New Blog

I think I’m done with this blog. Not that there were many of y’all reading this in the first place, but just to let you know.

But hey, here’s another one I’m writing on now: House of 1000 Courses.

Horror film reviews and awesome recipes. What more could you ask for?

Clive Barker on Zombies

While I was in Portland at the Zompire Film Festival, I picked up a copy of Clive Barker’s A–Z of Horro at Powell’s Books. Generally, I’m not a big fan of glossy film books (or anything that claims to explain a topic “from A to Z,” for that matter), but when one of your favorite horror writers comes out with a book on the genre…well, how could I resist? Clive Barker has always been one of my great horror loves, from his short stories to his epic multi-volume novels. His films, too, have always been genuinely creepy and fascinating to me: Hellraiser, of course, Nightbreed, and especially Lord of Illusions.

The book is a great read. While laid out in the dreaded A–Z format, the book doesn’t make any pretenses of being an authoritative guide to horror; instead, Barker wisely picks and chooses a handful (okay—26) of his favorite themes to write about. Some are focused and specific: “M for Mistress of the Night” is a love letter to cult actor Barbara Steele, while “N for Nightmare” explores the Nightmare on Elm Street series. Others are more vague and creative: “A for American Psycho” is an essay on real and fictional serial killers, including four movies inspired by the disturbing story of Ed Gein’s murders: Psycho, Deranged, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and Silence of the Lambs.

But let’s cut to the chase. As you might have guessed by now, the book ends on “Z for Zombies.”

Barker opens this essay with a lengthy discussion of what would today be considered an unusual trend: the photographing of dead people, which in the nineteenth century was extremely popular. These photographs were taken as mementos and memorials, often becoming the only photographic evidence of the person having ever existed. Cosmeticology became increasingly important in the mortuary industry, driven by families desires to see their loved ones as they were in life—or even better than in life.

Barker quotes photo historian Dr. Stanely Burns: “It was a novel way to solve the contradiction . . . the need to push the dead away and the need to keep the dead alive.”

That thought—our desire to keep the dead alive—is echoed by Barker, who writes, “Many people yearn for immortality—for themselves or for a loved one—but, as the sages say, be careful what you wish for, it might just come true.”

Naturally, any essay on zombies has to include the 1968 classic Night of the Living Dead, and this one is no exception. Night screenwriter John Russo notes that before the film was released, zombies weren’t “heavyweight fright material . . . but when we made them flesh-eaters it gave them a whole new dimension. And then the fact that they didn’t die, it was like having a kind of eternal life that nobody really wants.”

Marilyn Eastman, who played Helen Cooper in the movie, reflects that “Everybody wants to believe in life after death, and I think the living dead is the closest thing to that idea. Except people do come back—so you get your wish for immortality—[but] they come back as horrifying things. [. . . .] That’s very difficult for people to handle, because they do want to believe that there is life after death, but they don’t want to believe that it’s monstrous.”

“Zombies are about dealing with death,” Barker summarizes. “They represent a specific face of death. And the fact that we can even talk like this about a horror movie creation puts down the theory that the genre can’t be taken seriously.”

Zompire Film Festival, Part Two

DAY TWO

I missed the first few shorts that opened up day two of the Zompire Film Festival, but fortunately made it just in time for “Zombie Jesus.” From the filmmakers’ website:

Mary Maynard has returned to town to mend the relationship with her devout priest father. But Zombie Jesus has his own plans for their reunion. Compelled by the horror of Christ, Mary teams up with the local Jew, Isaac, in a desperate crusade to save Mary’s father.

As the trailer for the film jokes: “He promised us eternal life. But we forgot to read the fine print.” It’s a hilarious satire on religious proselytism, with Zombie Jesus “converting” the heathens to Christanity: shots of zombie hordes milling about outside churches, bible-thumping zombies going door to door, and concerned news reports about the “aggressive” new conversion campaign. Ultimately, the only way to kill Zombie Jesus is not with a headshot but with, naturally, a crucifixion.

