Much of the time, especially with the properties we’ve taken to describing as ‘Just Add Zombies’ or with our blog tag ‘Zombie Flavored Creativity Substitute’, when you see something with Zombies, or their caricatures, the creator rushes to get some Anti-Undead imagery to the viewer/reader as fast as possible, to assure the bloodthirsty fans that, yes, their sick depraved needs will be met.

Often this is even done before any plot or characterization. Witness ‘Zombies of Mass Destruction’ for a handy example.

Given that, to be presented with an upcoming show that may or may not be about the Differently Animated but keeps its cards closer to the vest… is interesting. Or at least a bit novel.

From Horror Society:

HELP! I’M ALIVE… brings you an exclusive behind-the-scenes feature as make-up artist Chrysalis Rose creates “Frank the Zombie” (portrayed by Ethan Parsonage) for the WonderCon Promo coming out May 13th, 2011.

Featured at WonderCon as an exclusive, this promo hits the web Friday the 13th as a teaser to the forthcoming web series this fall — a post-apocalyptic story about a group of survivors who must deal with the aftermath of a stranger’s sudden appearance.

There is, however, one very good reason to suspect that this show will be about Zombies, and not in a particularly positive way: the promo has.. a promo of its own.

About the makeup process for ‘Zombie #1′:

As you can see, ‘Zombie #1′, named ‘Frank’ apparently at the last minute, is not a character for the show, properly speaking, or even the promo: he’s a prop. Frank ‘was his name’; now he is ‘Zombie #1′, whose story looks to be told only through makeup depicting violent struggle and gore.

That is not encouraging, to say the least.

A longer synopsis floating around gives no further detail on the Zombie angle:

Synopsis: Set approximately 20 years in the future, we follow a group of survivors in the mountains of Northern California after an apocalypse wipes out nearly 75% of the worlds population. There was no natural disaster. There was no war. Abandoned buildings and homes are peacefully still standing. In fact, there were no real signs of immediate danger. How did the world fall to shambles, leaving nothing more than stories of what may have happened? The answers lie within a stranger that stumbles upon this small community of survivors with nothing more than an empty gun and a bloody wooden knife, fighting his way across the country looking for the answers.

And the solution.

To find out what caused the world to end, and what anomalies now inhabit mother earth, our survivors along with this new stranger, must venture out into what may be the end of their lives…

Just a hunch? Zombies are one of the ‘anomalies’. Which really hurts, by the way!

Zombies are *not* an anomaly. Zombies are people too. We have pamphlets to that effect, in fact.

‘Help! I’m Alive…’ is fundraising on Kickstarter at the moment, and is some distance from their goal, which may mean that we’ll never find out precisely how this apocalypse is the Zombies’ fault. I’m not sure how to feel about that. How do I properly condemn Anti-Zombie prejudice without being able to screen it?

The ZRC will work to keep you updated on any further developments, regardless.

Tags: Youtube Mischief

This entry was posted by John Sears on Saturday, May 14th, 2011 at 11:39 pm and is filed under Zombie Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.