#36 The Lynx Ark Advert: The Price of Survival

Hello!

I’ll be honest with you, this week has not been the most productive of weeks and I haven’t found as much time to work on the blog as I should. But, skipping a week this soon into the new year would look bad. What I need is a really, really short apocalyptic movie- preferably one with an elaborate apocalypse survival strategy that I could pick apart. After all, we’ve seen the apocalyptic survival strategies of the super rich, the big society approach to apocalypse survival and ways for atheists to cope with a Biblical apocalypse. So a variation on that theme would be good.

Yep, this is exactly the sort of subtle symbolism I want to analyse

Fortunately, a certain group of creatives has seen fit to provide me with just that. Unfortunately, it’s in the form of an advert for a company I have a longstanding grudge against. See, back in 2003 this company unleashed an ad campaign under the slogan “Men’s sweat only attracts other men”. Despite a determined letter writing campaign on my behalf, they never issued a retraction to warn young gay and bisexual men that no, their BO is still massively off-putting, probably resulting in many disappointed, lonely and sweaty young men.

For this reason, I want to make sure that this review doesn’t inadvertently lead to this company getting a bunch of hits or an SEO keyword boost. So throughout this review I’m going to be linking to their site using a variety of insulting phrases, while never mentioning their brand name, or what they actually sell. Vengeance is a dish best served cold.

That said, here is that one minute long apocalyptic movie, as brought to you by the smell of your taint.



It’s a terrifying story. Regular readers will know that apocalyptic fiction is often used to show the darker side of human nature. Whether it’s the way that horrific events can bring out our worst instincts, or that in the end the biggest threats to our species aren’t apocalyptic catastrophes, but ourselves. This film, brought to us by the smell of a high school changing room, is the story of a psychopath’s mission to exploit the imminent apocalypse to create what can only be described as a floating hell for his passengers. Cleverly, the film resists the urge to show us this character’s dreadful comeuppance, instead simply leaving it implied.

Only the pure will survive
The film’s anti-hero is clearly a fan of Judeo-Christian imagery, building a kind of modern “Noah’s Ark”. However, the way these plans are executed hints at an extremely warped and disturbing world-view, on a par with the mad scientist in Human Centipede, or the killer from the Saw movies. He is a perfectly realised character, and even his tiniest actions show us his twisted vision of the world. Even an innocent act like carving a shape into a potato shows us his entire perception of womankind.

It's this. This is his perception of womankind.

As in the Bible, our anti-hero has his ship’s passengers, or maybe cargo is a better word, board the ship two by two.

This is the most obvious sign of the man’s sinister world view. Given that his passengers are entirely human women, and completely ignoring the implication that this man clearly sees women as animals, just what sort of “twos” is he dividing them up into? Nationality? Ethnic origin? The pairs we see have similar hairstyles and do appear to be paired up by race. This is in a situation that already has a very nasty whiff of eugenics about it. After all these are women with no visible disabilities, who fall within a very specific body-type and conform to a certain idea of beauty

But perhaps the most sinister aspect of his selection process is the question: Why does he need two of each type? In the original story, this was so the animals could breed. Since that’s biologically impossible here, the only possible conclusion is that the man needs a spare of each type... for some reason.

You know, in case one of his goths get broken...

Voyage of the damned
However, as is common in apocalypse fiction, you only realise the true horror of the situation once you begin to inspect the background. In Shaun of the Dead, the zombie apocalypse is happening right behind the protagonists for the whole first act. While playing Left 4 Dead, we only gather the true scope of the apocalypse when we see the constant presence of health warnings, barricades and abandoned military equipment.

In this film it is only when we look at the boat our protagonist is building that we realise just what a nightmarish future he is envisioning for the women who join him.

Perhaps our first clue is when we see the accommodation these women will be sleeping in. Except of course, at this point in the film we don’t know that this accommodation is built for women to sleep in. Going along with the Noah’s ark narrative, you might think that this boat is built for animals. If this is the case, it seems perfectly ordinary that the man is building them HUTCHES. Yes, the homogeneously shaped but ethnically diverse women will survive the coming end of the world, so long as they are willing to live in HUTCHES.

Okay, so maybe he wants to save as many women as possible and this is the most space-efficient way he can do it, and if he awards himself a little more luxury as captain, well, who can blame him? It’s his boat.