“Cannibal Flesh Riot!” by artist Gris Grimly also deserves a mention here, a film that made interesting use of multiple styles (including both live-action and stop-motion animation). More of a black comedy than a zombie film, “Cannibal Flesh Riot!” follows two redneck ghouls, Stash and Hub, on a late-night jaunt to the cemetery for a bite to eat. The dialogue is somewhat Tarantinoesque, in parts, largely consisting of an extended philosophical conversation about condiments and anthropomorphic food:

Hub: You know, I don’t really like condiments.
Stash: Have you even tried any?
Hub: They scare me.
Stash: We’re talking about the same thing here, right? Ketchup, mustard, and such?

And later:

Hub: It seems to me that humans are always depicting their food to look like people.
Stash: What the hell you talking about?
Hub: Well, think about it. You’ve got the fruit guys from the underwear commercials. You’ve got the California Raisins. You’ve got the whole menu of food people selling McDonald’s. Doesn’t that seem just a little bit cannibalistic to you?
Stash: Not cannibalistic. That would be eating their own kind.
Hub: I know, but isn’t it a little funny that they got to disguise their food to look like people to make it appealing? ‘Don’t like raisins? Then how ’bout raisins that sing and dance the fuckin’ Oldies?’

Apparently, the film started with an idea by Peter Sandorff, ex-guitarist for the psychobilly band Nekromantix. Sandorff proposed the story as a horror comic (written and drawn by Grimly) that came with a soundtrack (composed by Sandorff). Instead, they ended up with a short film, but one that obviously draws a lot of artistic influences from the old EC horror comics (like Tales from the Crypt).

“Laundromat” was an excellent short film, cutting right to the heart of the zombie story in eight short minutes. Put together in part by some folks at Rue Morgue magazine, the film follows a young couple as they barricade themselves inside a laundromat to fend off the undead hordes. When the man gets bitten by a sneaky zombie that’s found its way inside, things turn very dramatic (and gory) very quickly.

The shorts were followed by the 2004 “remake” of Dawn of the Dead, introduced by a representative of the “Center for Undead Neutralization Tactics.” He recalled that the first time he watched Romero’s Dawn of the Dead, he came to a poignant realization: “the zombie apocalypse is going to FUCKING RULE.” In Romero’s world, he pointed out, the zompocalypse would involve getting some guns, staking out a position in a local mall, and using the walking dead for target practice. They weren’t all that smart, and they certainly weren’t fast, so avoiding them seemed to be relatively easy if you took a few precautions.

But then, he said, came the new wave of zombie films, ushered in by 28 Days Later and the new Dawn of the Dead (which diverged from the original film so much that it might as well not even be called a remake). In these movies the zombies (or the infected, in the case of 28 Days) RAN. And that is a truly terrifying prospect. Running zombies, he solemnly stated, constitute the Worst Case Scenario for the zompocalpyse; it’s unlikely that humans could ever survive that sort of disaster.

Of course, there’s a huge faction of zombie fans that is rabidly opposed to the notion of running zombies — and that would seem to be the topic for a later post…

The final film of the evening (and the festival) was the truly outstanding zombie comedy Wasting Away: a film from the zombies’ point of view.

In a Director’s Statement on the movie, Matthew Kohnen writes:

For too long, Zombies have been the misunderstood Antagonists of Horror Films. Nearly every other classic Monster has gone on to have a film made that takes a moment to look at things from their side. “Interview with a Vampire”, “Young Frankenstein”, even “Teen Wolf”. But never Zombies, no… [...] It was my goal to rectify this, to give Zombies a voice, a point-of-view, if you will, that would allow us all to see that Dead or Undead, we all basically want the same things: Love, Success, and the Freedom to eat brains whenever and wherever we want. Is that so wrong? [...] “Wasting Away” is the first step in what we are sure will be a long road to Understanding and Inclusion. Remember, Zombies are People, too…

Now, I’ll be honest. Having read the above, I did not expect much out of this movie. “It’s a cute idea,” I thought, “but how can they sustain that gag for 96 minutes?”

