Posted By John Sears on January 27, 2012

I suppose given the absolute glut of Anti-Zombie merchandise on the market today it was only a matter of time until someone decided to open a brick and mortar emporium dedicated to hating and fearing the Undead, but, wow:

If and when the world is taken over by zombies — or another type of menace, but especially zombies — one Las Vegas man wants to make sure people are prepared.

Mike Monko, owner of the Zombie Apocalypse Store at 3420 Spring Mountain Road, has turned his artificial-lawn supply store into a one-stop shop for fighting off the walking dead and surviving other predicaments.

…

Monko opened the store in late November with a mix of zombie-related merchandise, such as as T-shirts, posters and bumper stickers, and survival supplies, like instant foods and water purifiers. He also sells stun guns, crossbows and edged weapons, like a 20-inch machete, “just in case.”

Good grief. He even sells blades? To obviously unstable individuals petrified of their Undead neighbors and fellow citizens?

This man is a menace. A genuine, certified, certifiable menace to the Zombie population of Las Vegas!

Needless to say The Zombie Rights Campaign objects to this whole enterprise. What’s next, a store to guard against immigrants? I bet it’d go over big in Arizona!

*grits teeth* *sighs*

It’s going to be a long, long struggle for Zombie Equality, isn’t it?

Category: Zombie Media | No Comments »
Tags: Anti-Zombie Products

Posted By John Sears on January 25, 2012

Last week at the Art Director’s day job I was having lunch, and on the way back from the tray return in the cafeteria saw a Zombie-related shirt. Unfortunately I missed my chance to flag down the man wearing it so I could inquire as to its origin, and I went home wondering if I’d ever find it for a review.

Fortunately, Google knows all, and thus I located it at shirt.woot! . It’s called ‘Acquired Taste’, and on the surface is a cute, potentially Zombie Tolerant design:

Now, I see a design like that and I think, ‘See? Zombies can have diverse opinions, wants, needs, even feel lonely when they don’t get along with a crowd of their peers.’

Then I read up about the shirt and had to feel cruelly deceived and betrayed:

First I didn’t know what was worse: being eaten alive by ravenous brain dead cannibals, or being partially eaten and infected with this virus or whatever, slowly dying only to rise and stalk my friends and family. I had no idea how much worse it could be. I’m fully conscious, aware of every moment, but trapped in a body completely taken over by a primal drive to consume living flesh while my mind screams in agony, feeling every deterioration as my body rots away.

It goes on like that. A LOT.

I feel dirty just having read it; can’t even imagine the shame one would feel wearing the shirt itself, given this odious stereotypical marketing material.

For shame, shirt.woot!

The ZRC rates this shirt, used as it is as a Trojan Horse for Anti-Zombie hatred, as ‘Living Supremacist’

It could’ve been so much more, Zombie Tolerant even, if only it wasn’t tied to all that hate.

Category: Zombie Media | No Comments »
Tags: Anti-Zombie Products, Clothing

Posted By John Sears on January 25, 2012

I wonder if our UK Zombie of the Year would be willing to take a fact-finding mission to Wales? It seems they have a bit of an Anti-Zombie problem there:

A HORROR author is achieving success in America with his latest novel – a tale of flesh-eating zombies set in the Gwent town of Usk.

…

It tells the story of two brothers living a privileged lifestyle in Usk who choose to lend a hand when a zombie epidemic comes to town.

The brothers invite people into the safety of their mansion home, but things soon start to go wrong and the fight for survival is taken into the town and later on to the Welsh capital.

Mr Jones, who often includes people he knows in his books, uses some of his fellow players from Usk Tennis Club as characters who meet gruesome deaths as the action unfolds.

Now see here, Wales! We have quite enough of that sort of inflammatory Anti-Zombie fiction already, thank you very much. Amazon hardly needs help moving more Undead-bashing literature!

Oh, poor, poor Wales, and especially Cardiff. First you’re infested with Time Lords, and now, Zombie haters? Some places just can’t catch a break.

Category: Zombie Media | No Comments »
Tags: Books, Euro-zom

Posted By John Sears on January 24, 2012

BuyZombie periodically explores deep into the heart of online randomness merchant site Etsy.com in order to explore for Zombie-related purchases, and we always read their findings with interest. It’s good to know what people are peddling related to Zombies!

This latest foray is no different.

A highlight and a lowlight (is that a word?) follow:

This adorable Zombie cat necklace meets with considerable ZRC approval, combining adorable animals with adorable Zombiism. Only ten dollars too!

This hateful button on the other hand perpetuates ugly stereotypes about Zombies, uncontrollable hunger and cannibalism. For shame.

Etsy is definitely a minefield for Zombie Friendly purchasing! Thanks to the BuyZombie crew for searching the depths for us, and for other potential choices go see their full piece here.

