Posted By John Sears on January 17, 2012

The following post is rather long but important. The short story: the ZRC website and blog will be down on Wednesday, January 18th as part of a (much) larger internet protest against an odious proposed new censorship law, the Stop Online Piracy/PROTECT IP Act. This law directly threatens what we do here at the ZRC, as well as potentially all free speech online. For more info you can read my longish post, or go to this website.

The ZRC has caught a bit of flack from time to time about our efforts to extend solidarity toward other worthy causes in the hope of broadening the Zombie Rights Movement, and on those rare occasions when it has provided a conflict with dedicating the proper amount of effort toward our core clients I have been properly chastened. We appreciate it when people keep us focused and honest. Still, we strongly believe in solidarity here at the ZRC. Solidarity with workers, with Mummies, with Liches, with Vampires (so long as they don’t sparkle), and with social justice in general.

Zombie Rights are, as we like to say, Human Rights.

Keeping that in mind the ZRC will be joining much of the web community in going on strike January 18th, 2012 to protest the Stop Online Privacy Act, or SOPA, and its evil Senate doppleganger the Protect IP Act.

What is SOPA, and what does it have to do with the ZRC? Well..

In a nutshell, SOPA (and the related bill in the Senate, PIPA) are three things: a desperate, flailing attempt to scrape a few more pennies out of consumers in the depth of a Depression, a dangerous and unpredictable expansion of governmental censorship powers, and a sorry example of the influence of money on contemporary politics, and the ease with which large, wealthy interests can get what they want regardless of its unpopularity or radicalism.

SOPA basically works like this: under current law (the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, or DMCA) if you spot someone stealing your content on a website, you can fire off a complaint to the site and its host, asking for that specific thing to be taken down. Full disclosure: The ZRC actually did this on one occasion to someone stealing our stuff. If they refuse, you can pester their host, and if their host refuses, you can pursue legal action.

Even that process has proven very easy to abuse, with frequent inappropriate takedown requests and the chilling of free speech, but you can see there are at least *some* limits to just how churlish you can be, and the law attempts to limit the damage to removing the offending, ie potentially ripped-off, materials.

So when the ZRC said ‘stop stealing our blog post’ last year, we only asked for that post to be pulled, and that’s all that was removed.

SOPA works differently. SOPA allows someone to go to the advertising networks, the credit card processors, and say, ‘Stop giving this site money!’. And they have to, unless the site’s owner contests it successfully within 5 days. And even then, who’s to say you’ll win against some huge entertainment monopoly with tons of lawyers, time and money to spend fighting? And in the meantime of course, you could be losing money. This directly threatens peoples’ livelihoods.

Worse still, SOPA and PIPA make the operators of a website responsible for any misbehavior of their users. If someone leaves a comment on, say, the ZRC blog containing infringing content, we could get in trouble. Not just them; not just the page the comment is on; the entire site would be at risk.

Even more troublesome, SOPA and PIPA in their original forms create, for the first time, a national censorship regime for the United States. Sites that are deemed ‘rogue’ would be blocked by your ISP on behalf of the government. You wouldn’t be able to get to them by typing in, say, www.zombierightscampaign.org in your browser (although if you used certain software or knew the IP address you could get around that). SOPA goes further than Protect IP, and might even snoop the packets of your internet browsing to see if you’re obeying Big Brother. (Note: This particular portion of the bills, dealing with DNS addresses and such, may be removed soon.)

SOPA and PIPA also break the internet as a structure, forbidding the use of certain security-improving techniques that would, inconveniently for the bill’s proponents, make their primitive internet censorship system fail.

SOPA would even require search engines like Google to de-list your website, making you all but invisible to people not already aware you exist online.

So, to recap, SOPA/PIPA let huge moneyed interests, or for that matter, random cranks, attack the revenue systems that make your favorite websites possible, make every internet site operator liable for the actions of every user, and (may still) create the US’ very own ‘Great Firewall’, albeit an inept and hamfisted one, to allow the government (or more precisely, the large content cartels that will operate this bill) to decide what websites you should be able to visit.

