#10 Contact: Plus An Interview With The Director!

So, something a little different for the blog this week (I know, twice in two weeks! But you hate change! Don’t worry, next week I promise to stick entirely to formula). This week we’re going to take a look at the short horror film Contact from director Jeremiah Kipp. No zombies, and only the merest whiff of a post-apocalyptic landscape, but you’ll see soon enough how it fits right in with the rest of our catalogue here.

I believe you’ll find that Contact is the perfect date movie, and ideal for watching with a partner of your gender of choice to get them in the mood. Watch it here:



Yes, I’m sorry, that was a cruel, cruel lie.

Contact is about as disturbing and head-fucky as a film can get. It’s the sort of film that is best watched alone in a darkened room, immediately before going into a bright space full of people.

However, here at Chris Writes About The End Of The World we know better than to judge art based on the first, visceral gut reaction. So once you’ve got over the “What would it be like if Agent Smith had done that mouth sealing thing to Neo while he was getting off with someone” image, we can look at the film from a slightly more rational perspective.

I’ve talked before about the way horror tends to be an inherently conservative genre- regardless of the sympathies of the artist. Usually horror works by showing us something horrifying to define what isn’t horrifying- most explicitly in all those drunken promiscuous girls that get knifed to death while their chaste, sober friend is able to defeat the baddy before going off with the hunky but boring dude who only wants to hold hands.

At first glance Contact seems to be the epitome of this. In fact, its roots seem to go further back, past horror movies to their grizzly, considerably more child-murder friendly ancestor, the fairy tale. It’s the story of a girl who leaves her family, goes off the path in search of romance and adventure, finds something horrible there and runs back to her family wiser and more chastened.

The nice, civilised looking dining room is contrasted with a world of ruined buildings and sinister drug dealers with police batons and eyeliner. The sexual contact that ends in a gross, fleshy Chinese finger trap is contrasted with a wholesome paternal hug.

The worst part? He's still using too much tongue

On the surface that’s pretty much exactly what this film looks like, and I’ve got to admit on my first couple of viewings that’s exactly what I thought it was. But even then there were certain things that didn’t sit right with me. The wholesome, safe family home that our heroine runs from and returns to doesn’t seem all that appealing. There’s nothing all that homey or comforting about the neatly set table and wordless parents. The protagonist looks uncomfortable in the buttoned down outfit she’s wearing. The scary sting at the end of the movie shows us she’s still traumatised by her bad trip, but there’s an argument to be made that the real fear is that this has scared her into never leaving the comfort zone she was brought up in.

Or maybe it’s just a film about how drugs are bad. Either way, it scared the crap out of me.

It’s likely you’re going to be hearing more from Contact’s director, Jeremiah Kipp. He’s got another short film coming out soon, Crestfallen (which I’ve already seen, because I’m just that cool). Crestfallen is equally atmospheric in a very different way, doing away with the ambiguity of Contact to make the point that killing yourself is a bad idea. Not long after that, he also has a feature length horror movie coming out starring legendary zombie murderer Tom Savini.

Oh, and look, he’s here now to answer some of my questions. Isn’t that handy?

Okay, so the first question I want to ask, and I'm sure you get this a lot, is: What is wrong with you?! Why can't you just make a charming romantic comedy, or something where Tom Hanks triumphs over adversity?

You don't think CONTACT is life-affirming? I am interested in people, and hope for the best when it comes to interpersonal relationships. CONTACT may seem like a dark movie, but when we made it, much of the time we were filled with enthusiasm and had a wonderful time. As little children, we aren't interested in fairy tales about two children picking flowers in a field -- unless those children get lost in the woods, find a witch in a gingerbread house, and find themselves nearly broiled in a steaming pot for lunch. Kids intuitively understand these grim little stories, because in some way they live them. The adult world is a strange and complex place. While we can triumph, the road is not an easy one, and that is the lie most movies tell us. A lot of times, I feel like the so-called feel good movies are insidious and cruel, and some video nasties are surprisingly more humane because they show life as precious, fragile and worth fighting for.

The film contains a pretty strong anti-drugs message. Did you set out to make a movie that demonstrated the more traumatising side of substance abuse, or was this just the most effective way you could think of to make people poo their pants?

People say that this is an anti-drug film, but that's not what I set out to make. Drugs can press someone to reveal their true character, their deepest fears, their paranoia and dread, and this particular couple rides the gauntlet and can't break through the barrier. For this reason, a lot of folks including good friends of mine think I was making a horror variation of a public service announcement. It's fair enough, though, because once you complete the movie it no longer belongs to you. It belongs to the audience, and they can interpret it however they like. I will say our latest short film, CRESTFALLEN, is very specifically intended as an anti-suicide film. The screenwriter, Russ Penning, wrote a very personal, very daring and sincere piece about a young woman (Deneen Melody) who feels like she has no other recourse but killing herself, and the movie takes a journey with her where we want the audience to see the value of life. I do like the idea of the audience being scared by trauma, though -- drugs and suicide are real life transgressions and have vast consequences for you and for your near and dear.

On a similar note, how important do you think gore is in these films? Aside from being an excellent way of making people watch a movie through the cracks between their fingers, what uses do you think gore has?

I wish there were more gore and nudity in films. Special effects allow you to make a metaphor into a reality -- if you feel like you and your lover are being torn apart, then gore effects can make that quite literal. The gory effects in VIDEODROME and THE THING and in much of Clive Barker's writing is a triumph of the imagination, and yes, it's really nightmarish and grotesque, but so are the things we're afraid to see. We're also afraid of pain, or of cancer and death, but it's easier to see someone transform into a giant fly than watch someone perish at their death bed. The gore in CONTACT (by Daniel J. Mazikowski) was all about making a connection to another person, but that can be incredibly frightening. Isn't it scary during the first month of dating someone? You know so little about them, you're in many ways quite vulnerable and see their vulnerability. The actors who braved the special effects and nudity in CONTACT and CRESTFALLEN were incredibly courageous, and I'm grateful they trusted me, since this sort of material can easily be prurient, offensive and gratuitous. It's important to me that the cast and crew understand what we're trying to achieve, because we're asking them for the difficult. I hope not to let them down with the finished movies. It has our names on it; it has to have value for us as creative people.

Now on this blog I've written a lot about how, particularly in genres like horror and sci-fi, everyone is constantly ripping off everybody else. So this is a great chance for you to 'fess up. Which artists and works do you make a habit of ripping off, what is it about them that you most want to steal?

Oh, I steal all the time. But so did George Romero (he robbed from I AM LEGEND), Wes Craven (from Ingmar Bergman's LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT), John Carpenter (from Howard Hawks) and Sam Raimi (from Bugs Bunny!). For CONTACT, I am sure David Lynch and David Cronenberg were on the brain. You can't make experimental body horror movies without in some way acknowledging them. I also drew from the painter Edvard Munch, whose "The Kiss" has haunted me for a long time, and photographer Gregory Crewdson for the scene involving the parents. Crewdson steals from Steven Spielberg, though, so I don't feel bad robbing from him.

