Film Review: Midnight Meat Train

Film: The Midnight Meat Train
Director: Ryuhei Ktamura

The short story, The Midnight Meat Train by Clive Barker, was such a good read. I highly recommend the story before you watch this movie.

To make the film "movie" length, they had to add all kinds of drama to the movie. Leon, the film's protagonist, is a photographer trying to find his way in the art world by photographing the "heart of the city", which to him is dark and sinister. Well he finds what he's looking for and so much more when he begins following a mysterious man who also happens to be a butcher of human flesh. What follows is a gore fest of a ride.

My only gripes with this film is that it adds so much more crap to a very simple story. The girlfriend, the photography, the art buddy, the art dealer, and the police officer had no place in the original story. I personally think it was a mistake to make the story into a movie.

Anyway, the film did keep my attention anyway. Mahogany the butcher is a fascinating killer. Very professional and almost obsessive compulsive. The gore for the most part was pretty good, however, a lot of it was cgi. The first real glimpse at gore was over the top computerized with eyeballs and blood splattering through the air in slow motion. I just about laughed.

All in all a decent horror flick. I've seen way worse. The best part is the concept of this film/story. 4 blood drops, please.

The Real Apocalypse: How will we stop that Earth bound asteroid?

IT IS 2036. A large asteroid is on a collision course with Earth. Unless it is stopped, it will crash into the Pacific Ocean, creating a devastating tsunami. What should we do? Finish reading the article...

The Real Apocalypse: Methane Acceleration

I AM shocked, truly shocked," says Katey Walter, an ecologist at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks. "I was in Siberia a few weeks ago, and I am now just back in from the field in Alaska. The permafrost is melting fast all over the Arctic, lakes are forming everywhere and methane is bubbling up out of them."
Back in 2006, in a paper in Nature, Walter warned that as the permafrost in Siberia melted, growing methane emissions could accelerate climate change. But even she was not expecting such a rapid change. "Lakes in Siberia are five times bigger than when I measured them in 2006. It's unprecedented. This is a global event now, and the inertia for more permafrost melt is increasing." Finish the article....

NBC to run pilot episodes of apocalyptic Day One!

Synopsis: "Day One chronicles a global catastrophe from the perspective of the residents of a southern California apartment complex. In the wake of a mysterious event that has shattered lines of communication and (literally) changed the shape of the world, the survivors must work together to both rebuild and save the Earth from a menace that might have already consumed countless other worlds..."

Sounds freaking awesome...

Read more about it over at Quiet Earth!

Zombie Trailers Galore!!!

So there were some folks who were gonna make this zombie flick called, Worst Case Scenario. It was the talk of the internets for awhile because it looked so bad ass. Here check out the teaser trailers for it:






Cool, eh? Well, unfortunately, this film has been scrapped! BOOOOO!! However, the same folks who were gonna make that film are prepping for a new film that's supposedly along the same lines called Army of Frankenstein!



Here's a promising new zombie flick called The Dead set in Africa. The synopsis: When Lt Brian Murphy finds himself in extreme conditions he must team up with local Daniel Dembele in order for both men to try and find their way back to what is left of their lives whilst battling a terrifying threat from which there seems to be no escape. And the trailer:


There's a new trailer out for Night of the Living Dead: Reanimated, y'know, that awesome "remix" of NOTLD done by a collective of artists. If you haven't heard about this then you should probably get out of your grave more often.


And, finally, a new "political zombedy" called Zombies of Mass Destruction has a new trailer up. It looks like fun. The humor in the trailer though seems a bit...uh, nonhumorous though. But first, the synopsis: Life is wonderful for the people in the quiet, Island town of Port Gamble. Frida, a young Iranian-American college dropout is back in town to help her father run the family restaurant. Tom Hunt, a Wall Street broker, visits his hometown with his outspoken boyfriend Lance in order to finally come out to his estranged mother. As Frida, Tom, and Lance take life-changing steps, the town faces a far greater challenge: A zombie virus outbreak!

Zombie Hooker Nightmare? oh yes.

There are tons of zombie flash games online. some of them are ok.

This one by Adult Swim is bad to the bone.

hat tip to Send More Cops for the heads up.

Date set for World Zombie Day and Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

Mark your calenders! On October 11, 2009, World Zombie Day will commence. Read more here.

