The Winner of the Brand New Apocalypse Competition

As promised, today we’re announcing the winner of our tickets to The London Dungeon! But before I tell you the winner, can I just add: You disgust me. All of you. Seriously.

This guy is also ashamed of you.

Still, nobody seemed to put quite as much thought into the obliteration of our entire species as one Alex Labram. I’ll let him explain our terrifying but inevitable downfall himself:

“So these days a lot of people get pacemakers. And a few people have even got proper wired-in cybernetic limbs. And scientists are getting better at understanding brain neural behaviour, so full-on implants are only a matter of time.


I don't think we've thought this through. After all, these things aren't exactly nuclear-hardened, are they...


You see where this is going. The cyberisation of society is pretty much inevitable at this point - look how fast smartphones took off. And once they're actually *wired into our skulls and bodies*, we're going to start outsourcing more and more functions to them. Imagine a world where you rely on your adrenal implant to kick you awake in the morning, or you use silicon storage space to juggle extra thoughts in short-term memory. Now imagine if you suddenly lost that.


Once we reach that point, just a handful of nukes detonated at high altitude (Or, alternatively, a non-nuclear phenomenon. I imagine a sufficiently big solar flare could do it, for example) would be enough to obliterate society. People would have to re-learn how to *wake up in the morning*, for chrissakes. Every part of our economy would instantly fall apart. People would have no food, no water, no skills, and when they go to look up survivalist info on Wikipedia... argh.


When that happens, I give Homo Sapiens one month, of which the last two weeks will involve substantial cannibalism. Because the only thing too stupid to run away from a hungry semi-lobotomised human... will be another semi-lobotomised human. (Or possibly a dog. Dogs have it coming.)


And then the world will be silent. At least until the next species sits up and thinks "hey, what would happen if I rubbed these sticks together?" It's downhill all the way from there, folks.”

Alex, you’re getting tickets. I am sure you deserve everything you get in the London Dungeon.

#41 The Hunger Games: Winning Strategies

If you’re anything like me then when you saw or read The Hunger Games, there was one thought on your mind. “How could I kill that many children?” See, like most geeks, I have drawn up detailed and infallible plans in the case of a Romero-style zombie apocalypse. Zombies, after all, are stupid and easy to outrun, even if in practice they do end up killing everyone.

But The Hunger Games presents a more dangerous challenge. Here your adversaries aren’t just wandering around aimlessly, they’re actively hunting you down, and they’re crafty and quick and can fit in small spaces.

This worried me a great deal, so, much like Batman compensates for his lack of super powers with detailed and unstoppable contingency plans to take down everyone in the Justice League, so I have decided to compensate for my complete lack of physical strength, speed or agility by finding the deadliest Hunger Games strategies I could, and developing ways to defeat them.

These are the results of this study. Hopefully the writers, bloggers and Tom I got to contribute won’t actually read the blog, otherwise all this effort will have been for nothing.

Adele Wearing
One of the minds behind Alt.Fiction and the Unbound Blogzene but notably she is also one of writers for The Girls' Guide toSurviving the Apocalypse, meaning she’s spent a great deal of time coming up with survival strategies.

Special Abilities: Kickboxing

Strategy: “Faced with a grand game of murderkilldestroy I have a fundamental problem. I'm an idiot in a fight. I kickbox competitively and so this is a proven fact. I am not especially fast, or skilled, I always get beaten and I keep going forwards no matter how hard or how often they hit me. My team think I'm fearless, I suspect I just don't know any better.

Now this is bad enough when dealing with one girl who has gloves on, I've had black eyes and a busted nose in spite of safety equipment, but go a bit Hunger Games and it gets a whole lot worse. I have no weapons skills, well, I did archery at school and I wasn't a bad shot IF I could remember which eye to close. That was some 20 years ago now.

I'm average weight, height and fitness for a woman in her 30's, I am not naturally athletic in any way and I haven't climbed a tree for those same 20 years. Katniss I am not.

So where does that leave me? Largely I suspect, if I'm smart enough not to join in any initial melee, slinking away until I can form an alliance or two. I am, actually, pretty smart and not an entirely bad strategist. I can also, when my livelihood and therefore presumably my life, depends on it, pull a little charm out of somewhere. My strategy then, if I'm not among the first to fall, is pretty simple, identify the strong but dumb ones, manipulate them into being my defensive circle and when the field is a little smaller, start setting them on each other. I pretty much have to get through this thing without going toe to toe with anyone, coz I'll lose. So that's it, not very honourable or dignified, but sometimes it's survival of the sneakiest and any anthropologist will tell you, it's in our DNA.”