Until just now you thought this painting was really romantic

And for CRESTFALLEN, my conversations with the director of photography/editor Dominick Sivilli revolved around BEOWULF, Chris Cunningham and commercial and music video director Chris Milk, but that movie was also us trying to reach for the epic and the mythic because it was based on a naturalistic true story, and we wanted to make the picture feel as large and grand as our emotions. When we feel love or pain, it is as large as castles and kingdoms. That said, we only had $300 to make that movie, so it's a chamber piece that yearns to be an opera.

Your next film, The Sadist looks sort of like First Blood, if Rambo hadn't been such a peaceloving hippy. How did it come about, and what more horrible, horrible things will you expose us to next?

THE SADIST is a bad-ass killer in the woods movie. The producers (Frank Wihbey and Joe Pisani) saw CONTACT and hired me as a work-for-hire director based on that. We approached the material with high aggression, with tremendous empathy for the characters who meet this strange enemy in the forest. Most of the crew from CONTACT was on board, including Dominick Sivili (DP/Editor), Daniel J. Mazikowski (Special FX), Alan Rowe Kelly (Production Manager) and Bart Mastronardi (Associate Producer). We're still in post, but hope to be finished soon. As for what's next, I'm starting principal photography on another feature in May (this time a non-genre film) and am in early talks for another horror feature later this year. Executive Producer Marv Blauvelt is finishing up the horror anthology PSYCHO STREET, and I associate produced the segment "No Rest For The Wicked" directed by Raine Brown. I'm looking forward to that. But when it comes to projects, it's best to let the future reveal itself. We rarely know what's around the corner. I'd love to work on a larger project with Zoe Daelman Chlanda, the star of CONTACT, and Jerry Murdock, a wonderful actor who is the Bruce Willis of indie horror.

The Sadist stars Tom Savini, who when he isn't appearing in virtually every horror film ever, is doing the make up, special effects and stunts for every other horror film ever, and still manages to find time to fit in some directing as well. It's fair to say he's something of a legend in the genre, so how was it working with him? Were you daunted at all?

Tom Savini signed up because it gave him the opportunity to play a non-speaking predatory villain, not unlike some of the roles played by his hero Lon Chaney. Tom was fantastic to work with, full of enthusiasm and high energy. When I called around to other directors asking what he was like to work with, to a man they said he was a true collaborator. Let it be known he does not suffer fools gladly, and if he doesn't trust you, he will walk all over you. But my time with him was wonderful; one of the best experiences of my professional career.

Finally, given this is a blog primarily about the zombie apocalypse, we have to know: What is your zombie apocalypse survival plan?

I subscribe to the George Romero technique, which is still the best way to go: (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.

CONTACT from Dominick Sivilli on Vimeo.

#9 Zombie LARP: The Sad Tale of Team Scavenger

This week I’m writing about Zombie LARP (That’s Live Action Role Play to you). Zombie LARP is, in short, where a bunch of people lock themselves inside a building, the small groups of them take turns to try and fight their way out with NERF guns while everyone else slowly walks towards them with outstretched hands, groaning. And if that doesn’t sound terrifying to you, I just ask that you try it.
One of the founders of Zombie LARP, Mary Hamilton, has already written about the motivations and mechanisms of the LARP far better than I can here and here. Meanwhile, I’ve already written about why the zombie apocalypse scenario is so suited to emergent storytelling in the context of my Left 4 Dead blog.
So this week I’m going to do something a bit different, and demonstrate how games like this create stories by simply telling you the story of my brief time as a zombie-killing badass, with help from the other members of Team Scavenger.

The Sad Tale of Team Scavenger



SPOILER: At least one of these people dies. From left to right: Sascha, Harry, Lucia, Matt, Alina, Tom, Your Humble Blogger

 Our goal was to find one of two objects- either a key card that would let us out the front door, or a fire axe that would let us out the fire exit. To make things harder, we’d been split into two groups, each at opposite ends of the building, and each given a jigsaw piece that might add up to tell us how to get out.

The first team was made up of Tom, who was dressed up like a cowboy that had dressed up like the clown who abused him as a child. He had a fedora with foam bullets stashed along the rim, and make-up not unlike that of the kid from Clockwork Orange. He, along with Sascha belonged to the “Class” of Security Guard, which gave them both the ability to carry a really big gun. Then there was Tom’s friend, birthday girl Lucia, who seemed less crazy than Tom until she chose the class of “Test Subject”- meaning her abilities were carrying a big axe, and screaming. Finally, there was the Medic, Alina, clad in a blood-soaked lab coat (nothing reassures patients like the smell of fresh blood) and carrying a big knife.

Extract From Alina’s Account of the Game:

“While waiting, we started hearing moaning outside the door. For a few seconds we decided to ignore it, surely Mary would tell us when to get going, right?

Then the singing started. The creepiest "Happy Birthday" song ever sung, and it was getting louder. We opened the door and peered outside. Zombies were definitely closing in on us, blocking the corridor towards the meeting point, and, yes, they were singing. We ran upstairs, me and Sascha going last. I passed a couple of zombies that were slowly turning around to follow us, threw a couple of glow sticks to distract them and then got distracted myself by the one zombie leaning against a wall, casually chewing on an arm. That's when I got scared. I was hit once while staring at Sascha being surrounded and killed, but managed to make my way inside a room and lean against the door to block it. I caught my breath as Lucia and Tom destroyed and searched the one zombie in the room. Did he have a clue? Was there something in the room we were missing? He was just so obvious there, it just seemed like there must have been something somewhere around him. There wasn't. We kept searching until the other door opened and Sascha came in with her new zombie friends. There was some shooting and screaming and I like to think waving my knife around helped.”

Meanwhile, at the other end of the building, our team had its own problems. While the first team had been made up of security guards, medics, and axe-wielding maniacs, our team was made up of what you could be forgiven for calling “The Rest”. I was with Sascha’s flatmate Harry, whose special skills amounted to “Having a beard” and Alina’s boyfriend, Matt, who, well, didn’t seem the combatant type, and would probably be killed off in the first minute. I had ambitiously taken on the “Believer” class, which gave me the twin skills of being able to hold off the baying horde with my monologuing skills, and the ability to kill all surrounding zombies, and myself, by shouting “Lord strike you down!”

Between us we had three six shooter pistols a stick, an Ankh symbol, two mobile phones (As a rule I always carry two mobiles- my battered old Nokia, and a Blackberry that I still haven’t worked out how to use yet), a handful of glowsticks and some jigsaw pieces.

We were in the building’s main hall, where we hadn’t run into any zombies, but had got stuck in a stand-off with a couple of crazy looking scientists, one of whom was holding a shotgun. After a brief, shouted debate (“Calm the fuck down!” “You calm the fuck down!”) we decided on a tactical retreat to the stairwell just beyond the hall.