Also, it has been announced that the Pride and Prejudice and Zombies release date has been pushed back to April 13, 2009! I'm pretty pumped cuz I've already ordered a copy...getting it sooner than expected! woo hoo!

The Real Apocalypse: Solar Storm

Once again, The New Scientist, has alerted me to a scenario that does not sound too promising....

IT IS midnight on 22 September 2012 and the skies above Manhattan are filled with a flickering curtain of colourful light. Few New Yorkers have seen the aurora this far south but their fascination is short-lived. Within a few seconds, electric bulbs dim and flicker, then become unusually bright for a fleeting moment. Then all the lights in the state go out. Within 90 seconds, the entire eastern half of the US is without power.

A year later and millions of Americans are dead and the nation's infrastructure lies in tatters. The World Bank declares America a developing nation. Europe, Scandinavia, China and Japan are also struggling to recover from the same fateful event - a violent storm, 150 million kilometres away on the surface of the sun....

....keep reading.

What we have here is a complete technological breakdown. I think we could survive the cut off from our electronic binds but our world would be flipped on its head for sure. What do you think?

Zombie/Apocalypse Ketchup...

So I've been out of the loop for a bit. We just had SXSW this week and lots of my undead friends rose to the occasion. It was a good time and good to see lots of familiar faces from out of town. So now I'm back with some headlines and links that maybe ya'll missed out on. Sorry for the shitty post, but this will get us up to date with all things zombie and apocalyptic...

ZOMBIES:

• lost zombies
• Marvel Zombies 4: Monster Squad
• Marvel Zombies 4: Podcast
  
• I Sell the Dead sequel
• Zombie Haiku
• Re-Animator Remake Bust
• Platoon of the Dead
• It Came From the Drive-In
• Mutant Vampire Zombies from the Hood
• Games of the Living Dead
• Make out with Violence
• Call of Duty zombie action

APOCALYPSE:

• Son of Golem
• Behind the Scenes: Book of Eli
• Extinction: The GMO Chronicles
• Transperceneige
• Humanity's End
• 2084
• Alien Trespass

VAMPIRES:
ok, so as you may or may not know, I don't really dig vamps too much. They have to be done just right. Every once in a while I'll come across something worth mentioning, something I'm excited about...

• Thirst
• Damn Nation

Deadwalkers, Book of Eli, Dead Snow, 3d...of the Dead, & I Walked with a Remake

That zombie western, Deadwalkers, I mentioned in an earlier post now has a trailer, check it:






Speaking of westerns, there's some photos from the set of the post apocalyptic movie called, Book of Eli, featuring Denzel Washington. The photo's were taken by some dude who was an extra in the movie..anyway see the pics via Quiet Earth...







June 12, 2009 will be the day that the Nazi zombie flick, Dead Snow, will have a limited theatrical run...hopefully, I'll get to see it in Austin! (I believe it showed at SXSW film fest this week..but I missed it!)










The 3D resurgence is among us! Romero's classic, Dawn of the Dead is in line to get a 3d treatment! Not a remake...just the original in 3d gloriness (goriness). There's also word that the producer wants to do a direct sequel to Dawn of the Dead...hmmm. Info via Dead Central...



Adam Marcus, director of Jason Goes to Hell, has been named as the new director for a remake of 1943's I Walked with a Zombie. Now, I'm not big into voodoo zombies...however, I got to see I Walked with a Zombie at a theater last year and I was actually surprised at how creepy it was. It was definitely dated and brought laughs from the crowd, but I'm super curious to see what a modern take on the film will look like...anyway, for an idea of just how dated this movie is check out the trailer for the original:

The Real Apocalypse: Rage Virus

We've all seen 28 Days/Weeks Later. The movies revolve around a "rage virus" that spreads throughout the population creating chaos and zombie like effects in humans. We all know that these movies are just fictional stories and couldn't happen in real life...or could they?