Plan to Defeat: Form an alliance with her early on. When she’s least expecting it, stab her in the back of the knees.

Grant Howitt
Grant Howitt, as the designer of Drunken Bear Fighter and one of the organisers of Zombie LARP is clearly no stranger to brutal death arenas where nobody gets out alive. On the other hand, he has neither seen the film nor read the books of The Hunger Games, making him something of a wild card.

Special Abilities: He can be very shouty.

Strategy: “Despite my proven success rate with surviving the undead, I'm not as skilled at actively murdering living human beings for sport. They move around too much. They hold weapons, can run, and use advanced tactics like "standing behind walls so to not get shot" and "not chasing hungrily after thrown glowsticks."

Basically, all my normal avenues of approach (including, to an extent, sending wave after wave of "team-mates" against them) are useless. Also, I haven't seen the film. Or read the book. Or even watched a proper trailer, really. There were some posters on the tube, so I guess I'm going to have to go with that for research because I'm a BUSY* MAN. Here's my findings, condensed into some tips:

1) GET A GUN. That girl in the coat, her with the hair and the face - she uses a bow and arrow a lot - that's her first mistake right there. A quick examination of current military forces shows that only a fraction of a percent use bows rather than guns (that fraction of a percent being made entirely of John Rambo and no-one else) as guns are easier to carry, shoot further and faster, and don't require you to carry around a backful of weaponised chopsticks in case trouble comes a-knockin'.

Plus, they're cooler - there's a reason Neo doesn't unfurl his leather trenchcoat to reveal a dizzying array of compound sports bows, mainly because they would jangle around the place and get stuck on things - which brings me to my next point.

2) IT IS IMPORTANT THAT YOU ARE COOL AS SHIT. SLA Industries was a formative text in my upbringing, and it taught me the art of stylish ultraviolence. So it's important that you give the viewers what they want, if ratings are anything to go by (these things are televised, right? I half-watched an advert on telly, it looked like it had Lenny Kravitz in it or something) but, and this is the important thing here, don't be a dick about it. Be incredibly violent, but also self-effacing and really down-to-earth. If you break someone's arm against a future-tree and artfully dash their brains out with a rock, try not to grin while you do it but make sure that any camera operators get your absolute best angle at all times.

Also, look a bit sad after you kill someone. Like how Spider-Man must feel. In fact, point three:

Sad like that! Perfect!

3) BE SPIDER-MAN. He's the scrappy underdog everyone loves! Plus he has magic glands under his wrists that kick out sticky fluid at a moment's notice, and the proportional strength and speed of a spider, and their famous powers of precognition which explains the rise of wholly authentic but unintelligible spider psychics in the late Victorian Era. Did you know how many innocent psychics were stepped on, just because they were spiders, or perhaps because they were chasing after a tasty-looking fly mid-seance? Lots, I bet.

Although being Spider-Man is probably fairly tricky, because you need to get bitten by a spider and not inherit the super powers of cold sweats, excruciating pain and death, like most bite victims do.

4) DO NOT GET BITTEN BY SPIDERS. I can't stress this enough, even in light of tip number 3. Spiders are either dangerous (vis Black Widow) or useless (vis Daddy Longlegs) and getting bitten isn't going to help you any, especially if you're fighting a number of other photogenic teens to the death in a post-apocalyptic woodland setting (is it in the woodlands? It looks a bit woody from all that performance gear they're wearing).

SURE, it seems like a good idea NOW to carry a tupperware full of venomous spiders and radioactive material in your backpack next to your Colt .45, but it's going to be distracting popping it open during a fight and shaking the spiders down your top in an effort to get on some of that superhero goodness. Plus we all know it takes a WHOLE NIGHT for the powers to kick in, at which point you wake up and no longer need glasses.

Anyway, that's probably enough words. In summary - get a gun, break people's arms and then look a bit sad about it, something about spiders. Great."

* LAZY

Plan to Defeat: Put spiders in his hair.

Kim Curran
Kim Curran writes science fiction for young adults, including her soon be released novel Shift. Writing young adult fiction means Kim is familiar with The Hunger Games’ genre, and has no scruples about subjecting children to horrific death. A worthy adversary.