Here we ran into zombies. It’s hard to explain just how scary it is trying to fend off someone walking towards you with outstretched arms using nothing but a NERF pistol. Numerous times I was backed into a wall, desperately firing an unresponsive gun, before remembering I had to cock it and only then managing to shoot my attacker.

Then shoot them again once they're down, naturally

From Matt’s Account:
“Happily, once we'd got there and methodically pinned down and killed some zombies, the other half of our team arrived and helped us with the slaying. We put all the puzzle pieces in the corner and tried to start putting them together. At this point Alina starts shouting to me that she's lost her piece. Convinced that she's role-playing, I shout back and try very hard to extract the location of the piece out of her, until it becomes clear that she has indeed genuinely lost it. Once I'd ascertained this (and beaten away a few zombies for good measure), I turned back to the pieces which we'd so sensibly left in the corner of the room. There were only three left.”

At this point, I saw our friend the shotgun happy scientist standing in the door of the main hall and waving a puzzle piece in the air.

Myself and Lucia went haring after him into the hall. He held us at a distance with his gun, asking what the jigsaw piece was for, and we tried reasoning with him, but as an absolute last resort, I was forced to shoot him twice in the back.

I was momentarily distracted by an attack of zombies, but soon returned to search the body thoroughly for the missing jigsaw piece.

From Lucia’s Account:

“A crazy man with a double barreled shotgun suddenly appears and steals a puzzle piece and runs into the main hall. Chris and I follow him in an attempt to reason with him and retrieve it. He seems very unstable and threatens to shoot us. But then he throws the puzzle piece in my direction, which Chris doesn't notice, and Chris shoots him. I grab the piece and bring it back to the others by the stairs.”

Ah. Okay then. Umm. Wow. This is awkward... Say, I wonder how Tom was doing while all this went down?

From Tom’s Account:

“It was at this point I realised I had only 4 shots in my Recon left, and had dropped my clips somewhere, so I started to panic a little. We were being overrun in the corridor, where Alina was being beaten to death by zombies, and I was rather conservatively trying to shoot the remaining zombies. The decision was made to fight them off in the main hall where we had more room.”

Thanks Tom. Once the surviving members of the team (Sorry Alina) had all retreated to the main hall, we gained a moment’s peace, with half of us able to keep the doors secure and put down any zombies that had made their way inside, while the rest worked on fitting the jigsaw puzzle together.

Having realised, after a thorough cavity search, that the dead scientist did not have a jigsaw piece, I rejoined the rest of the group just in time to take the credit for correctly reading the jigsaw and working out what was on the missing piece. The puzzle said that the key was hidden “behind the great eye”. We looked at one another and asked “Has anyone seen an eye?”

Now in the movies, once the team has found the answer to the riddle about where the treasure is, there’s always one character, usually the dodgy looking one dressed all in black, who decides to abandon his comrades and save his own skin, only to suffer a quick, karmic death. But of course people don’t really act like... Oh Tom!

From Tom’s Account:

“Around this time zombies started to pour in through the back door, and after fighting a few zombies and depleting my shotguns, I found a small one shot pistol and decided to just try and find the eye, thinking the rest of the team were pretty much screwed.

So I ran out of the stage exit door into a corridor with 5 rather bored zombies. Not realising at the time I was standing RIGHT NEXT TO THE DOOR where the 'eye' was, I decided to try and get to the sunken room, the only other room we had not checked. However with just 3 rounds and 5 zombies I had a problem, so tried an alternative method. Using the laser pointer on my empty gun I distracted all of the zombies and skilfully dodged by all of them. Making it to the sunken room I was relieved to find the room devoid of zombies, but this proved to be false hope, as the room was completely empty. No keycard, no guns, no ammo. NOTHING. I knew I was pretty much dead at this point, and two zombies burst into the room, who quickly took my remaining 2 hit points away and started to eat me.”

See? That’s cosmic justice. Meanwhile, those of us who had decided to stay with the team were doing just fine...

From Lucia’s Account:

“A zombie bride leading a hoard emerges from the door at the back of the hall, I run towards them and notice she is carrying the fire axe. I also notice a zombie holding a cartridge of ammo, so for some reason I grab the ammo and bring it to the stage where team mates are shooting zombies. I then run back to the bride and shout that she has the fire axe, but no one hears me. I try and wrench it from her and hack at her. I succeed in slaying her and obtaining it, but there are too many zombies and I fall to the floor still yelling "I have the fire axe!" Still no one hears and I die alone, swarmed. The zombies then all fall to the floor around the bride I had killed, and weep, some rocking back and forth clutching their heads in grief.”

Okay, maybe not everyone was doing just fine. By now we had fallen back to the stage, there was some shouting about a “last stand”, but I wasn’t done just yet. As the zombies crowded the stage, I launched into my Special Ability, and began to preach. Of course, as a pretty secular person, I didn’t have much to preach about, so I launched into a lecture on why I didn’t believe in zombies.

“Zombies don’t exist!” I shouted “You’re the result of mass hysteria... or swamp gas... or some sort of flu bug... or...”

The zombies were halted in their tracks, possibly more out of confusion than out of the power of my faith, but it did the job. Still, it’s amazing how quickly your ideas can dry up on the spot, and before long I just had to cry “Shit! Zombies!” and leg it for the exit, hoping I’d bought us enough time to escape. Fortunately, we all made it out okay.

From Harry’s Account:

“We defended the stage, and Chris used his believer power to freeze zombies. I used a glow stick to distract the zombies, which worked briefly. They then left the hall, and by the time I realised this I was all alone and escape by the other route was cut off, so I tried to escape down the side of the hall. I was quickly surrounded. I fired desperately but my gun had no ammunition, although I tried firing about 8 times before realising this. I was then killed.”

Okay, almost all of us.

Okay, two of us. There, you happy now?

From Matt’s Account:

“Once out, Harry was nowhere to be seen and it was just Chris and me. As we passed the corridor, a zombie emphatically gesticulated toward a room in the opposite direction from where we were headed. I ran ahead to catch up with Chris and bring him back, but of course by then the route back to this room was blocked by rather too many walking dead.”

At this point I ingeniously opened a side door and led Matt inside. Less ingeniously, it turned out to be a dead end, with only one exit that was now filled with zombie. Lesser men would have panicked in this situation, maybe even finally taken that last NERF dart for themselves (This wasn’t an option by that point, our guns had jammed long ago).

Instead, I looked Matt in the eye, and with quiet confidence said: “Don’t worry. I’ve got a plan.”

From Matt’s Account:

“Chris runs around shouting "I've got a plan!". After a minute or so and once we were backed into a corner, I'm beginning to seriously doubt this plan (if it even exists).”

At this point I whipped out my battered old Nokia and, fingers shaking, tapped in a number. I hit the dial button as the zombies surrounded us, and... nothing. One incredibly long moment of nothing, when I start to worry about battery lifespans, and mobile reception, and... then the ringing starts. The ringing of the blackberry phone I had just planted at the opposite end of the room.

