zombiefreak.com

J. Michael Straczynski, the creator of the sci-fi series Babylon 5 who has also become a popular comic book scribe in recent years, announced yesterday that he is writing the screenplay adaptation of the zombie book World War Z for Paramount. The Max Brooks novel, which was optioned last summer by the studio for Brad Pitt’s production company Plan B, is subtitled An Oral History of the Zombie War.

“You all know the novel World War Z?” asked Straczynski of his audience during a New York Comic-Con panel on Friday. “I’m adapting that for Paramount. For Brad Pitt potentially — we’ll see what happens. He might be the star in it. So things are going very well for a TV guy.”

[more at source: IGN]

I just finished reading this book. It wasn’t a bad execution of a very cool idea. Although I’m partial to Max Brooks first offering, The Zombie Survival Guide I enjoyed the story. It would be cool if zombies were brought this far into the mainstream. The genre might finally explode.

I’m a Bard Pitt fan to begin with (although I hated Troy). The fact that he and his company are even willing to look at making a zombie flick makes me appreciate him even more.

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This just in! Britney Spears is a zombie created by the Chernobyl disaster. She sure looks toxic to me:

[source Perez Hilton]

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[source University of Western Ontario]

I was reading the zombie entry at Wikipedia and noticed this:

The Epic of Gilgamesh of ancient Sumer includes a mention of zombies. Ishtar, in the fury of vengeance says:

Father give me the Bull of Heaven,
So he can kill Gilgamesh in his dwelling.
If you do not give me the Bull of Heaven,
I will knock down the Gates of the Netherworld,
I will smash the doorposts, and leave the doors flat down,
and will let the dead go up to eat the living!
And the dead will outnumber the living!
It will be awful!

The Epic of Gilgamesh is believed to have been written between 2750 and 2500 BC! I didn’t realize the whole concept of zombies rising up to devour the living was as old as possibly the most ancient written text on Earth. The idea was chilling 4500 years ago and is no less disturbing today. If it was written then, it is most likely even older than that. One can only speculate.

What does this tell us? Zombies as a story device are not going away any time soon.

I can’t say I’m disappointed. This is zombiefreak.com after all.

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Not your typical Valentine’s Day

The day of love turns into the day of the dead when dozens of zombie-clad citizens stagger through the streets of Eugene.

Valentine’s Day, the holiday for love, lust and… zombies. That’s right, of all the days of the year, the undead of Eugene chose Valentine’s Day to once again roam the earth.

Whether the zombies were suffering from supernatural heartbreak, were beckoned back from the dead by lovelorn souls, or were just plain necrophiliacs, was not really clear. But nonetheless it was a very popular night to be dead.

8:00 p.m. - More than 80 zombies (or rather, the people who were dressed as zombies) in varied states of semi-animated life congregated at Pioneer Cemetery, their eyes sunken, overwhelmed by their lust for flesh…

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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.

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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.

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Originally uploaded by Rob Sacchetto.
Zombie 21

“When hell is full, the dead shall walk the earth…

But why wait until the end of days to see your mug as a mound of undead rot? With the aid of a photo master illustrator Rob Sacchetto will hand illustrate a custom portrait depicting YOU as a brain chasing ghoul.

By simply providing a clear headshot, you can stop wondering what you’d look like as an animated corpse on a hunger crazed killing spree!

Become a member of the damned undead. Buy your Zombie Portrait today!”

Go to zombieportraits.com to get undead.

Once the movie biz gets into swing again this year and I make a little dough I think I’ll send $80 and a photo of myself to be zombiefied by Canadian artist Rob Sacchetto. While I’m at it I think I’ll pick up his “know your zombies” poster as well. Your stuff rocks Rob! I love the Dawn of the Dead reference in the quote.

For more samples check out the Zombie Portraits set on Mr. Sacchetto’s Flickr page. Creepy… We Canadians do love our zombies.