They get little curtains, what are you complaining about?

But as we see him build this boat, we get a horrifying glimpse of just what these women’s lives will be like. Aside from the hutches these women will sleep in, we see one other room.

Exercise bikes. There’re weights as well, but the exercise bikes are the focal point of the room. What are they there for?

I’ve got two theories. The most obvious theory is that, having gathered these prime physical specimens, he doesn’t want them to let themselves go when the floods come pouring in. There’s clearly not that much room on the boat, and the women are living in ACTUAL HUTCHES. But really, are they that likely to get fat? Given what we know about our main character so far, does he really seem like the sort to lay on massive feasts for these women?

No. The truth is far more sinister, and the clue is glimpsed in the very next shot.

We cut from the exercise bikes, to the record player. Taking its cues from Charlie Brooker’s Black Mirror series, in this film the women are expected to run the exercise bikes to generate the ship’s electricity.

Life for these women is going to be grim. Their days will be spent slogging away at the exercise bikes that will give you splinters in places where you do not want to have splinters, just to keep their overlord’s creature comforts running. Their nights are spent cooped up in an actual hutch, unless the Captain has decided that he wants to bed one of them for the night.

Because, putting it bluntly, this is a rape ship. We already know that this man sees women as nothing more than animals, and the only part of them he really sees is their orifices. The only reason any woman would sign up to be on this boat, the only reason why they could possibly all be queuing up while this man covers himself in what I can only assume is some sort of spray-on cooking oil, is that they know the world is going to end, and this boat is their only hope to survive. If you sleep with someone because the only alternative is death, that’s rape.

The future of our species
The film ends leaving us to ponder the future of this doomed vessel. It could very well mark the end of our entire species- a gene pool where everyone shares the same father is going to lead to all kinds of disorders later down the line.

And yet, there is hope. As we’ve already noted, this man sees women as nothing more than animals, less than animals really. The hutches have no doors, there’s no security, no real way of enforcing his dreadful regime. It’s as if this man not only has total contempt for women, but is actually incapable of conceiving of the idea that they might have any will of their own.

It is this fatal flaw that will lead to the women banding together to overthrow him. Then hopefully they’ll keel-haul the fucker.

Think of it as a sort of post-apocalyptic Amistad

#31 Pandemonium- Stories of the Apocalypse

Well, this is a special day for the blog. More special than our first interview with someone who works in the field. More special even than the time we inadvertently got somebody arrested. Today Chris Writes About the End of the World achieves the dream every blog has when it starts out into the world- the dream of getting a review copy. Because what is the Internet about, if not criticising entertainment that you haven’t paid for?

The book I received to review was the e-book Pandemonium- Stories of the Apocalypse, an anthology of apocalyptic fiction inspired by the paintings of John Martin which are currently on display at the Tate Britain. In the 19th century John Martin was to painting what Roland Emmerich is to movies that- that is, he painted vast, dramatic, often apocalyptic images that were incredibly popular with the general public but which the critics of the time considered beneath them. His work was quoted as an inspiration by Ray Harryhausen, and Derek Riggs, who created the album covers for Iron Maiden. Looking at the images he painted, it’s not hard to see why. It’s not an exaggeration to say that standing a few feet away from a two by three metre canvas he painted is every bit as breathtaking as watching a Manhattan get blown up again on a cinema screen, and if he was born in another time it’s easy to see him designing heavy metal album covers or the green screen backdrops for a blockbuster with the budget of a small country.

It’s not hard to see how these pictures could make good story fuel.

Now, one of the things I enjoy about reading anthologies, especially anthologies by multiple writers, is that it is one of the few times in this day and age when you can jump into a story knowing nothing about it. When you start a story you may recognise the name of the author, you may glean something from the title, but there’s no blurb, and not many websites jumping up and down to try and give away the plot. For this reason, while normally I really don’t mind spraying spoilers all over the place, this time I’m going to avoid going into detail about the individual stories in the anthology, and where I do refer to specifics I’m not going to tell you the title of the story. That way, you have to go into this book every bit as blind as I did.

