zombiefreak.com

Yes, Michael Jackson was cool at one time. We had no idea what he was going to develop into. Yikes. He’s scarier looking now than his zombie self in the above video directed by John Landis. I like the energy of this shortened version of the video edited by Drewske1984 with the RunDMC mix of the song dubbed in.

I wonder what Jackson’s next incarnation will be…

Just a bit of an aside - I sure do miss Vincent Price. Here are the lyrics of Vincent Price’s rap in the song:

Darkness falls across the land
The midnite hour is close at hand
Creatures crawl in search of blood
To terrorize yawls neighbourhood
And whosoever shall be found
Without the soul for getting down
Must stand and face the hounds of hell
And rot inside a corpses shell
The foulest stench is in the air
The funk of forty thousand years
And grizzy ghouls from every tomb
Are closing in to seal your doom
And though you fight to stay alive
Your body starts to shiver
For no mere mortal can resist
The evil of the thriller

Man, he was too cool for school.

Comments(0)

Renegade Motion Pictures has acquired the rights to the popular zombie novel AUTUMN. Production begins the summer of 2007 and Renegade has decided to sell 25% of the movie to the fans with investments starting at $20. AUTUMN, by David Moody is the first in a series of novels about a post-apocalyptic world following a sudden viral epidemic. The series has developed a cult following on the internet and Renegade wants to give the already established fans and the future fans a chance to own part of the film, which will also include part of the film’s future profits.

Director Steven Rumbelow explains that they are not just selling shares, “…we are selling packages that include shares, which are designed to be immense fun for the fans. With 75% of the film’s budget being financed through traditional means, we wanted to try something new, something to involve indie audiences in a new way.” He goes on to say, “Everyone involved with the production of AUTUMN is committed to the fact that this is unique and very different from your standard zombie flick. It is more about human nature and the silence following devastation rather than knocking heads off zombies. The fans of the AUTUMN books know this and I think it sets us all a little bit apart.”…

[more at HorrorMovies.ca]

I love the idea of being able to invest in a zombie film for as little as $20 (probably all I can afford right now). I don’t really care if the film makes me any money It’s just fun to be involved in getting a film made at all. While watching the movie I could say, “Hey! My $20 could have paid for the donuts and coffee from craft service those three zombies ate before this scene.”

Here’s a synopsis of Autumn the novel from the author’s website:

In less than twenty-four hours a vicious and virulent disease destroys almost all of the population. Billions are killed. Thousands die every second.

There are no symptoms and no warnings. Within moments of infection each victim suffers a violent and agonising death. Only a handful of survivors remain. By the end of the first day those survivors wish they were dead.

A small group of desperate people take shelter together in a village hall on the outskirts of a large city. Too afraid to venture out into the infected world, their shelter becomes a prison and the frightened group begins to splinter and crack under the emotional and physical pressure of the inexplicable situation.

Terrified and trapped without electricity, water or supplies, the survivors exist from hour to hour.

Then the disease strikes again. And all hell breaks loose.

I’ve never read David Moody’s Autumn novels, but they do sound like something I’d enjoy. I think I’ll download the first book for free from the author’s site and give it a read. The site says that a free audio version of the book is going to be released in March. That’s cool too.

If I like those then I can purchase and download the other three Autumn books for on $13.00.

Looks like I have some reading to do.

Comments(1)

zombiefreak.com wallpaper download

Click thumbnail image that corresponds to your desktop resolution (sorry if it’s not there), right click the image you see on the pop up page and choose “save as…” to download. Use it as your desktop and you’ll be the coolest kid at school. No doubt about it.

800×600 wallpaper

1024×768 wallpaper

1280×1024 wallpaper

Comments(1)

CBS picks up ‘Babylon’

CBS: Pickup — “Babylon Fields,” an hourlong zombie-themed hour described by CBS as a “sardonic, apocalyptic American comedy-drama where the dead are rising and as a result, lives are regained, families restored and old wounds reopened.” Gerald Cuesta and Michael Atkinson wrote the pilot and will serve as supervising producers. Michael Cuesta, who directed the pilot for “Dexter,” will exec produce and helm via 20th Century Fox Television.

[source Variety.com]

Ooh! This sounds like fun. It’s been described as Desperate Housewives with zombies. While reading I realized it may be based on the French film, They Came Back or Les Revenants which wasn’t terrible movie, although not the usual gory zombie fare.

The series is scheduled to premiere on CBS on June 1st, 2007.