Recently while combing The New Scientist, an awesome website I've just discovered, I came across this gem: Mass hysteria breaks out in central America

The article links on to other historical accounts of this mysterious "rage virus". There are some disturbing information in some of the linked articles. For instance:

• Pro Med Mail -The strange illness apparently affects young people more than old, putting them in a trance and giving them super-human strength, according to Knight and other witnesses. "A 15-year-old girl with siknis can overpower 6 or 7 men," Knight said. "The men can't detain her, and have to tie her up in bed sheets.".....Sometimes, however, grisi siknis can turn violent. In the case of Raiti in 2003, some of the affected people ran around town with machetes trying to cut others....
• Pub Med - Several explanations had been put forward initially by the community : bioterrorism, noxious fumes and "bad spirits."

It seems, though, that it's mostly explained away by stress in large groups. That makes sense to a certain degree, however, what's intriguing to me is the virus like qualities and the symptoms of all of the "infected".

Could this become a larger epidemic?

Brain Dead, War, and Shakespeare's Land of the Dead

Here's a trailer for a new zombie flick called Brain Dead. Looks like silly fun!:


Meanwhile, there's word on the street about a new flick called War. The premise revolves around "slain soldiers who band together to defend the living world from the Armies of Hell." - via HorrorMovie.ca...Sounds awesome!




Over in Philly, there's a stage production called William Shakespeare's Land of the Dead! You can read more about it here...

Zombie School!

oh, If only I had this class back in school...

Introduction: The dead walk the earth, devouring the living. The living cower, or fight back, or turn on one another, or get eaten. Zombies are here. Why do zombies captivate us? Why do they terrify us? What does our fascination with the living dead tell us about our culture, our society, ourselves? In this course, you will embark on an intense, three week exploration of the history and theory behind one of the most macabre and terrifying tropes in modern horror.

Course Description: This course explores the history, significance, and representation of the zombie as a figure in horror and fantasy texts. We will pursue an intense schedule, using critical theory to think about zombies as they appear in literature, comics, and films. Our daily readings and discussion will focus on critical evaluation and reflection about the zombie trope, and your final project will ask you to integrate these ideas in a project within your discipline.

Learning Objectives:

• Understand the zombie figure as it has appeared in literary, filmic, and comic texts (among others), from early incarnations in the first half of the 20th century to more recent revisionist texts.
• Improve comprehension and application of critical theory as it pertains to horror texts (such as hermeneutics, postmodern theory, media studies, and critical lenses such as feminism or psychoanalysis).
• Explore how the zombie figure relates, symbolically and critically, to modern culture. Depending on the texts explored, such themes might include capitalism, individuality, the information age, and xenophobia.

McDead Having a Happy Meal? WTF?

Ok, so study this picture:





























Ok, now that this image is burned into your mind, how do you feel? gross? sickened? Creeped out?

I felt all those things and more.

ok.

Zombirds attack in new flick Doghouse!!!

Zombirds? huh?
Don't ask me. I got it from the synopsis of Doghouse a new Brit-flick where all the women in a small town turn into...well..."zombirds":

Vince is handling his divorce badly. He’s depressed. Gone to pieces. But his mates aren’t giving up on him. Struggling with their own mid-life troubles, they drag him off for a boy’s weekend in the country. When they arrive in Moodley, a small town in the middle of nowhere, they discover that all the women have turned into man-eating frenzied Zombirds. Forced to hide out in the empty shops when their minibus driver also goes crazy, they’re cut off and helpless. And clueless. Getting back to boy scout basics, the boys utilise anything and everything at their disposal to fight off the infected women. They attempt to distract the Zombirds with radio-controlled cars and fight back with water pistols filled with nitro fluid. Their most ingenious plan - dressing up in women’s clothes and sneaking away under their noses - works for about twenty seconds. One violent street fight later, and everyone is holed up in a CHURCH, waiting for daybreak. This turns out to be their unluckiest plan yet. Below the church, the underground crypt is wall to wall with dead meat. This is where the town’s men have ended up, as FOOD. The crypt is a NEST. Escaping on to the rooftops from a church packed with rabid freaks, the last survivors end up back on the minibus. But something has happened to Vince. The boyish behavior required to beat the odds here has kicked his mid-life crisis into high gear. He guns the minibus engine and takes the boys OFF ROAD, navigating a bumpy, scenic route to freedom. But when Vince’s walkie-talkie crackles to life with the voice of a friend they all thought had been killed, they know they can’t leave. The bus screeches to a halt and the boys head back into hell for the final confrontation….