Instead, we’re going to talk about the anthology as whole- what common ideas emerge from the mess of different writers throwing their brains into the same bowl, how the book works as a discussion (admittedly, a discussion where everybody talks without hearing what anyone else is saying, but that’s not too different from most of the discussions I go into anyway).

First off, Pandemonium- Stories of the Apocalypse, is a great book for reading first thing in the morning. You could also enjoy it as a lunchtime read, or maybe a bed time story to curl up with as it’s pitch dark outside and the clock is approaching midnight. Just don’t read it on a late winter afternoon as the sky turns red and heavy clouds the colour of bruises drift across it. Do that and this book will leave you just a little bit jittery and not quite sure whether you’re living in a nightmare or not.

View from my bedroom window. Yesterday. (The Great Day of His Wrath, John Martin, Tate)

John Martin tended to paint Biblical epics and scenes of Book of Revelations style apocalyptic devastation, plus a few scenes inspired by Biblical fanfic like Paradise Lost and Dante’s Inferno. So it’s not all that surprising that many of the stories in Pandemonium have a pretty heady fire and brimstone flavour going. Many of them deal directly with the Biblical apocalypse, but even the ones that don’t make heavy use of a paint box of horned demons and lakes of fire.

Regular readers will know that I have taken to politely ribbing Christian ideas about the apocalypse once, or twice, or... okay, it happens a lot. But regardless of how hilarious I find it to talk about raptured souls getting sucked into jet engines (the idea of most things getting sucked into jet engines is pretty hilarious to me. I’m a simple soul.) the book of Revelation and its various fan fiction spin-offs have created a rich seam for story tellers.

The stories in Pandemonium exploit this seam for all it’s worth, and what’s interesting is how many of them approach it from a similar angle- to the point where a couple of the stories could be set in the same universe. The perspective several of the writers take is to peak behind the stage curtains of Heaven and Hell and look at the angels and demons for whom the coming apocalypse is just a job with all the usual workplace worries. The old fashioned themes of sin and redemption run right through these stories, and often we’ll see it’s the demons being redeemed and the angels doing the sinning. A couple of the writers look like they may have taken a leaf or two from Pratchett and Gaiman’s Good Omens, but since, as I have explained before, all writers are thieving bastards, and neither Pratchett nor Gaiman has been shy about picking from the best that went before them, this isn’t really a tick against them. And as with Pratchett and Gaiman, the jokes in these stories are often there to get your guard down before they deliver the emotional dragon punch.

While these stories are quick to subvert and criticise this version of the apocalypse, it would be too easy to say that they are anti-religious. One of my favourite stories in the anthology (again, not going to tell you the name, you’ll have to find it yourself) features a character who represents all the best things about Christianity, and a God who is a different matter entirely.

Incidentally, this is what happens if you're a gay. (Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, John Martin, Laing Art Gallery, Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums)

The mechanics of the apocalypse is just one theme running through the anthology however. These writers were asked to submit stories over August this year, and several of them, looking for inspiration, just turned on the news. One of the stories is explicitly set in the aftermath of the London riots, but there are others that feature apocalypses populated by feral youths, social media and, tellingly, quite a few out-of-touch middle class characters desperately clinging to normality as the world tears apart around them.

Which brings us to the third theme running through this book, and this can be seen in pretty much every story in here- if not every bit of apocalypse fiction out there. In some of these stories there’s no Biblical fight between Heaven and Hell, no uprooting of the world by an alienated and disenfranchised under class. In some of these stories the world just goes to Hell (literally- to varying degrees). Ordinary people are going about their ordinary lives one minute, and the next minute the sky looks wrong, the city is the wrong shape, the ground isn’t as reliable as they thought it was.

It’s this book’s ability to instil that fear in you that is the reason you shouldn’t read this between three and five pm on a winter’s day...

#29 The Rapture: For Real This Time, Honest

Yesterday was the day of the rapture. Harold Camping was finally vindicated, and the righteous were bodily lifted into the heavens, leaving us poor damned wretches behind. At least, that’s what I assume happened. To be totally honest, since I started freelancing I’ve not been getting out much, and don’t check the news all that often. Still, odds are Harold Camping was right- having predicted the apocalypse previously on 1994 and May 21^st this year he would have to really suck to have got it wrong a third time (EDIT: As of press time the rapture has been extended to sunset in Jerusalem on the 22^nd of October).