The practical effect will be to make unworkable potentially any website that allows users to submit content, any website that comments upon or criticizes other peoples’ intellectual property, or any site that takes controversial or unpopular positions and doesn’t have enormous resources to fight off petty harassment.

In other words, sites very much like this one.

PROTECT IP / SOPA Breaks The Internet from Fight for the Future on Vimeo.

(A very good primer on the risks and hazards of these bills from Fight for the Future.)

Why do this? Mostly because they can. Interested parties with a lot of money to throw at Congress, almost all from the entertainment industry, saw an opportunity to give themselves elaborate new legal powers and decided to take it. Except for the part where they’re unprincipled power-hungry jerks, you can hardly blame them.

Why now? It’s as good a time as any, and better than many. We’re heading into a Presidential election season, which means that Congress is going to get very little done that either party has a stake in fighting in order to get votes in the fall. Major, conventional ‘political’ issues won’t get dealt with because one party controls the House of Representatives, one controls the White House, and the Senate is split almost 50-50.

That leaves a lot of people with time on their hands to listen to lobbyists for other issues less likely to end up in a 30 second TV ad, along with the need for large amounts of money for the fall election, naturally. (Only 1/3 of the Senate is up for election in a given election year, but they can always sock it away or channel it to political allies who are running even if they’re not personally doing so this time around)

I’ll dust off my Poli-Sci background for a moment and mention a couple of things I’d really like people to take away from this discussion, if nothing else:

1) This is not just a Lefty/Liberal political issue.

Civil liberties is often framed as being an issue of the political ‘Left’ in America, in part because, in all honesty, civil liberties advocates are generally more liberal. SOPA/PIPA, however, are being backed by powerful figures in both the Democratic and Republican Parties, and opposed by others from all parts of the American political spectrum as well.

SOPA backers include Senator Patrick Leahy and former Senator Chris Dodd (now shilling for the MPAA), both prominent left-leaning Democrats, as well as the Teamsters, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and International Alliance of Theatrical and Stage Employees (IATSE) unions.

SOPA backers also include prominent Republicans like House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas), Reps. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) and Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.).

And naturally, innumerable large media corporations and lobbies.

Likewise, in opposition you have politically diverse groups and individuals like the ACLU, technology evangelist Cory Doctorow, arch-conservative Erick Erickson of Red State, civil libertarian Glenn Greenwald and a host of normally ‘apolitical’ sites and organizations like Wikipedia, Google, Reddit, the folks behind Minecraft, WordPress Red 5 Games and many others.

A great number of those organizations/companies/individuals will be going on strike, as it were, blacking out their web presence on January 18th, 2012 to highlight the threat this legislation poses to their continued existences, as well as to free expression generally.

2) Don’t Rush to Declare Victory

The other thing I want to do is urge readers who are following the SOPA/PIPA issue not to get overconfident when learning of progress to pare back the bill’s various offensive measures. Let’s be clear; passage of absolutely any piece of SOPA/PIPA is an affront and an insult, to the internet, free speech, and, because this is American legislation we’re talking about here, the Constitution and the American legal system. Again, dozens of law professors from all over the American political map agree that these bills are Unconstitutional and dangerous.

Tinkering around the edges is not sufficient, and at any time progress could be swiftly lost. The public side of the debate is all well and good, but a stealthy amendment slipped in here, or a change done in the conference committee after the law is passed by Congress but before it hits the President’s desk, or even a signing statement from President Obama himself, all could pose additional, radical risks.

The only safe course of action is to kill the bill. Period.

So the ZRC will be offline on Wednesday, and we hope to see SOPA/PIPA permanently dead and buried when we come back from defending our ability to fight for Zombie Rights (in order to, of course, fight for Zombie Rights some more) on Thursday.