Special Skills: A crack shot sniper (In videogames and paintball)

Strategy: “I’ve always fancied myself as a sniper. Ever since taking out Sniper Wolf in Metal Gear Solid 1 with my first shot. And then there was that time I went paint balling and I hid up a tree and took everyone down without them seeing me. That was fun. Till I couldn’t get back down and I had to call for help and I was pummelled with paintballs as punishment. But bruises the size of dinner plates aside, sneaky sniper would definitely be the way forward for me.

So, that would be my strategy. Run. Hide. Get a weapon. A Dragunov SVD if there happened to be one handy (my sniper rifle of choice). If not, I would try and jury-rig a cross bow or a blow dart with darts tipped with juice from those poisonous berries. And then I’d run and hide again and slowly, patiently, take everyone out one by one.

I certainly wouldn’t go running off looking for some boy who might or might not have a crush on me. And as for any small Rue-like contenders, sorry, sweetheart, you’re on your own. I’m here to win.

Once I’d won, I’d take the rifle or dart or crossbow and use it to take President Snow out, thereby ending the Hunger Games once and for all. And then I would declare it Kim Day. The day where, instead of killing each other, children would be chosen from all the districts in Pan Am to make me cake. And I would award the winning cake bakers with more cake!

So I would win the Hunger Games with a Russian semi-automatic sniper rifle. And I would win their hearts with cake.

Where do I volunteer?”

Plan to Defeat: Sneak up behind Kim with a big rock. Hit her with big rock.

Tom Harvey
Our blog’s favourite buttmonkey, Tom Harvey is the bassist of post-sadcore fun pop rock band Hello Bear, who this month released their first album. If you Google Tom’s name and his band’s name, this picture comes up:

I did that

Special Abilities: Is able to eat lead paint without any apparent side effects.

Strategy: “I would initially run to safety, without trying to grab supplies. I would wait for the initial carnage to grind out, from a safe distance (possibly up a tree), and then pick a target from the survivors. I would track them, and attack them when deemed appropriate, using some sort of blunt object (branch, rock etc.). This would be the basis of my general strategy - sucker punching. Pick off individuals tactically by not letting them know of your presence until it's too late. The Barcelone tactic of waiting out the opposition, people will fall to complacency, and then i shall pounce. Alternatively I'll just follow the hardest one, let them kill everyone, then brain them when they're not looking.”

Plan to Defeat: Paint the mouth of a tunnel onto a rock face. Hide behind a boulder. Wait.

What’s your Hunger Games winning strategy? Write it in the comments below and I promise not to use it against you!

Competition Time: Can You Think Of A New Apocalypse?

Yes, it’s competition time at Chris Writes About The End Of The World. We have been given the shiny prize of free tickets for two adults and two children to go to The London Dungeon, where you will be taken underground, shown various horrific and gruesome things and then get a chance to go on various rides that will scare the poop out of you, because here at Chris Writes About The End Of The World we’re still kind of fuzzy about the meaning of the word “prize”.

See the haunted terror in his eyes? That could be you!

“What could I possibly do to deserve this?” you’re probably asking right now.

Well, it would have to be something pretty bad, let’s be honest. We’re thinking, apocalyptically bad. Yes, to get these four tickets to darkness and terror, we want you to come up with a brand new apocalypse. Killer zombies, killer asteroids, killer aliens, killer plagues, killer robots, killer plants, killer words, killer apes and killer dolphins, all the grass dying, nuclear war, global flood, the earth being obliterated to make way for a hyperspace bypass, everything randomly turning into crystals, greygoo (although technically that’s robots), all the men on the planetmysteriously dying, all the women on the planet mysteriously becoming sterile, and whatever it is that’s supposed to happen in the book of Revelation are all pretty played out. I want you to wipe out all human civilisation, leaving nothing more than a few desperate survivors, in the most imaginative and creative way possible.

Suggestions can be as brief as you want (For instance, “a terrifying disease that turns everyone who comes into contact with it into a mime”- OH you can’t have that one now!) although obviously the more detail you put in, the more impressed our panel of judges will be.

The winner will not be burned alive at the stake. Actually, I should probably check that...

Entries will be judges on Originality and Awesomeness. The panel of judges will be made up of me, and some random person I rope into judging the competition once I’ve got all the entries in. The decision of the judges is final and cannot be bought, although this should not stop you from just randomly sending them cakes filled with money.

Send your entries to: chrisfarnell at googlemail.com with the subject line “A Brand New Apocalypse”.

You’ve got two weeks (Until the 24 April) to get your entires in, and the winner will be announced the week after that. So, GO!

