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‘Nerd of the Living Dead’: What Exactly Am I Looking At Here?

Posted By on March 18, 2011

It’s rare that I have no idea what to think about an upcoming Zombie-related project; most of the time the press information alone gives solid hints as to potential Zombie Friendliness or lack thereof. Thus it’s not at all common to read the blurb, watch a trailer, and have no clue what the ZRC reaction will be.

Nerd of the Living Dead’ presents us with just such a rare event:

The Plot: Elvin McBrant (an awkward braniac with a penchant for condiments) unwittingly joins the ranks of the Undead, after a bite from a quasi-deceased Hippie. As if becoming a zombie isn’t bad enough, Elvin the vegan doesn’t eat meat, and people are meat, right!?

Do not adjust your set! This motion picture from Stu Dodge (the director who brought us the irreverent semi-cult “Cheerleader Autopsy”) is presented in soothing monochromatic 2D (no glasses required).

I watched the trailer you’ll see below, and I *still* can’t place what’s going on, precisely. Is this a satire? It certainly seems to be satirical at points. Is it a zombie-comedy? Is it a horror film? With a protagonist who becomes a Zombie and apparently retains his human intellect, and even food ethics, it certainly seems promising, but the trailer also shows said protagonist clubbing Zombies over the head and engaging in generally Anti-Zombie behavior.

What on *Earth* is going on? The closest thing I can compare this to is ‘Atomic Age Cinema TV 2: Atomic Boogaloo’, and that turned out to be a real gem and one of our favorite Zombie Friendly indie films, poking at the soft underbelly of the current Anti-Zombie craze with style and, well, insanity.

I choose to hope that ‘Nerd of the Living Dead’ will also fall on the Zombie Friendly side, and am jotting the release date down in my calendar.

Madison Protests Update

Posted By on March 18, 2011

Man. It has been a much more relaxed week for the ZRC, protest-wise anyway. The news keeps coming in though, so here are some highlights for our readers.

1) A series of lawsuits against the highly irregular and (most likely) illegal tactics used to pass the Anti-Union, Anti-Zombie, Anti-Poor, Anti-Student, Anti-Everybody Really bill have been filed and are proceeding apace. This morning a judge issued a temporary restraining order against the ‘budget repair’ bill being enacted into law, blocking implementation entirely for the foreseeable future; the case will apparently proceed in April.

2) Another suit against the hopefully illegal and still stifling conditions in the Capitol has been filed by a longtime activist. Here’s hoping that one succeeds and the DOA can be forced to stop acting like such jackbooted toadies of the Walker Administration. Their low-grade harassment of protesters and nitpicking on permits has been a blatant attempt to chill free speech and curry favor with their boss, and is moral cowardice of the lowest and most degrading sort, legal or not.

3) The ongoing scandal of State Senator Randy Hopper has been one source of delight after another. First it emerges, when recall proponents go to his house, that Sen. Hopper has moved out on his wife and shacked up in Madison with his mistress, which would mean that he’s ineligible as a Senator (because he moved out of his home district). Then he lies to the press about living in a non-existent apartment in his district, as if they would not check up on his story. Then it turns out that *somehow* his fling on the side, who was a lobbyist while bedding him by the way, has gotten a cushy state job with undisclosed income. Imagine that.

4) A Zombie Walk against Walker and in support of Unions is being held on April 2nd, starting at 1pm on State Street by the Urban Outfitters (we have an Urban Outfitters?). The ZRC will be in attendance with literature and signs and strongly encourages Zombies and their allies to show up for a good time and a very worthy cause.

Stay tuned here for more updates as things move forward. The ZRC has a big project we’ve been working on this week that I’m about to debut and I think you’ll all be very pleased.

Jovanka Vuckovic Appears to Miss Zombie Forest for the Differently Animated Trees in New Illustrated Tome on the History of Zombies

Posted By on March 17, 2011

The news is going around the web about a book that the former Editor-in-Chief of Rue Morgue magazine has coming out about Zombies:

The zombie phenomenon is unique in Western popular culture. From its origins in the voodoo beliefs of Haiti, it has become a key ingredient in today’s cinema, popular literature and comics. With one simple premise that the dead rise again to feast on the living and turn them into zombies, the undead have inspired a huge variety of artists to explore ideas of survival, morality, fear, humour and horror. ZOMBIES! is the first book to take a wide look at the whole phenomenon, from low budget cult movies to long-running comics and best-selling humour novels. With stunning imagery, and an authoritative and entertaining text from one of the worlds most distinguished experts on the genre, plus a foreword by master of horror George A. Romero, this tome will appall and delight the reader in equal measure.

