.  The art, although interesting & creative, in many ways eliminated that tension felt in the original.

At the end of the day, for fans of the genre and the original Night of the Living Dead, NOTLD:R is worth watching if you can get your hands on it.  If for no other reason, check it out to see the showcase of really cool art that has been created and volunteered as part of the project.  My hats off to the organizers & volunteers that created this film with no budget.  Great accomplishment!

Interested in a trailer of NOTLD:R, check it out below:

The Walking Dead, one of the best Zombie Graphic Novels of ALL time, is being transformed into a TV Mini-Series that will be aired on AMC in October.  The mini-series will be 6 episodes long, and run during AMC’s FearFest (formerly MonsterFest).

The Walking dead chronicles the travels of a group of people trying to survive in a world stricken by a zombie apocalypse.  However, this is not your standard zombie story.  The plot is vast, the characters are well developed over time, and the story has some plot twist that put the hair on the back of your neck at full alert.

Now for the major updates:

The mini-series has had some really great announcements recently.  Originally, it was reported that Frank Darabont, the director of the Shawshank Redemption and more recently the Mist, was only directing a pilot.  When I first heard about the pilot, there was a concern that some silly cable channel like Syfy or Creep would pick it up.  Those worries are over since the series has been expanded to include the entire six series direct for AMC.  AMC has done some pretty amazing series like Mad Men, so I have little fear that it will be under produced.

Recently, they have also begun casting for the major roles in Walking Dead.  The first to be cast was Jon Bernthal (“Eastwick”, the Pacific, Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian) who has been tapped to play Grimes’ partner and friend Shane.

As reported by Fangoria, the second to be cast was the main character.  English actor Andrew Lincoln will be playing Rick Grimes, a small-town police officer who leads the group of survivors including his best friend Shane, his wife and son.  Grimes has been in a number of TV movies, as well as some notable Movie roles including a significant role in Love Actually – which is a far cry from the type of role he’ll be challenged to do in Walking Dead.

One thing is for sure, this series has the potential to be one of the best of all-time.  If you’re interested in getting started with the graphic novel series – which is on-going, you can check out the hard-cover of the whole beginning of the story (much of which I suspect will be what is covered in the TV series). The best place I’ve found is on amazon.  To take a look, you can click here: The Walking Dead Compendium Volume 1

The Crazies is about the inhabitants of a small Iowa town suddenly plagued by insanity and then death after a mysterious toxin contaminates their water supply. Being a fan of the original Romero film I was pretty excited when I heard a modern version of this story was in production. Unlike most remakes, the 2010 version of The Crazies was a well executed suspenseful thriller filled with plenty of intense scenes and interesting characters. For me the most important aspect of any horror film is the attachment with the main characters. I want to have to care about what happens to them. The Crazies established this connection with the Sheriff of the town and his pregnant wife.

The majority of the movie was following these two around as members of the town and military try to brutally murder them. From Rob Zombie like hospitals to car washes of death, there was plenty of interesting environments providing the backdrop. I was also impressed with the special effects and budget of this movie. There were no moments in the movie that I thought about how unrealistic something looked.

If I had to complain about anything with this movie, it would be the disconnection with the military figureheads. The original movie had much more dialogue between the town people and the military. This added an element of tangible characters to dislike. I personally believe having bad guys that you can specifically despise lends to a more intelligent movie. I liked this movie a lot and would give it an 8/10.

Rating: B
The Crazies (2010) IMDB Link

I was reading through this book, Zombies: Encounters with the Hungry Dead, the other night, and I realized there are so many cool places you can go with the Zombie theme.  This particular book is an anthology of stories about Zombies.  It has stories written by some of the greats like Max Brooks, Ray Bradbury and Stephen King, however some of the best shorts come from some of the less known authors.  However, this is besides the point.

This book captures stories from the Vudu zombie, people coming back to life (not interested in brains), and of course your traditional Romero-Zombies who are hungry for brains.

They all have their place in the Zombie lore, and this book pulls them together nicely.