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I was surfing the forums over at All things Zombie to day and came across a post titled “Supposed Real Zombie Caught on Tape”. I clicked the link inside and it took me to a video at LiveLeak called Strange Creature. As Wordpress is unable to embed LiveLeak videos I’ve decided to host it myself:

A couple of Spanish guys were walking throught the woods and saw something that stared straight back at them. They got the hell out of there!

Very exciting. It’s very relevant to a project I’ve been developing for some time. That’s all I’m saying about that right now.

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Please enable Javascript and Flash to view this Flash video.

This humourless magician, seems to have an overly serious take on zombies. In the video he talks down to all of us voicing his disdain for the zombie horror genre calling them ‘pretty bad’. He claims films like “White Zombie“, “I Walked With a Zombie” and 1974’s blaxploitation horror film “Sugar Hill” are generally considered to be the ‘best of the lot’ of Hollywood horror films about zombies. Generally? By whom? Voodoo practitioners who have no sense of humour or folks who lack the ability to suspend disbelief and enjoy something creative? I suspect the Rev Don Lewis, a practitioner of wicca, is the latter.

He’s definitely a purist when it comes to voodoo and sites that as the reason behind these ‘bad’ films calling some of them racist. No kidding. Perhaps Rev. Lewis should read the Reason magazine article from the post below to help him understand the zombie genre. Or perhaps Rev. Lewis is a zombie himself trying to mislead us so they can overtake us when we’re looking in another direction.

He also states that zombies are NOT a staple of other monsters have been. He says, “there have been few films about zombie and even fewer good ones.” Few? Here’s a sizeable list of the few on Wikipedia. There are 125 in this very incomplete list. Many of the independents and up and coming films are missing.

Personally I see some great films there:

• Night of the Living Dead (1968)
• Shaun of the Dead (2004)
• Braindead (1992)
• Zombi II (1979)
• 28 Days Later (2002)
• Re-Animator (1985)
• Cemetery Man (1994)

Those are just a few of my personal favourites.

Come now… Do your homework.

Seriously though Rev. Lewis, it is sad that you feel slighted by Hollywood’s take on zombies. However, I don’t believe that filmmakers (myself included) intend to disrespect anyone’s religious beliefs. Zombies are but another story device. A very effective one that plays to people’s deepest fears - the deepest of all being their own death and what happens afterward. Dealing with death, even through entertainment, is a spiritual experience for some people and to be told that it’s wrong to do so sounds like religious intolerance to me. Frankly, it smacks of the ideals behind the Spanish Inquisition. You’re entitled to your opinion, just don’t bash me for mine. I enjoyed the information I just didn’t appreciate the judgement.

You can learn more about Rev Lewis at the MagickTV web site.

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The convoluted politics of zombie cinema
Tim Cavanaugh | Reason Magazine, February 2007 Print Edition
via Disinformation

The zombiephiles—that odd cohort of nerds, video game addicts, and mullet-headed grindhouse nostalgists who have made the flesh-eating zombie a central figure of modern culture—know all about chewed kidneys, shambling ghouls, moldering flesh, barricaded doors, deserted streets, and the all-important bullet to the brain. But most of all, fans of the rich, vibrant zombie narrative of the late 20th and early 21st centuries know about politics.

Ever since George Romero’s genre-creating Night of the Living Dead in 1968, and especially since Romero’s overtly political 1978 masterpiece Dawn of the Dead, highbrow revolutionary theorizing has stalked this graveyard of lowbrow pleasures. In his 1979 study The American Nightmare: Essays on the Horror Film, the esteemed cineaste Robin Wood declared that the zombie’s cannibalism “represents the ultimate in possessiveness, hence the logical end of human relations under capitalism.” J. Hoberman and Jonathan Rosenbaum’s 1983 study Midnight Movies called Night of the Living Dead “a remarkable vision of the late sixties, offering the most literal possible depiction of America devouring itself.” In a later reappraisal, a Village Voice critic explained that “the zombie carnage seemed a grotesque echo of the conflict then raging in Vietnam.” … (Complete Reason article)

Fantastic read.

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