See, the first part that bothers me is having George Romero do the foreword for a book on Zombies. True, no work dealing with the cultural interactions between the Differently Animated and the Living community over the last century would be complete without discussing his, ahem, work in movies like ‘Night of the Living Dead’. We can’t properly discuss the Civil War without talking about Nathan Bedford Forrest either.

But it’s another matter entirely to allow him to shape the entire work by presenting his own perverse views on the Differently Animated at the very front of the book! Talk about revisionist history.

I decided to look a bit further afield, and fortunately there was an extensive Dread Central interview with Vuckovic on this very subject to glean details from. They were not, hugely, encouraging:

DC: You cover the zombie genre from its true beginnings as part of the voodoo religion to its current inception as a part of pop culture. What do you think is the continuing appeal of the zombie? There are plenty of other monsters out there, but the zombiemania just keeps going and going (no pun intended).

JV: I think the key to the zombie’s longevity is its malleability. It can be hammered into other shapes without breaking. The creature has managed to evolve quite effortlessly mostly on the silver screen, with small pitstops on the printed page such as Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend. The zombie has served as a metaphor for a variety of things including slavery, industrialization, nuclear anxiety, war, xenophobia, disease and so on. In fact you can trace sociocultural evolution via the zombie in North American cinema – and to some degree in Europe and elsewhere, though the Italian zombie films are often less about what’s going on in society as they are about putting on a Grand Guignol feast for the senses.

This is simultaneously insightful and insulting, which is a neat trick. If you were to preface that explanation by noting that it is solely meant to describe the way that mean-spirited mainstream culture has *used* the Differently Animated, then it would be spot on, trenchant analysis. Unfortunately we see here the tendency, so common in horror journalists, to confuse the reality of the hardworking, average Zombie American with the grotesque stereotype that the movies, and comics, and books, and videogames often label as a ‘zombie’.

Much like documentarians who lose themselves in their own footage and begin to believe that what they shot defines and encompasses reality, Ms. Vuckovic seems to think that the twisted imagery that has emerged from the pop horror culture over the last century. She has looked out and seen a forest of Zombies, and never stopped to consider the individual Differently Animated trees, become enraptured by the zeitgeist and forgotten to wonder about the people who make up the culture.

That is of course a monumental misunderstanding, and a tragic mistake.

A possible reason for this mistake in judgment and error in focus comes up a bit later in the interview:

DC: To answer a becoming-age-old question, do you prefer the slow Romero zombies or the fast Snyder zombies?

JV: Definitely in the Romero camp here. I think zombies are better when they move slowly. For one, zombies wouldn’t actually be able to run in reality. Their muscle insertions, sinews and other connective tissues would putrefy and disconnect from the skeleton. Unless it was a really fresh zombie, I mean, just turned, they wouldn’t be getting around too quickly. That said, because we were so used to the Romero paradigm for so long, when the zombies did come tearing after us in 28 Days Later, it was pretty freaky. But then again, they aren’t technically zombies – they’re the “infected.” Zombie parlance is very particular. You have to be careful with these designations! [Laughs] You know, I just think zombies are scarier when they are more lifeless – less human.

Here we get to the crux of the matter; Ms. Vuckovic sees Zombies, see the Differently Animated, not as people, but as a source of amusement, as entertainment. She diminishes them and ignores their plight because, to her, it doesn’t actually exist – Zombies begin and end with what shows up on the page or on a screen, and only then when it’s scary or entertaining. If that is one’s perspective then it is hardly surprising that a lack of sympathy is the direct result. How much sympathy do people have for their fictitious enemies? Are there people out there who weep over the turtles that Mario stomps on his way to victory?

Should there be? I wonder.

At any rate, the ZRC is interested enough that I will probably pick up a copy to review eventually, but saddened enough that it can’t be a high priority. What we’ve seen so far may be broader in historical scope than the narrow post-Romero focus so common amongst Zombie ‘scholars’ or ‘academics’, but it is no kinder, and certainly no fairer, to the Differently Animated.

