#18 Call of the Dead: How To Create The Ultimate Zombie Survival Team

How you create the ultimate ass kicking zombie killing team? This question came to me, not for the first time, when watching the trailer for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare: Black Ops: Escalation: Call of the Dead. There should be a joke about colons here, but I’m in a hurry, so think of your own:

Now, your first reaction to seeing this was probably the same as mine (because I find it very hard to believe that there are people in this world who think any differently from me). Wow! Awesome! Buffy, Machete, Freddy Krueger and the Racist from Walking Dead all teaming up to fight zombies! How can that not be the most awesome thing in the awesome history of the overuse of the word awesome?

And they fight George Romero! THE George Romero!

Do NOT tell him what you thought of Survival of the Dead!

Now I’m not saying my first reaction wasn’t correct- that never happens. But what I am saying is that under further consideration, this awesome team isn’t as equipped to fight zombies as we at first hoped.

Buffy- Fought vampires, and a small number of zombies in one episode, and they could all be easily killed off by breaking one mask.

Machete- Fought a corrupt senator, also, he don’t text.

Freddy Krueger- Killed high school kids. While they were asleep.

The Racist From Walking Dead- Hasn’t actually been seen to kill a zombie on screen yet, although he did saw off his own hand.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m sure faced with actual zombies all of these characters will dig deep and find their inner zombie murderer.

Okay, he didn't kill any traditional zombies either, but it's still a crime he didn't make the team

But here at Chris Writes About the End of the World we demand some slightly higher credentials. So today I’m going to be taking you through my own personal, carefully selected zombie survival team.

Jeremiah Kipp

Director of Contact and the up and coming The Sadist, as well as a former Chris Writes About the End of the World interviewee, Jeremiah Kipp wins a place on the team through his carefully through through zombie survival strategy:

“(a) Steal a helicopter, (b) bring a film crew and some guns, (c) take over a shopping mall, and (d) let loose the dogs of war.”

Yes, we’ll even forgive him misquoting Shakespeare.

Matt Barnes

Front and centre, smiling because he knows soon everybody else will be dead

The sole survivor of our Team Scavenger run during Zombie LARP, Matt clearly has the ruthless, no bullshit attitude, combined with a willingness to sacrifice his friends to save his won skin, that we’ll need to survive the upcoming zombie apocalypse. Honorary mentions to the rest of Team Scavenger, who are welcome to my zombie survivalist compound if they live long enough to do so.

Hannah Eiseman-Renyard

In a previous blog, I have referred to Hannah, perhaps unkindly, as our very own Jimmy Olsen. I now know this to be inaccurate. Hannah is our very own Lois Lane, in that if we send her to cover the top story, she’s going to end up getting captured and imprisoned. On a side-note, you can see Hannah, and your humble blogger, in person at the Vogon Poetry Slam this month, with details available here.

Amy Cutler

Another of our imprisoned zombies from last week’s royal shenanigans. She is also quite the scholar of zombie folklore, from more recent fare right back to the works of Daniel Defoe. I imagine she’ll fill quite a useful Giles-like roll in the zombie compound, assuming we find room for a library. You can read about the talks she and others gave during the event Everything You Wanted To Know About Zombies (But Were Afraid To Ask Daniel Defoe) here, or you can read her opinions about how the zombie apocalypse genre has a lot to say about the Royal Wedding arrests she was caught up in.

Tom Harvey

What? Can you think of a better way to store clothes pegs?

Bassist for Hello Bear, and occasional punching bag Tom Harvey. In previous blogs I have written about his complete unreliability as a team mate in Left 4 Dead, and have repeatedly and explicitly called him an idiot who is thick and an idiot when he helped me review Plan 9 From Outer Space. When the survivalist compound's defences inevitably crumble and fail due to being manned by bloggers, students, film directors and a musician, none of whom, let’s face it, have any real practical skills, it will be important to have one team member who we are willing to cripple so that the zombies can eat him alive while the rest of us flee for safety.

So, that's my zombie survival team. If you think you should have made the cut, but didn't then feel free to come round to my compound once the outbreak occurs, and pound on the door until your fists are bloody screaming "Chris you bastard! You can't just leave me out here! Not after everything I did for you!"

I'm not saying it'll help, but feel free.

Regular readers may be saying "Hey, this doesn't really count as a blog does it? You just gave us a load of links to some older blogs. Are you trying to palm us off with the blog equivalent of a clipshow?"

Of course not, I pour my heart and soul into every blog. But if I had done such a thing, it would be because this last couple of weeks have been crazy busy, and I'm knackered. Next week, we'll be back to reviewing a given book/film/video game/live action roleplay/protest/academic discussion and putting it in context of the genre. In the mean time, who would you put on your zombie survival squad?