Useful links:
SOPA Strike, with handy list of sites going dark tomorrow and tools to help out on your own webspace.
List of SOPA backers and how to contact them. (Gizmodo)
ACLU on SOPA
Wikipedia on SOPA and PIPA
Kotaku on SOPA
Get Your Censor On, a fun webcomic exploration of the laws.
Americancensorship.org’s Handy Infographic (great for sharing with friends and family)
Erick Erickson, prominent conservative blogger, on SOPA
Ars Technica on SOPA as originally formulated.
Dozens of law profs against Protect IP Act, Ars Technica
Entertainment Software Association spends 190k lobbying on PIPA.
Boing Boing will go dark for SOPA Strike

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

Posted By John Sears on January 16, 2012

We’ve been looking at the recent Magic: the Gathering expansions into the world of gothic horror and lamenting the cruel mistreatment of the Zombie Community represented by these cards. Not to sound melodramatic, but it can be more than a little dispiriting when the lengthy and completely unjust persecution of an entire people (or, arguably, several peoples) is used as ‘flavor’ and a backdrop for a card game, no matter how popular or entertaining it might be.

This is even more the case when the game is advertised playing upon the worst and ugliest of these stereotypes, as ‘Innistrad’ was.

Now a couple of little birdies (ok, Twitter follower and Google alert) have informed us that the next expansion, also set in the gothic horror world of Innistrad, will be even worse for Zombie Rights, and that is truly unfortunate.

It didn’t take much investigation to prove these allegations; Wizards of the Coast is being rather forthcoming, one might say boastful, of their Anti-Zombie attitude:

The Innistrad set introduced us to a world of gothic horror where humans lived in a tenuous balance with darker forces like vampires, werewolves, and zombies. Now the Dark Ascension set returns you to that world, but this time, the monsters are winning, and the humans have been forced to bar the gates of their settlements in defense.

Oh good, the ‘darker forces’ have to be kept outside the gates of *human* settlements, in the name of defense no less. Honestly, this is almost a parody of paranoid small-mindedness; all we really need is the Innistrad humans to set up a few detention centers, maybe implement some kind of high fantasy amalgamation of the TSA and the Inquisition to hunt for sings of Zombiism, or perhaps get a good Werewolf Red Scare going.

Wait, why am I helping them?

Ahem.

At any rate, further concrete proof of this bad attitude and casual bigotry is readily available on the Wizards website as well:

(image remains property of Wizards of the Coast; quite frankly, we don’t want it, and wish we hadn’t had to show it to you, our loyal readers)

Longtime ZRC readers will know that the ‘Zombie Apocalypse’ myth is both one of our pet peeves and most serious examples of misinformation to counter. Zombies, or so the layperson is led to believe, cannot be coexisted with in peace, because their mere existence somehow presages the ‘Apocalypse’. This in turn justifies, in impressionable minds, all sorts of barbarity against the Undead.

Which we resent on their behalf.

In fact, the ZRC has proposed an alternate term for the ‘Zombie Apocalypse’ that we feel better suits the realities, mostly positive, of the mass reanimation of the recently dead, namely the ‘Global Reanimation Block Party’. Sure, like any large social event, there will be challenges, especially logistical, but if you just keep an open mind and try to stay flexible we’re sure everything will work out in the end.

It’s not just decent human behavior and a sense of fair play and empathy, but, let’s face it, also catering to a valuable emerging demographic. If Wizards of the Coast really wants to miss out on selling to the Undead American market, well.. others will happily take their place. Zombie money is the same color as anyone else’s.

And sometimes it even matches their Zombie skin tone.

Food for thought, game makers at Wizards of the Coast. Food for thought.

Update: Added a couple of links I’d previously forgotten.