‘Cockneys vs. Zombies’ Tries to Foment Unrest in the UK

Posted By on March 17, 2011

I suppose now that Zombies have become a sort of lazy stock villain to be slapped into every horror concept that’s short a few ideas it’s inevitable that ethno-cultural groups will be pitted against them one by one in an attempt at niche marketing, but it’s still disheartening to see unrest at the expense of the Differently Animated being spread in the name of making a few bucks:

Michelle Ryan (4.3.2.1.), Harry Treadaway (Control), Honor Blackman (Bridget Jones’s Diary) and Jack Doolan (Cemetery Junction) have signed to star in Matthias Hoene’s feature Cockneys vs. Zombies, reports THR.

Set to shoot across the British capital later this month, the movie is written by James Moran (Severance) and “details the story of a group of bank robbers who unlock a 350-year old vault only to unleash an army of zombies.”

Haven’t the Differently Animated had it rough enough in the land of fish and chips since Danny Boyle decided to make it big on the backs of those who, through no fault of their own, happen to be a bit bleary-eyed? Can’t the indie horror industry leave these stalwart Undead tea-drinkers in peace for a while?

I suppose not. Instead of offering an olive branch, a cup of Earl Grey and a couple of biscuits, we have another cast and crew assembling to offer insults and cruel misinformation instead.

I’m sorry, UK Zombies. We’re doing the best we can here at the ZRC to fight this evil. Keep a stiff upper lip and all that, if you can.

(thanks to BuyZombie for this tip)

Hasn’t Seth Grahame-Smith Done Enough?

Posted By on March 17, 2011

First of course, Mr. Grahame-Smith got the ball rolling on the entire genre of ‘Mix public domain work with Zombies’, for which literature itself owes him a sound thrashing. Yes, we can lay the lion’s share of the blame for an entire subgenre of lazy, relatively unimaginative Anti-Zombie fiction at his feet, even if, of course, he wasn’t as guilty of the offense himself (being first and all).

No, Grahame-Smith is an original Zombie basher. He just has legions of followers, and worse, imitators. He’s the pied piper of postmodern humor/horror, leading mainstream publishers down to the river to drown, but on some level it’s their fault for following.

However, his attempt to turn the, again, unfortunately, highly influential ‘Pride and Prejudice and Zombies’ into a film have to date been plagued with problems, so it seems that Mr. Grahame-Smith may have to step in and co-direct the film adaptation of his Anti-Zombie work himself:

Previously both David O. Russell and Mike White were attached to direct PPZ but as time has gone by both have bowed out of the spotlight. According to THR its beginning to look like producing partners Seth Grahame-Smith and David Katzenberg may be taking up the reigns and just directing the films themselves. While this would be the directing debut for Seth, David has had directing experience before in Television.

Oh, well, I’m sure everything will work out then.

An admirable level of dedication is evident here, considering the travails that have been gone through in an attempt to bring this particular work of prejudice to life. If only Mr. Grahame-Smith would channel that effort into undoing some of the damage he’s done, to the Zombie Community, the bestseller lists, the horror section at Barnes and Noble, etc, the world might be a very different and better place.

Pity.

‘Zomblicity’: Two Parallel Stories, One Giant Pile of Prejudice

Posted By on March 16, 2011

Monitoring BuyZombie as I often do for any news about the usually awful treatment of the Differently Animated in media, I saw this item today:

In this case it’s the new web comic that I’ve found called Zomblicity that takes 2 looks at the same cast where the only difference is our main character having left 30 minutes late. We’ll see how he is instantly a zombie in one and how he lives his undead life compared to him living in the next ‘version’ as another regular guy stuck in a world infested with zombies.

So what is Zomblicity like? Does it show how a person can be fundamentally the same loving, feeling, thinking human being whether they are alive or Undead?

Nope. Of course not. Sigh.

Instead, if you go to read the comic itself, you’ll find ‘Zomblicity’ to be another tired take on the Zombie Apocalypse enlivened only slightly by its dual-track premise, partially because the stories run in alternation and we haven’t even *seen* any of the portion where the protagonist has become a Zombie yet. Rather, in the first timeline, he wandered around a bit in a city on fire (do Zombies all set fires in this world?) and then is attacked by an oddly shapeless, alien looking creature that we can presume is supposed to be a Zombie.