No harm in having a margin for error

So, while I haven’t turned on the telly or checked twitter to see if it’s really happened, I’m going to assume that all the Christians in the world have now been raptured away. After all, if God’s selection criteria for eternal paradise depends on your cultural background, upbringing, life circumstances and arbitrary gut feelings leading you to the right belief system, it’s only fair the God would spread a pretty wide net. It doesn’t matter that most Christians probably didn’t believe Harold Camping’s predictions or that the entire concept of the rapture only really dates back to the 19th century. It only makes sense that Fred Phelps, Rowan Williams, Stephen Colbert and Desmond Tutu have all gone to the same place, and to be fair, that’s a dinner party I’d pay real money to sit in on.

This leaves those of us left behind in an uncertain and terrifying world. The atheists among us are no doubt arguing that their Christian brothers and sisters were actually kidnapped by aliens and the Jewish and Muslim peoples are kicking themselves that they missed the right answer by one book.

But it’s time for us to move on. The creators of the Left Behind series have left us a wonderful “How To” video by the fictional PastorVernon Billings. But I’m sceptical about this (which admittedly, is how a lot of us got into this mess), since Vernon himself is pretty confident he wasn’t going to be here to deal with the world’s post-rapture consequences.

So here are some more practical tips for us as we move forward and try to reconstruct our society.

Tip One: Repurpose the Churches

Let’s face it, churches are great buildings. They look pretty and they are built to last.

You just can't get the medieval peasants anymore

In my adopted city of Norwich we had already made a good start on this before the rapture. We’ve something of an excess of churches, so we use the spares for things like puppet theatres and art centres while down in London they’ve converted a church into a pretty decent pub. These are lovely buildings and it’s a shame that non-believers have only ever been able to use them for family weddings and funerals. We’ll need to fix the heating and install some more comfortable chairs, obviously.

Tip Two: Do Away with Christmas

Finally! We can achieve what atheists, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists and Scientologists have dreamed of for centuries. We can do away with Christmas and establish Secular Gift Giving Day- a task we’ve had our best minds working on for years.

Once and for all we can replace tinsel, decorated trees, turkey, Santa Claus and watching The Great Escape with things that have nothing to do with Christianity!

And while we’re getting our hidden agendas out of the way-

Tip Three: Marry Your Pets

For as long as there have been people campaigning for the right of gay people to marry, there have been people saying that this will open the door to incestual and bestial marriages. Campaigners such as Rick Santorum who campaign on their Christian beliefs.

With them finally out of the way, we can end the subterfuge and legalise marrying both pets, and relatives. A generation from now our grandchildren will be able to do both at the same time.

Tip Four: Enjoy it While it Lasts

Yes, our new world of secular holidays, Starbucks cathedrals and dog/human hybrid cousins marrying each other is a glorious place and I’m sure we’re all going to have a great time. But you must enjoy it while you can, because on the 21^st (for some reason it’s always the 21^st) of December next year we’re due to get obliterated by the 2012 prophecy.

And if anyone thinks that I’ve been offensive to Christians in this blog, you just wait until you see the burns I’ve got prepared for the ancient Mayan religion!

Quetzalcoatl love, you've pulled!

Pre-Rapture Special: How To Spend Your Rapture Weekend

Well, with the end of the world as we know it fast approaching, I’m sure you’re looking for ways to avoid having to spend your last few precious moments trapped into spending time with your loved ones and family. Here are a few events you should check out this last weekend, to make the end of the world go that little bit quicker.

Friday

Eco-Horror party and DAY OF THE TRIFFIDS screening 

Shortwave Cinema, London 9pm
Remember the good old days, when we thought that the end of the world would be brought about by man’s ceaseless meddling with nature, as opposed to the almighty wrath of God? It was a purer age.

Mark the occasion with this special screening of post apocalypse and zombie move precursor Day of the Triffids, organised by our very own Amy Cutler:

“Shortwave Cinema says they’re going to let all Passengerfilms fans have an amazing reduced rate at Friday’s eco-horror party. Everyone else is paying full price at cinema rates, but if you say you’re with us you pay anything between FREE and SUGGESTED DONATION £4. Amazing. So please bring all your leafy creepy friends for a horrible night in celebration of sprouting and germination.