Category: Uncategorized | No Comments »
Tags: Anti-Zombie Products, Global Reanimation Block Party, Zombie Gaming

Posted By John Sears on January 16, 2012

Some time ago Magic the Gathering came out with a new expansion set of cards called (and set in) a world called ‘Innistrad’. It’s a very gothic horror flavored fantasy scenario, with werewolves, demons, vampires and at least two very different sorts of Zombie; what you might call ‘Traditional’ Zombies resurrected by Necromancy, and the Differently Animated referred to as ‘Skaab’, raised from the dead by.. let’s say.. Exuberant Science.

Sounds better than ‘Mad’ Science, doesn’t it?

At any rate, we covered the ad campaigns for the game when it was first running, and were upset, to say the least, with their obvious Anti-Zombie prejudice.

How was the actual game?

In a word, offensive.

Zombies who are brought back to Unlife by Exuberant Science seem to be hated and feared by ignorant, torch-wielding society and of course, The Church, while the Necromantically-derived Undead are just armies of flesh-eating ‘monsters’ overrunning civilization.

Observe this frightful prejudice in action:

(Remember, all copyrights on these images belong to Wizards of the Coast, and images are used here for [very] critical commentary. Also, all card images originally hosted here.)

It actually goes on like that a lot, but decorum, and Fair Use, demands I not expose our readers to too much of this barbarity.

The Zombie Rights Campaign has reviewed the entire ‘Innistrad’ set and found it to be woefully backward and intolerant of this, a more enlightened and hopefully Zombie Tolerant age. The time when Zombies were somehow acceptable targets of scorn must be put behind us, and divisive and inflammatory portrayals such as these must be called out in favor of the admittedly rarer Zombie Friendly games and entertainment options.

The Zombie Rights Campaign accordingly rates ‘Innistrad’, with its Anti-Zombie violence and, let’s face it, open calls for Undead enslavement and eradication, our lowest possible rating, that of ‘Living Supremacist’.

For shame.

Category: Zombie Media | 5 Comments »
Tags: Anti-Zombie Products, Zombie Gaming, ZRC Reviews

Posted By John Sears on January 16, 2012

The Zombie Community obviously has a lot of legitimate grievances with George A. Romero; his highly influential and patently offensive series of Anti-Zombie ‘of the Dead’ films contribute a lot of the ugly prejudices still seen in our society today.

Yet he did also make ‘Creepshow’, one of the better Zombie movies, featuring, as it does, Zombies of Justice.

At any rate, February 4th is Mr. Romero’s 72nd birthday, and there will apparently be a bash to celebrate his birth at the Hollywood Theater in Dormont, PA. For what it’s worth the Hollywood sounds like an excellent indie film venue and community theatre, and I am a fan of the non-profit, eclectic programming model they use so I wish them the best of luck, and hope that some Zombie Friendly balance is brought to the public discourse on Mr. Romero’s birthday.

A little balance, we think, is not too much to ask.

Happy Birthday, Mr. Romero, from the Zombie Rights Campaign.

But please, next time, try to make a Zombie Friendly film, ok?

Category: Zombie Media | No Comments »
Tags: Anti-Zombie Products, Movies, Romero, Zombie Public Event

Posted By John Sears on January 14, 2012

My background (and degree, at least until Indiana University realizes what they’ve done) is in Political Science, and I also desperately crave original Zombie projects for the ZRC to look at, so this sounds right up my alley. In fact, I think it may have parked there long-term:

Bringing blood-thirsty zombies and communists to the Peninsula City, a screening of the film, “Red Scare,” a movie whose parts were filmed in Bayonne and Jersey City, will take place this evening at the Frank Theatres South Cover Stadium 14, on Lefante Way.
“It’s a black-and-white, Mel Brooks-type spoof of zombie movies [set] in 1950s communist era,” said local actor Chris Lucas, 43, who plays a general in the film.
The film centers around a Russian plot to send zombies over to the United States in an attempt to take over the country, according to Lucas, whose acting credits also include parts on ABC daytime soap opera, “One Life to Live,” and a part in the film, “Quiz Show,” which didn’t make the movie.