Comments(1)

Finally! A teaser trailer for Fido. [source Twitch]

Comments(1)

I was searching for zombie news to post and came across this interesting article:

Attack of the Gay Teen Zombies: An Interview with Geography Club’s Brent Hartinger
by Michael Jensen, February 5, 2007

Brent Hartinger made a splash with Geography Club, his 2003 gay teen novel about a group of kids who start a secret high school gay-straight alliance, then give it the most boring name they can think of, the Geography Club, to keep others from joining. A sequel, The Order of the Poison Oak, followed in 2005.

Hartinger, a contributor to AfterElton.com (and the partner of this writer!), is back with another sequel to Geography Club. Called Split Screen: Attack of the Soul-Sucking Brain Zombies/Bride of the Soul-Sucking Brain Zombies, and it’s actually two-books-in-one. Read the first “book,” Attack of the Soul-Sucking Brain Zombies, which is told from the point-of-view of gay boy Russel, then flip the book over and read the second “book,” Bride of the Soul-Sucking Brain Zombies, which is told from the point-of-view of Russel’s bisexual best friend Min. The two books together are the story of when Russel and Min get jobs working as an extra on a zombie film being shot in town…

[the interview and the rest of the article at AfterElton]

I guess as this is outside of my realm of experience, I didn’t realize there are novels directed toward gay teens let alone zombie related novels directed toward gay teens. Anything that makes a teenager (which it is hard enough being) feel like less of a freak for living a gay lifestyle has to be a good thing.

I grew up with a few people who could have had a hell of a lot easier time in their teens with this kind of novel. Perhaps someone else will be saved some grief by this. Nice work Brent Hartinger.

Comments(0)

Description: This short film (the rules, it had to be SHORT) was entered into the new Microsoft XBOX 360 launch contest …(see Wikipedia for the details about the contest, and what led up to our film being featured on MTV) … XBOX_360 … AND … Hex168 … and it was featured in a 1/2 hour special on MTV and MTV2 over the holidays, fall-winter, 2005. Our film clip WON THE CONTEST and was only 1 of 4 featured on MTV, including behind the scenes production work (where I am also a featured extra). In this, I am the HEX female SUPER zombie (on the left) with the blood drooling out of my mouth and later, throwing the blue ball at the old-fashioned, inferior Zombies. Created by local filmmaker, Todd Cobery. Kudos to Todd!

more at Myspace

[soruce Arrow in the Head]

Comments(3)

While surfing the boards over at All Things Zombie I happened across a link this two year old little Finnish zombie flick aptly called Winter of the Dead:

An epic story about a battle between three survivors and the living dead altered by nuclear radiation. In the ravaged landscape of Eastern Finland, Toni, Marika and Risto are getting prepared for the last attack of the mutants. The fate of the survivors is uncertain.

Well that sounds like some ultra-chilly zombie goodness. Let’s have a look at the trailer:

Yikes! Although the zombies are fast it looks well done. I wonder if the soundtrack is any good. Here’s the opening theme, Kuolleiden Talvi (Winter of the Dead for those who don’t read Finnish):

If you like that the entire soundtrack, composed and produced by Matias Puumala, is available for free download. Get it now!

The soundtrack is not the only thing that’s free. You can download the entire movie right from the Winter of the Dead website free of charge… for nothing… gratis. I did. With FlashGet it only took 12 minutes.

The movie comes as a 342mb WMV file and doesn’t look too bad from a quality standpoint. I watched it at fullscreen on my monitor at a resolution of 1280×1024. I don’t think it would make the jump to my widescreen HD TV as there were compression related artifacts on the screen throughout. However it was more than watchable. There were a few glitches in the file toward the end but it really didn’t take away from the overall experience.

I’m lazy and don’t always enjoy reading movie subtitles. These were necessary as I don’t understand Finnish, even though Sami Salo is one of my favourite hockey players. At times the translation was obviously slightly off but that added to the entertainment.

Inexpensively made, but well shot, this movie entertained me. I was impressed. The story, acting and effects are all pretty decent as far a no-budget film goes. A great back story with a mix of humour and buckets of gore kept me watching. Sadly the film only last for a bit over 35 minutes and I wanted to see more. As like with most good shorts I’ve seen they leave you wondering why it couldn’t have been stretched out to feature length. This one definitely could. Perhaps the right folks will see Winter of the Dead and the filmmakers can have enough cash to see the story through some more.

I give Winter of the Dead a 7.5 out of 10.

Comments(3)