At 9pm in the cinema bar we will have Triffid face-painting by Muna of Artistic Strokes, a huge Triffid cake designed by Cakes & Crunk, and bright green cocktails made by yours truly. You can have one for free if you come in a good eco-horror costume, so don’t forget the green paint.

Not only that, we’ll also have (real) carnivorous plants taking over the bar for the night!”

Art Love World Live!

Norwich Arts Centre, Norwich 7.30pmSome of you may not have resigned yourself to being left on Earth to suffer through the tribulation as your more deserving friends are whisked off to eternal bliss.

If this the case, you may want to score some last minute brownie points, and there’s no better way to do that then giving money to charity, is there?

“Art Love World will be hosting its first ever live event as part of this year’s Norwich Fringe Festival at the Norwich Arts Centre on May 20th. The event is being held in aid of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, and all profits will go straight to a charity providing relief for Japan. 

The event will showcase some of the finest talents from East Anglia, including fantastic live bands, comedians, poets, beatboxer, magician and DJs so you can get your groove on for the evening, in addition to a host of other spectacular treats in store on the night. 

Music acts will include the rock, funk and jazz fusion of The Fuzz, the Lou Reed-esque sound of Axel Loughrey, the stunning singer-songwriter Gracie Wright, the talented and soulful Jordan Jackson, the diverse acoustic duo Cielo and, last but not least, the fantastic Norwich Ukulele Society. 

Other acts include the hilarious and talented comic poet Tim Clare, the acerbic hippie wit of comedian Andy Bennett and Chris Farnell, one of Norwich’s finest wits. As well as some surprising walkabout performances. “

Yeah, I didn’t say that bit about being one of Norwich’s finest wits by the way.

Saturday

Saturday is the day of the actual apocalypse. I actually recommend you keep this day free, although if you start drinking at breakfast it’s not necessarily a bad idea.

Sunday

The Beta Males presents The Bunker

Kings Place, London, 7.30pmTo celebrate the aftermath of Armageddon, and mourn those of your friends who, it turned out, were leading much better lives than you, why not check out this great comedy double bill, featuring Pappy’s All Business and (more thematically) the Beta Males giving their last ever performance of post-apocalyptic sketch show, The Bunker.

“Take your place in The Bunker; humanity's last refuge beneath the scorched soil. Witness a society living in the guttering light, 30 years into a mutated future. Hilarity – but mostly doom – ensues as we sketch the last 273 humans alive, and the last punchlines they'll ever share... “

Don’t believe me? Ask Beta Male Guy Kelly: “This was my favourite show in Edinburgh last year - I saw it several times and howled with laughter each night. Now I'm in the damn thing. I can't express quite how happy that makes me. The humour is pitch-black and the pace is unrelenting: I'm so glad we get to perform it one last time. Having that last time be the day after the end of the world is the icing on the horribly, horribly irradiated cake.”

Wednesday

To be honest, if you’re still alive by Wednesday, you’ll probably be feeling a bit silly about this whole apocalypse thing. If the world hasn’t been thrown into turmoil by now (you know, more than usual) than it’s finally safe to assume that God probably doesn’t exist and write off the beliefs of everyone who isn’t Richard Dawkins as idiotic.

Just because the world is safe from Biblical catastrophe doesn’t mean you’re safe though. There’s always the risk that we’ll all breathe a sigh of relief, only to be wiped out by a Vogon Constructor Fleet to make way for a hyperspace bypass.

That’s where this comes in handy:

Vogon Poetry Slam

The Miller Pub, London Bridge, 7pm
This event, run by Whippersnapper Press and one of our favourite zombie arrestees, Hannah Eiseman-Renyard, is to mark International Towel Day. So make sure you bring a towel.

There will be two categories:
* Nerdcore
* So-Bad-It’s-Good

There will also be:
* The most bureaucratic voting system we can devise
* Pan-galactic gargleblasters to drink
* Some damn snazzy costumes

Last I heard, the voting forms will also double up as vomit bags, so by the time the poetry’s been read, if the world hasn’t ended, you’ll wish it had.