#40 La'Beth: Apocalypsing Shakespeare

 Hello! Today we’re going to be getting all cultural at Chris Writes About The End Of The World, looking at an adaptation of a play by William Shakespeare (Who you’ll know of as that guy who appeared in Doctor Who that one time. It was the episode with the witch aliens in it).

A theatre company in London has taken the play Macbeth and put on a version of it set in post-apocalyptic Haiti.

Now, I don’t ask much of my readers because, quite frankly, you’re all pretty obstinate and a unhelpful, but I would ask that you all go and see this play, so that it’s a huge success and they put it on again at a time when I can come and see it.

In the mean time, here’s an interview I had with Georgina Sowerby, who directed the play:

So, before we start, without giving away too many spoilers could you explain what this play's about?
This version is about a bunch of women who've survived a massive disaster and created a new colony on a strange island. One of them, La'Beth/MacBeth has secret fantasies about being in charge, so she and her girlfriend murder Du'Cann/Duncan - the woman who rescued and set up the colony in the first place. Bad Move.

A few men have survived in the surrounding jungle-, They were soldiers who committed terrible acts of violence and have since gone feral taking on the magical properties of the forest. La'Beth/MacBeth goes to visit them, partakes of their mystical poisons, has hallucinations and visions of her future. They seem to promise power and she becomes a killing machine. But beware fortune tellers is all I can say!!

I understand that the play is a reboot of an older play set in medieval Scotland. What was it about medieval Scotland that made you think of post-apocalyptic Haiti?
The Scotland the play was written about was a country of violent tribes all vying for power. The original King MacBeth had power for a fair few years - normally you'd get horribly murdered way before that! Also, in the play, a mix of Christian and pagan religions abounds and nature/fate overtakes all best attempts for humans to control their lives.


My initial motivation was to set it in a place that has a history of suffering turmoil and experienced a mixture of military violence and lawlessness, natural disaster. Also to find a place with a fusion of very potent religions and that's an island containing a great mix of cultures .. Some of our key actors have Afro-Carribbean routes and I was interested in playing around with accents and dialects.

Finally... Zombies. There's a massive theme of possession in the play and there's an interesting thought that zombie stories appear in countries/cultures that have been colonised - where the soul of the people has been abused and stolen from them..

In the original play virtually all the characters were male, save Macbeth's wife and three "weird sisters". In your version you say the cast is all female apart from the "weird brothers". Does that include Lady Macbeth- Is Macbeth a lesbian in this version? Whether or not she is- Why did you decide to make these changes? Is it because political correctness is finally, after all this time, going mad?
The play is super macho - its all about maleness and shame and violence and not being a girl.. the only girls are outsider freaks (witches), an ambitious woman who commits suicide (don't get too ambitious girls!), and a pissed off wife who gets murdered (just stop nagging for christ's sake)... Its interesting to hear all this misogyny now coming out of womens' mouths... And yeh, there's a couple of lesbian angles going on in it - some of the characters would have been gay before the disaster and some of them have been thrown on each other, so to speak.. But mostly I wanted to build this idea of a tight community and the risk maccers takes in wrecking it.


Given the changes you've made to the setting and the characters, have you had to make any changes to the actual text? Will this be a verbatim version of Shakespeare's play, or have you had to make a few rewrites?
We've rewritten some of it - We worked with this amazing writer called Brenda Garrick who's parents are from the Domenican Republic and she's redone all the witches stuff and a bit of the Porter.. I'd have her do more because its brilliant and so lively! But for that we need to raise more funds: its a hell of a lot of work! Plus I changed all the 'he's' to 'she's' and some of the character titles ('sir' becomes 'girl' or 'sis' - 'kinsman' becomes 'woman' - 'lord' becomes 'love' etc) I think it really works - purists will turn in their graves... or walk out of the auditoreum.. Shakespeare however, won't give a shit!!!

Tell us a bit about your cast. Are they all prima donnas who insist on elaborate riders for their dressing rooms? Any huge clashing egos during rehearsals?
There are big egos but they are very motivated by the project. Plus we've worked hard to create an environment which is creative and supportive. It helps having a few males I must say (something about donkeys in the stable;-)?) We do have the fabulous Nikki Kelly who played Sylvia in Hi-di-Hi as our porter. She is very game and a one-off - she's given us some good laughs and laughter is very very important when you're messing with a monster of a play like this!

What's been the highlight of putting the play together?
Seeing something I thought I knew in a totally fresh and dynamic way - thinking things just couldn't work and being surprised when they did. Also seeing Nikki Kelly going into full splits and ripping the arse out of her trousers will remain with me for the rest of time.