As one, the zombies turned and lurched over to the source of the noise, while we snuck out the door, me doing a very quiet victory dance.

We dodged a couple of hallway zombies, and Matt led us to a room with some sort of arcane shrine set up. At the top of the shrine was a drawing of a single, burning eye. I looked at the eye, and in my photographic memory I flashed up the image of the jigsaw puzzle, only all the words were all weird and glowy, like in A Beautiful Mind. They said “Behind the eye” and here was a picture of an eye, an eye like the eye that was mentioned in the “Behind the eye” of the jigsaw, “Behind” an eye, an eye that could, maybe, possibly, perhaps, be like the eye that was on this shrine.”

“Behind the eye!” I said meaningfully.

Matt looked at me in confusion. It wasn’t his fault, I was clearly operating on another level by this point.

To demonstrate, I reached up behind the altar, and pulled out the blue keycard.

Once again, the zombies invaded our moment of triumph, having apparently discarded the blackberry as needlessly complicated and fiddly. We retreated to the far end of the room, but this time it was no dead end. Instead, we came across a pair of double doors. We pushed through, to find ourselves... back in the main hall!

This time the hall was no safe haven however, it was packed with zombies, at quick headcount, I estimated it to be roughly four bagillion zombies. With no other choice, the two of us pushed through the horde, but it soon became clear we were both going to die unless someone did something really noble and heroic. The sort of thing that should be immortalised in legend and song for generations. The sort of thing that should at least net the hero a pint from the comrade he saved later on.

In a deep, booming voice I yelled “Matt!”

Matt turned, our eyes met, and something of the secret brotherhood of fellow soldiers passed between us. “Take the key!” I shouted, and the key card arched through the air in slow motion, until Matt snatched it down.

Matt gave me a look as if to say “No! It should be me who dies! You have so much to give!” and I gave him a look that said “Yes, but this is the way it has to be.”

Then, I gave the mighty cry “LORD STRIKE YOU DOWN!” (Deathbed conversions are the best!) and all at once every zombie in the room dropped to the ground. I too fell, but as I lay upon the ground I was content, as I saw Matt fleet to safety.

From Matt’s Account:

“The lower lobby was deserted apart from my apparently now ex-girlfriend Alina, who began to lurch towards me, hungry for brains. Barely slowing down, I hit her with my big stick (what was that thing, a baseball bat?) and kept going. I don't think the two zombies in the upstairs lobby even knew what was going on before I was past them, to the door and collapsed on the floor.”

So, that’s the story of team scavenger. The whole thing took, maybe twenty minutes at most. Certainly less time than it took to write down.

Now, for the drinking game.

Well, we spent most of the game under siege in the main hall, so take one shot for that. I don’t know if the mad scientist dude ever meant to rescue us, but if he did was incompetent, and dangerous, so two shots for that. A lot like the two shots which I put into his back, which I guess, combined with Tom doing a runner, means mankind is the real monster. So one shot for that.

The zombies were walking dead, who moved slowly, although we weren’t allowed to shoot them in the head, so only two shots for that. Oh, and if I hadn’t shot that scientist twice he almost certainly would have come back for me, so two shots for the rule on the dead rising regardless of being “infected”.

Finally, during the safety and rules briefing at the beginning of the night, several kids from the Muslim prayer meeting next door snuck over and watched us through the door. We later found several of them marching up and down with outstretched arms groaning “ZOMBIE!”

So take two shots for the “Kiddy Zombies” rule.
CLARIFICATION: In this article, reference is made to a "Tom", who is a bit dodgy looking and attempts to run off and leave his friends to die. In my article on Left 4 Dead, I also refer to a "Tom" who is a bit dodgy, and often attempts to run off and leave his friends to die. These are two seperate people. Avoid people called Tom when the zombie apocalypse hits, is what I'm saying. Stick to people called Dave.

#8 Braindead: Gore! (Huh!) What Is It Good For?

Hello again. Before you read this blog, a couple of bits of zombie-related news you might enjoy.
Firstly, the good people at Whippersnapper Press have just posted my story of zombies and travel insurance, Recorded For Training Purposes.

The Whippersnapper was also responsible for a rather brilliant evening of poetry and stand up a couple of weeks ago. They plan to repeat this with a Vogon Poetry Slam on the 25th of May in London, to observe the twin geek holidays of Geek Pride Day (marking the anniversary of the release of Star Wars) and Towel Day (commemorating Douglas Adams). Come along to enjoy poetry from the geeky, to the competitively awful. Providing the Earth isn’t destroyed to make way for a hyperspace bypass in the mean time.

Anyway, now for something a bit more on topic. This contains spoilers, and some really gross bits:

This week we’re going to be taking about Peter Jackson’s Braindead, known as Dead Alive in the States, but we’re not going to use that title because it sounds like it was thought up by Boris Karloff’s Frankenstein monster.

These days, Peter Jackson is best known for massive, three-hour long CGI-filled epics. However, he started out with nothing but a shoestring budget and an imagination that must have made his parents very concerned as he grew up. It’s a little known fact (little know because I just made it up) that before Peter Jackson was signed on to direct some of Hollywood’s big budget tent pole movies, he was made to sign a contract saying he wouldn’t blow the SFX budget on showing a man being eaten alive by giant, toothy, CGI sphincters.

Nobody tells Peter Jackson what Peter Jackson can’t do.

I have just re-watched Braindead, and it is by far the grossest, goriest zombie movie I have ever seen. I made the foolish mistake of eating lunch beforehand, and I nearly lost it no less than three times.

Now gore is pretty much the stock in trade of the zombie movie. Night of the Living Dead might seem pretty tame by modern standards, but at the time it was incredibly shocking (although this didn’t stop people taking their kids to see it). Whether it’s the classic Death Becomes Her shot in Shaun of the Dead, or Jim gauging out the eyes of one of the soldiers in 28 Days Later, there’s going to be some sort of splatter in whatever zombie movie you happen to be watching.

But when talking about zombie movies in any critical way, the gore tends to get brushed aside (even if it leaves a sticky patch). Night of the Living Dead is about Vietnam, Dawn of the Dead is about consumerism, Shaun of the Dead is about Shaun’s relationship problems. It’s easy to talk about all these films and forget what they actually spend the majority of their special effects budget on.

So, to return to the awesome pun I made in the title of this blog entry- what is gore good for?

Look Mummy! I made a satire!

Well, firstly, as I said last week, zombie movies aren’t just extremely violent- they’re often about violence- and a natural consequence of extreme violence tends to be gore. Personally, I find a bit of gratuitous splatter preferable to the weirdly bloodless gun fights you’d see in old Westerns or Bond movies.

Zombie movies aren’t just about violence though. This might shock you, but if you look at the names of the works that we’ve reviewed so far in this blog, there’s one word that keeps popping up in the title.

Go on, have a look, see if you can spot it...

Figured it out yet?

