Posted By John Sears on March 6, 2011

Santa Claus. Immortal giver of joy, and toys, to children, at least in the American mythos. He of the rosy cheeks, chimney spelunking and the flying reindeer, Rudolph later added by Montgomery Ward.

And, for some reason, a noteworthy target of Anti-Zombie media creators.

It’s becoming routine to splash Zombies into holiday stories, almost invariably in a negative light. We’ve seen Anti-Zombie takes on get-togethers with the family and caroling, Brian Posehn wrote a Zombie Apocalypse survival story starring Santa, Marvel plans to put out a Zombie Hating version of A Christmas Carol, there’s even a Christmasy Bioterrorism simulator with an unfortunate Zombie-hook.

Given this pedigree, how long until someone had Santa himself munching on some brains? If it hasn’t happened before, it’s happening now:

Dick, a disgruntled Christmas elf who’s just been arrested for the murder of Santa Claus, rants about the unimaginable secrets going on at the North Pole. As this seriously dark humored holiday tale unfolds, unknown to the elf or the authorities, the real problem is awakening at the morgue. Zombie Santa wants brains and is thirsty for elf blood.

Yes folks, this is for real: Zombie Santa running amok, devouring brains instead of milk and cookies. Yikes.

Now, having watched the first two episodes, it’s clear that this series is rife with Anti-Zombie stereotypes, but it’s not clear that Santa’s the real villain here. Dick might qualify, since he seems to be lying to the police even with lives at risk (there are cops with jurisdiction over the North Pole?) and definitely put a hammer into another person’s skull.

‘Santa Preys for X-mas’ is currently in serial production, with two web episodes available. How will this gruesome and slanderous tale turn out?

If you want to find out, you’ll have to help the producers raise some money (which we definitely don’t recommend, given the currently produced segments). As for us, the ZRC is going to curl up with a good book and start a fire in the wood stove. We don’t need grotesque violence to drive away the winter chill here, and we certainly don’t require a scapegoat to enjoy each other’s company, on Christmas or any other day of the year. As a matter of fact, in years past the ZRC has arranged a Zombie Santa to deliver presents and candy to overlooked girls and boys during the holidays.

Ok, so a lot of them were fairly skeezy attendees at Atomic Age Cinema. Don’t deviants deserve a little holiday cheer too?

We think so here at the ZRC.

At any rate, ‘Santa Preys for X-mas’, a work in progress, is embedded below for your viewing displeasure.

Episode 1:

Episode 2:

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Tags: Movies, Youtube Mischief

Posted By John Sears on March 6, 2011

I mean, seriously. This movie puts its Living Supremacism right there in the title. Humans vs. Zombies, which necessarily indicates that Zombies aren’t Human, and that the two are at war.

Disgusting.

Other than the remarkably upfront title, however, it seems like a pretty typical, violent, Zombie Apocalypse genre picture:

Synopsis:
Students on summer break are exposed to a deadly virus, a neuroinvasive organism that is spread rapidly through direct human contact. The infected are enslaved by the invading “swarm” intelligence and driven by an insatiable appetite to consume human flesh. Returning home, the students spread the infection to their fellow classmates and other unsuspecting townspeople. One by one, more students fall victim to the plague, triggering an epidemic that spawns a horde of ravenous zombies.

The zombie horde grows and spreads quickly. Amidst the chaos a campus security guard, obsessed with conspiracy theories, leads a group of students to safety as they and a small band of uninfected townspeople set out to find other human survivors in an attempt to discover the source of the “zombie” virus and save the world.

Naturally, a group of random students from the local college will find the source of a world-ravaging plague that, as noted, originated a great distance away.

This is like ‘Outbreak’, only even more farcical, and without Dustin Hoffman. Or Morgan Freeman.

Oh yes, and it’s highly offensive to Zombies.

Come to think of it, it’s not that much like ‘Outbreak’. Trailer embedded below so, as always, you can evaluate it for yourself.