And the biggest challenge?
The bloody short time frame!

Finally, let's assume La Beth 2012 is a massive critical and financial success, to the point where you get completely typecast and are only allowed to make sci-fi retellings of Shakespeare plays. What play would you do next, and where would you set it?
I am quite obsessed by having dead characters walk on stage, emerge from under the earth, crawl out of suitcases (see some photos on my website www.dirtymarket.co.uk). Maybe A Midsummer Nights Dream where the lovers fall down rabbit holes and go underground when they get lost in the forest - kinda Pan's Labyrinth style lost amongst the roots of trees... maybe keep with Blighty this time but create a site-specific event where we take the audience under the earth. Anyone know of any potential locations? You got me thinking now!


And one more question (I lied about the finally). As a rule we ask everyone we interview what their zombie survival plan is- so what is it?
This is my single motivating factor for learning to drive.(*books BSM*) Wait a minute aren't they already here? Marxist revolution - start with Cameron/Landsley and Osbourne...  I'm sharpening heavy instruments...  Hang on, how do i know you're not one of them?- I shouldn't be telling you this - now you know my plan... there's someone at the door... aaaaaaarrrrrrrghgghghghghghghghghghghg...

La'Beth is on at the John Lyon Theatre from March 29th to March 31st, you can see their blog here. You can also follow them on twitter.

#39 Gay Marriage: The End of Civilisation

So there’s been a lot of argument kicked up this week on the subject of gay marriage, mainly following an interview and piece in the Telegraph by Catholical cardinal Keith O’Brian, no relation to Richard O’Brien. Keith has upset a lot of people, by comparing the introduction of gay marriage to a return to the slave trade, and by failing to reach a Key Stage 3 level of reading comprehension by being unable to tell the difference between “Men and women have the right to marry” and “Marriage is defined as between a man and a woman”.

O’Brian and his ilk are being left pretty much out in the cold on this one in the UK. First David Cameron, leader of the party that brought Section 28 in all those years ago, is backing gay marriage. Secondly, a survey by a leading market research company has shown 61% of Christians now support gay marriage, results which Richard Dawkins has chosen to interpret as meaning all those people aren’t really Christians, because that’s helpful. Thanks Dick.

Now I’ve been openly bisexual for coming up to half my life, and always hoped that when I met the person I wanted to marry their gender wouldn’t be a legal factor. A few years ago I was extremely proud to be a best man at a civil partnership blessing in a Quaker church, an event which everyone called a Wedding, and ever since we have all referred to that couple as married.

I’m telling you this because I want you to know where I’m coming from when I say that the current opposition to gay marriage isn’t homophobic, and sadly, it’s right. Because recognising gay marriage in this country or elsewhere will bring about the end of civilisation as we know it.

Let’s begin by addressing my first point, surely O’Brian, former Arch Bishop of Canterbury George Carey and, on the other side of the pond, Rick Santorum, hate gays, that’s why they want to stop us from marrying, right? But let’s look at the language they’re using.
They aren’t calling us fags, or talking about how we’re going to burn in hell, or pointing out how when they see two men kiss it makes them feel funny in their tummy and it’s totally gross. Not once have any of them mentioned how much we love to eat the poo poo. If they were using arguments like that, we could all immediately tell they were being homophobic, and then it would be safe to ignore them.

But let’s look at what they’re actually saying. The Coalition for Marriage says “There’s no need to redefine marriage”. Keith O’Brian says “...this proposal is not about rights, but rather is an attempt to redefine marriage for the whole of society at the behest of a small minority of activists” and worries that “the teacher who wants to tell pupils that marriage can only mean – and has only ever meant – the union of a man and a woman” will be called a “heretic” (and when a senior member of the Catholic church starts worrying about people being labelled as heretics, something serious is going down). This piece by the Christian Institute claims a survey showed 70% of people are against redefining marriage. Rick Santorum, who knows a thing or two about redefinition, has said “The Judiciary cannot create life, and it did not create marriage, and it has no right to redefine either one.”

At this point things should be becoming clear to you. This isn’t about adherence to an extremely literal interpretation of a flawed translation of an ancient religious text. This isn’t even about the fact that some people have sex with their bums, and that’s icky. I’m revealing here, now, that the campaign against gay marriage is a front for an ancient brotherhood. Let me make it absolutely clear. When I first started to suspect, I drew an ancient tome from my bookshelf. There I found the words:

“marriage n. 1. Condition of man and woman legally united for purpose of living together and usu. procreating lawful offspring; act or ceremony or procedure establishing this condition;”

That tome was the 1964 edition of The Concise Oxford Dictionary. Do you see now? The real masterminds behind the anti-gay marriage lobby?