It’s the word “Dead”. Weird huh? It’s almost like death is somehow a recurring theme in these movies. The zombie, with its slow, clumsy but inevitable approach is a great metaphor for death. We fear becoming zombies because it means a loss of identity, it means becoming a merciless, constantly hungry killing machine and a danger to all those who you once loved. But we also fear it because becoming a zombie means you’ll look really gross.

So on that note, let’s start talking about old people. In Braindead (See? I hadn’t forgotten) the first person to succumb to the bite of the Sumatran Rat Monkey is the mother of Lionel, the main character. Before she starts to crave human flesh it’s made clear she’s already far from a positive influence in Lionel’s life, she’s clingy, possessive and jealous, actively trying to obstruct Lionel’s budding romance.

And once she’s bitten, she actually becomes more vulnerable. Her ability to speak is impaired, her hands become stiff and unresponsive, and her skin has to be literally glued onto her face to stop it peeling off. But just as Shaun and Ed see a zombie and immediately conclude that she must be pissed, when the president of the Women’s institute pays a visit she looks at Lionel’s mother and sees her as someone who’s a bit senile. It’s a parody of old age, and our fear for Lionel isn’t that he’s going to be eaten, but that he’s going to be stuck looking after his zombified mother, old, gross-looking, but basically immortal, at the expense of any chance of a life of his own.

When the Lionel’s zombified mother finally breaks loose and goes on a killing spree it actually drives this point home. In a desperate bid to cover up his mother’s condition, Lionel ends up bringing all her zombified victims back home, feeding them, cleaning them, and keeping them doped up on tranquilisers and as they decompose around him.

Zombies also love Countdown

There’s more to the gore in this movie than Peter Jackson exorcising his fear of having to care for elderly relatives however. One of the earlier and more revolting parts of the film shows Lionel’s mother slowly crushing the rat monkey’s skull beneath her heel after it bites her. Here it’s important that the camera lingers on the rat, sees its eyes bulging out of its skull, and the look of satisfaction on Lionel’s mother’s face. The rat monkey has already been built up as a horrible, unpleasant monster, with a back story involving the slave trade, interspecies rape and black magic. This scene is purpose built to drive home the fact that Lionel’s mother is far worse than any of that.

In Braindead, your innards are Peter Jackson’s paintbrush, and he finds no end of imaginative and bizarre ways to apply it to the canvas. In this movie a dead baby crawls up inside a woman’s skull, sticks his arms out of her ears and rips her face open. In one scene, Lionel is unable to flee from a horde of approaching zombies because the floor is too slippery with blood- he gets to safety using dismembered limbs and heads as stepping stones. At one point he has to fight off being strangled by an animated intestinal tract (Peter Jackson doesn’t give a flat fuck for the Romero Rules), which then somehow manages to appear to begging for mercy before it is vaporised by a lawnmower.

What do you mean it’s not cute?

And while I’m at it, seeing Lionel literally mow down a horde of zombies is one of the most awesome scenes of zombie slaughter in movie history. The gore in the grand, blood-soaked finale of the movie is less a grim parody of human mortality than a piece of gleeful slapstick. Jackson is positively revelling in it.

The trouble is, if you hate gore (Like certain more wussy bloggers I won't name) it’s very hard to look past that first visceral reaction to see how the gore is being used. In Braindead we see gore being used as a metaphor for our fears about old age and mortality, as the basis for a huge, elaborate slapstick routine, leading up to a scene where Peter Jackson shows us that subtext is for pussies by having an old lady literally drags her son back into her foul, rotting womb.

Pictured: Subtlety

So, there’s a lot to be said for becoming desensitised to violence.

Okay, time for the drinking game. Strict interpretations this week, as there were complaints last week that I was being a bit too lenient (Okay, they didn’t spend most of Shaun of the Dead actually in the Winchester, but I still say the Winchester was a big enough character in the story to justify the shot). So this week you only get to drink for mankind being the real monster (Lionel’s uncle and mother are both pretty horrid before they’re zombified), for the zombies being walking dead (One shot) who move slowly (One shot) and then another two drinks for the zombified baby (My favourite character in the whole film).

Now if there’s one complaint often levelled at bloggers who write about zombies (You know who you are!) it’s that it’s easy for us to judge while we’re ensconced safely behind our laptops, but that we never get out in the field and report from where the story is.

Well, to silence the complaining types, next week I will be doing just that, reporting from the front line of the Zombie LARP!

In the meantime, game organiser and award winning journalist Mary Hamilton recently gave a talk alongside the likes of Tim Kring and Graham Lineham at The Story conference. You can read her insights here.

Now get out of here. You sicken me.

#7 Shaun of the Dead: Why You Think You're Badass

So, let’s talk about Shaun of the Dead, the film that started off the whole zombie renaissance that so many people are getting sick of by now.

Oh, you thought it was 28 Days Later?

Or the general atmosphere of apocalyptic doom and despair that’s been prevalent since 9/11 and the Iraq War.

Well, they might have helped, but the reason that for the last decade nerds have been crafting intricate strategies for the hording of food and the decapitation of their neighbours (especially Neil, because fuck that guy) can be traced back to this film. This is the film that convinced you all that no matter how big a loser you are, the day the dead rise you will metamorphose into a cricket-bat wielding badass.

Some of you have completely lost touch with reality

Shaun of the Dead is different from the other movies we’ve looked at so far. Night of the Living Dead, 28 Days Later and I Am Legend aren’t just violent stories, but they’re also stories about violence. In one way or another these are stories about how violent people are, and the human cost violence has for the perpetrator as well as the victim. Even Pontypool is littered with references to the war in Afghanistan, and makes a major plot point of the guilt that comes from killing the obligatory kiddy zombie.

Shaun of the Dead gives a couple of nods to these themes, in the creepy look on Ed’s face after he’s smashed someone’s skull in with an ash tray, in that most of the improvised weapons and projectiles the characters use- records, swing-balls, and boxes of assorted throwing objects, turn out to be a bit shit and in that someone who spends hours of his life shooting down people in Timesplitters 2 will actually turn out to be a bit crap when he gets his hands on a rifle. But that isn’t Shaun of the Dead’s primary concern. Shaun of the Dead is a story about an aimless twenty-something struggling to grow up and get over his hangover. I can’t imagine why I like it so much.

Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright’s script is littered with foreshadowing and throwbacks, and one of these is that the entire plot of the movie is summed up with the drunken Shaun’s to-do list scrawled across the fridge:

Not long before, Ed also describes the plot of the whole movie in the form of a plan for a pub crawl:

“A Bloody Mary first thing, (the zombie they kill in the garden is called Mary) a bite at the King's Head, (Shaun’s stepdad getting bitten), couple at The Little Princess, (fetching Liz), stagger back here (the Winchester) and bang... back at the bar for shots. (Getting the rifle).”

The characters see the whole outbreak in terms of their everyday lives, relationships and trips to the pub, never even thinking about the larger political, philosophical and theological aspects of the zombie (not quite) apocalypse. When they flick through the TV channels and get nothing but blank, the response is a rather glib “There’s never anything on is there?” rather than wondering if we’ll see the lights turn on again in our lifetime.

