We hope you'll find this blog an educational, entertaining, and inspiring source of information, whether you're recently undead, a long-time member of the differently animated, or a still-living friend of your fallen, yet risen again, brethren. Everyone with an interest in zombie rights is welcome!
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Posted By John Sears on February 11, 2011
I honestly don’t know what to make of this little flash game with a choir of Zombies you can direct, but it doesn’t seem Unfriendly to Zombies at all, so I’m sharing it with our readership as a bit of probably harmless fun.
Enjoy.
Posted By John Sears on February 11, 2011
What is it with reunion tours, anyway? Is it just me or are they nearly constant now. With some bands I’d almost say they just break up to boost enthusiasm for the inevitable reunion tour. At any rate, ‘Goblin’, most infamous amongst Zombie Rights advocates for their work on the ‘Dawn of the Dead’ soundtrack, is doing their own reunion gig:
Fans of classic Italian horror know that a large part of its allure rests not only with the flashy visuals, dense atmospherics and stylized bloodletting, but in the way the filmmakers used rock and experimental music to propel their celluloid nightmares. Perhaps no one outfit is more notable in this regard than Goblin, the supergroup formed in the mid-’70s. All these years later, Goblin is regrouping for a European music festival that’s also showcasing other notable genre-film compositions.
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Well, good news, Goblin lovers: The band has reformed—with Simonetti—for a special performance at the Unsound Music Festival taking place in Krakow, Poland October 17-24. The fest will offer a wide array of live music performances, with a heavy emphasis on cinema sound. Other highlights of Fangorian interest include the French electronic duo Zombie Zombie performing the songs of John Carpenter, a special live performance by Carpenter cohort and composer Alan Howarth and a multimedia tribute to Andrei Tarkovsky’s SOLARIS (with “film manipulations” by Brian Eno, also part of the New York City Unsound fest running April 2-4).
Fangoria hopes they do a US tour; if so, we’ll have to see if there are any gigs close enough to go picket. These musicians need to be reminded of all the damage their work has contributed to in the Zombie Community, after all.
Posted By John Sears on February 11, 2011
Seriously folks, I don’t know what to say about the continued popularity of RE:Afterlife on DVD:
Also, Saw 3D was the third most purchased DVD of last week with 213,000+ copies bought and a gross of $3,415,000. Resident Evil: Afterlife and Piranha 3D also remained in the Top 30 with sales of $560,000 and $445,000.
We reviewed this god-awful movie before here on the ZRC (as well as covered how poor Milla Jovovich, the star, doesn’t feel appreciated enough for her smirking).
Still, it came out months ago, and it’s still a hot selling DVD. Astonishing. Surely there aren’t that many masochists in America, right?
Perhaps the end of the world really is nigh. I’m going to check out the windows here at ZRC Centrale periodically, and if I see the sun go black and the moon bloody, I’ll let you know.
Update: I finally found these figures from January I was looking for:
DVD –
Resident Evil: Afterlife – $18,500,000
Piranha – $4,500,000
The Last Exorcism – $6,600,000
Case 39 – $2,600,000
Terrifying, isn’t it?
Posted By John Sears on February 10, 2011
Remember ‘Blood Lodge’, the Anti-Zombie film in development that features Zombies being excluded from yet another public accommodation, this time a ski lodge?
Not your ‘typical’ zombie movie, eh? Let’s see: extremely negative depiction of a ‘horde’ of the Differently Animated attacks a remote but fortifiable structure and an assortment of colorful strangers have to either band together for survival or be eaten alive?
What about that is novel, the fact that it’s at a ski lodge?
Oh. I get it. This is a Living Supremacist and classist thing, isn’t it? Zombies aren’t *good enough* to be admitted to your fancy ski lodge. Their money, while green, isn’t accepted there. Go along home, Zombies. No skiing for you.
Well, they’re baaaaaaaack, and this time they have fundraising to do:
Zombies and fashion – you just have to love what the world is coming to!