Well, sounds like silly fun anyway. Watch the trailer here.

Donkey Zombie

I just bought me a bad ass shirt from Threadless. Follow the link and getcha one!

The Real Apocalypse: 4 Degrees Warmer

Global warming is all the rage these days right? Some say it's a dumb theory and some speak of it as if doomsday is right around the corner if we don't start buying up electric cars.

But what if the climate actually changed 4 degrees warmer? What would the world look like. Humans could most certainly survive such a warm up but not without cost. The 7 billion people who live on this earth would shift to cooler climates. We'd be stacked up on one another around the poles.

People would die. That's a fact.

Check out this recent article I found called:

How to survive the coming century

Next study this map of what the world may look like if we turned the heat up 4 degrees.

Damned by Dawn, Z3D5, Tokyo Zombie, Crazy Romero, and 7 seven ways to kill zombies...

A new supernatural flick called Damned by Dawn looks pretty freaky and it involves the walking dead. Check the trailer:

Damned By Dawn - Official Movie Trailer from The Amazing Krypto Bros on Vimeo.

Check out this well made zombie short film called Z3D5...Free online!:

Z3D5 - a post apocalyptic zombie love story...of sorts from Daniel Armstrong on Vimeo.


Tokyo Zombie will be invading DVD shelves all across the world next month! Here's the synopsis and the trailer: Fujio and Mitsuo always dream to go to Russia and become the strongest men in the field of jujutsu, a form of Japanese martial arts. Their lives turn upside down when zombies begin to walk down from Mount Fuji. Using jujutsu, Fujio and Mitsuo are determined to save Tokyo from zombie invasion!






George Romero talks about his non-involvment in The Crazies remake and even kinda tells us what he thinks of the script....





Spike Tv just release their Top Seven Most Awesome Ways to Kill Zombies list. Interesting list but I have problems with it. For one, there is no mention of Romero's ...of the Dead flicks at all, which is kind of blasphemous. Two, out of this list, Dead Alive's lawnmower scene should've been numbero uno...
Anyway, the list includes short clips of each zombie killing technique....good attempt, but it could've been way better....

Film Review: Blindness

Film: Blindness
Director: Fernando Meirelles"White Blindness" begins to spread throughout the city. The government quickly takes "control" of the situation by rounding up the infected and quarantining them in an abandoned mental hospital. Besides handing out food rations, the government intends for the newly quarantined blind to basically fend for themselves.

Julian Moore's character is in this first group of the infected and she is not infected but only pretended to be so that she could care for her blinded husband. As the population of the mental hospital grows so does the claustrophobia.

The groups of infected break off into "wards" assigning representatives of each, but one man in ward three declares himself "King of the all the wards" and hordes the food rations. What follows is an exhausting and thrilling ride through human survival. Heart strings are pulled and the violence almost seems too real.

This movie had probably the best cinematography I had seen all last year and up until today. It's beautiful overexposure tricks your eyes, effectively pulling the audience in to sort of experience the story and not just watch it. Even objects in the film appear out of nowhere as a character runs into them. For example, a blind boy begins to walk across a room...there's nothing in front of him, yet he runs something and we hear something move across the floor. A table that wasn't there before quickly fades into view as the boy stumbles on across the room. Each shot seemed perfectly planned out having almost seemingly razor sharp symmetry in some cases. The devastation of the outside world during the last scenes look amazing and make sense compared to whats happening to the people.

I had two problems with the film however. I think the plot could've been written in a more cohesive manner only when it comes to the government's treatment to the newly infected blind people. Seriously, would the government just throw the infected blind into a quarantine without the help of doctors or nurses? They wouldn't come in dressed to the teeth in contamination suits to help in the slightest? That part is hard to believe. The second problem was the whole montage scene with Danny Glover's character (none of the characters have names by the way) narrating on top of that. His acting throughout the movie is excellent yet that scene just seems to fake. He's a blind new comer into one of the wards and is telling people who have been there longer what is happening on the outside world...but the approach is all wrong. It literally sounds like he's reading.

All in all, this movie is well worth your time and despite the two problems above, the story and acting hold it together to compose a gut wrenching story of human survival. You have to see this movie! 5 blood drops!