Now that could be interesting! A film that shows the parallels between the unjust and overzealous persecution of political dissidents at the height of the Red Scare with the unjust and overzealous persecution of Zombies? Very promising!

A ripe area for cinematic investigation too, since so many Anti-Zombie films (as well as other mid-20th century ‘monster’ movies) are often seen as coded attacks on collectivism in the first place. Which we just don’t approve of; you can make your political polemics WITHOUT besmirching the reputation of the Zombie Community, people!

We’ll be keeping our eyes peeled for ‘Red Scare’ here at the ZRC.

Category: Zombie Media | No Comments »
Tags: Movies, Social Justice

Posted By John Sears on January 14, 2012

We’ve been having quite a discussion about Zombies and their representation in next-generation tabletop roleplaying game ‘Legend’, and I thought you should all see the latest counter-arguments from the ‘Legend’ publicity department in full. Some interesting, and some objectionable, stuff here:

Hello again, John!

I’m glad to see we have an open and frank dialogue going about the role the Undead fill in Legend. Let me address a few more of your concerns here.

Firstly, with regards to “dark imagery” being pejorative, I would remind you that in 2012, among the fluid-valuing fleshbag community, “dark imagery” is at the forefront of popularity. Films such as The Dark Knight and its upcoming sequel have brought the neverdead around to darkness as a natural state of awesome. I would note that The Dark Knight featured a character eager to assume a corpselike pallor in his role as mass recruiter for zombiekind, one whose popularity led to a prestigious award. Would that his role was an actual zombie, I am certain his would have been the Best Actor award. Said film incidentally included a character far closer to the visual depiction of zombies, who didn’t angst at all about his fairly flesh-lacking state, instead choosing to go forth among the world – in broad daylight, no less – meetng with members of society at the highest levels and working for justice.

As to the term “damned,” I will concur that there was a point in human history during which the word was largely pejorative. However, outreach efforts by the living have resulted in media such as Queen of the Damned, a popular film beautifying the undead and depicting them as a powerful and important culture with its own art. I’ll further note that the lead actress of that film was so moved that she later converted to the unliving.

With regards to the sharing of the undead state of being, I’ll grant that it is labeled “The Blight Spreads.” In the popular game Warcraft III, The Blight was the support structure underpinning the Undead faction’s way of not-life. In this fashion, the “blight” is not some curse; this is undead outreach at its best, with support and pamphlets for the newly-turned. As you yourself noted, the conversion of living or recently dead to undead in Legend makes for a fairly good deal, and is lacking any of the often torturous and insuting “baleful transformation” imagery present in smaller-minded games. In terms of keeping a party together, I’ll note that The Blight Spreads is the earliest fixed ability to reanimate a comrade in any fashion, giving the undead a singular value entirely linked to their heritage and nature.

Dragons are accorded an appropriate status, but you’ll note that this is a group that casts aspersions on its own members. You’re a true undead from the time you turn, with all the appropriate trappings. Dragons, however, exclude five levels of membership before allowing a neophyte to be called a “true” dragon. I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t want to hang with such an exclusivist club. Look at their terminology. “Dignity.” “Great Wyrm.” They sound like one of those Ivy League secret societies. An undead receives No Requiem because it has transcended death. Leaves it some peace and quiet to select a comeback tune. Note too that Undead revive themselves much faster than these so-called “Great” Wyrms do.

Finally, of course, I will point out that sometimes the text just drips with sarcasm. “Heroes” in that context is simply oozing it. Were it not, we could have PC undead seem immune to VILLAINS, given that only heroes are said to be frustrated. This is sarcasm, plain and simple, a harsh barb directed at zombiephobes who consider their deeds and prejudiced fears “heroic.”

I do hope this dialogue has allayed some of the ZRC’s concerns. We’re quite pleased to speak to the zombie-friendly community and are appreciative of your interest in Legend.