The answer is simple: by making the rest of the movie actually good. Good characters that we’re interested in and care about. Good acting. Good cinematography. A multi-layered plot that turns from a simple “they don’t know they’re dead” twist into a surprisingly epic story about outcasts finding their place in a world that despises them.

Seriously, this is one fine zomedy. Highly, highly recommended.

Wasting Away won the Audience Award at both Zompire and at 2007’s ScreamFest in LA, where it beat out 30 Days of Night. It’s appearing at the Another Hole in the Head film fest in SF next month, and I certainly expect it to be a major contender for awards there, as well. Check out the trailer, below.

Zompire Film Festival 2008

Last weekend I drove up to Portland, OR for the Zompire Film Festival, an annual celebration of all things undead.

DAY ONE

The festival kicked off with a block of short films, which included the excellent “Prombies!” a tongue-in-cheek use of zombies as a metaphor for sex. (Directed by Frederick Snyder.) “PROMBIES! is a thrilling journey of fear and discovery,” so the Zompire website explains, “and a heartwarming tale of young teenage lovers coming together to deal with the issues of sex and zombies on one of the most memorable nights of their lives.” In one scene, virginal Amy and her boyfriend Darryl (who’s turning into a zombie as he finds it harder to control his sexual urges) happen upon a zombie feasting upon a young woman. (Except, well…think in more colloquial terms.) “He’s eating her alive!” Amy gasps, as the zombie raises his head to growl at her, and we see a manicured hand slowly push his head back down.

Following a couple of vampire feature films (the thoroughly entertaining Hammer Horror movie Vampire Circus and the decidedly less enjoyable From Dusk Till Dawn), another block of short films was shown. The best of the bunch was a creative and well-acted piece called “The Man Who Refused to Die.” A murdered man who just can’t seem to shuffle off this mortal coil completely finds that being wishy-washy about death can really mess up your life. Dumped by his girlfriend and kicked out of the hospital by his doctor, he ends up with the only person he can think of who’d take him in: the seriously unstable serial killer who stabbed him to death in the first place. You can check out an early trailer for the movie here.

And then came Brain Dead, a feature I had been really excited to see, not least because a friend of mine had a cameo voice-over in the first few minutes of the movie. Unfortunately, her few seconds of dialogue were probably the most enjoyable part of the movie.

All you really need to know about the plot is that when the script was originally written, the big bad monster was not zombies but a giant spider. (The filmmakers’ budget didn’t allow for a decent-looking spider; extras in zombie makeup were much cheaper.) Up against the zombies are a pervy preacher with a nubile acolyte, a smartass college boy handcuffed to a hardened convict (with some pretty godawful Sharpie “tattoos”), and two sexy hikers. The first fifteen minutes of the movie provided us with partial or full nudity of all the women in the film, and supplied a gratuitous “let’s skinny dip in this river” scene with the hikers, one of whom was established as a lesbian soon after she criticized the sexist behavior of the men in their group. (Pssh. what a feminazi. Obviously a lesbian.)

The director (Kevin Tenney, of Witchboard and Night of the Demons fame) has described the film as being a “fun and funny, over-the-top, politically-incorrect throw-back to the hard-core horror films of the 80s,” which I think is accurate if he means “slapstick, overacted, sexist, sloppy B-movie.” That said, there were some pretty great special effects (back-to-basics, non-CGI stuff): lots of blood, and a fabulous scene where evil convict Bob blows the head off a (non-zombie) cop.

Incidentally, it’s a bit annoying that the title was snatched from Peter Jackson’s ‘92 classic splatstick zombie film, also known in the US as Dead Alive. I would have been far, far happier had I been watching Timothy Balme annihilate a room full of zombies using a lawnmower.

Click here for Day Two.

Extra credit: Podcast interview with festival director Andrew Migliori, courtesy of Mail Order Zombie.