The Lexicographers

Language is expanding at an incredible rate, and these brave men and women are barely keeping up with the neologisms, and we want them to go back and redo the words they’ve already finished? And bear in mind, this isn’t the first time that lovers of man-on-man or woman-on-woman action have done this to the Lexicographers.

Once upon a time, as confused old people never hesitate to remind us, “gay” just meant “happy”. “Batty boy” just meant “Boy who looks kind of like a bat” and Sodom was just a town’s name!

"We're gonna need to rewrite a shit load of dictionaries after this..."

Is it really that much of a surprise that that Lexicographers are striking back? And if we force them to redefine this last word, say to something long-winded and politically correct like “a social union or legal contract between people that creates kinship”, they will snap, and strike back at us where it hurts, our language.

This is how our civilisation will end. We’re looking at a nuclear winter of redefinitions. Soon, egregious will mean abstract. Triangular will mean purple. Pineapple will mean Tuesday. The Lexicographers will rip the guts out of our language, so that words lose all meaning and it becomes impossible to have a sensible, rational discourse on any subject.

You need only look at the opposition to gay marriage to see it’s already started to happen.

#38 Five Zombie Movies You Can Watch in Your Lunch Break

A few decades ago George A Romero made an indie horror film on a shoestring budget and changed horror movies forever. If you look at indie horror movies no, you’re going to see quite a few zombie and post-apocalyptic movies among them.

There are plenty of reasons why the post-apocalypse is appealing to film makers without much in the way of cash. Your cast doesn’t have to be that large, on account of most of the people on the planet being dead. Sets aren’t much of a problem either - any construction site, quarry, disused warehouse or high street early enough on a Sunday morning can be made to look like the aftermath of civilisation without a lot of effort. Likewise, when it comes to special effects, you can get your zombie horde with just an economy tub of fake blood.

We’ve looked at horror shorts before, such as Contact, Zombies and Cigarettes and that Lynx advert, and sooner or later we’re going to be taking a look at my acting debut in Alexander Gordon Smith’s zombie short, Sola Gratia.

But here’s a grab bag of some other post-apocalyptic shorts, all on youtube, and all under 15 minutes in length. With careful application of headphones you should be able to watch these from your desk at work, and still have time to go buy and sandwich and use the loo before your lunch break is over.

Romero Zombie Movies

One of the things I secretly love about zombie movies, particularly ones that follow the Romero rules, is the idea that all these stories could be happening at pretty much the same time. There’s strong, geeky appeal in the idea that a bunch of stories take place in the same universe, whether it’s the Star Wars expanded universe, Star Trek, Stephen King’s version of Maine or the theory that pretty much all of TV is a dream in a snow globe being stared at by the autistic kid in St. Elsewhere. So yes, while Night of the Living Dead takes place in the 60s, Dawn of the Dead is overwhelmingly 70s and Shaun of the Dead has people running around with mobile phones, I still like the idea that while Shaun and his buddies are holed up in The Winchester Barbra, Ben and co are trying to fortify their isolated farmhouse.

Zombie shorts are great for this, as they tell smaller, isolated stories about the apocalypse, usually shortly before their characters all die horribly.

I Am Lonely

This short, whose title is probably an homage to I Am Legend, is a great example of how a zero budget production can make use of the zombie apocalypse. The majority of the film takes place with one guy sitting on a sofa, talking to his dead flatmate. It’s a small, sitcommy piece, which is appropriate, since sitcoms and zombie movies are both built around the set up of a bunch of people thrown together, who hate each other.

I Love Sarah Jane

Not a Doctor Who spin-off. This film only features the one zombie, chained up in a back garden. Mainly it’s a story about a kid’s first crush, but it also returns to the recurrent zombie theme that when you have a bunch of people you can horribly, violently murder without legal or moral consequences, it doesn’t bring about the best in us.

Videogame Fan Films

Videogames loves themselves some apocalypse, as we’ve covered before and no doubt will again. The stories in these games are usually told through graffiti, carefully arranged tableaus that players run screaming past or try to shoot, and diaries that have been written and then inexplicably spread over hundreds of square miles. This leaves quite a few gaps for budding film makers to fill in, and rich background histories for them to exploit, and the weird thing is that these films often have great production values, despite the fact that the film makers can’t make any money off their creations without getting themselves sued.