#19 The Bible (Part Two): May 21st 2011, The Actual End of the World

(Deep booming voice) Previously, on Chris Writes About The End of the World


Yes, we’ve covered the Bible before, and the number of zombies and zombie apocalypse type events within its pages. The case for the Bible predicting all our deaths at the hands of animated, cannibalistic corpses is a slim one. Slightly more alarming however, is the apocalypse that is actually predicted in the Bible, which some people are arguing is due this Saturday. So hey, at least it’s a weekend that’s likely to have decent barbecue weather.


Here Comes The Maths
Above there’s a link to an eBible Fellowship tract that explains the thinking behind this date, however, Bible tracts have a pretty dry style, and an absolute dearth of knob gags, so I’ll do my best to summarise here.

It all starts in the book of Genesis when God says to Noah “Seven days from now I will send rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights, and I will wipe from the face of the earth every living creature I have made.”

You might have read about that flood in picture books as a kid, and maybe know songs about animals going onto the ark two by two, because if there’s one thing RE teachers are good at, it’s turning global, apocalyptic level acts of genocide into catchy tunes. However, by skipping forward a few books, you find this quote: 

“Then he used the water to destroy the ancient world with a mighty flood. And by the same word, the present heavens and earth have been stored up for fire. They are being kept for the day of judgment, when ungodly people will be destroyed.

But you must not forget this one thing, dear friends: A day is like a thousand years to the Lord, and a thousand years is like a day.”

So, God mentions the flood, then tells us that to him, one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years is like a day.

The flood is dated as taking place in 4990 BC (because... Okay, I didn’t look this bit up, those websites are written in a really dry style with absolutely no knob gags). So:

-4990 + 7000 = 2010!

Okay, that doesn’t look impressive, sorry. But, due to a massive oversight on the part of our Gregorian Calendar makers, they forgot to include a year 0 because... Okay, I didn’t find that out either. The point is, the sum is actually:

-4990+7000 = 2011!!!

Then we get May 21^st from this passage:

“In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on that day all the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the windows of the heavens were opened.”

And then... Okay, then the argument gets kind of hard to follow. It’s all up here though and involves detailed readings of Genesis, Peter, Hebrews, Matthew and others.

Basically, it is one hundred percent clear that, with detailed readings from various books written years apart, and combining that with lots and lots of sums, the beginning of the end of the world is due to start this Saturday. Because if there’s one thing we learn from the Bible, it’s that when God has a really important message to deliver to us, he likes to do it in code.

Pictured: Subtlety

Raptured
Now, don’t worry, we’re not all going to die on Saturday. The Earth isn’t destroyed in fire and brimstone until October 21^st because (Look, just read the damn tract)

However, zombie lovers, May 21^st is the day that (I’m quoting the tract, not the Bible here) “God will raise up all the dead that have ever died from their graves. Earthquakes will ravage the whole world as the earth will no longer conceal its dead (Isaiah 26:21). People who died as saved individuals will experience the resurrection of their bodies and immediately leave this world to forever be with the Lord. Those who died unsaved will be raised up as well, but only to have their lifeless bodies scattered about the face of all the earth. Death will be everywhere.”

This is an event commonly known as The Rapture. It’s basically when God filters out all the good people, to leave the rest of us sinners to endure some of the unholy shit that goes on in Revelations.

Basically it'll look like this. I'm so sorry for reminding you of this film.

That, for those of you who mainly get your Bible teaching from the Omens movies, is where huge balls of fire fall from the sky, and the water turns to blood, among a complete host of other fucked up things.

And weirdest of all, there is a certain, very specific kind of Christian (not to confused with regular, non-insane Christians) who has an absolute hard on for this happening. Enough of them to buy 65 million copies of the books in Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins’s Left Behind series. It’s a sixteen book series, but with incredible foresight LaHaye and Jenkins got the final book in the series out in 2007. The series also spun off a videogame trilogy, which has the dubious bonus of a multiplayer mode where you get to play on Satan’s side. (Side note, am I the only one who thinks the theme music that website plays is weirdly catchy?)

Sure, you won the game asshole, but now you're definitely not getting Raptured!

One blogger far, far braver than me, has actually been trying to read the book series and pointing out just about everything that’s wrong with the writing, morals and theology of the books. Sadly, he won’t have finished reviewing the series by Saturday, so we’ll never know if it gets good towards the end.