I’ve already talked about the way zombie apocalypses have of narrowing the action down to an extremely small stage, then giving us hints and tips about the larger story through radio broadcasts and background action. The first part of Shaun of the Dead is littered with this. We see military trucks moving around in the background, people passing out at the bus stop, half-glimpsed headlines, a man eating a pigeon, a guy face down on his own steering wheel, and none of it is referred to by the characters directly. Shaun even manages to walk right to the corner shop and back through smashed up cars and scattered zombies without noticing that anything is wrong (incidentally, I’ve been to that corner shop, and they do a great strawberry Cornetto).

Edgar Wright has already gone on record as saying that this was partly inspired by his own discovery of the foot and mouth outbreak in the UK.

He’d missed the news for a couple of days, then turned the telly on to see mountains of burning cows. But it could just as easily be anything in the news. The movie came out while I was in uni and the Iraq War was getting into full swing, and my memories of that time are made up of sitting in the Union Bar, chatting about the usual bollocks students talk about, but with this constant background hum on the TV screens of tanks moving through deserts, reports of car bombs going off, and over-excited reporters in blurry, pixellated footage. Shaun of the Dead slots neatly into the Romero canon because like his films, these are characters at the periphery of the world-changing events. But unlike Romero’s characters, even as the world is falling apart these characters are still driven by the same pre-apocalyptic concerns- Shaun’s rivalry with his step-dad, his toxic friendship with Ed, and his attempts to win Liz back.

The real question at the end of the film isn’t about the aftermath of this huge, world changing cataclysm. Globally, the worst consequence of the apocalypse seems to be the return of It’s A Knockout.

Although in all fairness, I would totally watch this

The more dramatically important question at the end of the film is whether or not Shaun has moved on at all. In Simon Pegg’s memoir (which I’ve been reading to better to learn his ways so that I may eventually kill him and steal his life) he mentions that it’s left deliberately ambiguous whether Liz knows that Ed is being kept chained up in the garden shed (something else foreshadowed at the start of the film). If she doesn’t know, then Shaun hasn’t really changed and the idyllic post-zombie existence they’re enjoying may not last all that long. If she does, then she’s complicit in allowing him to carry on as he did before. Either way, Shaun remains the same person even in face of the zombie invasion, the petty tendencies and the bravery in the face of danger were equally a part of him all along. I believe that the fact that he remains the same ineffectual schlub even when he’s kicking zombie arse is a big part of the reason why this film is so popular, and why more geeks have a plan for the zombie apocalypse than a plan to escape their home in the event of a house fire.*

Right, let’s get to Winchester and line up some shots. The characters spend most of the story under siege in a pub (take a shot). We could argue over whether mankind is the real monster, but from the opening credits onwards the parallels between your average Londoner and your average zombie are made abundantly clear, and the characters spend plenty of time pointing guns, broken glass and bottle-openers at one another, so take a shot. Ed cries out “We’re coming to get you Barbara!” so take another two shots. These are proper old school zombies, who are dead, move slowly and can only be killed by a shot to the brain, so take four shots for that. We don’t know if the naturally dead rise, but given Pegg and Wright’s reverence for the Romero rules, I feel safe ordering a couple of shots for that as well. There is a kiddy zombie, so two shots for that. And while the word zombie is mentioned numerous times, character’s are explicitly told not to, so you can have one shot for that.

However, the two surviving characters are rescued by the army, who turn out not to be either insane or evil, so that is the one shot you’re not allowed to take this week.

How’s that for a slice of fried gold?

*Not an actual statistic. Someone should do the research on this.

Bonus Blog- The Dead Island Trailer: Why Killing Children Is Awesome

So, the trailer for the new game Dead Island has been released. Personally, I love it, it’s a great little three minute zombie movie that is both terrifying and sad.

Watch it here:

It’s already started to kick off some controversy, even from those who are normally the first to defend against moral guardians. The writer of this blog found it uncomfortable viewing, saying that “personally I just can't get away from the fact that I'm uncomfortable watching a graphic depiction of the horrific final moments of the life of a young girl.”

Well, good. Watching a little girl dying a horrible and violent death isn’t supposed to be punch-the-air “Fuck yes!” entertainment. The writer concedes: “Yes, perhaps that's because I'm a dad and have a beautiful daughter.” I don’t have a kid, so I can only take a poorly educated guess at how that affects your perception of the world. Similar motives have been given for Steven Spielberg’s decision to replace the guns with walkie-talkies in E.T.

Walkie-Talkies THAT SHOOT LASERS. I assume.

It’s easy to dismiss this sort of thing as being prudish Mary Whitehouse style stuff. But I think to answer this needs a more robust defence than that. Zombie apocalypse fiction is steeped in violence, and if we get our entertainment from watching bloody death on a mass scale, it’s worth, on occasion, asking what it’s actually for.

Firstly, as anyone who’s been playing the Chris Writes About The End of The World Drinking Game knows, kiddy zombies are not exactly a rarity in the genre. The premise of the zombie apocalypse is that your friends and loved ones are turned into the threat, and seeing some cute adorable little kid running (because even in Romero movies, kid actors never seem to get the hang of lurching) towards you with murder in its eyes is a great shorthand to get that point across.

However, context is everything. It’s one thing to see a zombie kid get killed as part of a longer narrative, with consequences for the characters. It’s another to see it as the entire subject of a film, particularly one as short as this. So the question is, does the trailer manage to justify its child murder?

Well, as you may have noticed, the trailer is played in backwards. I’m not trying to play the Happy Titanic argument here (Where if you rewind James Cameron’s Titanic it has a happy ending), but the order in which you tell a story is every bit as important as the story itself.

The classic example for this is Memento, where most of the scenes are played out in reverse chronological order, intercut with flashbacks that play out in chronological order, until at the end of the film the two storylines meet in the middle where it turns out that $£*()$£*()”$*()£$*£)$(*. In the trailer, the same thing happens. We get the reversed storyline of the corpse magically leaping up through the magically mending window and latching onto her father’s neck, intercut with flashbacks to the frightened little girl running down a hotel corridor.

In Memento, when the backward and forward moving narratives meet, it brings us to the most important part of the film. In the Dead Island trailer, when the backward and forward moving narratives meet, it is on the image of a father reaching out to his child. When we see that image, we know it won’t end well. But that’s not the point, the point is, the video takes a scene of bloody, terrifying violence, then gives the scene context, showing that the survivors are actually fighting for something.

You can see the trailer in chronological order here.

In this version, the story is a straight forward tale of a little girl running away from zombies, then dying horribly. It’s pretty bleak, but it doesn’t carry the same punch as the trailer seen the way it was originally intended.

In the blog link at the beginning of this post, Ben Parfitt argues that the trailer “uses an image of a dead girl and images of her dying to create an emotional bond with a product.”