Beyond Black Mesa

When you’re playing the Half Life games you can’t help but feel that there’s a huge back story that’s been written down somewhere, but which no-one has actually got around to telling you. This short continues in that tradition, without much dialogue aside from the voice-over, given by a character from the original Half-Life’s first add-on pack, Opposing Force (Kids- add-on packs are what we used to call DLC). What the short lacks in detailed plot and character, it makes up for with some truly kick-ass fight sequences and amazing special effects. It’s also a good demonstration of how the crowbar is the most badass weapon across the entire Half-Life franchise.

Fallout: Nuka Break

Okay, there aren’t really any zombies here, only ghouls that, while dead and gorified, are also sentient and non-brain-eating. Instead, it’s the story of post-apocalyptic wasteland survivors bickering, shooting people and hunting for soft drinks. They’ve got Fallout’s dark sense of humour down nicely, and have actually gone on to build a whole web series around their characters. It’s worth watching the lot (although this may take several lunch breaks), particularly if you want a Firefly-esque mix of banter, shady dealings and gunfights.

And One Film That Doesn’t Actually Have Any Zombies In It At All

Okay, this film doesn’t have anything even a bit like zombies in, but as its one of the bleakest apocalypse stories I’ve seen so I want to include it anyway:

Connected

Seriously, this film makes The Road look like a heart warming tale of optimism and fluffy bunnies. Not content with mere zombies or nuclear fallout, this film is set in a world where the very air has become toxic. Featuring zero dialogue, it’s short, brutal, and adequately shows what complete shits we can be when our own survival is at stake.

Now I'm not normally one to demand people fill in the comments on here- But if you know of any good post-apocalyptic shorts I've missed, please do let me know below.

#37 The Big Bad: We Interview the Writer, Director and Star

Here at Chris Writes About The End Of The World we usually cover apocalypse fiction, but sometimes we like to venture out in the wider horror genre, such as when we get a chance to interview the creators of a film, or get our mitts on a review copy. This is for two reasons- firstly it makes us feel important, which is much why the blog uses the royal “we” when it’s really obviously written by just one guy, and secondly because we really love free stuff.

For both these reasons, we decided to take a look at The Big Bad, a film that’s been getting awards and nominations across a whole bunch of films festivals, and employing our first ever interviewee, Jeremiah Kipp, as assistant director.

“The Big Bad” is a title that calls up to things to mind- wolves, and end-of-season bad guys from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It doesn’t disappoint, and by the end of the film you’ll had your fill of werewolves and badass monster-killing heroines.

The world is one that modern horror fans will easily recognise- There are things that go bump in the night, and those things now have jobs and families and pay their taxes on time. They form a shadowy, behind the scenes society that’s somewhere between Alcoholics Anonymous and the Mafia. It’s a trope that’ll be familiar to anyone who watches Buffy, or Being Human, or Grimm.

That said, care-free quipping interspersed with the occasional “dramatic” scene is really not what this film’s about. In the world of The Big Bad even the most well-meaning people are all kinds of fucked up. Where Buffy will try to talk about the nastier side of life through the lens of a paranormal metaphor, here there are all kinds of monsters, but they exist alongside all the truly horrible regular things that can fuck up your life, and in the end, those are the worst parts.

Okay, I lied, getting your eye ripped out its socket is the worst part.

The Big Bad’s influences are worn pretty clearly on its sleeve, there’s plenty of Noir in here and a massive dose of Quentin Tarantino (including the obligatory view-from-a-car-boot shot). However, this film doesn’t have the flash and zap of a Tarantino film- there’s barely any soundtrack, and the dialogue is far more naturalistic, so that the end result is this feels more like the sort of thing that would influence Tarantino than the other way round.

Having seen this movie, I got a chance to ask a few questions of the film’s director, Bryan Enk, and the film’s writer and star, Jessi Gotta.

1) We write a lot on this blog about how all writers are stealing from all the other writers. Can you tell us who you've been stealing from to make The Big Bad, and why?

JESSI GOTTA: This was my first script, so I am new to the scene and not aware about the stealing amongst screenwriters? (Although it completely stands to reason that plagiarism does happen.) ...a specific writer doesn't really stand out? The idea and story itself was all developed by Enk and I, but I would say the style of moments were definitely influenced by Quentin Tarantino and Sam Raimi... maybe hints of David Lynch.