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Tags: Movies

Posted By John Sears on March 6, 2011

What happens when the voice talent for a violent Anti-Zombie videogame sit down to play it for the first time? Well, some pretty strange things can be revealed, and some sad truths about human nature as well:

The celeb-packed hands-on spectacle includes snippets of pint-sized Kill Bill actress Chiaki Kurimaya – apparently a self-confessed fan of the series – having a go at the game’s battle system, and generally being a little freaked out by the undead hordes.

…

Next up is Jun Komori, who also briefly takes on the Shambling Hordes of Hades before indulging in a bizarre-looking mini-game, the purpose of which completely eludes us.

Editorializing aside (Hordes of Hades? really?), the videos are more or less as described. One actress, clearly a longtime fan of virtual massacres, mows down ‘hordes’ of the Differently Animated, along with, apparently, rock-men and some flying guy with a glowing heart.

The other has a less seasoned virtual slaughterer engaged in a bit of carnage, and then some bizarre mini-games. It looks like in ‘Yakuza: Of the End’, part of your time in-game is spent playing something akin to DDR, and part is playing… a dating sim? I think?

Yeah, I’m not sure what is going on there.

At any rate, ‘Yakuza: Of the End’ comes out soon in Japan and I’m guessing will make its way to America eventually, bringing our already saturated Anti-Zombie game market a mix of carnage, singing and romance all mixed together in one Living Supremacist smoothie.

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Tags: Videogames

Posted By John Sears on March 6, 2011

If you’re like us, you’ve seen a lot of ‘Zombie Apocalypse’ movies, and something may have started to stand out for you as well: Most of the people we’re supposed to sympathize with in these films are complete and utter jerks.

Yet, they’re not *portrayed* that way. They’re, allegedly, your heros for 90 minutes. The rampant criminality, callousness, sociopathy and mayhem are just unfortunate side effects of the situation they supposedly find themselves in. All is forgiven, and absolved, by the ‘Apocalypse’.

Thus a man who is perfectly willing to leave others to die if it gets him one step closer to a snack cake? Hero of ‘Zombieland’.

A journalist who abandons her job and the public she supposedly serves in a critical moment to steal the company helicopter? Heroine of ‘Dawn of the Dead’.

Let’s not even talk about Robert Kirkman’s characters. Honestly, by the end of the second trade I was way past hoping the ‘Zombies’ would eat them and just begging an uncaring universe to finish the story off in one splash panel, a meteor wiping the whole sorry cast off the planet.

Spoiler alert: it didn’t happen.

Into this tradition of jerks running amok in the End Times comes a new short film, ‘Zombies and Assholes’:

A group of degenerates delight in the pleasures of annoying both staff and patrons at the lavish Eden Restaurant. But on this day, after a quick dine and dash, they are faced by a zombified staff who begin attacking customers. Stuck in a stalled car, determined to die with clear consciences, they confess their intertwined sexual indiscretions. Will they survive, and if so, who will win – Zombies or Assholes?

Interesting premise. Unfortunately the trailer makes it clear that honesty about the Survivors doesn’t carry over to the Differently Animated, who are still the same old Romero cliches.

Come on, filmmakers! You’re halfway to acknowledging the truth! Survivors are jerks, and Zombies… well, they’re just people, really. Not saying all the Differently Animated are candidates for sainthood; just saying that the guy who runs down other people for sport while searching for Twinkies isn’t the *good guy*.

At any rate, I’ve embedded the trailer below. Take a look for yourself.

Category: Zombie Media | 2 Comments »
Tags: Movies

Posted By John Sears on March 6, 2011

I finally have the chance to hit a bit of traditional ZRC territory here, having Solidarity-ed myself out today at a reasonable time and gotten some chores done this evening, so let’s check back in with ‘Dead Island’, the videogame media’s darling, famed for its gruesome and unsettlingly Anti-Zombie trailer.

Which, as it turns out, has precious little to do with the game:

The little girl doesn’t die. She’s already dead.

Dead Island captured a lot of attention with a heart-rending trailer that showed in reverse the death of a little girl and her family during an outbreak on the island resort of Banoi. It’s an unsettling 90 seconds of video that makes promises on which the game may not be able to deliver.