I Walked With a Zombie and Toxic Skys

Director Andy Fickman does an interview and talks about doing a bunch of remakes...including, I Walked With a Zombie...

An Australian tv movie called, Toxic Skys, aired recently and it stars Anne Heche. It's unclear whether the movie will be released in the U.S. and the trailer on YouTube has been pulled. However, I do have a synopsis via Deadcentral: For years the government has been involved in a secret operation involving contrails - the visible lines of condensed water vapor that jets leave in the sky. If you asked them, they would suggest that this is done in the name of environmental protection as a safeguard that will alleviate global warming by reflecting sunlight back into the atmosphere. The real truth: These contrails are actually a toxic substance, or virus, deliberately sprayed upon an unsuspecting populace in order to "weed out the old and the sick". As Seattle's hospitals begin filling up with patients suffering from a deadly sickness, Dr. Tess Martin, a specialist from the Global Health Association, embarks on a mission to find the truth. Before long, the virus spreads like wildfire and becomes a full-on epidemic, with Tess' own 10-year-old son now among the infected. With over 70 percent of Seattle dying from the virus, Tess and her son's only chance of survival is to get out of the city and find a cure, but the President has declared a national emergency and quarantined all of Seattle -- nobody is allowed out, and nobody is allowed in. When the President passes a bill allowing the use of military force to keep Seattle from spreading the virus, it's up to Tess to find a way to break free of the city in order to find a cure and expose the government's deadly conspiracy.

Sounds neat to me...

Film Review: Diary of the Dead

Film: Diary of the Dead
Director: George A. Romero

Before I get started with this review, I'd like to say that I was a bit overwhelmed by the fact that I was going to review a film by the zombie master himself, George Romero. However, after the second viewing of this in the comfort of my own home, I've found that I do have a few things to say about this flick.

Diary of the Dead follows a group of college students, who in the midst of making their own horror movie, find out that the dead have begun to rise and cause trouble all over the world. Jason the director of this horror movie insists on carrying his camera and shooting everything that is happening to this group.

My first issue with this first person point of view that we get through the camera is that when the shit hits the fan, Jason has trouble letting go of his camera. He's desperate to capture everything. Dude, let it go and help. Put the damn camera down. It's not worth it. However, unlike other first person point of view horror flicks like Blair Witch, Quarantine, or Cloverfield, this issue is addressed constantly through out the film by others in Jason's group. As a matter of fact this issue is pounded into your skull throughout the movie.

This leads me to my second issue with the film. Night, Dawn, Day, and Land never really just came out and drilled it's social commentary into your brain. Diary was totally in your face with the commentary. The voice over in the film drives the point of technology enslaving us over and over again. It felt like I was being preached at.

However, everything else (except the acting) was perfectly fine and what I expect from a Romero zombie film. The zombies and gore looked great.

With each ...of the Dead films, Romero furthers the mythos of his zombies, revealing more about their nature. For example, the film mentions a couple of times that zombies can't run..."their ankles would snap..". We also knew that if you got bit you'd die and come back as a zombie like a virus, however, he also reiterates the fact that anyone who dies, bitten or not, comes back to life. There's also a scene in which a zombie is pushing a shopping cart, which re-establishes the fact that even at the beginning of the zombie outbreak zombies retain a bit of their former instincts.

Also, in this movie, we get to see new ways to kill zombies. There's death by acid to the head, a sickle to the head, a sword to the head, and an arrow to the head. An attempted kill was made by an EKG machine in the hospital. This didn't kill the zombie, however, we got to see it's eyeballs explode from its head

Ultimately, It's well worth the watch and it'll be great part of your zombie collection. But, i've got to give this 3 blood drops, simply because I thought the writing was just not well thought out. The voice over and the actors were annoying. I didn't feel any sort of attachement to anybody in the movie. And It felt like Romero was preaching to me.

Zombieland, After the Fall, Re-Animator, Resistance, Deadwalkers, Mad Max, and World War Z

Tony Gardner, super monster FX guy, is hard at work on Zombieland. He give us some extra hints on what to expect from this movie.

