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Check out the official Fido movie site for the usual stuff like a trailer, downloads and other info about this flick.

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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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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.

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

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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.

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That’s it, the official Fido poster is here (found on CHUD). That March 16th 2007 release date for Canadian theatres is getting closer. Wee!

Here’s a favourable review of Fido’s Sundance showing:

“You crazy, wonderful zombie!”

Fido is ruthlessly zombietic and timelessly entertaining. Director Andrew Currie and a great cast, including Carrie-Ann Moss who takes a significantly distant step away from her Trinity persona, pull together a great horror-comedy in the way that Shaun of the Dead did in 2004. (The rest of the article by by Alex Billington can be found at FirstShowing.net)

Am I ever getting jazzed for this. It sounds like a cute (I can’t believe I’m using that word) little film about a boy and his zombie.

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Looks as though 2007 is shaping up to be the year of the zombie movie. With flicks like 28 Weeks Later, Fido and and a pile more on the horizon how could one think any differently.

This one, American Zombie, has a couple of unusual bits of trivia attached to it.

One is that it was produced by a Korean company planning to produce a number of English language films in the near future.

The second tidbit is that the film was written and directed by, Grace Lee of 2005’s The Grace Lee Project. Yes, a female. That is very rare in the horror genre to say the least. But, I know chicks dig horror too. My wife likes it lots.

Grace’s film appears to take a look at the genre from an entirely different and somewhat sensative angle. Humanizing zombies? Sure. Why not?

Here’s the trailer:

Funny! Zombie prejudice definitely needs some exposure. They are, after all, people too. After a fashion at least.

From GreenCine Daily:

“I won’t say with any confidence that American Zombie is an allegory about Muslims or undocumented immigrants or anything else specific,” writes Salon’s Andrew O’Hehir. “It might just be a goof on the silliness of contemporary media that gets a little broader and darker as it goes along. But the mere fact that [Grace] Lee can make both a media satire and, in the end, a creepy horror flick, while at least alluding to bigger social issues, suggests the breadth of her wit and intelligence.”

Grace is blogging her experiences at Slamdance and seems quite please d with the film’s reception after its world premiere last Saturday:

“The audience was great — they really seemed to get the movie and were troopers, after a couple of nervewracking technical problems. While they were fixing the sound, Austin Basis, who plays Ivan, started passing out one of his Slamdance special edition ‘zines and people went apeshit. People have been coming up to him at the festival, asking for more copies of that thing. Now I want him to do a special edition for every festival.”

For a full interview with Grace Lee check out this article at Bloody Disgusting. In the article Grace alludes to the possiblity of a “Canadian Zombie”. Holy shit! Count me in. I am the zombiefreak and I am Canadian. Audition please. Acting chops don’t fail me now…

Congratulations to Grace and everyone else involved with American Zombie. Sounds like more success is just around the corner. Way to go!

Who said the zombie genre was dead? It keeps on coming back to life one way or another. As it should. No irony there.

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I wish I had a pet zombie to mow my lawn.

Anyway, to the info. Here’s an update on Fido from horror-movies.ca:

Goon was SOOO wrong. He told you all that FIDO was pushed back to June 15th and man oh man was he wrong. Never believe goon I tell yuh. Its coming to theatres March 16th in Canada, but June 15th in the US. Oh wait…. ok so maybe Goon was half right, but I wouldnt trust him. He has shifty eyes. On a serious note, FIDO is gonna kick some serious ass and I am stoked for its arrival.

Carrie-Anne Moss, Billy Connolly and Henry Czerny star in Fido, a biting satire set in a small town lost in the idyllic world of the ’50s. The sun shines every day, everybody knows his neighbor, and zombies serve as gardeners, milkmen and servants. Here lives a young boy (newcomer K’Sun Ray) and his best friend – the family zombie named Fido. All is well until Fido’s domestication collar goes on the fritz.

It’s a story that could rip your heart out – literally! With saturated color that recalls the Technicolor era, the film marks the second feature from Vancouver director Andrew Currie (Mile Zero). Script is by Currie, Robert Chomiak and Dennis Heaton. Producers are Blake Corbet and Mary Anne Waterhouse of Anagram Pictures.