Most Zombie Friendly Regards,

Laird Smith
Publicity Director
Rule of Cool Games

I have to wonder if Mr. Smith watched the same ‘The Dark Knight’ I did. The Joker may be assuming a corpse-like pallor, but he’s not recruiting people to be Zombies, he wants violent anarchic terrorists. And Harvey Dent only gets his ‘flesh-lacking state’ from being burnt half to death, and then goes promptly loopy on painkillers and revenge, becoming the villainous Two-Face. It’s true that, in particular, Heath Ledger’s Joker was critically acclaimed, but I don’t think we’re supposed to admire him or hold him up as an example.

The point about The Blight is well-taken, and this could be an attempt to reclaim a pejorative word for the put-upon community, but if so, we should probably attempt to use it in very clearly defined and satirical contexts, assuming one agrees with that method of counteracting negative language; not all do. Far, far too many people actually believe Undeath to be a ‘blight’ and we don’t want to encourage them.

I am completely on-board with this interpretation of Dragons and will say nothing more on that subject; score one for ‘Legend’.

I also think the last paragraph about sarcasm is well-taken, and given these official statements on the matter am also willing to take that into consideration.

As such for the first time the ZRC is re-rating a creative work, and upgrading ‘Legend’ from Anti-Zombie to a tentative ‘Zombie Tolerant’ ranking. Future good behavior could, of course, lead to a coveted ‘Zombie Friendly’ award.

We appreciate the hard work being done at Rule of Cool during this public development process, and extend a hearty personal thanks to Laird Smith as well for taking the time to speak with us.

Category: Zombie Media | 1 Comment »
Tags: Zombie Gaming, ZRC Reviews

Posted By John Sears on January 14, 2012

This is a bizarre, already-fully-funded project to make prints out of a series of illustrations celebrating the ‘Oh Sh*t’ (they bleep it, not me) moment when someone apparently realizes they are completely and utterly doomed.

And one of the flavors of that doom is Zombies:

Oh Expletive is a project of epic epicness. It is a series of illustrations about ass kicking and mayhem — from zombies to unicorns to knife fights to flame throwers — the series consists of some of the most awesome things life has to offer.

Sadly, they’re not celebrating Zombies so much as the opportunity to bludgeon them with a cricket bat.

(Note: video has some annoying whistling in it, for those who don’t appreciate that sort of thing)

Naturally, the ZRC does not approve of this project. First of all, you never get to see the Zombies’ side of the story, do you? Second, why must the Living see the appearance of Zombies as an ‘Oh Sh*t’ moment at all? Why not see it as an opportunity? I know we do.

Even if, as it is here, so often the opportunity is lost.

Pity.

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

Posted By John Sears on January 13, 2012

We were graciously loaned an e-galley of this one by the publisher, so the ZRC had an opportunity to see how the fictional shadow government agency created by Mike Mignola, staffed prominently by a demon no less, handles Undead relations.

In a word: poorly.

First, the official description:

Devastated over the loss of his luchador comrade to vampires, Hellboy lingers in Mexican bars until he’s invited to participate in the ultimate wrestling match with a vicious Frankenstein monster!

Right off the bat, we have issues here. The comic raises serious questions about international law, jurisprudence and justice, as Hellboy, a secret agent of the US government, persecutes Vampires deep in Mexican territory as part of a masked wrestling Anti-Vampire hit squad.

Hasn’t Latin America had enough of that sort of thing? Apparently Hellboy helped pioneer death squads roaming the subtropical countryside, though his wore luchador masks and drank very heavily.

And thus the problems began, because if you’re waging war you should probably do it sober. Hellboy loses one of his comrades to the booze-and-violence filled lifestyle, and then?

He turns to the bottle to drink away the pain.

This state of affairs persists until the agent of a shadowy Mad Scientist coerces Hellboy into one last big wrestling match with his ‘Frankenstein monster’, a poor, put-upon mad science Zombie who of course has done nothing to deserve this treatment. Secrets abound however, and before the night is out Hellboy is going to run a gauntlet fully staffed by classic monster movie antagonists; will he survive?