After the Fall looks like a fun 80's style post-apocalyptic film coming out soon...synopsis: Within a nation turned wasteland. Hunted by an army of darkness. They would find the courage to fight for the future.
After the Fall test footage




Looks like that Re-Animator 3D remake we've been hearing about was actually just a big old rumor...it ain't happening. However, looks like we get to look forward to a seemingly craptastic tv series called HERBERT WEST—RE-ANIMATOR: THE SERIES. uh. I don't think so.

OK so this may not be zombie related and it's not necessarily post apocalyptic, however, the what-if scenario provided by an upcoming movie called Resistance seems utterly fascinating. It's about the Nazi's taking over after a D-Day failure. We might as well be dead right? It's also about...an alternate 1944 in which Russia has fallen to Nazi Germany and the D-Day landings have failed. With Britain now half-occupied by German forces, the women in an isolated Welsh border valley awake one morning to discover all their husbands have mysteriously disappeared. neat.

There's a Canadian zombie flick coming out called Deadwalkers and it's set in the old west. Cowboys and Zombies...I imagine this one'll be a bit more serious than Undead or Alive. Anyway, there is no trailer and I don't know exactly what the plot is but here is some behind the scenes footage:


A fourth Mad Max film will be released as an anime feature and a video game! awesome. Too bad it had to come to that though. I'd like to see some live action post apocalyptic gun slinging action...


And finally, an update on World War Z the movie. It's nothing really new but it's good to know that it's not dead...

The Real Apocalypse: Can You Hear Me Now?

Ok, this freaks me the fuck out. If you've ever seen the movie "The Signal" or if you've ever read the book by Stephen King called "Cell" then you know what the heck I'm talking about here. The two stories share a similar subject matter. In both stories, some sort of signal or pulse is generated through televisions, radios, and cell phones. Those who hear this pulse in The Signal, turn into paranoid lunatics. Stephen King's version is similar in the lunatic arena but then as the story progresses these turned lunatics join together in some sort of hive mind collective. Post-post-zombies, if you will.The one puzzle that we find in both stories is that the origin of this pulse or signal is never determined. Someone or something had to send it out, right? This couldn't really happen could it? Read this and find out: When most people hear the word ultrasound, they think of the diagnostic tool used to look inside the womb and steal glimpses at a fetus. But researchers at Arizona State University at Tempe have developed a new use for it: to control brain activity from outside the skull.

William J. Tyler, one of the technique’s developers and an assistant professor at ASU, says ultrasound will someday allow physicians to substitute neural implants with external devices. “We’re trying to develop the technology to the point where we can do away with the electrodes that are used in vagus nerve stimulation and deep brain stimulation,” says Tyler....

Zombie Ketchup...

Ok, time to squirt a bit of that zombie ketchup on this here tasty blog sandwich...

Here's an indie zombie flick called Melvin that I'm interested in seeing. It looks pretty low budget. But I like zombies. Look:
Melvin Trailer


Here's a list of upcoming horror remakes via Horror-Movies.ca. The one's that I want to highlight include:
Plan 9 From Outer Space
Monster Squad
Invasion of the Body Snatchers
I walked with a Zombie
The Crazies
The Birds
Re-animator 3-D
Day of the Triffids
Total Recall
They Live

Here's a new trailer for Bong of the Dead. It sounds pretty damn stupid. But it actually looks alright. Check it:



Here's a whopper! I just laughed when I read this. Would you watch a movie called "Fast Zombies with Guns"? Holy shit, I know I would. Well, watch the trailer for that movie and then ask yourself that same question again...

And, finally, a film that looks like it'll be loads of fun called The Revenant is set to be released in the fall. Check out the synopsis and then a clip from the film...This looks pretty darn neat:
In what was supposed to be a standard military drive through the desert, Officer First Class Bart Gregory finds himself killed in Middle East during a rescue attempt gone wrong. Although his body is returned to the United States, and his body is laid to a peaceful rest, Bart finds that his afterlife is anything but. But before the lid can be put on his tomb, Bart inexplicably awakens, confused, horrified-- a moldy, putrefying living corpse - A Revenant.
Bart desperately enlists the help of his best friend, Joey Leubner, in an attempt to ease Bart's newfound nausea and agony. When a panicked emergency room forces the confused corpse to flee, the two friends discover that there is only one cure for Bart's condition: Human blood.
Bart and Joey take matters into their own hands to keep Bart from decomposing, becoming "The Vigilante Gun-Slingers" in the process. The two anti-heroes sate both Bart's bloody urges to feed upon the living, and exact vengeance upon the criminal element to protect the innocent. However, it is only a matter of time before things begin to spiral out of control during their macabre crusade, and Bart will learn that he must eventually embrace the path of his own horrific destiny... all while cruising in a 1979 Camaro with a surfboard on the roof.