If you get a chance to pick it up, be sure to check out the short story “Great Wall: A story from the Zombie War”.  It’s actually a “deleted scene” if you will, from World War Z. Guess it didn’t make the final cut.  It’s pretty cool all the same.

Night of the Creeps on DVD and Blue-Ray

Anybody who absolutely loves the 1986 cult classic, Night of the Creeps, is ok in my book.  With that said, this movie’s fan-base has has never seen an official DVD release in the US….until now.  According to Fangoria.com, Night of the Creeps will be released on DVD and Blue-ray on October 27th – just in time for Halloween.

The movie follows a couple of un-popular geeks in college as they discover that alien brain parasites, entering humans through the mouth, turn their host into a killing zombie.

Written and directed by Fred Dekker, the same guy who wrote and directed the Monster Squad in 1987, this movie has managed to simply not make it to DVD until now.  In fact, the Monster Squad didn’t make it to DVD until just a couple of years ago (i know because I own it).

Sadly, Dekker seems to have stopped making movies after he created the horrific Robocop 3 in 1993.

The DVD & Blue-ray have some pretty cool features that I’m excited to see.  The Monster Squad features were exceptional, so I’m hoping that Night of the Creeps will be worth the wait.

Night of the Creeps Features 60 Minutes of Behind-the-Scenes material including:

• “Birth of Creeps” featuring Dekker talking about the origins of the project
• “Cast of the Creeps” featuring Jason Lively, Tom Atkins, Steve Marshall and Jill Whitlow
• “Creating The Creeps” featuring interviews with SFX creators David B. Miller and Robert Kurtzman
• A special Tom Atkins centric piece called “Tom Atkins: Man of Action”
• “Escape of the Creeps” a detailed look at the post-production.
• Deleted scenes
• Fred Dekker solo commentary
• Cast commentary featuring Atkins, Whitlow, Marshall and Lively
• The original theatrical ending
• Footage from the Cast and Crew reunion screening at the Alamo Drafthouse.

You can pre-order either one on Amazon.com.

Ohh, and remember “The good news is your dates are here. The bad news is they are dead.”

Check out the Night of the Creeps trailer here:

One of the major revelations earlier last month, when the official list of the Toronto International Film Fest was released, was the title of George Romero’s new zombie movie.  Original poster art last in January had led us all to believe that the title had yet to be created – it only said …of the Dead.

The new official title, according to TIFF.net (official Toronto International Film Fest site), is George A. Romero’s SURVIVAL OF THE DEAD.  Many had speculated that it was going to be called Island of the Dead.

Looking back at ZombieChatter.com’s “first Look” of the poster art and published synopsis, things seem to have changed a bit.

Below is the original synopsis from January:

“On a small island off North America’s coast, the dead rise to menace the living. Yet…the islanders can’t bring themselves to exterminate their loved ones, despite the growing danger from those the once held dear. A rebel among them hunts down all the zombies he can find, only to be banished from the island for assassinating his neighbors and friends. On the mainland, bent on revenge, he encounters a small band of survivors in search of an oasis on which to build a new life. Barely surviving an attack from a mass of ravenous flesh-eaters. They commandeer a zombie-infested ferry and sail to the island. There, to their horror, they discover that the locals have chained the dead inside their homes, pretending to live ‘normal’ lives…with bloody consequences. What ensues is a desperate struggle for survival and the answer to a question never posed in Romero’s Dead films: Can the living ever live in peace with the dead?”

Now take a look at the revised synopsis:

“In a world where the dead rise to menace the living, rogue soldier Crocket (Alan Van Sprang) leads a band of military dropouts to refuge from the endless chaos. As they search for a place “where the shit won’t get you,” they meet banished patriarch Patrick O’Flynn (played with zeal by Kenneth Welsh), who promises a new Eden on the fishing and ranching outpost Plum Island. The men arrive, only to find themselves caught in an age-old battle between O’Flynn’s family and rival clan the Muldoons. It turns out that Patrick was expelled from the isle for believing that the only good zombie is a dead zombie, while the Muldoons think it’s wrong to dispatch afflicted loved ones, attempting to look after their undead kinfolk until a cure is found. But their bid for stability on the homestead has turned perverse: the undead are chained inside their homes, pretending to live normal lives – and the consequences are bloody. A desperate struggle for survival will determine whether the living and the dead can coexist.”