BRYAN ENK: In developing the script and story with Jessi, I was definitely coming from a director's point of view, so a lot of my input was based on a certain kind of image or a specific kind of tone/atmosphere that I wanted to get across (or at least try to). I think the distinct two-act structure of Tarantino's DEATH PROOF and FROM DUSK TILL DAWN was always something I was thinking of in terms of their sudden tone and content shifts in their respective second acts, even though THE BIG BAD ended up having three acts. And, with us both coming from theatre, I've often referenced playwrights such as Sam Shepard and Tracy Letts when describing the story -- their often surrealist flourishes were definitely influences.

2) Like the TV series Ultraviolet, and so many zombie movies we've made it a drinking game rule, in The Big Bad you never actually name the monster, although anyone who knows a bit about horror will know which monster comes out at full moon, dislikes silver and infects others with its bites. (It's Sasquatch isn't it? This is a sasquatch movie?) Why did you decide to go down this route, running the entire length of the film without naming the monster?

Pictured: Possibly sasquatch

BE: I don't think that was a conscious decision on our part but rather a natural result of the whole process of developing the script. It might have something to do with the fact that there might be something inherently goofy with the term "werewolf," or that the film ultimately approaches monsters (and the idea of something "monstrous") on a heavily metaphorical level (as well as a literal one). I think at some point we realized that our film might be more of a supernatural mystery than a "horror movie," and not naming the monster added to that sense of approaching it as a detective story.

3) Jessi, you produced, wrote and starred in this film. At what point did you decide to take on the lead role, and how much did it influence the writing process. Did you find yourself saying "I want to stab a werewolf (or possibly sasquatch) a whole bunch of times" or "You know, I think I would look bitching in an eyepatch"?

JG: It was always the plan for me to play a lead in the film and for Bryan to direct; what was not planned was me writing it. Looking bitching in an eyepatch was just a coincidence.

Coincidence, suuuuure...

BE: One of my earlier story pitches to Jessi as we were doing our first round of brainstorming was an idea for a short film that I had been mulling over for a while called THAT HAIRY MOTHERFUCKER, which was going to be just ten straight minutes of a woman and a werewolf beating the crap out of each other in the desert with no explanation or context whatsoever. I don't think the actual pitch went into much more detail than that. I had no potential "plot" for it beyond that; Jessi took it and ran with it, and from that came THE BIG BAD.

4) There's also quite a lot of fairytale imagery going on here, with your red-haired protagonist going up against an adversary who has the words "Big" and "Bad" prefixing his name, passing into a hidden world full of various threats and traps. Hollywood's latest thing seems to be fairytales at the moment, at least until they've hashed out a script for the Connect 4 movie. Do you think there's a reason for that, and what do you think makes for a good or bad use of fairytale imagery in movies?

BE: Fairy tales look to definitely be the new "comic book movie." It seems pretty inevitable -- like comic books, they're properties with huge built-in fan bases and all the creative heavylifting has already been done, so all Hollywood has to do is swoop in with a few million bucks and a handful of at least semi-clever twists with which to call it "revisionist" and you've got yourself a blockbuster. I think they've just gotten started, though, and it's too early to tell what might make for "good" or "bad" imagery or approaches. I think it has the potential to be completely polarizing, though -- SNOW WHITE AND THE HUNTSMAN looks amazing whereas MIRROR MIRROR… does not.

5) Finally - It's the zombie apocalypse. What's your survival strategy?

BE: I recently attended the Anchorage International Film Festival where I saw an animated zombie short called YEAR ZERO. It's the first zombie movie I've ever seen that made me feel like I just wouldn't make it under such circumstances. With zombie movies like NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD and DAWN OF THE DEAD, you put yourself into the shoes of the survivors and kind of watch the story through their eyes. Something about YEAR ZERO made me identify more with the ex-roommate locked in the bathroom (who's now a zombie) or the many zombie hordes stumbling around New York City than with the rogue survivor. Great short, though the whole time watching it I was thinking, "Man, I wouldn't make it through this. I'd be one of the zombies." So I have no survival strategy whatsoever!

JG: One word: houseboat.

***

It has to be said, houseboat is one of the smarter zombie survival plans I’ve heard.

Currently The Big Bad is touring the festivals. If you happen in be in the States, you might be lucky enough to catch it at one of these festivals:

DC Independent Film Festival, Washington, D.C. - Friday, March 2

Charlotte Film Festival, Charlotte, NC - Monday, March 26

Brooklyn Girl Film Festival, Brooklyn, NY - Friday, March 30

I’ll let you know if a chance to view it on this side of the pond comes up anytime soon as well. If you get the chance, it’s definitely worth checking out.