The Zombies R.I.P The Runway is a fundraiser for the upcoming movie “Blood Lodge” starring Vincent Pastore from The Sopranos, Jasmine St. Clair. By Grafitti Playhouse Productions and Producer Kevin Orosz
Guest Appearances by:
Christina Scali from Oxygen’s “Jersey Couture” and representing Diane & Co. Boutique.
Legend Joel M. Reed Producer of “Blood Sucking Freaks”
Mary Foley and Amber Anderson of the web series “The Ghostchicks”, NJ’s all women paranormal ghost hunting team.
And artist John “Chef” Higgins” will be showing his AWESOME artwork.It’s official! Zombies are hitting the runway!
The most interesting part of the promotion, however, is this:
WE ARE GIVING AWAY A CHANCE TO BE A ZOMBIE IN THE MOVIE
The best zombie makeup and costume will win a chance to be in the film!
tickets:
25.00 FOR HUMANS!
20.00 FOR ZOMBIES!!
Now, why do I suspect that, while this seems like an excellent opportunity to try and get a Zombie Friendly portrayal of the Undead into the film, that these filmmakers are only looking for the most stereotypical ‘Zombie’ they can find? Or get their friends and fans to create out of whole cloth and spirit gum?
Still, oppressed minority cultures sometimes find their creative outlets in fashion, so maybe this could lead to something positive. Maybe.
Posted By John Sears on February 10, 2011
We reviewed MadWorld here at the ZRC totally by accident; I had no idea there were Zombies involved when I purchased the game. (The ZRC determined that the blood-soaked and ludicrously violent game was neutral on the Differently Animated, as it treated them precisely the same as the Living: badly.)
Still I have to say I was pleasantly surprised, not to mention shocked, to learn it was getting a sequel. Kind of:
Platinum Games built up an interesting reputation with Bayonetta, MadWorld, and Vanquish, though none of their games has inspired a sequel just yet. Not technically, anyway. Their latest, Anarchy Reigns, isn’t a sequel to MadWorld’s cavalcade of bloodshed, but it’s damned close.
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Anarchy Reigns is a hyperviolent brawler set in a decaying urban battlefield not unlike MadWorld’s walled-off city, and it even features MadWorld’s main character, Jack, and his chainsaw gauntlets. The difference lies in the approach: Anarchy Reigns is all about multiplayer carnage, with many different characters for avatars. Aside from Jack, Platinum has so far introduced a cyborg ninja named Zero, an armored hammer-wielder named Big Bull, and an ice-throwing woman named Bayone…uh, Sasha. Producer Atsushi Inaba emphasizes the online side of the game, offering tag-team matches and free-for-all modes, with more to come.
So far, Anarchy Reigns lacks the black-and-white-and-red palette that was so striking in MadWorld, but it’s clearly aiming for the same level of violence and the same sector of the game industry. It hits the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in the fall.
We look forward to finding out if Anarchy Reigns treats the Undead at least as neutrally as its immediate (and anti-social) predecessor.
Posted By John Sears on February 10, 2011
While we’re happy in general to get sympathetic attention directed at Zombies, this.. isn’t actually a Zombie. At least, not a Zombie *person*.
Meanwhile, check out the ‘statement’ from this ‘Zombie’, who they purport to be a regional chairman for the Zombie Anti-Defamation League:
Aaaa-UUUHHHHH-nnngh! Why people run from zombie? Zombie not hurt you! Zombie want play! People get many wrong idea from movies! Think zombie eat braaains! Is not true! Nibble arm, maybe leg, but not sweet, delicious braaaaaaains!
I for one don’t think this statement is very Zombie Friendly at all, and reinforces the harmful stereotypes about Zombies, and Zombie Animals, that we see doing so much damage (and inspiring so many Anti-Zombie videogames) of late.
For the record, Cute Overload, there *is* an actual Zombie Anti-Defamation League, another advocacy group working for the rights of the Undead (they use the term ‘Post Vital’ over there at the ZADL, as opposed to our preferred nomenclature, the ‘Differently Animated’).