Well, given that the story opens with Hellboy lurching back to his stateside job with a huge amount of alcohol-fueled lost time, the answer is ‘Yes’. Will it be Zombie Friendly?

More complicated question.

Hellboy clearly has issues relating to the Undead, let alone providing them with due process, judging from his bloody anti-Vampire pogroms. Yet he also displays great reluctance to fight, and sympathy for, the ‘Living Dead’ he’s forced to beat on in the ring.

Overall, in fact, the Zombie comes out quite well, although there’s a twist that might complicate the already fraught issue of whether all Frankenstein ‘monsters’ qualify as Zombies in the first place…

Along the way we get nuanced looks at werewolves, mad scientists and even imps and wagers with the Devil, but still, the poor Vampires can’t catch a break.

Odd, and puzzling, all things considered.

Ultimately a gripping and self-contained yarn, and a good introduction to Hellboy’s style for those not already initiated into the Mignolaverse, the ZRC is put in the awkward position of awarding ‘Hellboy: House of the Living Dead’ a Zombie Tolerant rating, with a significant ‘Anti-Vampirism’ disclaimer.

For fans of your Universal monster movies, supernatural-infused luchador stories or moody, grown-up graphic novels, this might very well be worth picking up. Just be aware of the problematic treatment of our Vampire allies in the larger Undead Equality movement.

Category: Zombie Media | No Comments »
Tags: Comics, ZRC Reviews

Posted By John Sears on January 13, 2012

So the ZRC has been somewhat bitterly bemused at the production process for ‘World War Z’. It was mired in development hell forever, got going eventually due to Brad Pitt’s dogged evangelism, ran into even more production trouble and then was radically trimmed down and altered so that the novel narrative structure and non-traditional protagonist didn’t actually surprise anyone looking to pay six bucks for bad popcorn and zone out for two hours.

Now that ‘World War Z’ is a straightforward action film about Brad Pitt running from Zombies (who, to be fair, are probably disappointed about the story edits too), it looks like there’s enthusiasm for making a bunch more from the misguided:

“That book [the flick is based on the best-selling tome of the same name] is such a thick dense book of so many socio- and political and economic views that says a lot about us as people,” James Badge Dale told me last night at the L.A. premiere of his new crazy scary adventure thriller, The Grey. “So I think we’d like to make 18 more World War Z’s and we’d still have more material because it’s an ongoing story.”

No, actually, Mr. Dale, ‘World War Z’ was a retrospective, having a very definite beginning, middle and end, two actually, one for the larger ‘war’ (more like massacre) and one for the protagonist/chronicler of said war.

The movie, on the other hand? Oy. It sounds like they really made chop suey out of the plot. ‘Ongoing’ probably means they end it on a cliffhanger for crass, exploitative reasons too.

The theatre I see this for the ZRC in better have booze. Lots of booze.

Category: Zombie Media | 1 Comment »
Tags: Max Brooks is a Jerk, Movies

Posted By John Sears on January 11, 2012

Boing Boing has some issues with Zombie Tolerance, and we’ve taken them to task before. But they also SELL things directly related to the Zombie Community, and we were pointed toward one of the odder ones, and potentially neater ones, recently: a Zombie Head Decanter, suitable for the holding of fine spirits.

Seriously:

Now, I know, technically, this sort of thing can be seen as de-humanizing Zombies by setting them up as being ‘different’ from conventional Living people in unnecessary fashion; Living humans have heads too, after all.

But still, I don’t see anything overtly Anti-Zombie about the decanter. It’s a bit stylized, a bit of a caricature, but it’s not inherently violent or defamatory, and quite frankly, it’s sort of cool to be able to keep your spirits in a Zombie decanter, isn’t it?

We think so. The ZRC is going to go ahead and award at least a provisional Zombie Tolerant rating to this decanter.

Category: Zombie Media | No Comments »
Tags: Zombie Products, ZRC Reviews