That’s cool. Canada gets it release before the U.S. I’m not sure why that’s happening but it’s good for me as I happen to be in Canada. To our friends in the U.S. who want to see the flick, come on up and watch it with us. We’re glad to have you.

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WARNING: If you care, there seem to be spoilers in this unrated trailer. So before you click play consider that. Although I don’t know how you can spoil a piece of shit. It’s kind of spoiled already.

This happens to be a zombie movie I’m not looking forward to. A remake of the third (Hooray for Bub!) in Romero’s original trilogy of the living dead. I know. I know. There’s Land of the Dead and the upcoming Diary of the Dead, but the first three are the iconic films.

Anyway, with B grade stars Mena Suvari and Ving Rhames leading the way this movie looks like it’s going to be a steaming bucket of zombie diarrhea. You know darn well that’s got to stink.

The “From the Director of Halloween H20” tag line at the top of the poster is enough to warn real zombie movie fans and anyone who watched H20 that this is going to be horrendous.

There’s are reasons this film won’t work. First of all it seems to break most or all of the rules established in the classic zombie films that fans have come to love. Just a few of the rules broken in this trailer are:

• Fast and Strong Zombies - Zombies are uncoordinated, a little weaker than a living person, slow and shuffling. It is by the stupidity and carelessness of the victims and often being outnumbered that leads to their demise or infection. It is never that they cannot get away. Even late films like the awesome Shaun of the Dead prove that slow zombies still work. Fast zombies can work too, like in 28 Days Later and almost in Dawn of the Dead (2004), but the story has gt to be strong enough to support it.
• Too Much Information - We don’t need to know what the cause of the zombie outbreak is. Just get on with the action for God’s sake. Sometimes less is more. A little bit of mystery adds to the tension. The fact that the characters in the film don’t know what the hell is happening gives far more substance to each role.
• Lack of Story Focus - To make a decent zombie film you don’t need stars, big effects, sexy twenty somethings or even big effects. The Hollywood teen horror film formula never makes for a great movie. Throw your money and energy at the story. It’s supposed to be about how the living react to the stress of a zombie outbreak. We get to see the true nature of folks in extreme situations. Having some underlying social message is a necessity as well. For example one of the themes in the low budget grand daddy of zombie films Night of the Living Dead (1968) was racism.

 

I’m sure the film will have other flaws that will piss off old school zombie fans like myself as well. I remember when I saw the Dawn of the Dead (2004) remake I was disappointed with that as well, but at least it appeared they tried. This one just looks like not only did they break the rules they’ve never even seen the rule book.

Don’t get me wrong. I will see this film somehow, just to see if I’m right about this. I’m hoping some of my connections come through with passes to a premiere so I don’t have to pay.

I know this is contempt prior to investigation, but I can assure you I won’t like this movie. Not one bit.

Thanks to Zombie-A-Go-Go over at Zombie Friends for the heads up on the trailer and wiki article.

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Another movie we’re looking forward to! Starring the whacky Scottish comedian Billy Connolly as a boy’s pet zombie, Fido, was filmed here in Vancouver and in the Okanagan almost two years ago now. We’re still waiting to see it.

Fido was screened at the Toronto Film Festival last year and was well received there. It has once slated for release on March 9, 2007 has been pushed back until June 15, 2007 according to MoviesOnline.ca.

Here are a few reviews:

• Twitch - positive
• Cinematical - positive
• Variety - so so (what do they know about zombies anyway?)

Postscript: A sad bit of trivia around Fido was when a 23 year old extra performer died of a morphine overdose while on set. I’m not naming him here as I’m sure his family has had enough of this story. You can do some research for yourself if it’s that important to you.

He was working on the film at a Lake Country location on July 14th, 2005 when he was found unconscious in a change room trailer. Efforts to revive him failed.

The coroner said he was found with a small Tylenol bottle containing morphine pills. While he’d complained of a tooth ache, no medication had been prescribed. Apparently a family member was prescribed morphine after surgery and that’s where it came from. The young man had been seen with some of the family member’s medication in past.

Perhaps we’ll see the film dedicated to his memory.

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