While of course The Zombie Rights Campaign is the preeminent advocacy group for the rights of Zombies, a cursory google search would have revealed the existence of the ZADL, so I can only presume that their name was used in jest or by accident. Still, if I was in charge at Cute Overload, I would investigate to determine whether, in fact, a furry and adorable rodent was a regional chairman at the ZADL and had in fact authorized this statement; the credibility and journalistic integrity of the entire Cute Overload empire seems to be at stake.
Posted By John Sears on February 10, 2011
BuyZombie brings us news that a sort of Zombie Tamagotchi app for the iPhone is free for a limited time:
iPhone Users – Zombo Is FREE The Next 3 Days!
Zombo, being a zombie, is always on the lookout to infect others. Since his home is on the iPhone he’s looking for iPhone users to be ‘friends’ with! With Verizon releasing the iPhone on their network Zombo is going to be free from February 10th-12th to all iPhone users! With so many new users to infect he just can’t wait for you to download him so he can say hi!
We definitely can’t approve of all this ‘infect’ marketing language. The ZRC wants to get people away from this negative and inflammatory disease-paradigm for viewing the Differently Animated.
There’s a youtube video of this product, which I’m embedding below. On the one hand, it’s a bit offensive to have an app where, in essence, you own a Zombie as a pet. On the other hand, there’s a long tradition of such things, going back to Tamagotchis, Digimon, Pokemon and the like, and nobody goes around fantasizing about headshotting Pikachu.
Ok, not that many people.
So on the whole this might help the movement out slightly. At any rate, if you own an iPhone, it costs you nothing to try it for yourself for the next few days.
Posted By John Sears on February 9, 2011
Relatively recently (ok, it’s been up in my tabs for a while), Fangoria looked at a few of the upcoming wave of Anti-Zombie books coming out:
As they continue to shamble (or run) off the presses, it’s clear that zombie books still…won’t…die. Since our roundup of the subgenre’s last ration of offerings (see here), upcoming fiction titles treading both fresh and familiar territory are again lining up to stack the shelves. Undead spins on H.G. Wells, Jane Austen and survivalist fare have all announced their release dates or are already in stores for your (in)digestion.
Yes, the ‘Insert Zombies Here’ movement strikes again and again as someone realized that H.G. Wells is in the public domain and was off to the races, and the Pride and Prejudice and Zombies juggernaut trudges wearily down the road in another installment.
Far more interesting, while still disturbing, were some of the other titles Fangoria looked at:
“Imagine every woman you’ve ever met, you girlfriend, your wife, your mom, your granny, the babe down the hall, the little girl in first grade—every female on the planet suddenly struck with The Disease, a viral mutilation of the chromosomes that will render every human female a ranting, raving, cannibalistic zombie bitch from hell.” So goes, natch, ZOMBIE BITCHES FROM HELL! by Zoot Campbell (out now from Grand Mal Press), a first-person journal-entry-styled confessional told through the eyes of news anchor Kent Zimmer. The reporter bears witness to zombie pregnancy, drag queens with machine guns and evil nuns, amidst other gender-specific insanities. Whether the sentiments of Campbell’s latest can be read as feminist or misogynist, we’ll leave to the reader.
Hmm… is Campbell aware that all men carry an X chromosome too? There are female-specific genetic diseases, as I recall but the idea that a virus that attacks the X chromosome (most viruses don’t care much about where they attach to your DNA anyway) would skip over the male population is odd, to say the least.
This story reads a little at first glance like an inversion of The Taint, a movie about a ‘Zombie Apocalypse’ like scenario where contagious misogyny causes men to go insane and become hyper-violent (along with… other physical symptoms too bizarre to describe here). The Taint in turn can also be seen as a wacky version of The Screwfly Solution. Man, horror is an intellectually incestuous genre.