Well, yes. It does. Although I have to say I find it far less distasteful and manipulative than Paul Whitehouse remaking The Sixth Sense for Aviva.

What this advert does is tell a story, to advertise a game that will also tell a story. Personally I find it refreshing to see a videogame advert that presents violence as anything other than totally awesome. If the videogame that it’s advertising manages to resemble the tone of this trailer at all, it’s going to be a very special game indeed.

We’ll return to our regular posting schedule on Monday, when I’ll be writing about a romantic comedy. No prizes for guessing which one.

#6 I Am Legend: Writing About Monsters

Yes, I made it back from London. It was a close run thing. In the tube stations it was hard to tell who was human and who was zombie, so I just swung my cricket bat at anything that moved until I made it to the exits. Ended up holing up in a pub called the Camden Head, where, as luck would have it, they were holding an evening of poetry, comedy and spoken word entertainment (I assume because the TV was no longer broadcasting). I won’t bore you with the details of my perilous trek back to Norwich, where somehow civilisation is managing to continue pretty much unaffected. All I’ll say is that on the coach trip I was able to enjoy rereading the excellent novel I Am Legend by Richard Matheson. It’s a novel about the last human being, fortified in his own home, desperately fighting off hordes of vampires.

So, spoiler alert. No, seriously, spoiler alert. If you have any plans whatsoever to read this book, do it before reading this article because I am going to give away the ending, and it’s of the Planet of the Apes is Earth/Bruce Willis is a ghost order of spoilers. The book is only 160 pages long, you could easily finish it in a weekend, so go away and come back when you’ve read it. You’ll thank me.

I’m sure some of you are saying “Chris, don’t worry about it! I’ve already seen the film starring Will Smith!” and to those people I shall politely suggest that you read the book anyway, while quietly damning the creators of that film to the circle of hell reserved for People Who Completely Miss The Point.

Go read the book. I’ll wait.

....

Have you read it yet? Good. No, it’s okay, no need to thank me. Yes, I’m sure Will Smith is very sorry too.

So, I’ll be honest, this is going to be a hard one to blog. There’s a tonne of things I want to talk about with this book: The way it sets up a whole genre and subverts it at the same time, the difference between Horror Fiction and Science Fiction and how zombie fiction in general, and I Am Legend especially, nestle in the crack between the two, why there are some books you really ought to read twice.

Let’s start by talking about horror and science fiction, because nothing is as worthwhile as arguing about genre definitions. Someone (I can’t remember exactly who and Google is letting me down) once described Night of the Living Dead as a science fiction movie disguised as a horror movie. I’ve already mentioned that George A. Romero nicked the idea for Night of the Living Dead from this novel and the sci-fi passing as horror quote applies just as well to this book. The monsters are vampires with pointy teeth who come by night to suck your blood, but have a dread fear of garlic and the cross (or Torah if it’s a Jew vampire), they are creatures straight out of the Bram Stoker tradition.

Yes. Once again the Atheists have doomed us all.

But Robert Neville, now that there is no one left to make fun of his name, systematically goes through everything we know about the vampire, the sucking blood, the aversion to sunlight, even the magically turning to dust when staked, and finds rational explanations with a microscope and a supply of text books.

I could totally become a self-taught bacteriologist if everyone else would just die!

My argument for I Am Legend as sci-fi in horror clothing comes from elsewhere though (although the chapters devoted to describing bacilli and spores certainly help- it’s better than it sounds). In his musing on the horror genre, Danse Macabre, Stephen King describe the horror genre as a “Republican in a three-button suit”. Sure, the conservative has a werewolf-life second identity, scratch the skin and there’s a monster underneath, but really, the monster is there to show us what a monster isn’t. Horror shows us strange and terrible things to that we know what normal is, and it’s not a huge coincidence that most of the time those strange terrible things happen to be about sex.

I would argue, probably with a pint in my hand and at a volume slightly above what the other pub goers are comfortable with, that science fiction does the opposite of this. From Star Trek, to Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, from 2001: A Space Odyssey, to my own book that I’ve just remembered I haven’t plugged for several weeks, science fiction is a genre that tells you that your definitions of right and wrong are an arbitrary line in the sand, your universal truths are provincial custom and your sense of what’s important comes mostly from a lack of perspective.

At first glance zombies, and the vampires of I Am Legend, seem like the perfect horror villain. There’s a reason why they’re such popular enemies in videogames, and it’s not just that zombies don’t need that much in the way of AI (Turns out, they do). It’s that, even more so than Nazis and aliens, you can mow down hundreds of zombies without hesitation or remorse. In virtually every zombie movie, including the ones we’ve looked at so far, hesitation to smash in zombie brains is seen as at best, not understanding the gravity of the situation, and at worst dangerously irresponsible.

I Am Legend is no different. He spends the first few chapters of the book sharpening stakes to hunt the sleeping vamps by day while they sleep.  By the end of the book hunting for Cortman, one of the more persistent vampires, is Neville’s “relaxing hobby”. The necessity of killing off the vampires is never questioned, although at one point early on, when Neville is still experimenting to work out the “rules” for these vampires, he reluctantly asks himself why he always does his tests on women. Because when you’re the last living human being there’s nobody to stop you being a creepmeister.

Then he meets Ruth, another survivor (Or Is She?) and suddenly after three years Neville lives in a world where there are opinions other than his own. One of things that shocks him most about this girl (Who he absolutely does not want to sleep with at all, no sirree) is her response to his clinical and emotionless descriptions of killing the vampires. He’s surprised when she describes it as horrible, but dismisses it like a true zombie survivalist with “One gets used to these things”. He’s incredulous when he finally brings himself to ask “Do you think I’m wrong?”

Of course (and I’m saying of course because you followed my warning at the beginning of this blog, and read the book, and so this entry will hold no surprises for you) it turns out that the vampires aren’t quite the soulless stake-fodder they’ve been made out to be. While the reanimated dead are fair game, Neville has also been killing living people who have been infected by, but not yet succumbed, to the vampire disease. To those infected survivors it Neville who is the nightmarish monster, coming like a vampire and taking them as they sleep through the day. So, like the vampire, Robert Neville becomes legend.

Oh? You thought it was because he blew himself up with a hand grenade? Well, that’s poetic too... I guess...

At the climax of the book, as the infected survivors slaughter the vampires as they fight their way to Neville’s house, Neville sees them through the eyes of a monster. He is appalled by the casual brutality and violence they inflict on the vampires, and is heartbroken when they finally kill Ben Cortman. But Ruth reminds him, “Did you ever see your face when you killed?”

This is what makes I Am Legend a science fiction novel, rather than a horror. In science fiction, when the horde of monsters finally get hold of you, they crowd around and shout “Look! There’s the monster!” When the toothy, many eyed abomination comes face to face with you, it says “You look gross.”