Apparently Zombification involves having the level of detail needed to convey you drop dramatically. Must be handy for the artist.

In the second storyline the protagonist wakes up a half hour late and.. also wanders through a city even more in flames. Aimlessly. Only this time things go slightly differently and he winds up back at his apartment so he can have sex. Or something.

That’s about as far as it goes so far. The ‘Zombies’ are perplexing to me. They seem to be basic Romero stereotypes, but their simplified look harkens back, oddly enough, to an old, old episode of Lupin the III, at least for me, where he fought some Zombie-like creatures as he tried to steal a gem from them. Lupin is, after all, the bad guy in many respects; he gets by on style, not conventional morality.

I doubt this is intentional however. My guess is, it’s just more prejudice against Zombies. ‘Oh, they’re Zombies, why should I put the extra effort in to drawing them?’

Between that and the copious Anti-Zombie violence and the standard Zombie Apocalypse playset action going on in this comic, The ZRC rates it as Living Supremacist, at least so far. Perhaps, in the future, we can see some improvement on this one.

Zomblicity has Living Supremacy aplenty.

Rabidly Anti-Zombie Post from TheNewGay.net and its ‘Cinespastic’ Column

Posted By on March 15, 2011

Often we have to explain our position on a particular item or product here on the ZRC blog, delving into nuance, exploring the perhaps unintentional way in which a particular author, artist or developer may have insulted Zombies or otherwise harmed the Differently Animated.

Then we have columns like this:

But vampires have held a place within pop culture since Bram Stoker brought us Dracula exactly because of that charm, that mysterious and sexy way they seduce their victims and bring them, often willingly, into their own world.

On the other end of the undead movie monster spectrum is that sluggish, bloody, organ-eating grotesque: the zombie. The zombie is in every way the antithesis of the vampire, instead of seducing and charming you into their trap, the zombie just grabs you and tears you to pieces, eating your organs right out of your body while you’re still alive.

Gross.

Over the past five years or so, the zombie genre has risen faster from the dead than one of the brain-hungry stumblers. It is as if the zombie genre has come back into horror vogue in direct reaction to the popularity of those slick vampires. I’d love to see someone try to turn those nasty zombies into a cutesy love story. Good luck.

As you can see, that column is just virulently, shockingly hateful toward Zombies, dripping with hate and prejudice, soaked with derision and scorn. It’s also pretty ignorant; there have been love stories featuring Zombies, actually. I’ve seen a few at indie film festivals. ‘Lonely’ was one, there was another at The Dark Carnival last year featuring a sort of Zombie resistance/rehab organization, I forget the name, and of course, we had ‘George’s Intervention’, a solid attempt at Zombie Romance, if not a perfect film from a Zombie Rights perspective. ‘Breathers’ sold pretty well, even if it was unevenly written and pretty Anti-Zombie by the end.

Now, the comparison the column is trying to make is with Twilight, I think, and mercifully, there has been no direct Zombie equivalent. But how on Earth can that be a bad thing?

As it turns out the raving, spittle-flecked passage above eventually segues to the point of the Cinespastic column: having established his cred as a Zombie and Anti-Zombie genre hater, the author, one Ben K., then gushes all over ‘The Walking Dead’. See, it was important not to be seen as one of Those People, who like Anti-Zombie movies, or worse still, one of, well, Us People, Zombie fans and advocates, assuming the author is even aware we exist.

Of course. We understand. You’re not a Zombie fan, or Anti-Zombie fan, you’re a precious and unique snowflake, critically sophisticated and Above It All. There there. Your reputation is safe.

As an elitist, Living Supremacist bigot, that is.

Is “Nathan Abercrombie, Accidental Zombie” Series of Childrens’ Books Intentionally Anti-Zombie?

Posted By on March 15, 2011

I’m always on the lookout for more Zombie Friendly media, especially to help educate the next generation about Zombie Rights and to counter the hateful propaganda pushed at even our youngest citizens by things like Plants vs. Zombies, which cloak their fearmongering in cutesy graphics.