Kung Fu Zombie

The Chinese zombie is an interesting genre of monster: a resurrected corpse that hops around with its feet tightly together, often with its arms stretched out in front of it. (The theory, as I understand it, is that rigor mortis has rendered them incapable of moving their limbs.) Sometimes called “zombies,” sometimes “vampires,” and sometimes simply “corpses,” a member of the “hopping dead” can be immobilized by a Daoist priest’s slapping a prayer, written on yellow paper in red ink, on his forehead. (See image on the right, from Mr. Vampire.)

The plot of Kung Fu Zombie really isn’t all that important. It’s your typical families-avenging-each-other story that primarily serves to provide a reason for the main characters to beat the crap out of each other in twenty-minute-long fight scenes. There’s ostensibly a “hero” (Billy Chong), but he’s so incredibly annoying and self-absorbed that he doesn’t really seem to count.

Really, the only notable thing about this movie is that it includes three completely different varieties of undead creatures.

Zombie 1: Silent, Hopping Corpses — In the first scene of the movie, we see a priest raising four corpses from the dead through an elaborate dance, each corpse bolting upright in its coffin as the priest clangs his cymbals together. These zombies, which do nothing more than hop around and fall on people, have the life sucked back out of them with the aforementioned prayers written on yellow paper and slapped to their foreheads. Yawn.

Zombie 2: Corpse-Squatting Ghost — One of the gangsters present at the ritual accidentally falls into a trap laid for an enemy and dies; his spirit leaves his body after it’s struck by lightening (sure, why not), and he chases down the corpse-resurrecting priest, convincing him to put him back in a body. The priest eventually manages to get the gangster back inside the body of a newly-deceased man (through a ritual that involves stabbing the corpse seven times, so that the spirit can enter the body), and we have Zombie 2: fully-functional body inhabited by a dead soul. Toward the end of the movie, this body squatter has his spirit ripped out and put back in his corpse. Not too much trouble, either.

Zombie 3: Blood-Sucking Vampire — The third species of zombie in this movie is…well, complicated. While trying to find a suitable body for the gangster’s ghost, the priest accidentally awakens one of the rival family members out for revenge. It’s not really clear whether the man was actually dead, pretending to be dead, or undead from the beginning — what’s important is that once he’s actually killed, and the priest tries out the ritual again, he comes back as a super-strong vampire (complete with fangs and cape) who can only be killed by a large helping of Buddhist magic and prayer beads (courtesy of a local monk).

Useful lessons:

• When faced with a vengeful spirit inhabiting someone else’s corpse, you’ll be safe from it in jail or in a temple.
• If neither going to jail nor joining a monastery suits your lifestyle, you can also try putting a hat made of palm fronds on your head, which makes you invisible to the zombie. Palm-frond hats are also suitable for protecting your brain from chemtrails and cell phone radiation.

Introduction

Entering the world of horror blogging is a little intimidating. There are so many great horror blogs out there already that it seems a little presumptuous to add my own voice into the mix.

[Deep breath.]

I’ve been a fan of all kinds of horror movies ever since childhood. I first watched the classic Universal monster movies when I was little: I could recite Renfield’s monologues from the 1931 Dracula at an age when most of my peers were enthralled with The Little Mermaid. When The Wolfman and The Creature from the Black Lagoon became too tame for me, my dad introduced me to the great Hammer Horror classics, and by high school, I was watching Joe Bob Briggs introduce absurd slasher movies on Drive-In Theater and MonsterVision every chance I got.

From the moment I first watched Night of the Living Dead, though, I’ve always had a weakness for zombie movies. Zombies are both terrifying and hilarious. They embody our fears of death, enslavement, “the other,” poverty, loss of individuality, disease, apocalypse, and much more. They fascinate me in a way that no other monster does.

And that’s what this blog is about. I’ll be writing movie reviews, yes, but I also have a particular interest in the rise of “zombie culture” here in the US, and will be blogging just as frequently about zombie mobs, zombie burlesque, zombie eradication militias (as well as defense campaigns), zombie fiction, zombie video games, and more.

Enjoy…