I Am Legend is a subversion and a commentary of the horror fiction that came before it, and in even more effective commentary on the genre it inspired. But for what it’s worth, I think this novel’s sympathy for the monster is something that has passed right through the DNA of the zombie apocalypse. Romero made his movie after reading I Am Legend as a book where: “There’s this global change and there’s one guy holding out saying, wait a minute, I’m still a human. He’s wrong. Go ahead. Join them.” Through all Romero’s movies, and his many imitators, you’ll find at least a little sympathy for the zombie, and see the survivors becoming something a little bit less than human.

It’s Valentine’s Day, so eat a heart-shaped liqueur chocolate for each of these. Because nothing says romance like gorging yourself while reading something on the Internet.

The characters spend most of the story under siege in some manner of building, eat a chocolate. The people coming to rescue you are more dangerous than the zombies? Well, they’re not really coming to rescue you- eat a chocolate.  Mankind is definitely the real monster, eat a chocolate, hell, take two. The zombies are walking dead (One chocolate) but that’s the only Romero rules chocolate you get for obvious reasons. Oh, and the monsters are never referred to as zombies, on account of how they’re vampires, so take two chocolates for that.

Until next week, you’re ALL legend.

#5 The Walking Dead: You Say Generic Like It’s A Bad Thing

Those of you who’ve been following the blog so far will have come to expect my regular Monday updates. However, it just so happens that this Monday I am going to be in London, and in the event of a zombie apocalypse, those of us in a capital city will be the first to get chowed down by the undead. So I’m posting this early, so that my messy and untimely demise won’t deprive you of my zombie-related thoughts.

If I'm not back in time for next week's blog, come and rescue me

So, this will be my fifth blog, sixth if you count my introductory rant about writers, and their tendency towards thieving bastardry. So, care to take a guess how many zombie apocalypses we’ve looked at in that time?

Well, I’ve done a quick count, and it turns out, none, zero, also, zilch.

No, this isn’t because three of the previous four blogs have featured running zombies- we already had that argument. The zombie thing isn’t in question here. It’s the apocalypse part.

Night of the Living Dead’s zombie outbreak only affected a third of the United Stated. In 28 Days Later, the virus barely got off the British Isles. By the end of Pontypool the infection had only just escaped the eponymous town, and in Left 4 Dead 2 a map shows that there is still a sizeable portion of the United States untouched by necrotic, blood smeared hand.

So clearly it’s time to stop fucking about and starting about a real, honest-to-god Zombie smack down on the entire human race. Ladies and gentlemen, The Walking Dead. Here be spoilers.

Playing It Straight

The Walking Dead is a TV series, based on a comic series, about the zombie apocalypse. And it plays the tropes of the zombie apocalypse straight, absolutely straight. These are zombies straight from the Romero mould. They’re slow, they’re dead, they can only be killed with a headshot and (I had to google this, because the TV series hasn’t made it clear yet) if you die, for whatever reason, you’ll come back as one of them.

There is no clever subversion here, no twist on the rules of the genre. The first couple of episodes play out like the plot of well-made, but pretty formulaic zombie movie. The thing that sets The Walking Dead apart from its peers, is that it’s the zombie movie that never ends. Most zombie movies end with either everyone dying, or with the few surviving characters travelling into the horizon (where, most probably, they will die). But The Walking Dead sticks with those characters, because everytime they go over that horizon, there's another zombie movie waiting to happen. Despite its insistence on playing strictly by the rules laid down by the stories that came before it, The Walking Dead still manages throw some new elements into the mix, while reminding us of what we love about the old ones.

The TV series is very, very pretty. I’d go so far as to say the zombie apocalypse has never looked this good- the zombie make up, the abandoned city streets look better than any zombie movie I’ve seen.

It stars Andrew Lincoln, who you may remember as the likeable-but-useless one in This Life, or the likeable-but-useless one in Teachers. So no prizes for guessing who he’s playing here.

Pictured: The foppish, upper class buffoon from House

Yes, American TV is playing its new favourite game, taking British actors and casting them as American bad asses.

Except Rick Grimes, Andrew Lincoln’s zombie-killing Sherriff, isn’t really a bad ass in the traditional sense, he’s actually something remarkably rare in the zombie genre. He’s a genuinely decent human being. He cares deeply about his family, but is also willing to risk his life to save a stranger who helped him out once, or even the racist psychopath who he feels responsible for.

One of the things the creators of zombie fiction love almost as much as the sweet, sweet thrill of plagiarising each other’s work, is painting human beings as complete bastards who, on the whole, probably deserve to have their dead rise up and devour them.

It’s easy to see why. Writing selfish pricks is a whole lot more fun than writing decent, upstanding folk, and even the good guys are more entertaining when they do the right thing only after exhausting every possible alternative. It makes it easier to create that most precious of storytelling fuels, conflict, and it’s a short cut to making your story seem deep- “See? Are we any better than the zombies? I don’t need to shoot you in the head because I’ve just blown your mind!”

Grimes however, is brave, competent, and in short, exactly the sort of person you’d want running your post-apocalyptic survivalist compound.

Assuming that Bruce Campbell isn't available, naturally

Of course, not all the characters are the paragon of virtue that Grimes is, our aforementioned crazy racist being a prime example, but as a rule the characters in this series work together to solve their problems, resolve their differences through discussion and compromise and only occasionally beating the shit out of a guy who abuses his wife.

Brraaaaaiiiiinnns!

The characters don’t just talk, they plan. Every zombie-based problem the characters face is usually followed by a discussion of strategy and the creation of a plan, and it’s usually a pretty good plan.

This isn’t a subversion or even a new addition to the zombie apocalypse story. One of the things I love about the genre is that the characters in a zombie movie, on average, tend to be smarter than the characters in most other horror movies. In Night of the Living Dead, when Ben and Harry get into their dick measuring argument over whether to stay in the house or the cellar, both of them actually have pretty good points, they have strategies that have actually been thought out. Even in Shaun of the Dead, the characters think through their survival strategy, even if that strategy is “Go to the pub”.

Maybe it’s because the stupid ones are the first people to get eaten during a zombie apocalypse, or maybe it’s that the slow moving zombie give us more time to think things through rather than blindly running into a dead end while wearing a white negligee. The fact is, if you’re watching a zombie movie you’re far less likely to get a characters deciding to split up for no other reason than that it lets them get picked off one by one.

For the drinking game rules this week you better not by driving anywhere. Do the characters spend most of the story under siege in some manner of building? Depends, if we’re talking the whole series, no, but several episodes are shaped that way. Take a shot. Are the people coming to rescue you incompetent or more dangerous than the zombies? I don’t want to give too much away, but take a shot. The zombies are walking dead (the clue is in the name) move slowly, can only be killed by destroying the brain and rise regardless of the course of dead. Take four shots. Then two more for the kiddy zombie in the pilot episode. And while the word zombie doesn't remain unspoken, people tend to call them "walkers" instead, so what they hell, take another two shots. But you know what, this week, I don’t think mankind IS the real monster. Doesn't that make you feel all warm and fuzzy?

Assuming I make it back from the capital alive, I will see you next week.