Category: Zombie Media | 2 Comments »
Tags: Anti-Zombie Products, Zombie Products

Posted By John Sears on January 24, 2012

As a kid I got into, and then out of, Minesweeper, the perennial computer timewasting game. Before the era of the Angry Birds it was the definitive time-wasting little game, but with a million little games and apps to kill your idle moments on smartphones and portable devices I think it’s fallen to the wayside a bit. How do you make Minesweeper cool again?

Well, the same sort of sad, bigoted people who put Zombie murder into books, comics, movies, tv shows, games, board games, fast food, car commercials and more have decided the way to bring Minesweeper back to the fore is..

Anti-Zombie violence.

Sigh.

With a shotgun no less.

Have they added zombies to Pac-Man and computer solitaire yet?

I am afraid to check.

But I should not be, because they have added zombies to Minesweeper. That turns out to have been a terrific idea.
The result of this mad combination is called Zombie Minesweeper: A Love Story.

Yes, it’s minesweeper, plus a shotgun, for your iOS devices.

A game that promotes negative stereotypes about Zombies galore, and even adds a new one: that Zombies all want to feast upon one another, and cannot even trust themselves.

This divisive propaganda seems custom-made to undermine the traditional solidarity of the Zombie Horde. Such an ugly, ugly tactic.

Observe the trailer:

Aren’t you shocked and appalled? I should think everyone would be but I’ve been known to be wrong about such things.

Can’t people just use their phone to make calls? (And maybe play a little Angry Birds, let’s be honest here)

Category: Zombie Media | No Comments »
Tags: Videogames

Posted By John Sears on January 23, 2012

There’s a burgeoning subgenre of what you might call Zombie Romance (as opposed to the hyper-violent ‘Rom-Zom-Com’ represented by ‘Shaun of the Dead’). We saw (and loved) ‘Rigamortis: A Zombie Love Story’ and ‘Z-Town: The Zombie Musical’ last year, for example, and ‘Warm Bodies’ is well underway. Still, the more the merrier, especially if the finished product is actually Zombie Friendly.

Which we’re hoping for ‘Undying Love’:

UNDYING LOVE is a film about two things that make the world go ’round: love and zombies.

THE STORY

UNDYING LOVE is the brainchild of LA actors Mikayla Park and Anthony Marquez (who are, incidentally, engaged to be married). Born out of a very real conversation held in their kitchen, it is a cautionary tale of the pitfalls of a modern relationship… between two people who have perhaps seen too many horror movies. True to life, Mikayla and Anthony have, in fact, seen too many horror movies. They are not, however, horror movie actors. The result is a comedy with wit, a bit of romance, and a lot of fake blood.

We could really use more ZF comedy in the world. Fortunately, this hyper-indie film met its Kickstarter goal so we should get the opportunity to find out just how friendly it is to Zombies after all.

And I think that makes the world a better place for everyone.

Thanks to BuyZombie for bringing this to our attention.

Category: Zombie Media | 1 Comment »
Tags: Movies, Social Justice

Posted By John Sears on January 21, 2012

The long-awaited (dreaded in our circle) sixth entry in the ‘Resident Evil’ series has now been formally announced with a lengthy trailer outlining the, ahem, plot and detailing some of the graphic and tragic violence it will promote against virtual, and later perhaps less-virtual, Zombies:

As teased at NoHopeLeft.com and GameStop advertising materials, Resident Evil 6 is officially coming this November, bringing the series two most popular male leads together for the first time.

Taking place some ten years after the Raccoon City incident that started this whole business, Resident Evil 6 begins with the President of the United States about to reveal the truth behind the incident to the world at large. Unfortunately he instead transforms into something hideous due to a bioterrorism attack, causing his personal friend and bodyguard Leon S. Kennedy to clean up the mess.

Meanwhile Bioterrorism Security Assessment Alliance member Chris Redfield arrives in China to deal with a bioterrorism attack there. Nowhere is safe. We’re all going to die. Watch the vid to see for yourself. So screwed.

Yes, the gang, and I do mean gang (antisocial misfits with way too much firepower) is all here, ready to shoot a lot of Zombies in the name of the always-poorly-defined War on Terror.

Joy. Though the cynic in me wonders how Chris Redfield will like it when his job is outsourced to a Predator drone in RE7.

The aforementioned trailer makes it clear that ‘Resident Evil 6′ will continue, and magnify, the series’ tendency toward elaborate global conspiracy plots involving a recurring cast of characters, whose interpersonal relationships are as complex as that of any soap opera cast:

Is it just me, though, or is RE6 moving even further away from the classic survival horror construction? Tight spaces, being trapped in, say, a spooky mansion, hunted by ‘monsters’, who we all know are just innocent victims but the genre demands you fear?

Something about the geopolitical intrigue the trailer presents also reminds me of another Anti-Zombie powerhouse fictional franchise: Max Brooks’ ‘World War Z’.