Then there’s another Choose Your Own Adventure style Anti-Zombie book:
Set for a February debut is Max Brallier’s CAN YOU SURVIVE THE ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE? (Gallery Books). Rather than subject us to zombie (or lifted plot) terror with no agency or control, Brallier’s novel reads much like an interactive role-playing game, filled with moral dilemmas, strategies and alternatives from which to choose and navigate as the reader is left to deal with the impending flesheater invasion of New York. What could have been the same old song and dance here aims to be a refreshing revisiting of the tropes—a meticulously laid-out scheme with multiple possibilities to explore. Now if a character in your story decides once again to go into that dark room alone, you have no one but yourself to blame.
The only even small glimmer is in an anthology series that seems to take a slightly more sympathetic view toward some of the Undead, though it’s not clear how Zombies fare:
Sam Stone seeks also to rock Manhattan with his anthology ZOMBIES IN NEW YORK AND OTHER BLOODY JOTTINGS (Telos Publishing) next month. Jack the Ripper under investigation by a vampire, the unexplained sapping of energy of the typically hearty Moulin Rouge and other episodic installments comprise Stone’s decidedly poetic angle on the material, which has turned some heads interested in making this one a full-length feature.
Well, the ZRC will keep an eye out for these and other books dealing with Zombies in the months ahead. Though honestly? Don’t expect to see a lot of reviews of the Zombies+Public Domain genre. I think that idea is played out, even for the rigidly trend-worshipping world of Anti-Zombie fiction.
Posted By John Sears on February 9, 2011
Geez, PopCap. Between the seventeen thousand known versions of Plants vs. Zombies* and the various merch that pops up, some authorized, some not, those of us in the Zombie Rights Movement are starting to feel like you’ve taken a page out of the Spaceballs playbook.
What’s next, Plants vs. Zombies: The Placemat? or Plants vs. Zombies :The Flamethrower?
At any rate, if you desperately wanted a Plants vs. Zombies shirt for some reason, perhaps to go undercover and preach the good word about Zombies to Stephen Notley, it’s available now.
*A slight exaggeration
Posted By John Sears on February 9, 2011
There are days here at the ZRC where I feel like I’m trapped in a time loop watching subtle variations of the same basic scenario play out over and over again until, hopefully, I can determine the proper course of action and find the Zombie Friendly solution to win my freedom.
Like Groundhog Day, but without the romance of a single couple being the crux of the universe angle. Which, when you think about it, is a remarkably trivial thing to warp all of space and time over.
Unlike Zombie Equality, say.
I bring this up because I’ve had several instances over the past few days where I thought to myself, ‘Didn’t we cover this already?’ One was when I heard about a game featuring the massacre of Zombified Zoo animals:
Once upon a time (in 2008) there was a game announcement for a zombie game coming to the Nintendo Wii. It sounded interesting, different, and was quickly forgotten when there was no follow up information on it.
Flash forward 3 years. We’re living in the future. It’s 2011 and zombies are not only more prevalent then they ever used to be but we have the undead infecting all of our consoles!
It was to be a game where, as a zoo keeper in Mexico, you had to gear up your zoo’s visitors with guns to help take care of a small infestation of undead animals. As the zombie animals got stronger, so did your choice of weapons and variety of missions.
That ‘exact’ game is not going to happen now. Mainly because instead of the Wii it will be released on Xbox Live Arcade, Playstation Network, and Steam!
Naturally it finds a home on XBLA, which is the preeminent platform for indie game developers to prove how much they dislike the Differently Animated.
I knew it sounded familiar, so I hit the archives, and yes, it’s at least the SECOND Anti-Zombie Zoo Animal game we’ve covered:
Yes, it’s an Anti-Zombie dual stick shooter where you gun down Zombie Rhinos and other Zoo creatures, who are surely highly endangered specimens, considering the relative rarity of, say, Living rhinos to start with.
How conservation minded! What bunch of greenies they must be at Team ZPZ.
Interestingly, ‘Animales de la Muerte’ has been in development hell for quite a while, so it’s the first game developed, and I guess should get the lion’s share of the infamy here for starting this disgusting new micro-trend.
Let’s just hope it says micro; the last thing we need is a whole series of violence-against-Zombie-animals games, after all.