A much better interpretation of the events of the Book of Revelation, the final word on the Biblical Apocalypse, can be found at the Brick Testament, here. I would include a picture the giant, bloodied, seven eyed lamb he build, but the guy who runs the site doesn’t like other people using his images. Which is a shame, because that photo is fucking terrifying.

So, for what will, let’s face it, probably be the final time. Let’s play the drinking game.

Do the dead rise regardless of whether they were “infected”? Ummm, maybe, kind of. Depends who you ask. Infected with God! Yeah, go on, take two shots.

Are the zombies walking dead who move slowly and can only be killed by destroying the brain?

Umm. No. No they are not.  However, what it does have is armoured fucking locusts with fucking human faces and fucking lion teeth and fucking scorpion tails, ruled by Abaddon the Destroyer. Fuck it, I’m taking a drink.

Is mankind the real monster?

No, no it is not. I’m pretty clear that the monsters here are the fucking locusts with human faces. Oh wait! No! There’s a seven headed dragon!

Have a drink anyway.

Has anybody said “They’re coming to get you Barbra!”

They’re coming to get Barbra, they’re coming to Ben, they’re coming to get you, and me, and everyone you care about. Take a drink.

Do the characters spend most of the story under siege in some manner of building?

No, not buildings. People scream to the mountains and the caves to hide them. Christ that’s depressing, I’m having another drink.

Are the people coming to rescue you incompetent or more dangerous than the zombies?

It’s supposed to be an all-loving, benevolent, omnipotent God doing this right? Fuck yes he’s incompetent and dangerous. Finish the bottle.

If you think there's hope in trying to avoid the inevitable, terrifying judgement of your Lord, and you happen to live in Norwich, you could gain a few brownie points this week by going to the charity gig Art Love World Live, where I, and other talented individuals will be trying to raise money for the victims of the Japan quake by performing comedy, poetry and music. Giving to charity is great, right? And it's THE DAY BEFORE THE RAPTURE. Basically, I think God is telling you to buy a ticket to this event.

EASTER SPECIAL! #16 The Bible: Are There Zombies In The Bible? (Part 1)

Given the time of year, there really was no other alternative for this week’s blog. I ummed and ahhed about doing The Passion of The Christ as our movie this week- but that belongs more in the Saw/Human Centipede genre than the movies we’re interested in, so I decided to go right back to the book.

But this isn’t just about making cheap jokes about other people’s deeply held religious beliefs (although it is partly about making cheap jokes about people’s deeply held religious beliefs). I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it before, but the zombie apocalypse genre is a genre with a long standing habit of cannibalising what went before. And through the last 2000 years (give or take a few centuries) one of the most popular sources to plagiarise has been The Holy Bible. If this was a blog about Movies Where Friendly Aliens Visit, the drinking game would probably feature the rules: Does the alien have amazing powers (Take an extra shot if those powers are healing powers)? Do they try to spread a message of peace and love? Do a frightened and warlike government kill the alien because they don’t understand it? Does the alien then come back from the dead? (Take an extra shot if the alien then ascends to the heavens in a stunning light display).

These are all Jesus

 And the zombie apocalypse genre with its, well, apocalyptic imagery and all the gore and violence and penchant for preachers who totally kick ass (for the Lord), seems like it wouldn’t have wasted any time before raiding the good book. One of the most iconic lines from any horror movie is “When there is no more room in Hell, the dead will walk the Earth” from Dawn of the Dead. It’s a line that sounds like it ought to be a Bible verse, although there’s no line even close to it anywhere in the good book.

So, looking at the Bible, just how many zombies, or zombie like entities can we find?

Candidate A: Lazarus

As seen here, and immortalised in a brilliant pun here. Lazarus is probably the second most famous example of someone coming back from the dead. There’s definitely some zombie-like qualities here, the wandering around in his burial clothes, the fear that after being dead for four days he’ll stink up the joint, his insatiable lust for flesh.... Okay, I made up the insatiable lust for flesh.

No, truth is, Lazarus pretty much just gets up and goes about his business as usual.

Admittedly, he really looks like a zombie

 Candidate B: Jesus Christ

You may have heard of this one. Jesus note only rose from the dead- as I just pointed out, he caused others to rise from the dead. And he was quite big on the eating of flesh and the drinking of blood, as shown here, here and here. 