So when I learned about a series of children’s books about a middle-school aged Zombie character who isn’t munching down on his classmates’ brains, at first I was very encouraged. Sadly, that hopeful phase didn’t last:

The final book of Nazareth author David Lubar’s five-book series on a fifth-grade zombie came out earlier this year and ends the tale of Nathan Abercrombie in a way fans will find satisfying.

The book marks the end of the two-year blitz of “Nathan Abercrombie, Accidental Zombie” books about the the misadventures of the unlikely hero that is aimed at middle grade readers.

In the final book, “Enter the Zombie” evil organization RABID is using a student academic and athletic competition to recruit agents, and Nathan and his friends Abigail, and Mookie must try to stop them. And meanhwile, poor Nathan whose zombie tendencies are worsening and he keeps losing body parts (which must be glued back on) is trying to find the cure for his zombie state.

Despite being a zombie, Nathan is a likeable kid who wants to do the right thing, Lubar says.

So he’s a good person ‘despite’ being a zombie, I see. And of course, the last book has to involve finding a cure for being a Zombie in the first place, because, well, who’d want to remain a Zombie?

Unbelievable; and once again, this is being marketed at *children*, who don’t necessarily even have the chance to know any better. These books no doubt are making their way into school libraries and the children’s section at the local branch library as we speak, spreading prejudice and wreaking havoc with outreach efforts and education toward young people in our Anti-Zombie society.

What about the Zombie kids who pick up these books, hoping to read about a character like themselves, only to find, at the end, a stinging rejection of their entire being and way of Unlife? How cruel can one author be to the Zombie children of the world?

The ZRC is very, very saddened by this turn of events. We desperately need some age-appropriate Zombie Friendly fiction, and we need it as soon as possible, or messages like the ones apparently found in “Nathan Abercrombie, Accidental Zombie” will win the day.

More ‘Pranksters’ Mess with Road Signs to Spread Fear of Zombies

Posted By on March 15, 2011

That, and better security on the signs themselves, I suppose:

For several hours early Monday morning, motorists driving south on Foothills Parkway in Boulder received an unnerving warning from an electric road-construction sign: “Zombies ahead.”

Zombie-loving hackers have been breaking into programmable electronic road signs across the country for years and posting the warning about the fictional horror characters. Some include additional instructions such as “Run!”

Padilla said motorists won’t see any more zombie warnings at projects he’s overseeing. “We are putting locks on them as we speak.”

If only it were that simple, Mr. Padilla. As we’ve documented here at the ZRC Blog, these miscreants and fearmongers will sometimes go so far as to break locks to spread their divisive message, even aiming it at children.

Don’t assume your signs will be safe and henceforth only display relevant road condition-related messages. The shadowy network of sign saboteurs and Zombie haters is out there, and they apparently have access to bolt cutters.

In the meantime, good job, mainstream press, treating yet another hate crime as a basically harmless prank. You ought to be ashamed of yourselves.

‘Zombie Lane’ Merges Evil of Anti-Zombie Hatred with Evil of Facebook

Posted By on March 15, 2011

Given the seemingly endless public appetite for Anti-Zombie media it was only a matter of time before Facebook, the world’s natural home for all ugly trends in technology, would find a way to jump on the bandwagon:

Digital Chocolate, a leader in social games across growing platforms, today announced the launch of Zombie Lane™ on Facebook, a fun and hilarious take on Zombie games gone social. The game is currently recruiting brave players in the quest to defend and take back control of their neighborhood from the endless waves of zombies.

“Zombies continue to be an incredibly popular theme in games and movies,” said Marc Metis, President of Digital Chocolate. “We’ve set out to create the first great Zombie game on Facebook (News – Alert).”

‘Endless waves’ and the need to ‘take back control’ of your neighborhood, eh? If you just substitute the word ‘Irish’ for ‘Zombie’ and change the setting back a century we could have a period drama going! Think ‘Gangs of New York’ only with more mouse clicks and fewer stylish costumes.

Uggh. This could end up the next Farmville, couldn’t it? It could grow like a digital cancer, spreading time-devouring Anti-Zombie hate across the virtual world.

A terrifying prospect to be sure. I have a Facebook account for the ZRC, so this may bear further investigating. Perhaps I can even undermine their indoctrination from within?