Think about it: you’ve got the same convoluted international storyline with a host of diverging law enforcement and private entities all scrambling to confront an Undead menace while jostling for control and authority. RE6, oddly enough, looks at least at first glance to be a truer adaptation of ‘World War Z’ than the film of the same name, which increasingly appears to be nothing more than an action movie vehicle for Brad Pitt to attack Zombies.

I wonder which grim vision of the future will have the longer-lasting impact on the Zombie Rights movement.

We’ll keep an eye on this latest Resident Evil and, of course, keep you informed of any further developments.

Category: Zombie Media | No Comments »
Tags: Books, Max Brooks is a Jerk, Movies, Videogames, What's Up with Japan?

Posted By John Sears on January 20, 2012

Sometimes your so-called journalists just can’t resist a little Zombie bashing as they go about their day. Tragically, quite a few of these prejudiced scribes seem to work at Boing Boing, perhaps inspired by the bad example of Cory Doctorow, who can say.

So when we were linked to a post about some Zombie Family stickers suitable to apply to the back of one’s car, I was not too surprised to see this:

Coincidentally, our pals at GAMAGO just released their terrific Zombie Family Car Stickers! Calvin, zip up your pants and run for your life!

Now, looking at the actual product, I just don’t see why anyone would need to run in fear:

In fact, the original merchant’s description does even more pandering to vicious Anti-Zombie stereotypes:

The undead family that slays together stays together.

Show your zombie family pride with these shambling, brain hungry stickers.

Yes, because all Zombie families must be involved in the slaughter and consumption of the Living, and all Zombies want to eat your brain. *eyeroll*

Apparently Boing Boing runs with an ugly, Living Supremacist crowd.

Once again, as we have frequently seen, a relatively Zombie Tolerant product is marred by the obvious and intentionally malicious marketing surrounding it. These stickers might have met with ZRC approval, had not the creators made it perfectly clear how little regard they hold for the Differently Animated.

In which case I hope they can get by without the money from Zombie Consumers.

The Zombie Rights Campaign rates these ‘Zombie Family Car Stickers’ as Anti-Zombie.

Category: Zombie Media | 1 Comment »
Tags: Anti-Zombie Products, Journamalism, ZRC Reviews

Posted By John Sears on January 19, 2012

We’ve talked about indie (and fairly obviously Anti-Zom) film ‘The Dead’ before on the ZRC blog. Well, now it’s coming out on DVD and Blu-Ray:

Been awhile since we wrote about this flick; I just learned (via Quiet Earth) that it’s heading for home video – DVD/Blu-ray – on February 14th, just under a month away.

…

Co-directed by brothers Howard J. Ford and Jonathan Ford (Americans), the film was shot entirely on location in mostly Burkina Faso and Ghana, in West Africa, and is described as “a powerful story of one man’s struggle to survive in extreme circumstances all the while battling against a menacing threat all around him!”

An American mercenary, the sole survivor of a plane crash, has to run the gauntlet across Africa, battling the living dead, joining forces with a local military man, who is desperately searching for his son amongst the chaos, as they fight together to survive.

The author of the above-linked story has concerns about the racial overtones of a movie like ‘The Dead’; here at the ZRC we have similar concerns, although in our case the Anti-Undead prejudice on display is more overt. For some inexplicable reason, hatred of the Undead is an acceptable social prejudice in much of Western society, and can be worn on one’s sleeve.

Still, the long and ugly history of Anti-Zombie and racist filmmaking does have a lot of overlap. ‘White Zombie’ helped pioneer the very idea of a ‘Zombie movie’, after all, and it’s positively redolent of the White Man’s Burden and certain fairly ugly imperialist strains of thought. The early 20th century wasn’t an enlightened time in world politics, but then, when has there been a particularly enlightened one?

I guess the DVD-watching world will soon get to see if ‘The Dead’ follows in the ‘White Zombie’ tradition, or merely defames the Differently Animated without slathering racist icing on the already disgusting cake.

Update: Oops, forgot to embed the trailer.

Category: Zombie Media | 1 Comment »
Tags: Movies, Social Justice

Posted By John Sears on January 19, 2012

Did you know that it’s been 15 years since Capcom started peddling Anti-Zombie prejudice in the ‘Resident Evil’ game series?

Well, it has, and they’re even having a party to, ahem, celebrate:

CAPCOM revealed on Tuesday that it will stream its Resident Evil (Biohazard) 15th anniversary party being held in Tokyo on its Ustream channel on January 20 at 7:00 p.m. in Japan (5:00 a.m. EST). The event will feature CAPCOM staff and other guests.

Just think, there is an entire generation of kids growing up now who’ve never known videogames without the prospect of harrowing, tragic Anti-Undead violence.

Thanks a lot, Capcom.

Category: Zombie Media | No Comments »
Tags: Videogames, What's Up with Japan?