Apocalypse Ketchup...

Well, fellow flesh eaters, it seems from time to time my real life gets in the way of my blogging duties! Imagine that. So now I gotta play catch up...or ketchup. How did I get to be so cute?

On with the Apocalypse!

Here's an update on Wynter Dark, an epic post-apocalyptic film featuring gigantic mutants and ferocious polar bears! I cant wait for this one!

The scifi film, Pandorum, has a new trailer. This looks like fun. First here's the synopsis:
Two crewmen awaken from hyper-sleep aboard a spacecraft. None of their equipment is working, and their memories are incomplete. What was their mission? How much time has passed? Where are they? Who are they? As they try to piece things together, they discover they are not alone, and the ship's new inhabitants - tribal warriors carrying crudely made weapons - are moving among them, intent on killing all aboard. As the space travelers unravel the frightening and deadly secrets the ship harbors, they realize the survival of mankind hinges on their actions. They must regain control of the ship before PANDORUM takes over.
Now here's the trailer:



There's a bit of news on one of the main actors to play in the upcoming 1980's V remake. V was about a huge alien invasion...

American Politics and the Apocalypse

Ok, so I dabble in politics a bit. I like to know what's going on. Gives me a piece of mind. Anyway, I just ran across this interesting bit of political commentary from Rachel Maddow of MSNBC on the topic of the religious end times book series Left Behind. Now I'm no believer in God (I mean what god would allow a rotting stinking corpse such as myself to walk around feasting on human flesh?). I also find the Book of Revelation, although fascinating, a bit over the top and...uh...supernatural-y. I have this strange suspicion that the people who read these Left Behind books are these uber-conservative Christian types who basically belong in a cult:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Interesting, eh?

On a different political front, President Obama recently gave an address to Congress about the new stimulus bill that is supposed to fix the economy and some infrastructure stuff. In response, Republican governor of Louisiana Bobby Jindal, thinks the part in the stimulus bill about "volcano monitering" is a waste of tax payers money and wants it out of the bill all together. I wonder if he thinks hurricanes are any different from volcanos. Don't volcanoes cause major destruction too? Couldn't a "super" volcano really fuck some things up for the human race? Heres an update on a volcano in Alaska: It's ready to burst.

Romero talks future project...talks Zombies vs. Animals

George Romero, during a Q&A session recently, talked about a future project dealing with virtual reality:

Asked about recent changes to the media, Romero revealed that he’s working on a script about virtual reality. He’s basing it upon advances in the tech that he’s heard about and is concerned by. Expect this to be more like eXistenZ than Virtuality or Hackers. Romero talked about people changing their appearance in virtual worlds, as well as recreation of the cross-sensational stimuli in drinking a cold drink, for example.

He also revealed a bit more about his latest zombie flick, ....of the Dead:

There are countless horses in the footage we’ve seen so far and dogs too. Romero says that this time out he specifically addresses the issues of animals and zombies, but he didn’t give a clear explanation of how – zombies feeding on beasts? Zombified animals? Or just a reveal that the undead definitely don’t want to feast on animal flesh?

I'm excited about the virtual reality deal, however, I'm very curious as to what Romero's approach to zombies and animals is. Word up.

Cormac McCarthy's The Road.....movie update

Stop everything you're doing right now. Get in your favorite vehicle of choice or if you want...run, don't walk, to the nearest bookstore and pick up Cormac McCarthy's The Road. It's a pretty short read and will grab and pull on your heart strings.

The Road is basically about a father and a son who are living in a post apocalyptic world. Ash covers everything and cannibals threaten their survival. It's more about the relationship between the father and son. It's worth the read.

Anyway, as some of you know, The Road has been adapted into a movie that has already been seen as an Oscar contender for next year.

Here's a 4 minute podcast with the BBC reporting about the movie and a first listen to the stunningly beautiful soundtrack by Nick Cave! Exciting!!