They are similar.  However, the new one tells us more details around the drop-out soldiers and the family feud that is going on…..

One thing is for sure, Romero’s social commentary is sure to exist in this latest film.  According to Tiff.net:

The film is also a sharp subversion of the western. It can be seen as a reflection of William Wyler’s The Big Country, in which stubborn clans feuded as larger troubles raged.

I continue to be pretty excited about this one.

Here we are boys and girls one week away from the debut of the live action GI Joe movie. Last week at this time we took a look at the very first cartoon mini series, but this week I bring you news of a new mini series in the works. This one will include the help of someone that is near and dear to many of your hearts Max Brooks!

News leaked out at last week’s comic con that Max who is best know for his work as the author on hit sellers World War Z and The Zombie Survival Guide has signed on to do a new GI Joe comic book mini series next year! Not many other details have been revealed other then it will be a 5 issue run and as of now nothing more is planned.

I’ll probably wait for this to come out as a trade paperback and pick this up. The only reason I ever read comics to begin with was I was a big GI Joe fan as a kid and for the longest time I read the GI Joe comic books.

One week and counting!

According to Fangoria, the Cell by Stephen King is being made into a 4 hour TV mini-series.  The news comes strait from John Harrison, the writer/director/producer who has been commissioned to write the script. 

For those not familiar with the Cell, the plot revolves around a mysterious signal broadcast over the global cell-phone network that turns the majority of the human race into mindless, rampaging killers (or many would say zombies).

Evidently, Harrison is scripting the Cell mini-series for the Weinstein Company, which had originally planned to turn the book into a theatrical feature (with Eli Roth attached at one point to direct).  

This may possibly be good news as Harrison began his career working as 1st Ass’t Director for famed horror director, George A. Romero (Night Of The Living Dead/Creepshow). He wrote and directed multiple episodes of Romero’s classic TV series, Tales From The Darkside before helming Tales From The Darkside, The Movie.

Many would call the Cell a zombie movie, but evidently Harrison doesn’t think so… He  was quoted as saying the following:

“…doesn’t see this as a zombie story so much as a VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED-esque chiller, and enjoys the fact that the infected populace possesses a hive mentality.”

So far, he’s not attached to direct.  

I’m really happy to see that they are transforming this masterpiece into a film – and even more excited to see it turn into a mini-series.  Thats the good news.  I’m really cautious about the fact that Harrison doesn’t see this as a zombie flick at all, and I think the quality of the series will very much depend on which network picks it up.  If it goes on something other then Showtime or HBO, then it will be substancially dumbed down from a violence stand point…. and anybody who’s read it can tell you that there is plenty of blood n’ guts to be had.  

Time will tell.

They wear bikinis and they kill zombies.  Onechanbara could be mankind’s crowning achievement of technology and human perseverance. Onechanbara: Bikini Samurai Squadfor Xbox 360 and Onechanbara: Bikini Zombie Slayers for Wii were both released yesterday, Feb 10.  

OneChanbara Video Game Synopsis:

The hack and slash game play involves the player controlling Aya, a Japanese cowgirl in a bikini who wears a scarf and wields a katana. The player is pitted against hordes of zombies and nightmarish boss creatures, who spill torrents of blood when they are attacked.

The title “Onechanbara” means:

Japanese words onē-chan (lit. “big sister”, but also a slang term for a young adult woman) and chanbara (“sword fighting”)

I’ve read the version on the Xbox and ther version on the Wii are different.  The thing to look forward to on the Wii version is using the controller to actually hack and slash. 

Be advised that they’re M-rated, due to all of the bikinis and zombies….and that equals AWESOME.

Another note, evidently they made this video game into a feature length movie in Japan.   I’ve added both the video game trailer and the movie trailer below.  After watching the movie trailer, I think it may be pretty cool in a Japanese cult classic sort of way.

Onechanbara Video Game Trailer: 

Onechenbarra Movie Trailer: