More Brains

Lego Zombies OMG

2009-10-09T14:16:00.003-05:00

It's been eons since I've updated this blog, but I'm coming out of semi-retirement on the strength of this io9 blog post title alone:

Lego Zombies Celebrate Gay Pride and Ride the Carousel of Doom

LEGO ZOMBIES, people! Can you dig it?

Incidentally, I shall try to blog more often, because I'm still as enamored of zombies as ever. I've seen some awesomely bad zombie flicks lately, along with some pretty good ones, and all of them are entertaining in their own ways. With Zombieland and others bringing zombies SO far into the mainstream, though, it's sometimes hard to convince myself that it's worthwhile to bother spewing about them on this little ol' blog here. But I'll do my best.

a whole nother level

2009-02-17T16:11:00.002-06:00

Okay, everybody in the whole world scooped me on Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, I'll give you that... but have you heard about Pride and PREDATOR?!?? Awww yeah! I didn't think so!

So would anyone care to enlighten me as to why literary spoofs have hit such a stride lately? Or why Elton John is involved in them? OR why anyone would be interested in an animated spoof called Gnomeo and Juliet, when they could instead come over to my house and watch the amazing live-action Tromeo and Juliet, featuring Lemmy himself in a narrative role?

Finally, could there possibly be a better vehicle for the resurrection of Jesse "The Body" Ventura's acting career than the role of Mr. Bennet in Pride and Predator? "I ain't got time to raise all these daughters." Or something like that. I suppose Ahnuld would have to be Darcy, but maybe Carl Weathers could play Mr. Collins? Ok, now I'm just getting needlessly excited about this.

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

2009-01-30T11:53:00.004-06:00

How could I resist?

Incongruously enough, I happen to love zombies and Jane Austen in approximately equal measure.

It's being billed as "The Classic Regency Romance—Now with Ultraviolent Zombie Mayhem!" and the Chronicle Books description notes that it "features the original text of Jane Austen's beloved novel with all-new scenes of bone-crunching zombie action."

I like to think that this will be amazing, because how could a comedy of manners NOT be made better with zombies, right? I also tend to love works of fiction that play off of literary classics, most notably Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next series and its playful interpretations of Jane Eyre. But I'm definitely nervous that I might find it awful, as I did with The Illustrated Jane Eyre, which set me back decades in my attempt to "get" and appreciate graphic novels.

Yes, I am an uber-geek.

Big props to my friends who hounded me until I posted this, notably Poppy and Sonya. Also mentioned on the LibraryThing blog (where I am referenced and misquoted, haha), Send More Cops, and many others.

Zombies Road Signs!

2009-01-30T11:32:00.004-06:00

Huzzah for hackers in Austin, TX who changed area road signs to warn of a zombie attack.

Apparently it is ridiculously easy to hack road signs, which doesn't actually bother me in the slightest because I have never found their messages to be particularly helpful in dealing with traffic issues.

I remember this happened a few years ago and the hacker programmed in "Klaatu Barada Nikto," which made me happy because to me it's an Army of Darkness reference.

Thanks to Laurie, Stacey, and Scott for sending along the link to this story. You guys rule!!!

Link: Zombie Road Signs

hello kitty zombie cake

2009-01-30T11:26:00.003-06:00

Simply incredible! I occasionally catch Debbie's cake designs in the Bake & Destroy Flickr group, which I adore. But this was news to me, and represents a-whole-nother level of awesomeness in cakery. Sent to me by my gorgeous and talented sister. Love it!

Link: Hello Kitty Zombie Cake

catching up

2009-01-30T11:22:00.002-06:00

In my lengthy absence from blogging, a TON of great items have been piling up in my inbox. I have no excuse whatsoever because my amazing friends are always sending me fantastic stuff to post, and I am generally just too lazy to do it.

HOWEVER! I now find myself with some serious free time ahead of me, so I intend to work on catching up with awesome zombie news. Stay tuned for multiple posts and keep those updates coming!

Zombies on Ice!

2008-12-14T13:11:00.002-06:00

Gaaaaaaaaaah! El Chipps let me know about this event but I just opened the email now, and zombie ice skating starts in a little over an hour!!! As a result, sadly, it looks like I'm going to miss it. This just goes to show why I need to take this blog a little more seriously these days, now that I'm back in the big city and there are actual zombie events to attend. If I just bother to pay a little attention to Chicagoist and Time Out every now and then, I could be out there ice skating with the zombie horde! But noooooo, instead I'll be spending the afternoon cleaning my apartment and working on gifts and holiday letters and stuff. Sigh.

MUST HAVE

2008-10-22T11:47:00.002-05:00

Via BoingBoing... I have seriously got to get this wall decal for my bedroom.

The eBay listing for "HUGE LIVING DEAD ZOMBIE ATTACK WALL ART VINYL DECAL!" makes it particularly irresistible.

This listing will go through the roof with bids, methinks, so maybe I'll hold out and try again after the Cory Doctorow-inspired rage fizzles out a bit.

"it's all good clean fun until there's a real zombie attack"

2008-10-13T11:44:00.004-05:00

Mmmwahahaha! In this bit, Stephen Colbert insists:

"We must stop these college jerks from trivializing the threat of the undead."

Lots of gems here... zombie threat starts around 3:15 into the clip.

The Straight Dope weighs in

2008-09-16T15:51:00.003-05:00

Via BoingBoing, The Straight Dope's Cecil Adams tackles the question of how the U.S. military would realistically fight off a zombie infestation.

I particularly liked his emphasis on the use of fire as a weapon, which you don't hear about too much these days, so that was nice.

But I did have one beef with his mention of nuclear weapons in dealing with an entire city that's infected. While Cecil details the obvious downside of having radioactive zombies roaming the streets after a nuclear attack, he totally neglects to emphasize that such an attack would naturally send clouds of infectious dust into the air, seeding clouds that would eventually (sooner rather than later, in all likelihood) rain down and zombify any survivors. Which, you know... not so good.

Aaaaand, now I have the theme music from Return of the Living Dead stuck in my head. Wooo!

Link

The Signal

2008-08-29T14:28:00.002-05:00

We enjoyed watching The Signal last night. It's divided into three parts, which they call transmissions, and I thought that form worked well with the movie's content. The second segment definitely stood out as the most distinct -- it used a level of humor that was entirely missing from the other two, and which really appealed to my sense of good horror.

The opening scene looked almost like it was straight out of Wolf Creek or something, but ended up being just a movie-within-a-movie thing (meta!), which wasn't my cup of tea in this case.

I also appreciated that The Signal went pretty easy on the social commentary. I'm sure the filmmakers were tempted to drive home some high-level social message (hang up the cell phone! your tv is turning you into a monster! etc...) but that theme was mercifully not beaten to death. The music and a number of scene settings reminded me VERY much of 28 Weeks Later. I'd say, if you liked that one, you're quite likely to enjoy The Signal, too.

have you seen Machine Girl?

2008-08-21T15:23:00.002-05:00

You really, really, really should.

An IMDB review uses the term "revengesploitation" and that's pretty much spot-on. And one need only scroll through the extensive list of plot keywords (may include spoilers) to see the potential for awesomeness.

Our 14-year-old viewing companion deemed it a perfect combination of Planet Terror and Army of Darkness. The gore factor is outrageous. The overdubbing in English provides laughs galore. Our entire viewing party howled throughout the proceedings, and I bet you will, too.

I curse thee, George Romero

2008-07-25T09:36:00.002-05:00

What could have possessed you to put out a puddle of crud like Diary of the Dead? I'd rate the film quality on par with your average made-for-tv movie. I know a 14-year-old who can create better special effects. Why the pathetically one-dimensional set of characters? And the stupid, jumpy, MTV-ish camera work had my husband on the brink of nausea.

Kate, I didn't doubt you, but I did try to watch it against your advice. What a mistake.

Yet another movie that I found so horrendous, I couldn't make it more than 20 minutes into it. Sigh. I have much higher hopes for The Machine Girl, which is waiting for me at home along with Persepolis and 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days. Hooray for foreign films!

failure

2008-06-08T17:40:00.002-05:00

I have totally failed in my MULTIPLE attempts to watch Hard Rock Zombies. It is just so, so bad. We got about 10 minutes into it the first time, and maybe another 15 minutes the second time, but I just had to call it quits. Oh man, so terrible. We need to put a new rule on Netflix movies... if we've had one for more than, oh, say... six weeks... it just has to go. We'll get it another time if we really want it. But Hard Rock Zombies? I do not want. Ever.

tiny zombie + kitty

2008-06-08T17:39:00.001-05:00

Na and zombie head
Originally uploaded by heavymetallibrarian

They are so adorable together.

hard rock zombies

2008-04-09T12:46:00.002-05:00

We started watching Hard Rock Zombies last night but only got about 8 minutes into it. From the opening frames, we knew it was going to be amazing... either amazingly awesome or amazingly terrible (or perhaps a little of both). The main reason we switched it off, other than the fact that I was in the mood for a straight comedy (we watched The Freshman instead... thank you, Netflix!), was that we felt HRZ deserved to be shared more widely... so we're planning to watch it with some friends tonight over cupcakes. Consider the IMDB summary:

"A hard rock band travels to the tiny and remote town of Grand Guignol to perform. Peopled by hicks, rubes, werewolves, murderous dwarves, sex perverts, and Hitler, the town is a strange place but that doesn't stop the band's lead singer from falling in love with a local girl named Cassie. After Nazi sex perverts kill the band to satisfy their lusts, Cassie calls the rockers back from the grave to save her, the town, and maybe the world."

You see? Quality-wise, this could be on par with RotLD or with Zombie Lake... could go either way (I am still so ashamed that I talked a room full of people into watching Zombie Lake; you all have my eternal apologies). Regardless of where the chips fall with HRZ, I must admit that I simply couldn't have dreamed up a more perfect movie title for my interests... so, needless to say, the bar has been set pretty high.

the sheep are revolting!

2008-01-27T20:47:00.000-06:00

Black Sheep came recommended from Kate, and then when we saw its preview on the Hot Fuzz DVD, we knew we had to see it.

(Seriously, click on the link above and go watch the trailer if you haven't seen it already. Go ahead, we'll wait.)

Having just watched the film and with it fresh in my mind, I can say with confidence that this was the most entertaining horror movie I have seen in a long, long time. It met my key expectations for excellent horror, which basically boil down to extreme gore and extreme silliness. I can't really get into the Saw movies or anything that has a CSI/reality show sort of feel to it... when it comes to horror, I'm looking for something more along the lines of Dead Alive or Return of the Living Dead. Make me squirm! Make me laugh! Make me squeal and clap my hands with delight!

I did all three of those things in abundance during tonight's viewing of Black Sheep. I'm tempted to say more about the plot, the effects, etc... but I'd rather you find out for yourself. If you like healthy doses of comedy with your gore (a la the early Peter Jackson films), do yourself a favor and go enjoy Black Sheep!

The Joy of Cooking Humans

2008-01-24T15:02:00.000-06:00

If you're not already reading Bake & Destroy, you will be after you read this:

It is my personal belief that the success of a society can be determined, for the most part, by examining it’s cultural developments. If a specific society produced art, music, delectable foods and harbored a certain level of creativity and artistry, it was a successful society. In order to thrive, zombies will eventually need to tap into their creativity. I wrote this book with a sort of zombie Martha Stewart in mind. She’s quite self-sufficient, creative and successful; and often times it seems as though she exists solely to teach the rest of us poor uncultured fools about being more civilized. With The Joy of Cooking Humans I attempt to teach my fellow zombies a little bit about civility through a variety of recipes based on real foods fit for human consumption. But of course, in this cookbook, “human consumption” takes on a completely new meaning.

Read it, love it, live it.

I blogged about the class for which this is a final project almost a year ago, so I'm pretty pleased to see this all come full circle, too.

it's so true, so true

2008-01-18T14:31:00.000-06:00

moar funny pictures

zombie potholders!

2008-01-09T12:09:00.001-06:00

zombie potholders!
Originally uploaded by heavymetallibrarian

Stacey made me a set of zombie potholders for xmas! They are super sweet!!!

io9 and the post-apocalypse

2008-01-06T18:46:00.000-06:00

Huge thanks to Bookslut for coming through yet again by introducing me to io9, from the Gawker Media family of blogs... with a tagline like, "Strung out on science fiction," how could they go wrong? This one's definitely getting added to my Bloglines.

One of the first posts I noticed, naturally, concerns a new Chilean film called Descendants that's described as "sort of a zombie movie but it looks way more like a post-apocalyptic survival film." I'm a bit unclear on how or why it could be terribly difficult to categorize a film as zombie movie or not-zombie movie. Do people die and then come back to some form of life? Zombie movie. Do they die and stay dead? Not-zombie movie. How hard is that?

Don't get me wrong... I'm all for post-apocalyptic survival movies, whether they involve the undead or not! io9 also mentions a "post-apocalyptic but not a zombie movie" (emphasis mine) called Doomsday, and links over to an entry on Rabid Doll (another great find!) with the director's thoughts on the horror and zombie labels applied to his film. So I'm just wondering... why does io9 hedge on the issue of whether or not Descendants is a zombie movie? Perhaps just to pique the interest of potential viewers... in which case I say, well played.

Thriller Dance: New and Improved

2007-10-31T11:02:00.001-05:00

I am so proud of my little sister... she and her friends dressed up and recreated the "Thriller" dance at a Halloween party over the weekend! She's the one in the black dress (on the right side of the screen for most of the video). SO AWESOME!!! And while we're talking about M.J., I thought I'd leave you with the Vincent Price spoken-word portion of this classic tune...

Darkness falls across the land
The midnight hour is close at hand
Creatures crawl in search of blood
To terrorize your neighborhood
And whosoever shall be found
Without the soul for getting down
Must stand and face the hounds of hell
And rot inside a corpse's shell
The foulest stench is in the air
The funk of forty thousand years
And grizzly ghouls from every tomb
Are closing in to seal your doom
And though you fight to stay alive
Your body starts to shiver
For no mere mortal can resist
The evil of the thriller

I am going to have the best Halloween ever.

2007-10-05T11:49:00.001-05:00

These sweet babies are on their way to me as we speak.

I am going to make fabulous horror cupcakes and bring them to the rehearsal dinner/party for Al & Jen's wedding next Saturday. Normally, I would never divulge such confidential information on the interwebz, but I'm pretty sure Al & Jen don't read my blog and, even if they did, they'll be too busy this week with polishing fountains of blood and whatnot.

You know, the usual wedding preparations.

zombie dietary guidelines

2007-10-02T09:26:00.000-05:00

Oh Threadless, you make me smile so very much...

This reminds me of (and also directly contradicts) the classic article from The Onion, "Zombie Nutritionist Recommends All-Brain Diet"

the rules

2007-10-01T10:52:00.000-05:00

The Rules for Surviving Halloween (from Poppy)

1. Firstly, never drink or do drugs and stay a virgin. Boring!

2. Never say that you'll be right back because you won't be.

3. Always make sure that your car has a fresh battery so it will start immediately in times of crisis.

4. When you're searching a house because you think there's something dangerous there, for God's sake turn the bloody lights on!

5. If you're running from the monster, expect to trip or fall down at least twice, more if you are of the female persuasion. Also note that, despite the fact that you are running and the monster is merely shambling along, it's still moving fast enough to catch up with you.

6. Big breasts and blond hair are a death wish.

7. Don't fool with recombinant DNA technology unless you're sure you know what you are doing.

8. If you find a town that looks deserted, it's probably for a good reason. Take the hint and stay away.

9. As a general rule, don't solve puzzles that open portals to Hell.

10. Never read a book of demon summoning aloud, even as a joke. Do not search the basement, especially if the power has just gone out.

11. If you find that your house is built upon or near a cemetery, that was once a church that was used for black masses, had previous inhabitants who went mad or committed suicide or died in some horrible fashion, or had inhabitants who performed necrophilia or satanic practices, move away immediately.

12. Always check the back seat of your car.

13. If on a stormy night, you find a window open which you thought was previously closed, do not close it. It may be your only way out when whatever has come in through it is chasing you.

14. If you come into possession of a strange old artifact and any exotic person (old wizened oriental, gypsy, indian medicine man) warns you to do/not do something, do not do just the opposite in order to demonstrate how silly they are.

15. Anniversary nights of executions, horrible murders, or terrifying rituals should be viewed with fear. Especially on the spot where the event took place. Most especially on even century anniversaries. And certainly if you or a friend is somehow descended from one of the original participants.

16. If your friend turns into a demon and then suddenly turns back to normal, kill them because they are not normal!

17. Kill the person in the group who suggests that you split up. They will eventually get you killed.

18. Never be with the group who plays vicious pranks on the shy strange new kid, those pranksters will soon meet their doom and often in a horribly gory way.

19. Go ahead and slap the screaming hysterical girl, she will be the one to distract everyone when there really is danger.

20. Nothing is ever over if it is still night-time.

21. Take heed of all warnings from animals and children. They usually know more than you do.

22. Never run to the top floor of any building if you are being chased by a maniac/monster. Your only way out will be to jump.

23. Never publicly announce your plans for the future if you make it out alive. It guarantees that you have no future.

24. Never under any circumstances run upstairs if you are being chased.

25. When it appears that you have killed the monster, never check to see if it's really dead.

27. Never stand in, on, above, below, beside or anywhere near a grave, tomb, crypt, mausoleum or any other house of the dead.

28. Do not take *anything* from the dead.

29. Stay away from certain geographical locations. Such as: Amityville, Elm Street, Transylvania, Nilbog, the Bermuda Triangle or any small town in Maine.

30. Beware of strangers bearing tools such as chainsaws, staple guns, hedge trimmers, electric carving knives, lawnmowers, butane torches, smoldering irons, band saws or any (possibly deathly) device made from deceased companions.

31. Listen closely to the soundtrack and pay attention to the audience. They are usually far more intelligent than you could ever hope to be.

32. Remember: Showing Skin=Death.

33. Always be nice to the shy, quiet, unpopular girl in school.

34. Never watch a horror movie while you're in a horror movie.

35. When battling zombies, always sever their head or shoot them in the brain. If you they still want to eat you after that, just surrender. There's no hope for you anyway.

36. If you're annoying person that no-body likes and in a crap cheapo horror movie, please make a documentary that requires you to hike through the woods while looking for a witch that leaves stick figures hanging in trees, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD!

37. Never say "Who's there?" It is a death wish.

38.If you DO happen to get killed, make sure it's in a cheap low-budget gore-fest with no plot, so you can come back in the sequel and kick ass, no explanation needed.

looks like I can't move to Virginia now

2007-09-27T10:49:00.001-05:00

For Angie
Originally uploaded by brixton

E, you are so thoughtful and amazing!

anyone else noticing this trend in news reporting?

2007-09-27T10:36:00.001-05:00

just my luck

2007-09-26T11:22:00.000-05:00

I can't believe there's a zombie walk in Detroit on the same day as my brother's wedding in Philly!!!

It's not like I can really skip out on my only brother's marriage celebration just so I can gore myself up and stagger around a wasted city.

Or can I?

The best thing, obviously, would be to find some local folks to help me organize one in Lansing... any takers???

clown brains... horse brains... more brains...

2007-09-11T15:20:00.000-05:00

Boingboing just never ceases to amaze me.

I mean, how can you beat a headline like, "Tasty frozen clown brains for sale at circus"?

You can't. You really just can't.

how humiliating!

2007-07-23T15:58:00.000-05:00

Looks like SOMEbody needs to stock up on the canned goods and firearms...

50%

Mingle² - Online Dating

(From the fabulous Soy, who is probably much better prepared than I am)

Saw 3, why do you taunt me?

2007-06-28T15:11:00.000-05:00

Netflix informs me that I have had Saw 3 at my house since April 7th. Jeez louise! Chris and I apparently have some sort of mental block on watching this movie -- we've had about 15 other Netflix titles in and out of our possession during that time. Although I've heard from a few people that Saw 3 is great, I just can't seem to get myself excited about watching it. We considered sending it back to Netflix unwatched but, at this point, it almost feels like a challenge has been issued... but every day seems to make me even more disinclined to watch it, knowing that Saw 3 just can't possibly live up to 2.5 months of expectations.

zombie butterflies

2007-06-12T11:11:00.000-05:00

From the inimitable Keem... dinosaurs talking about zombie animals!!!

http://www.qwantz.com/index.pl?comic=1011

I love it.

Actually, I can think of a number of examples of zombie animals (like the zombie dogs in Zombies!!! 4: The End), but I immediately thought of Monster Island, which I just finished reading last night. Because it's got zombie pidgeons!!! And if there's one creature I truly despise, it's the pidgeon. Places like Trafalgar Square in London and San Marco Plaza in Venice (well, okay, the entirety of Venice) hold no charm for me thanks to these nasty, filthy, diseased birds. So the idea of ZOMBIE pidgeons is about as gut-churningly terrifying to me as zombie butterflies must be to Keem. But also, I must admit, highly entertaining in book format. More on Monster Island soon, I hope...

Why didn't I think of this?

2007-05-24T10:10:00.001-05:00

Boing-Boing-o-rama

2007-05-14T13:35:00.000-05:00

Man, what is UP with Boing Boing and the zombies lately?!?? First they post about an amazing zombie comic that I think I ought to get my hands on (although I'm not very into comics, this looks totally engrossing and reminded me of this guy, which I've had on my Amazon wish list forever)...

THEN we get a post with what is quite possibly the best BB title ever: "What do Jamestown + 28 Weeks Later have in common? BRRRAINS." Yessss! I have not seen 28 Weeks Later but it's high on my list... well, umm... okay, it's actually after Grindhouse and Hot Fuzz. As someone who probably averages about 2 movies in the theater per year, I'm not used to there being so many movies out at the same time that I actually want to see! I also generally assume that I'm going to drag my feet for so long before seeing it in the theater that I'll just have to wait for it on DVD anyway. Ah yes, low expectations...

So then, after two pretty great zombie-related posts, Boing Boing totally blows my mind by pointing out a ZOMBIE LAST SUPPER painting!!! (My friend and award-winning painter Chris Cooper used to churn out some fantastic gore in this same basic style, though you'd never know it from the amazing depth and range of his work today.)

Thus, I must conclude: it has been a very happy week in my blogroll. Yaaaaay!

Monster Island

2007-05-14T10:34:00.000-05:00

Has anybody out there read Monster Island yet? (Other than Rose, who loaned me her copy.) I can't wait to dig into it... but I have to keep it out of sight until I finish reading and reviewing a 580-page book on British librarianship in the 1990s. I would sooooo rather read about zombies... :)

Beyond the obviously awesome premise of zombies running amok in Manhattan, what I find really fascinating about this book is that it was originally released as a serialized novel, freely available online here (under a Creative Commons license). If I thought I would still manage to get any work done during the day, I could read a chapter or two at work every day over lunch.

This is kind of an exciting intersection of my personal and professional interests, i.e. zombies and free access to information for all!!! I love the fact that I could read the whole book online, or read it here at my library, or buy a copy for myself, or borrow one from Rose. I love that the content is available for free but the reader also has the option to purchase a print copy, thereby both supporting the author AND getting the text in an ideal format (my opinion, folks... I know some people can read reams of text on a monitor, but it just makes my eyes go bonkers... even in grad school, I would print out web-based assigned readings if they were more than 3 or 4 printed pages in length).

Do any of you read novels (or texts of similar length) online? Do you consider the print version of a text to be "value-added"? Or would the online, dynamic, linked version be more valuable to you?

team captain

2007-04-27T13:47:00.001-05:00

cranberries.JPG
Originally uploaded by sundaykofax.

Sunday is, without a doubt, my number one draft pick when the zombie uprising hits. I mean, no offense to Kate, Rose, Karla, Poppy, and my other peeps... but come on, she's got an AXE! And she knows how to use it! Plus she could knit clothing for the whole clan and then read us all a totally sweet bedtime story. ROCK.

are you prepared?

2007-04-27T13:33:00.000-05:00

Zombie Alert -- Home Protection for Sophisticated Families

"It has been a hundred years since the last documented zombie attack in the continental United States. This uneasy peace with the dead, however, cannot last forever."

Prepare yourself! Link via K... thanks for the heads-up!

10 Movies

2007-04-19T19:45:00.000-05:00

* Go to IMDB.com and look up 10 of your favorite movies.
* Post three official IMDB "Plot Keywords" for these 10 picks.
* Have your friends guess the movie titles.

1. Throat ripping / Headmaster / Psychotronic
2. Country singer / Zombie / Small town sheriff
3. Bestiality / Cannabis / Sex in police car
4. Professional rivalry / Perverse / Surgical instruments
5. Dead boy / Explosion / Prosthetic limb
6. Wheelchair / Hieroglyphics / Jumpsuit
7. Advertising / Sunglasses / Fistfight
8. Anachronistic / Pie fight / Interracial relationship
9. Rookie cop / Androgyny / Anagram
10. Warehouse / Punk / Thunderstorm

via LibrariAnne

corporate zombies

2007-04-06T11:09:00.001-05:00

Oh man, I want these so bad!

zombies on a plane!

2007-03-28T13:49:00.000-05:00

From Gridskipper, via the lovely Miss E:

"Even though Snakes on a Plane was essentially a flop, that hasn't stopped numerous other '... on a plane' spinoffs from popping up in the realm of B-movies, or even C-, D-, and F-movies. Somewhere on the lower end of that scale is Plane Dead, which is of course about zombies on a plane. The walking dead do not respect the seatbelt sign, apparently. You'll have to wait to witness this spectacle, as it seems Plane Dead is still on the festival circuit (no, really). Meantime, you can 'enjoy' the trailer."

East Lansing Film Festival

2007-03-21T08:41:00.000-05:00

Chris and I volunteered to help out with ticket sales on opening night (tonight!) of the East Lansing Film Festival. I am so thrilled that East Lansing is able to support this kind of event and I'm really excited to be involved myself.

"The East Lansing Film Festival (ELFF) is the largest and most diverse film festival in Michigan to screen independent and foreign feature, documentary, short and students films from around the world. The ELFF was created in 1997 in cooperation with the City of East Lansing and Michigan State University. Since then, ELFF has been dedicated to bringing quality foreign and independent films to the state of Michigan in order to expose our audience to diverse cultures, ideas, and creative works.

The 10th annual East Lansing Film Festival will take place March 21nd through 29th, 2007. On the final day of the ELFF, the Lake Michigan Film Competition will be held. This competition gives cash awards to the filmmakers whose film was either filmed, produced, or financed in the states that border Lake Michigan - Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, and Michigan. The categories for the awards are Feature, Documentary, Short Film and Student Film. We are very pleased to offer the Message Makers Most Promising Student Award, a prize package worth $10,000. This very popular event was created to encourage, foster and help promote filmmaking in Michigan and the neighboring states."

I suppose I should mention that we each get two free tickets for volunteering, too... which will subsidize a couple of the many movies that I really want to see! The online program lists the whole schedule... I am most interested in the Short Film Programs, Oldboy (being shown with Moosecock, woo!) and ESPECIALLY Severance! (which will be shown with Zombie Prom, wow!)

This is going to be awesome.

Hard Day's Night of the Living Dead

2007-03-21T08:19:00.000-05:00

In case you missed it on Boing Boing, here's a link to the fun and quirky mashup of A Hard Day's Night with zombie footage. Unfortunately, I couldn't spot a single scene from Night of the Living Dead in here, making the title pretty misleading... but it's still extremely cute and clever! I have a soft spot in my heart for the Fab Five of this era, with their sweet young faces and skinny suits...

Ahem. Anyway, I'm putting a call out for some reader help with this one. I can ID most of the scenes from the 2004 Dawn of the Dead remake (fast zombies, hello!) but I'm not picking out anything from Shaun of the Dead, which is referenced in the Boing Boing comments. Little help here? I only saw SotD once and it was quite a while ago, so maybe I'm just rusty... lemme know!

And for more Beatle-zombie mania, check out the Zombeatles video for their version of A Hard Day's Night, too! It's not as slick as the mashup, and it can be slightly annoying after a while, but it has a lot more BRAAAAAAINS, hooray!!!

The same damn thing over and over...

2007-03-20T11:23:00.001-05:00

We saw some fantastic stuff at the East Lansing Film Festival over the last few days, but I wanted to catch up with some other reviews before I get on with the really good stuff...

First on the list, The Woods... I went into this one knowing that it wasn't going to live up to the same level of awesomeness as Lucky McKee's previous feature film, May, but still assuming that we'd be operating on roughly the same ground in terms of production and performances, if not originality. And I was right! High production values (little too much CGI junk for my taste) and good performances (Bruce Campbell cheesiness notwithstanding)... but talk about a boring story! I don't want to reveal too much of the plot, but let's just say that everything happens at least three times in this movie. I experienced constant outbursts of, "UGH! I get it already! Can we MOVE ON now, please?!??" But no. No, Lucky figured he'd better hammer that one home another three or four times... to which I say, boo! It irks me when filmmakers talk down to their audience. We're not stupid... we're bored! Hmmph.

A Netflix reviewer from Delaware summed it up perfectly: "The Woods tries hard to be a modern Suspiria, but Lucky McKee has neither Argento's sense of style nor his freewheeling absurdity." Amen to that! Maybe I should start paying more attention to the Netflix reviews before I sign up for these stinkers... although if I took them all to heart, I would have missed out on Zombie Honeymoon... more to come on that!

Zombie Honeymoon

2007-03-20T11:16:00.000-05:00

By the time I realized how overwhelmingly negative the Netflix reviews for Zombie Honeymoon were, the disc had already been shipped to us. So, I resigned myself to slogging through another disappointment. I even found myself preemptively apologizing to Chris for its crappiness and promising that we'd get something good the next time! Perhaps the Netflix gods heard my complaints, because the disc was delayed so long in the mail that I reported it missing, and then it quite conveniently showed up two days later. "Sigh..." said I.

But, we watched it anyway. And you know what? It was fantastic! Thank you, low expectations!

Seriously, though... low expectations or no, Zombie Honeymoon knocked our socks off. I was particularly impressed with the acting, which came as a HUGE surprise. I really got caught up in the earnest, energetic characters and the increasingly twisted course of their story. With other zombie movies, I would have spent more time picking apart the story (particularly, in this case, the appearance of the zombie that infects the groom... where did he come from? where did he go? wtf, folks?). In those cases, I think, there's simply nothing else to latch onto about the film. But here, the strength of the actual story pulled me along... me and my very willing suspension of disbelief.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. And check out their website for footage of their win at the 1st Annual Fangoria Chainsaw Awards! (including my man John Landis referring to writer/director Dave Gebroe as "the future of horror"... sweeeet)

Move Your Dead Bones

2007-03-08T14:08:00.000-06:00

Oh, good gravy. YOU MUST WATCH THIS VIDEO. Maybe I am the last horror-loving person on the planet to see this, but I now consider it my personal mission to ensure that everyone I know views this music video. We were positively dumbstruck when we found this last night in the special features for Beyond Re-Animator, the third installment in the Re-Animator series (and, since I haven't heard a dang thing about House of Re-Animator in quite a while, it might be the last... but probably not). The movie was so-so but featured some pretty excellent splattering of blood and guts.

However. The thumping dance beats of this insane music video have permanently lodged themselves in my brain. The lyrics run through my head all day long. I've used this curse for your advantage and have transcribed the lyrics below, which I belive you will find to be nothing short of AWESOME. At least I did.

"Move Your Dead Bones" by Dr. Re-Animator

C'mon boys and girls
Come a little closer
I'm the Re-Animator

C'mon...
Re-animate your feet!

If you're feeling dead I'll be your re-animator
I've got a way to bring you to life
A superior existence with no one to control you
Where you can always do what you like

Let me give you some green color
And you will ask for more
You will see that you've never felt this way before
Party without limits, have sex and don't be blue
Freedom is eternal for you, you, you!

Move your dead bones, bones, bones
Move your dead bones, bones, bones
The secret will keep you alive
Move your dead bones, bones, bones
Move your dead bones, bones, bones
You'll dance for the rest of your life

Re-animate your feet!

All you people listen to your Re-animator
Don't hesitate and give it a try
And you'll be quite satisfied
Just as long as I can give you
A guarantee that you'll never die

Let me give you some green color
And you will ask for more
You will see that you've never felt this way before
Party without limits, have sex and don't be blue
Freedom is eternal for you, you, you!

Move your dead bones, bones, bones
Move your dead bones, bones, bones
The secret will keep you alive
Move your dead bones, bones, bones
Move your dead bones, bones, bones
You'll dance for the rest of your life

Re-animate your feet!

Re-animate your feet!

Move your dead bones, bones, bones
Move your dead bones, bones, bones
The secret will keep you alive
Move your dead bones, bones, bones
Move your dead bones, bones, bones
You'll dance for the rest of your life

Re-animate your feet!

Die Nacht der lebenden Loser

2007-03-08T14:03:00.000-06:00

Oh, I had such high hopes for Night of the Living Dorks! Good reviews on IMDb and in Rue Morgue served to whet my appetite for some fantastic and inspired zombie comedy.

Instead of the delicious zom-rom-com (zombie romantic comedy, emphasis on the ZOMBIES) that I was expecting, a la Shaun of the Dead, this movie played mostly to the teen comedy genre... throwing in only tiny bits of zombie action and virtually no gore at all! I did enjoy the premise -- three nerds gain supernatural strength (and some of the drawbacks) of the living dead, allowing them to revenge some past wrongs and start moving up the high school social ladder. But the execution proves lacking: with so much great potential for comedy (and CARNAGE, hellooo!), the film instead contents itself with tired cliches and high school stereotypes as the basis for 95% of the laughs. Oh, and there are definitely some laughs! But they're cheesy, American Pie kinds of laughs... I had my heart set on more bleak, intelligent, Fargo-style laughs. Still definitely worthwhile viewing for the zombie fanatics, though!

zombies in academia

2007-02-28T15:47:00.000-06:00

E is always finding the excellent zombitude for me... check out this article from the February 23, 2007 Chronicle of Higher Education... sounds pretty cool, but I am mightily disappointed that World War Z isn't highlighted in this course!

Course Explores the History and Subtext of Zombies in Popular Culture

By ERIK VANCE

"Zombies in Popular Media," Columbia College Chicago

Many students may feel as if college courses are eating their brains. Not a lot of courses actually examine the process.

This three-week, intensive media-studies course, taught during the winter intersession by Brendan P. Riley, an English professor, traces the roots of zombies from their beginnings, in the voodoo culture of Haiti, to their first appearance in film, in White Zombie (1932), to modern video games like Resident Evil. The undead continue to evoke fear and fascination, he says.

"There is this sense of them being the people you know — but they're not," says Mr. Riley. "And that's what's scary."

It is no accident that zombie films typically depict claustrophobic, desolate, or postapocalyptic settings, says the professor. A good zombie, movie is less about the monsters and more about the interactions of the people trying to escape them. George A. Romero's Dawn of the Dead (1978), one of the most profitable horror movies ever, explores issues of race, class, and consumerism — it is set in a shopping mall — as its living characters prepare for the inevitable attack of the zombies.

The films' plots typically reflect the fears of the people being hunted by the monsters. Early tellings used voodoo as a mechanism for the creatures' rise from the dead. But in recent decades, the zombies have more often become a product of a pathogen. Mr. Riley says this reflects fears of epidemics like AIDS and avian flu.

The professor says he chose to teach a course on zombies both for their cultural significance and because "they just scare me."

Students say:

John M. Brien, 46, a nondegree student, was simply curious about the zombie genre when he signed up for the class: "You think, Hey, it's only a monster movie, but there's actually a lot of subtext to it." Mr. Brien says Mr. Romero's first movie, Night of the Living Dead (1968), questions what it means to be human and explores the nature of good and evil as the protagonists panic and turn on one another.

Reading list:

Magazine and journal articles, along with three movie screenings per week, including Night of the Living Dead, Carnival of Souls (1962), and Shaun of the Dead, a 2004 parody.

Assignments:

Daily reading assignments, with brief written analyses of the texts; one presentation to the class, examining some form of zombie-themed art; and a final original creative project. Past examples include a zombie comic book, a zombie screenplay, and a faux news article about a zombie attack.

Something to look forward to...

2007-02-26T10:08:00.000-06:00

Since I haven't a clue as to when Diary of the Dead is going to be released (allegedly some time in 2007), I'm quite giddy to learn about Fido, which will be in theaters June 15th!

From MoviesOnline:

"Welcome to Willard, a small town lost in the idyllic world of the 50's, where the sun shines every day, everybody knows their neighbour, and rotting zombies carry the mail. Years ago, the earth passed through a cloud of space dust, causing the dead to rise with an insatiable hunger for human flesh. Terror spread across the land, until a collar was invented that made the zombies docile, even useful. A company was born: ZomCon. Thanks to their patented domestication collar™, zombies became gardeners, milkmen, butlers, and even pets. ZomCon would like everyone to believe that they have the world under control - but do they?"

I am officially excited.

World War Z

2007-02-14T12:08:00.000-06:00

Wrong. Zombies can't be vegans.

This book had absolutely nothing to do with cauliflower. It did, however, have a lot to do with survival. It posed the kinds of post-apocalyptic scenario questions that don't come imbedded with easy answers:

In a fight, how can you defeat an enemy that's incapable of experiencing fear?
What kinds of skills could you contribute to a world where executives and consultants are useless?
How would you fight? Could you? For how long?
What kind of a life would you settle for? And what would you be willing to sacrifice to make it that way?

The oral history narrative style allows Brooks to construct the novel from multiple viewpoints and in a less-than-linear fashion. It works. The personal interviews make for compelling characters and stories, bringing them together at a "man on the street" level.

Other aspects of this story that made me happy: Information = power! Iron Maiden = victory! Shout-outs to George Romero and Studs Terkel!

Go. Read. Now. My copy is stained with coffee but I think I'm going to foist it upon Poppy this weekend anyway.

Legitimate the-ater: Evil Dead the musical

2007-01-08T12:17:00.000-06:00

Sent to me by Rose, I give you... "Evil Dead: The Musical"! (as reviewed by the NY Times)

The New York Times
November 2, 2006
THEATER REVIEW | 'EVIL DEAD: THE MUSICAL'
Music and Mayhem, Blood Trail Included
By ANITA GATES

“Evil Dead: The Musical” wants to be the next “Rocky Horror Show,” and it just may succeed.

Some people might think that you’d need to have seen at least one of Sam Raimi’s “Evil Dead” movies to appreciate this show. But not necessarily. Horror comedy is, to say the least, a highly accessible genre, even for those who don’t recognize and cheer the signature lines taken from the movies.

Sure, the show is idiotic, but that’s the point.

Like the original 1983 film, so gory that it was rated NC-17, the musical is about five hormonal college students borrowing a cabin in the woods for a short vacation. They discover a 13th-century book of the dead, accidentally play an audiotape of demon-summoning words and are soon being possessed, one at a time, by evil forces.

This requires Ash (Ryan Ward, in the Bruce Campbell role) to fight back with a nearby chain saw. He even has to decapitate his girlfriend, Linda (Jennifer Byrne), with whom he has just sung the romantic duet “Housewares Employee.”

The show, which basks in the self-referential, throws in characters and events from “Evil Dead II” (1987) and dismisses the second sequel (“Army of Darkness,” 1992), which sent Ash time-traveling to the Middle Ages, with a passing remark.

The deadpan lyrics are by George Reinblatt, the playful choreography by Hinton Battle, who was co-director with Christopher Bond, and the lively music was composed by Mr. Reinblatt, Mr. Bond, Frank Cipolla and Melissa Morris.

Their most rousing number, “Do the Necronomicon,” cheerfully evokes “The Time Warp” from “Rocky Horror.” But the musical high point is Annie Knowby’s doo-wop ballad “All the Men in My Life Keep Getting Killed by Candarian Demons.” (Annie, the scientist’s-beautiful-daughter character, is played by Renée Klapmeyer.)

Truly devoted cultists may want to sit in the splatter section, the first three rows. Those seats are covered in clear plastic, and the audience may want to be too, although apparently half the fun is to wear a clean white T-shirt and spend the next two hours being sprayed with geysers of stage blood.

“Evil Dead: The Musical” is at New World Stages, 340 West 50th Street, Clinton, (212) 239-6200.

catching up on the zombitude

2007-01-08T11:45:00.000-06:00

Man, I am so woefully behind on updating this thing! A bunch of my buddies have been doing a really admirable job of blogging regularly... but instead of being inspired to do the same, I've been just sitting back and enjoying the fruits of their labors! In my own defense, I have to say that I haven't been watching a whole lot of horror movies lately, so there's been less fodder than usual... but I've been so lazy as to overlook even some very cool items that have been HANDED to me by like-minded friends! The aim of this post, then, is to backtrack and see if I can catch up on some of these items of note, so bear with me...

Zombie Chickens Taking Over California!
Sent my way by the lovely Miss E, the post itself is pretty interesting but the REAL fun here is in the comments! (see especially: "Graaaaaaains!" and Savage Chickens' "Zombie Love")

Dead Bachelors in Remote China Still Find Wives
From the New York Times (if you can believe it!), via Rose. The gist: "To ensure a son’s contentment in the afterlife, some grieving parents will search for a dead woman to be his bride and, once a corpse is obtained, bury the pair together as a married couple." Ewwwww! Or, as Rose put it: "WOW! Think of the possibilities for a zombie movie like that! This is F'D UP!!!"

New Zombie T-Shirt at Threadless
Okay, it's not so new any more, but it was when S sent me the link (umm, yeah... MONTHS ago. sigh.) I said I was going to order one, then I got lazy and didn't, and now they're out of stock... dammit!!!

The coup de grâce, however, is yet to come because I believe it merits its own post. Stay tuned!

zombie quiz! zombie quiz!!!

2007-01-08T11:23:00.000-06:00

What kind of Zombie are you?

You are a Return of the Living Dead Zombie. You were brought back from the grave by exposure to 245-Trioxin. You crave the heavenly taste of spicy brains to stop the pain of being dead. You are virtually indestructible, as even burning you up will create Zombie Rain and raise more zombies.
Take this quiz!

Quizilla |
Join

| Make A Quiz | More Quizzes | Grab Code

Rimmer and Reanimator

2006-11-04T11:19:00.000-06:00

Kate J. Rimmer with Dr. Herbert West the Reanimator
Originally uploaded by Dethkite.

Did YOU dress up as one of your favorite semi-obscure characters for Halloween? No? Well, Kate and I did. It was awesome.

NOTLD

2006-10-24T20:15:00.000-05:00

I was pretty sure that I had never seen the whole thing before, but I was shocked (shocked!) to discover that I had never actually seen ANY of Night of the Living Dead before. How could that BE?!?? I'm still flabbergasted.

Luckily, we have it on one of the Horror Classics compilation DVDs that we picked up a while ago, so C and I watched it a few nights ago and we were both totally floored. The film seems to effortlessly create the most amazingly creepy atmosphere. And beyond the creepiness you find this utter nihilism... an unapologetic insistence that, struggle as you might, the evil is gonna get you in the end. And it's this aspect of Romero's film that makes 98% of more recent zombie movies look like the total cop-outs that they are (and, yes, Land of the Dead, I'm looking at you here).

I realized that I recognized the line, "we're coming to get you, Barbara" from Shaun of the Dead, and this made me both smile and grimace. As Mark Right would've said, that's so po-mo. Is there any hope of escaping the curse of postmodernism? sigh...

why you wanna go to matul?

2006-09-15T17:06:00.000-05:00

IMG_0443.JPG
Originally uploaded by broken thoughts.

I look awfully happy in this photo, considering how very very very sad I am to be leaving my amazing buddies here at the U of I... but at least I'm wearing the zombie slayer shirt, huh?

I do wanna go to Michigan and start my new adventures there, but I sure don't wanna leave Champaign. I can't even begin to express my joy and gratitude for the amazing companions I've shared my time with here (they have put up with having terrible movies foisted upon them quite admirably!), so I won't even try. You're all on my team when the zombie apocalypse hits, though... so be ready!

Masters of Horror: John Landis?

2006-09-05T12:50:00.002-05:00

Got my first taste of the Masters of Horror series this weekend when we visited Scott and Rose. I love the idea -- 13 original one-hour movies from directors like Stuart Gordon, John Carpenter, and Dario Argento -- and the DVD packaging and features really deliver on the premise. We were treated to a viewing of the short film "Deer Woman", directed by John Landis. Now, I ought to make it clear from the get-go that I absolutely adore John Landis and that I would like to bake him lots of cookies for entertaining me so thoroughly with films like The Blues Brothers, Animal House, Trading Places, and Three Amigos!, all of which happen to be pretty high on my all-time favorites list. Not to even mention the video for Thriller... seriously, John Landis is one of my heroes.

That said, I'm just not sure that it's accurate to categorize him as one of the "Masters of Horror". The designation seems solely based on An American Werewolf in London, and perhaps Thriller as well... both of which were, of course, great... but if I were the one writing a John Landis bio, you can bet your patootie I'd be referring to him as a master of COMEDY. Wouldn't you?

Nonetheless, "Deer Woman" happened to be quite a fun and entertaining bit of filmmaking. The story centers around a world-weary cop, divorced and still coming to terms with the death of his partner, who's lately been assigned/demoted to the animal-related cases down at the station. Then we get a series of bizarre murders that leads the detective toward the Native American myth of the deer woman (body of a woman, legs of a deer), said to seduce and then trample men at random. The film succeeds because Landis steers it away from taking itself too seriously, and instead we get to simply enjoy the arc of the story, with the healthy doses of sex and comedy that it entails. I enjoyed it a lot, and I'm hoping to watch a bunch of the other films in the series.

LotD

2006-08-31T14:04:00.000-05:00

Raise your hand if you think the ending to Land of the Dead was sort of a cop-out. [Hands go up across the internets.] Kate, you can consider your hand raised since I believe we already discussed this (with a fair amount of disgust).

Now, don't get me wrong. I definitely dug the movie as a whole. Zombie evolution strikes me as a superb and inspired way to move Romero's series forward. But what was with that "live and let live" note they decided to strike in the final scene? After an hour and a half of doing awesome, gory, merciless battle with the encroaching zombie hordes, why-oh-why would Romero have his hero choose to peacefully and respectfully part ways with said hordes? I just don't get it.

And while we're on the subject of outstanding horror series, I see that the latest Re-Animator installment, House of Re-Animator, has now been pushed back to a 2008 release. The stinginess of the information available about this film makes me all the more anxious to see it! We've got Jeffrey Combs and Bruce Abbott back in the roles they were born to play, and now with William H. Macy added into the mix... oh man, I sure hope they hurry up and finish it soon.

overdue

2006-08-31T13:21:00.000-05:00

It would be ridiculous to try to cover all of the movies I've seen since my last post, so instead I'm just going to write short little snippets about some of the more zombilicious happenings in my life over the last... oh... month or so.

In my own defense, I ought to point out that it's SUMMER, for cryin' out loud... and, as such, I've given over to the universal human urge to spend the warm months in a cool movie theater, laughing my ass off at Snakes on a Plane and Beerfest. But at least I've been wearing my zombie-hunting t-shirt from Threadless (via S), so I've still got that going for me.

Also, you know how an object in motion stays in motion, while an object at rest neglects its blog for weeks at a time? Yeah, I knew you'd understand.

xoxo,
HML

persecuting zombies?

2006-07-26T18:47:00.000-05:00

Kids having a "zombie dance party" in Minneapolis get arrested and hauled into the station for "suspicious and disturbing" behavior. Hmm. Pretty weird! Makes me wonder what kind of shenanigans went down at the Iowa City Zombie March, which looks totally rad and which I tragically missed.

Link via boingboing

double feature

2006-06-30T18:47:00.000-05:00

In an effort to begin making a significant dent in our huge stock of new horror DVDs, we made last night a double feature, watching both Dementia 13 and Burial Ground: The Nights of Terror. We started with Dementia 13, which we picked up in the Sam Goody blowout sale extravaganza. It came on a "Classic Horror Triple Feature" compilation with Rites of Dracula and Night of the Living Dead, which we figured would all be good to own. We were surprised by the film... neither of us expected it to have such a noir, Psycho feel to it. Written and directed by Francis Ford Coppola (I know, weird, huh?), this black & white movie is much more psychological thriller than hack-'em-up horror, with some truly awful Irish accents and a murder suspect who looks strikingly like my sister's boyfriend (sorry, Patrick). My favorite scene, by far, involved a break-in to a dead child's room and the subsequent spontaneous movement of a wind-up bear doll... hacking an axe into a chopping block to the beat of the score. BA! BA! BA! Pure glee. On the whole, a decent story with pretty high entertainment value, but not terribly high on my list of horror classics.

Alas, since Dementia 13 didn't quite scratch our itch for blood and guts, we took a break and came back for Burial Ground. When we found this DVD in the super-sale rack, our first reaction was, "isn't that the zombie on the back of the Book of the Dead?" Why yes! It's a fabulous image, one that I had to share here as well. Based on this, our hopes for serious zombie marauding were obviously high. The plot follows a standard line... professor messes with the dead, they ignore his pleas of "I'm your friend!" and chow on his guts, moving on to pursue his friends at a nearby villa, effectively squelching the sexual exploits of three couples and one woman's creepy son. The son, played by an adult actor with some variety of growth problem, definitely steals the show... with lines like, "Mama, light him on fire!" delivered in that Smurf-like falsetto, how could you go wrong? I also appreciated the zombies' use of simple tools in their pursuit of human flesh, from pitchforks and scythes to the always-classic battering ram. I'm glad we own this one... I'm sure we'll get more views out of it and also lend it out to other interested folks.

hell bent for letters

2006-06-29T10:57:00.000-05:00

Blöödhag
Chris got me their new album on vinyl while we were up in East Lansing over the weekend. The mere mortal brain cannot even begin to fathom how amazing this artwork is! Please come over to my house and look at it in person! The warrior librarian's sword has "SHHH" etched into it, while her dagger says "READ". I haven't even listened to the music yet but these four guys (and especially their artist!) are my new heroes. Double umlauts! Literary metal! Adoration and reverence for librarians! Eeeeeeee!

iowa city zombie march!

2006-06-29T10:19:00.000-05:00

Okay, who wants to road-trip out to Iowa City for their 1st annual zombie march? Check out the Flickr set from last summer's Vancouver zombie walk and tell me that this doesn't look like the most fun you've had since... well, I'm going to have to go ahead and say that this looks like the MOST FUN EVER! Plus I could use my sweet Prairie Lights gift certificate in person, woohoo!

The First Annual Iowa City Zombie March

Walk with your un-dead brethren through the streets of Iowa City in the light of day. With all your gore and glory, let's mob the city! Be one of us because you are a Horror movie fan, because you love costume or to make a statement. How often do you get to participate in something this weird and free?

All that is required is that you show up in costume, respect traffic laws and practice common sense. Bring your friends; nothing says you love someone quite like caking yourself in make-up, limping down the street together and eating the occasional bystander! Besides, nothing is more impressive than a mob of zombies and the sense of belonging you get from being part of that mob.

When: July 22, 2006– Iowa City
Where: Meet at Happy Hollow Park at 4:30. We will start walking at 5:00.
What: Walk from the park to down town Iowa City…ending up at the Deadwood Tavern.
Make-up Help: Those who need make up help can bring their make-up and get help with that starting at 3:30

one word movie reviews

2006-06-21T15:51:00.000-05:00

I've decided to try my hand at writing movie reviews of unparalleled brevity. My patented "One Word Movie Reviews" distill films down to their essence -- the single feeling, idea, or image that encapsulates the entire experience. See for yourself:

Return of the Living Dead II: rehash
A Blade in the Dark: tedious
Delirium: boobs
May: idiosyncratic
Dead & Breakfast: hysterical
The Vanishing: droning

Evocative, aren't they? I may have more to say about a few of these but, for the most part, I think I'll just leave it at that. After all, brevity is the soul of wit, ain't it?

one of my very own!

2006-06-19T20:12:00.000-05:00

I finally ordered Book of the Dead from Amazon (eeeeeeeee!), so now I will have my own copy and miiiight be willing to relinquish Rose's copy. Maybe. Okay, probably.

I also got a copy of The Zombie Survival Guide. You know, for the reference collection.

More soon on the INCREDIBLE LOOT we picked up at the Sam Goody blowout sale!!!

slackitude

2006-06-17T16:17:00.000-05:00

I have been incredibly remiss in the blogging of late, but I plan to make up for it with a good number of substantial posts in the near future. In the past few weeks, we've seen plenty of interesting flicks, each worthy of comment in their own way -- The Vanishing, May, Dead & Breakfast, A Blade in the Dark -- and we have a decent pile of others that are in our possession and need to be checked out soon -- Undead, Anguish, The Living Dead Girl, Return of the Living Dead Part II (which I realize will be just terrible compared to the original, but I'm quite tickled to give it a try anyway)...

Plus I got a new Blue Oyster Cult DVD. And we've been sort of addicted to a slew of wrestling retrospectives that all recently came into our hands. Oh, and then there's the pesky little business of looking for a job to gobble up most of my free time, too.

Perhaps MOST exciting, however, are the two books begging for my attention -- An Illustrated History of the Horror Film, by Carlos Clarens (most thoughtfully and generously given to me by Laurie!) and Book of the Dead: The Complete History of Zombie Cinema, by Jamie Russell (conveniently left behind by Rose last month). Both look like excellent reads, although for now I have only really skimmed and looked at them in passing... but that's all going to change verrrry soon...

Federal Vampire and Zombie Agency

2006-06-01T16:07:00.000-05:00

http://www.fvza.org

Be sure to check out "The Science of Zombies, Part II: Zombie Biology", which includes this sweet image of necrotic degradation.

Thanks to Poppy for the awesome link! I am so lucky to have fabulous and like-minded friends who send me all the juicy stuff to post, which leaves me free to laze around on the couch, watchin' junk and drinkin' beer... ahh, what a life.

the Finnish monster metal of Lordi

2006-05-25T12:23:00.000-05:00

It's come time for me to officially admit my slightly embarrassing yet wholly engrossing fascination with the world of celebrity fashion. I'm particularly drawn to the delicately crafted cruelty of fashion critique, which is most gloriously displayed in the posts of Go Fug Yourself. So you can imagine the near-total brain meltdown that occured when I stumbled upon this GFY post about the Eurovision song contest, highlighting the winning band, Lordi, who hail from Finland...

"Although presumably even the undead have an enduring sense of patriotic pride, as evidenced by the zombie whose face is rotting off, yet whose head is adorned with a kicky little Finland top hat, as if he is threatening here to break into a series of cabaret-style high kicks before he flosses his teeth with your intestines."

The intersection of monsters, metal, fashion, rotting faces, reindeer fur... it was almost too much for me. Like the time at IHOP when I ordered Viva la French Toast and the waitress asked, "Would you like bacon or sausage with that... or one of each?" To which I responded with incredulity and awe, "You mean I can have BOTH?" Well folks, I'm here to tell you that Lordi has now overtaken IHOP as the epitome of getting both for me... they're grotesque yet fabulous, they're laughably silly yet world-renowned, they're bizarre and insane yet they are the absolute pride of their nation. Further proof that I have got to move to Europe.

graduation lobotomy

2006-05-15T17:48:00.000-05:00

graduation lobotomy
Originally uploaded by heavymetallibrarian.

They tell you it's just going to be a nice, civilized convocation ceremony, but before you know it, they've sliced you open and left you for undead. I knew there would be a downside to this whole master's degree thing...

who loves bookslut? me, me, me!

2006-05-10T14:03:00.000-05:00

A headline from the Bookslut blog, which I just love ever-so-much:

A headline from the Courier Post:

New history tour features Whitman from the grave

I celebrate myself and EAT YOUR BRAINS, YOUR DELICIOUS BRAAAAIIIINS

deathhacker

2006-05-08T19:33:00.000-05:00

Lifehacker has expanded their can-do attitude to a whole new realm. If anyone is in a position to advise me on planning for post-zombie-apocalypse living, I'm thinking it's these guys.

Zombies just keep popping up. Yesterday Jon outlined his plan for an updated version of Logan's Run with a zombiepocalypse backstory. Dig it!

Bonehead Addendum: I am so used to S sharing all of her sweet zombie finds with me that I totally neglected to give her credit for sending the Deathhacker tidbits my way... I'm a doofus, but she rules! Thanks for keeping me on my undead toes!

happy (not hostile)

2006-05-08T18:46:00.000-05:00

We finally rented Hostel. It was inevitable. And, because I had such a fun and lazy and really happy-feeling weekend, I am just now getting around to writing about it... which means that I've already talked about the movie with pretty much anybody who's interested in hearing my musings by now. But, what the heck, I figured I'd toss it up here on the ol' blog anyway...

I enjoyed Cabin Fever quite a bit when I first saw it -- even though I reeeally hated the "Rotten Fruit" claymation bit in the extras (or whatever it was), which stayed in my head for weeks, and also in spite of some lameness that was revealed by a second viewing of the movie -- but still, I think kindly of CF and I looked forward to Eli Roth's next major outing, albeit with the earnest hope that he wouldn't give himself a cheesy cameo again. We didn't see Hostel in the theater, mainly because we are cheap, and so by the time it came out on video we had heard an awful lot about the movie. Fine by me, since I wasn't expecting too many surprises anyway, but Chris seemed disappointed to go into it so well prepared.

As it turns out, I actually liked Hostel LESS than I liked Cabin Fever... it spent the first hour just building up to the main action, and then the last 30 minutes were far less interesting than I had hoped. Most of the action merely suggested violence rather than showing it. Still, some of the messy stuff was VERY messy, as you can see in the image at right (it was awfully tough to find a still that didn't give away any key plot elements, oddly enough) and, to be fair, there was indeed pus. The pus shot was greeted with a loud hoot of laughter from our couch, followed by a racking of brains to figure out where they had directly cribbed that scene from (verdict: Dead Alive).

Worst parts: one hour of crappy, mainstream, buddy-movie junk. Best parts: two well-splatted bodies, Czech kids, and DVD bonus features.

strip nude for your killer!

2006-05-02T16:24:00.001-05:00

At last, an end to my lengthy hiatus from blogging! I haven't been completely off the horror movies lately -- we did watch Dagon, a bizarro Lovecraftian flick that Sean loaned me a couple of weeks ago. It was... eh, it was pretty bad... the attempts at surreal imagery and effects came off as mighty cheesy. Chris absolutely loathed it. And we got to see some of the best parts of ROTLD (okay, they're ALL good parts) at Kate & Bob's house the other week, too. I adore that movie and I loooove seeing others experience it for the first time.

But last night we finally watched Strip Nude For Your Killer, the last of the huge pile of DVDs loaned to us by Rose -- we shall have to stock up on a new pile soon! It did a fair job of living up to the "ultra trashy fun" advertised/promised by the box, but here's what kept nagging at me: NOBODY stripped nude for the killer! Hello!!! Am I the only one who took note of this? Okay, so most of the victims were already at least mostly nude for their killings and, really, everyone was generally pretty nekkid for most of the film, but there were absolutely no instances of "strip for me and then I'll kill you" action. Clearly, I'm the only one who has a beef with this.

The movie as a whole was generally on par with The Strange Vice of Mrs. Warde, another Edwige Fenech vehicle and giallo from the same era, which is to say that I found it average in the entertainment department. In this movie, though, there were just way too many characters, and they were almost all fashion models who were marginally distinguishable only by their hair color, which got tricky when the only ones left alive were all blonde. It's got all the exploitation and misogyny of the genre in general, but for some reason I was particularly struck by the difference between the women's bodies that were featured in 1975 (and, naturally, almost every single shot features the female body prominently) and those that we see in movies today. I mean, damn, these ladies had curves! Despite the lack of other redeeming qualities about the film, I have to say that I did appreciate the ample hips and butts on display... you're not going to see women with those shapes flaunting their stuff in 2006 movies.

And now, of course, I've got Rose's singalong to the tune of "Exciter" stuck in my head... "striiiip, nude for your KILL-ER!"

zombie editors!

2006-04-06T16:48:00.000-05:00

The always-excellent Bookslut blog manages to combine a stunning number of my favorite things into one post: zombies, literary magazines, zombies, fun at the expense of others, zombies...

http://www.bookslut.com/blog/archives/2006_04.php#008439

newsworthy

2006-03-29T15:28:00.000-06:00

It's old news to anyone reading this blog (because 1. you're already so far ahead of the curve and 2. because I, eh, neglected to post this for three whole days, despite the best efforts of Rose and Maggie to alert me), but the mainstream press has now chimed in to remind everyone that ZOMBIES ARE HOT!

http://tinyurl.com/gsqmg (go to www.bugmenot.com if prompted to log in)

My favorite passage:

"People have apocalypse on the brain right now," Mr. Brooks said. "It's from terrorism, the war, natural disasters like Katrina." Several zombie aficionados said there was a zombielike quality to the spread of the bird flu. Zombies, Mr. Brooks said, are the perfect goblin for such times, in part because they suggest broad social collapse, when anyone — a policeman, a nurse, a friend — can turn into a force of evil. With a werewolf or vampire, all the evil is concentrated on a single creature; with zombies, the evil is everywhere."They go hand in hand with apocalyptic scenarios," Mr. Brooks said. "You can't have one zombie. You've got to have millions of them. Society has to be breaking down. And zombies aren't in conventional horror settings. Zombies find you. The sun comes up, and they're still there. You call the cops, and they're still there. They create a chain reaction of societal collapse. "Bryan Smith, the author of "Deathbringer," agreed. "It speaks to the underlying fear that a lot of people have that the whole world can suddenly go crazy," he said.

Yes, yes, and yes! It's just like S was saying... I think we all have a certain amount of our brains devoted to "what if?" scenarios, to what we'd do in the face of insurmountable odds. And zombie movies provide a release for those emotions, anxieties, and outright fears. They make them manageable.

Oh, and we finally watched The Killer Must Kill Again last night. It was pretty super. One of the better examples of the giallo genre we've seen in a while. The killer wasn't very good at killin', but he was excellent at being sinister and menacing. And striding around with a swagger that can only come from such tall, skeletal, Italian, bell-bottomed, high-heeled, funky assassin. Woo! If they ever do a remake, I hope Chris Kerns will lend his death metal anthem, "Don't Die Until I Kill You", to the soundtrack.

good friends + bad horror = big fun

2006-03-18T21:01:00.000-06:00

We had a rip-roaring, whiz-bang good time last night, thanks to a bunch of friends who came over to indulge in some beer drinking, Estonian vodka sipping, and zombie viewing. I was SO happy to get to share Return of the Living Dead with new, unsuspecting viewers... especially S, who got here just in time to see the zombie torso explain WHY they need to eat brains and then lapse into incoherent cries of, "brainsbrainsbrainsbrains"!!! Oh, that movie just makes me so happy.

My apologies go out to those who stayed around long enough to suffer through Zombie Lake with us, though... what misery! What a piece of complete and utter garbage! Rose was not at all kidding when she said it was probably the worst zombie movie of all time. Having seen Oasis of the Zombies and also Shock Waves (I think; not sure on that one, though), I figured I could easily handle another orgy of Nazi zombies underwater. Alas, I was ill prepared for the heaping helping of craptastic filmmaking that this movie wallops on its viewers. I think I actually fell asleep for a good bit of it, which was a sweet reprieve from the awful awful awfulness of it all.

Champaign friends, do not judge me by this stupendously bad movie. Instead, read this guy's heartwarming review of Return of the Living Dead, listen to a few of the audio clips, watch one of the movie's very best scenes... and tell me, is this not one of the most entertaining films ever made? These zombies wanna ROCK!!!

http://www.badmovies.org/movies/returndead/

semantics

2006-03-10T10:56:00.000-06:00

Having brought up the issue of "What is a zombie, really?" in my post last night, I thought I'd better harness my librarical tendencies and address the question directly. And where better to turn, I first thought, than the venerable Oxford English Dictionary? Here's what the OED has to say in its entry for "zombie":

“[Of W. Afr. origin; cf. Kongo nzambi god, zumbi fetish.] 1. In the West Indies and southern states of America, a soulless corpse said to have been revived by witchcraft; formerly, the name of a snake-deity in voodoo cults of or deriving from West Africa and Haiti. 2. fig. A dull, apathetic, or slow-witted person. Also as a general term of disparagement. colloq. 3. Canad. Mil. slang. In the war of 1939-45, an opprobrious nickname applied to men conscripted for home defence. 4. A long mixed drink consisting of several kinds of rum, liqueur, and fruit juice (see quot. 1958). 5. a. attrib.; b. Comb., as zombie-like a., characteristic of or resembling a zombie; lifeless, unfeeling. Hence zombiesque, zomboid [-OID] adjs.; zombiism.”

Thank you, OED... very cool etymology, interesting that they include the Canadian military slang, but I'm not quite satisfied. Not to put too fine a point on it, but where's the part about eating brains, yo? I went on and found this entry in The Oxford Companion to the Body, which gives tons of great information, but again, nothing about the traditional zombie violence and brain-eating:

“zombie The word zombie refers to the ‘living dead’. In folklore zombies are portrayed as innocent victims who are raised in a comatose trance from their graves by malevolent sorcerers, and led to distant farms or villages where they toil indefinitely as slaves. Zombies are recognized by their docile nature, by their glassy empty eyes, and by the evident absence of will, memory, and emotion. Part of their souls may also be captured by the sorcerers. Zombies can only return to the world of the living upon the death of their masters. Accounts are sometimes cited of actual people who have undergone this ordeal, were declared dead, and later turned up at the homes of their kin in various degrees of health.

Sources indicate that the word is of African origin. The cadaver or spirit of a deceased person is called zumbi in the Bonda language, ndzumbi in Gabon, and nzambi in Kongo. However, the conviction that zombies exist is more widespread. It is encountered not only in sub-Saharan Africa, but also in the Caribbean and in Latin America.

A controversial theory by Wade Davis suggests that there may well be an ethnobiological basis for popular reports of the zombie phenomenon in Haiti. He refers to a case of zombification which had been verified by a team of physicians. In 1962 Clairvus Narcisse was pronounced dead at a hospital, and buried 8 hours later. In 1980 Clairvus reappeared, claiming that he had been made a zombie by his brother because of a land dispute. Davis argues that Clairvus was mistakenly diagnosed as dead, buried alive, and taken from the grave. Among the various preparations of Haitian sorcerers, Davis identified a marine fish containing tetrodotoxin, an extremely potent neurotoxin which induces a complete state of peripheral paralysis and imperceptibly low metabolic levels. He postulates that the Haitian belief in zombies could be based on those rare instances where the individual receives the correct dosage of the poison, is misdiagnosed as dead, and is taken from the grave by a sorcerer. Moreover, Davis argues that zombification is a form of punishment imposed by Bizango secret societies to maintain order in local communities.

Other scholars of Haiti regard the belief in zombies as purely mythical. From a Marxist perspective zombification — the image of people who have lost their minds and souls and are left only with the ability to work — is explained as symbolic comment on the historical process of colonialism.

In many parts of Africa zombies are an integral aspect of witchcraft beliefs; particularly where witchcraft discourses address issues raised by inequalities of wealth and power. […] in Malawi, witchcraft discourses constitute an argument about the morality of accumulation. Accumulation is endowed with moral adequacy when entrepreneurs make their constitutive relations visible by supporting their kin financially; and by redistributing wealth through patronage, gift-giving, and feasting. It is perfectly legitimate when entrepreneurs, who are motivated by these concerns, use medicines to protect their businesses and to ensure a steady flow of many customers. By contrast, accumulation which is motivated by individualism and greed is morally despised. In this situation entrepreneurs are said to achieve prosperity at the cost of human lives. Zombies are believed to reside with them, to protect their money, and to affect the minds of customers so that they can come to the business in large numbers. Zombies thus serve exactly the same purposes as medicines, but are an index of morally disputable witchcraft.

In South Africa discourses of zombies capture the illicit desire to dominate and the fear of being dominated. At a symbolic level the image of witches who keep many zombies resonates with the status of white industrialists and farm owners who employ many black labourers. The employment of zombies as servants in a nocturnal ‘second world’ echoes the daunting experiences of migrant labourers who leave their rural households for alien industrial and mining centres. The tasks of zombies resemble those of domestic assistants and farm labourers. They clean the homes of witches, fetch water and firewood, herd cattle, plough, sow, harvest, and run errands. The unique features of zombies exaggerate some of the less apparent consequences of domination. Zombies are only a metre tall; are similar in appearance; are hypnotized so that they display unquestioning obedience; and their tongues are cut [emphasis added]. These features allude to the diminutive, childlike status of African labourers; who are all treated alike by their bosses; and are unable to express themselves. Moreover, zombies are sexless, are devoid of human desires, and are fed a meagre diet of maize porridge — the staple diet of South African labourers. Narratives of zombies also reflect upon the dependence of the dominated. Should witches die, their zombies will wander about endlessly in search of porridge. Being undead, they cannot return to their kin. Persons who aspire to positions of influence; and strong-willed mothers-in-law who command great authority over the wives of their sons, are those most often accused of keeping zombies.”

I have a lot to say about these definitions, their resonance in movies like Dawn of the Dead and The Serpent and the Rainbow, and the social/historical contexts elaborated here, but this is a long enough post for one day... so, more from me later, and feel free to post comments if you'd like to join the discussion.

Citations:
"zombie" The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed. Oxford University Press, 1989. Oxford Reference Online. Univ Illinois-Urbana Champaign. 10 March 2006

I. Niehaus "zombie" The Oxford Companion to the Body. Ed. Colin Blakemore and Sheila Jennett. Oxford University Press, 2001. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. Univ Illinois-Urbana Champaign. 10 March 2006

Les Raisins de la Mort

2006-03-09T16:18:00.000-06:00

After a lengthy absence, not from horror movies entirely (I did watch Friday the 13th Part 3, but can you think of anything interesting worth saying about that?), but mostly from finding the time to write about them, I've finally resurfaced. And just in time, too, since last weekend our buddies from Iowa City dropped off a huge pile of awesome (and, for me, unwatched) horror DVDs. Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!

We watched The Grapes of Death, aka Les Raisins de la Mort, last night. It was a good pick, and probably one of the more zombilicious of the lot that we'll be tearing through over the next few weeks. Folks near a small vineyard in France suddenly start experiencing symptoms that begin with a sore neck, fever, and spreading sores, then give way to violent rage, and ultimately leave them gory, vacant wanderers with a slow and plodding sort of drive to kill. They're not zombies exactly, since to my knowledge they're not actually the walking dead, but they do share most other standard zombie traits.

The pacing is uneven, with some really great action and quite a number of interminably long stretches of nothing. At one point we realized that there had been absolutely no sound for about five minutes, leaving me thinking, "yes, I get it, she's running through the countryside..." I wasn't blown away by the setting -- there are some neat crumbling buildings, but there wasn't much variety and it seemed like most of the scenes set in different locations could've all been filmed at the same spot -- and the camera work used such extreme angles (looking straight up or straight down a rocky cliff) so often that the effect really lost its quality. I'd be interested to see some of Jean Rollin's other films (Living Dead Girl, Fascination) to see if they're equally gory but with some more sustained action and/or more satisfying endings.

Macabre and Horror High

2006-02-24T17:30:00.000-06:00

Macabre and Horror High
Originally uploaded by heavymetallibrarian.

Hooray for horror day, glorious horror day at Rentertainment! All the horror movies you want for $1 a pop, and you get 'em for three days!

Of course, we went ahead and watched both of ours last night, an initiative fueled by Old Style and homemade stew. The design of the DVDs is remarkably similar, as you can see in the photo, though the movies could hardly be more different.

We watched Return to Horror High first, and I think it's important to alert potential viewers that there are NO DEAD CHEERLEADERS in this movie, contrary to what the disc and the box would lead you to believe. However, here are some things that are featured: so many "shocking plot twists" that it becomes impossible to follow the actual story; a young George Clooney eagerly saying, "hey, wait up!" before his big splatter scene; Maureen McCormick in a pretty funny cop role, complete with blood-smeared bosom and some nice hot dog eating action. Somehow, probably due to the encouragement of Chris and many cans of Old Style, I was able to not overanalyze the logic of the story, of which there was mercifully little anyway.

Now, Macabre. This movie was all about mood and setting, and when the setting is New Orleans, you've got me hooked. Two of our best friends lived there for three years, and watching this movie was a reminder of how much I loved the city the few times we visited. Also, as I told a friend over lunch today, one of the main draws of an Italian horror film is its setting -- the acting and plot might be for crap (and it probably is), but the payoff will be in the lighting, the shadows, the corners, the street scenes. I appreciated these aspects of Macabre enough to balance out the obviousness and awfulness of the "surprise ending," which, in all fairness, was waaaaay less bad than the one in Sleepaway Camp.

Plus, one of the leads is played by a guy named Stanko. I mean, wow.

mmm, brains...

2006-02-22T17:38:00.000-06:00

mmm, brains...
Originally uploaded by heavymetallibrarian.

http://www.lightlife.com/sgoriginal.html

sleepaway camp

2006-02-20T20:14:00.000-06:00

I'd like to preface this post by stating the following: I have truly seen a lot of bad movies. I've cringed, shrugged, laughed, sighed, and heckled my way through some of the most god-awful mockeries of the horror movie genre in history. I've even watched Friday the 13th Part 2 within the past week, so I should've been prepared for another ridiculous camp-slasher-stalker flick.

But sweet jesus, was this movie bad.

And I own it! Watching Sleepaway Camp for the first time last night was like being screamed at by the mean Indian lady who ran the now-defunct Southport Video and sold it to us in the first place... sort of awkward and embarrassing, but mostly irritating. And when I discovered that the role of Ben, the kitchen guy, was played by James Earl Jones's father... well, that made me feel kind of icky, too.

I highly recommend that no one ever watch this movie, ever. But do come over and watch The Exorcist III with us later this week... I need to wash the taste of Sleepaway Camp out of my mouth. Bleeeaaaaah.

Zombies!!! 4: The End

2006-02-18T20:31:00.000-06:00

Zombies!!! 4: The End
Originally uploaded by heavymetallibrarian.

WOOHOO! Today I went out and bought Zombies!!! 4: The End for myself, because I just couldn't wait any longer to play the zombie board game. The rules of Zombies!!! 4 are essentially the same as the regular Zombies!!!, which Kate and Bob introduced us to, except that you're battling zombie dogs and you only lose half a life to each one. But you have to roll a 5 or 6 (no 4s) to defeat them. I beat Chris quite easily tonight, but we didn't use the event cards due to impatience and need additional players to make it more fun in future attempts. Interested???

doppelgänger

2006-02-16T19:03:00.000-06:00

Over the weekend, I saw Brokeback Mountain with a friend -- it was extremely moving and tragic, and I loved the music, but I tend to feel that the scope of the story demanded more experienced and commanding actors in the roles. Just my opinion, folks.

Anyway, the movie also reminded me of a weird Jake Gyllenhaal doppelgänger that I noticed a few weeks ago. We got the vampire movie Near Dark as a gift -- it's fairly bloody and well-paced and generally a good watch -- and it struck me that the protagonist, played by Adrian Pasdar, looked an awful lot like the photos of Jake Gyllenhaal from "the gay cowboy movie." See for yourself.

Oh, and we got a good deal on The Exorcist III on DVD, so hopefully we'll watch that soon!

I am a lucky girl

2006-02-14T21:17:00.000-06:00

Guess who got a Blue Öyster Cult mix cd for Valentine's Day??? It included "Your Loving Heart", a song from a Buck Dharma solo album, which isn't actually a love song but more of an organ transplant song. Here are some excellent clips from the music video, which I've yet to see:

http://buckdharma.com/Discography/V-YLH.html

Okay, sorry for the happy sappy stuff, more zombie flicks soon...

all out of bubble gum

2006-02-12T00:13:00.000-06:00

weekend movies
Originally uploaded by heavymetallibrarian.

Tonight I watched They Live, directed by John Carpenter and featuring Roddy Piper and Keith David. I've only seen this movie once before (thanks, Jeff & Pop!) and I like it on a lot of levels. Most important, however, is the appeal of a movie that features an extended scene of these two guys duking it out in an alley, which is more than worth the price of admission (which, in my case, is nothing, thanks to my library and its free movie privileges). That scene showcases everything that was (and is?) great about professional wrestling. The movie starts off with a real Rambo feel, what with the drifter-looking-for-a-home thing, and I kept asking myself, "What's with Roddy's wedding ring?" We never hear about his background, his family, his back story. Ultimately, though, I can't argue with a movie that gives us the all-time great, and well enunciated, quote: "I have come here to kick ass and chew bubble gum. And I'm all out of bubble gum." Beautiful.

Last night we watched The Legend of Hell House (1973), which I had thought had been recently remade as The Haunting, but I was wrong -- that was The Legend of HILL House. Hell House was a decent haunted house movie, but it wasn't terribly scary. I liked the long shots of the house and hallways and whatnot, but that was about it.

The night before, we had watched The Fearless Vampire Killers (or Pardon Me, But Your Teeth Are in My Neck), a Roman Polanski film from 1967. We actually watched the first half of the movie the night before, and fell asleep, then watched the rest the next night. It was an odd combination of Laurel & Hardy style physical comedy with Tim Burton-esque landscapes. I'm not sure that I liked it, but I didn't dislike most of it. I had never seen a movie with Sharon Tate before, who I exclusively associated with the Manson murders, and she was lovely. I also loved the cover of the DVD, which reminded me of Dr. Strangelove (another favorite).

A good weekend for horror viewing.

Welcome!

2006-02-11T19:11:00.000-06:00

screaming zombie w/head-ripping action!
Originally uploaded by heavymetallibrarian.

As this is my first blog post ever, I thought I'd start it off with a screaming, head-ripping zombie photo... just to set the tone. With thanks to Poppy for the amazing gore-job.

I hope to use this here blog as an outlet for my various thoughts on the many, many horror movies I consume, with particular attention to zombie culture and the undead in general.

Glad to have you here and hope you enjoy it.