That family and their sad voyage from happy vacationers to terrified victims of the undead isn’t going to be in the game, said Blazej Krakowiak, international brand manager for developer Techland.

…

But the game itself still needs to bring with it, in game play and Dead Island’s story, its own characters and emotions. And Krakowaik can’t exactly promise that.

He tells me that there will be emotional elements to the game, but that at its heart that’s not what Dead Island is meant to be.

“It is a zombie action slasher,” he said. “This is a game where you will be killing zombies up close.”

Ahh, a bait-and-switch. Classic.

The article goes on to discuss ‘Dead Island’ as compared to ‘Dead Rising’ in particular, and elaborates on its sandbox nature, though it relies on some cheap tricks to artificially limit the scope of that sandbox:

Because the game has some heavy role-playing elements, and your character can improve skills and become a more proficient zombie killer, the difficult of the three sorts of zombies you’ll run into will also scale.

So if you were to wander back to that hut where the game opens as a high-level character, zombies would be a bit harder to deal with, Krakowaik said.

Videogame enemies scale. Sure, you *can* go anywhere you want, but if you try, we’ll kill your character. Open-world indeed.

This gets at something the ZRC has been trying to point out to people who think of themselves as ‘Zombie fans’ and play this sort of game, or watch similar movies, or read similar books: the creators of most of them don’t actually like you, or your hobby/interest. They’re cashing in. I can’t say for certain that this is the case with ‘Dead Island’; it’s certainly been in development purgatory for a long time. However, the exploitation, the bait-and-switch, the ‘sandbox’ with cliche barriers, the ambiguity about everything even at this late point in development, all speaks to a certain, mercenary scrabbling for your Anti-Zombie dollar.

These days there is a lot of competition, after all.

Unfortunately.

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Tags: Videogames

Posted By John Sears on March 5, 2011

The first one is up, a short speech and song from a member of Vets for Freedom, who I previously caught on video inside the Rotunda.

As Stephanie Miller would say, ‘Oh yeah, he’s good.’

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Tags: Madison Protests

Posted By John Sears on March 5, 2011

Hey gang. We had a great time downtown today for the ZRC, carrying out signs, getting pictures taken, spreading some outreach on behalf of the Differently Animated.

As usual, I have a big crop of photos to share with you as well. The whole Flickr set for today is here, and the collection of all the Madison related pictures is here.

Now on to some specific fun!

(So… many.. nerds)

(More of those palm trees Fox must have imported)

(Some artists constructed this in-situ during the rally today. Very neat)

(So many post-its)

(I assume that’s Scotty’s office number)

(Front and back of one sign)

Videos uploading to Youtube now, and more news updates to come, including, I hope, some classic style ZRC stuff.

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Tags: Madison Protests

Posted By John Sears on March 5, 2011

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Tags: Madison Protests, Youtube Mischief

Posted By John Sears on March 4, 2011

Well, the Capitol opened back up today – kind of.

I have to admit, the DOA buckled a lot more than I thought they would. I went down to the Capitol today before lunch and, indeed, I was able to get in. They’ve resorted to low-grade, airport security style harassment, but it’s not nearly as rude or thuggishly determined as the TSA. A bit amateur hour really; not even claim tickets for the items you have to check, which mostly seems to consist of knives. (Yes, they made me leave my half-inch swiss army knife blade. It’s a threat, I guess, to David the Gnome)

Once I got inside there wasn’t much to do – it was early, nobody was really there yet. So I catalogued a bunch of the signs that are still up.

Some seem to be pretty new:

Tomorrow’s a big rally day, and the ZRC will go back downtown for sure. I’ll get some more pictures and video for our Zombie Rights supporting audience then.

The set for today is here, and the collection of all pictures is here. The ZRC’s Youtube channel is here.

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Tags: Madison Protests

Posted By John Sears on March 4, 2011

I shot these two videos this afternoon; I apologize for the first one, I had trouble finding a good spot to stand and then the focus wouldn’t adjust the way I wanted.

As you can see, this movement isn’t running out of steam anytime soon, access to the Capitol or not.

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Tags: Madison Protests