Who knows, maybe the New Testament would have turned out very differently if the Romans had decided to skip crucifixion in favour of removing the head or destroying the brain.

But, although he did have some cool/gruesome scars after he rose, Jesus still seems pretty much articulate and none-flesh eating, which isn’t really in keeping with the zombie apocalypse tropes. And raising one person isn’t exactly an pandemic- for there to be an argument in favour of a zombie apocalypse, you’d need a whole bunch of people rising from the dead.

Candidate C: When Jesus Causes A Whole Bunch of People to Rise From The Dead

Taken from Matthew 27: 50-53 – right at the moment when Jesus dies on the cross. 

“And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit.

At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook, the rocks split and the tombs broke open. The bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life. They came out of the tombs after Jesus’ resurrection and went into the holy city and appeared to many people.

When the centurion and those with him who were guarding Jesus saw the earthquake and all that had happened, they were terrified, and exclaimed, “Surely he was the Son of God!””

This is way, way more impressive. Tombs breaking open, a whole horde of the dead rising, this is the kind of shit they really ought to be telling kids about the Bible in school. This imagery is proper, classic Romero stuff.

I know several of you are now clicking the Bible open in a new tab and excitedly reading on to the next bit. You’ll be disappointed. Don’t get me wrong, Matthew 27 is one of the better chapters- as well as being the bit where Jesus gets crucified, this chapter also features Judas hanging himself- admittedly, the least cool of the two Judas deaths described in the Bible. (The best one can be found here) but there’s nothing more on the zombie uprising. It’s not said whether the risen saints feasted on the flesh of the living, carried on from where they left off, or simply dropped dead again, necessitating a massive clean-up operation. The Bible pretty much skips that whole thing.

And deep down, you know it’s not enough for the dead to just rise. So far, the only gore we’ve seen at all is a couple of holes through Jesus’s hands. Dead rising and just walking about, while creepy, isn’t what we came here for. We want some violence!

Candidate D: Some Really Really Nast Shit Goes Down

You wanted it. Here it is- this line is taken from Zechariah 14:12-15: 

“This is the plague with which the LORD will strike all the nations that fought against Jerusalem: Their flesh will rot while they are still standing on their feet, their eyes will rot in their sockets, and their tongues will rot in their mouths. On that day people will be stricken by the LORD with great panic. They will seize each other by the hand and attack one another. Judah too will fight at Jerusalem. The wealth of all the surrounding nations will be collected—great quantities of gold and silver and clothing. A similar plague will strike the horses and mules, the camels and donkeys, and all the animals in those camps.”

“Flesh will rot why they are still standing” “eyes will rot in their sockets”- finally, we’re getting to the really gruesome stuff. Admittedly, there’s nothing here to suggest that they are actually dead, but as we’ve established before, and outbreak of the Rage virus still counts! According to the book of Zechariah, attacking Jerusalem will result in an outbreak of zombie madness.

Pictured: Rational justification for a pro-Israel foreign policy

Candidate E: The Book of Revelation

Of course, “attacking Jerusalem will result in an outbreak of the rage virus” is one of the lesser known Biblical prophesies, and considering that all those saints rising from their graves sounded like quite a big deal, it’s been pretty much underplayed by churches and R.E. lessons alike. No, it’s generally acknowledged that when the end times finally roll around, the book to look to is the book of Revelation, which Biblical scholars tell us predicts that before the end of the world, we will see the dead rise.

Pictured: Biblical scholars

Well, unfortunately Winston Zeddemore doesn’t have great Biblical recall. There is a resurrection in Revelation, only it’s just all the really nice people being brought back from the dead. Then, later, they bring the rest of the dead back only to quickly chuck them into Hell. 

And quite frankly, in the Book of Revelation, that’s some of the tamest stuff that happens. And this is something we should go into right now, because it turns out this book might be about to become extremely...

Then the screen flickers, and the image of the witty but informative zombie blog is replaced by the pale visage of Locutus of Borg.

This Blog is to be continued...

In the mean time- time for the drinking game!

Well, there’s not much of people under siege, or incompetent/dangerous rescuers (Unless you count Judas). There’s not even much of mankind being the real monster. However, there are walking dead (One shot) who do rise without being “infected” (Two shots) and nobody calls them zombies (Two shots).