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Matt's Five Favorite Zombie Moments # 1: The Sad Death of Frank, 28 Days Later...

6/26/2013

I'm going to end this month long tribute to zombies in pop culture on a different note than the rest of my entries. For the most part I have embraced moments that have made me laugh as much as they made me recognize the awesomeness of the zombie subgenre of horror (and, on occasion, proved pretty damn scary). I would like to end this month, however, with what I want to recognize as a moment that is both underrated and tremendously sad from one of the new classics of the genre, 28 Days Later... . (For another tremendously sad zombie movie moment, please check out my wife Fiona's blog here, as she takes on one of the all-time classic moments from Night of the Living Dead)

28 Days Later... takes place in an England ravaged by a virus called Rage that transforms people into bloodthirsty cannibals. While not strictly dead (they can be killed by pretty much any conventional means), they are fast, vicious and mindless and are among the creepiest zombies put onscreen.

The bright red eyes help a lot in this department.

Most of the attention that is paid to this movie are to the first and third acts, and deservedly so. The first act, featuring our protagonist, Jim, who has missed the apocalypse thanks to a coma and wakes up in a completely abandoned London, is one of the creepiest extended scenes in movie history. Having actually been to London and seen a lot of the places featured in this film, it is truly amazing and eerie to see them completely abandoned (without the aid of visual effects to boot!). The third act, after Jim has joined up with a small band of survivors, is perhaps the best-executed "man is the real monster" endings in zombie movies, as the military men who save our heroes show their true colors and their true desires for how they want to live in a post-apocalyptic world.

I know it comes as a huge surprise that a guy who looks like this proves untrustworthy.

Often ignored, however, is the film's second act, which despite having the odd Rage Zombie pop up here and there, is actually kind of a sweet, family road trip style diversion.

They could almost be the Griswolds, if the Griswolds offed zombies with machetes.

At this point in the movie, Jim and another survivor he's met, Selena, run into a father and daughter, Frank and Hannah, living in apartment tower in London. They're good-hearted people, but not as well-suited for the zombie apocalypse as they could be. Though they're reluctant to join forces, the fact that Frank has access to a cab and they have a working radio that has picked up a broadcast from a military unit promising safety in the countryside, Jim and Selena decide to tag along. The middle act of this movie, after a thrilling escape from the city, then becomes something of a road trip adventure, where we see this group bond and really come to like each other as they loot grocery stores and have some small side adventures. They even allow themselves to relax for a short while, breaking through the shells of most of the survivors. Jim no longer feels alone in the world, tough and stoic Selena starts cracking a smile, Hannah can start acting like a kid again, and Frank, despite his responsibilities to the group and his daughter, allows himself to see the beauty that still exists in the world.

Stopping to watch some wild horses frolicking across the moors is not something you usually see in a zombie movie.

However, the peace and beauty of this little trip isn't to last. When they reach the roadblock where the military is supposed to be waiting, they find it abandoned, save for a few dead bodies. Frustrated that this journey had been for naught, Frank yells at his daughter and storms off. Seeing a crow on a platform above him, munching on the dead body of one of the infected, Frank yells at it and kicks the platform, causing the crow to fly off, and a single drop of blood to hit him in the eye.

Damned crows.

He knows this is a death sentence, and that he has, at best, 30 seconds before he joins the infected and tries to kill his newly formed family. Hannah comes to him, and sadly he apologizes for yelling at her a few moments before. At that he starts yelling and shrieking for her to keep away as he starts seizing and spitting, shrieking the whole way as he is transformed, while Selena pleads for Jim to kill him in front of his daughter before he completely turns and comes after them. Jim hesitates, because he likes Frank and doesn't want to scar his daughter for life, but he prepares to kill him just as Frank turns completely... and is promptly shot to death by the military who had been hiding and watching this whole scene go down.

It's a sad turn of events leading into a dark, twisted path of an ending, in one of the best zombie films in recent memory, and a completely deserving contender for my # 1 favorite zombie moment.

Goodbye, Frank, you will be missed.

So has a zombie movie ever made you cry? What is your favorite zombie movie moment? Sound off in the comments!

As always, please take the time to like me on Facebook or follow me on Twitter! I’m big into liking/following back, so just drop me a line!

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World War Z (The Movie) Review, or, "Please Stop Telling Us How Awesome Brad Pitt is, We Knew That Coming In, You Don't Have to Scream It At Us"

6/22/2013

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Whenever I go into a movie I’m pretty sure I’m not going to like, or that has received some pretty awful reviews, I go in telling myself, “I’m going to see this with an open mind.” Ideally this should be the mindset of any reviewer, because if you go into a movie knowing exactly what you’re going to think of it going out, then why bother going in the first place? Still, though, over time this saying has gone from something I say to actually open my mind, to something I say defensively, something that protects me in the event I actually don’t like what I’m watching so I can say, “Well, I gave it a fair chance, AND IT FAILED ME!!!” It’s stupid, it’s childish, and it is probably something I will do until the end of time.

I only start with this semi-crazy-sounding rant because I don’t believe there’s ever been a movie I have done that more for than World War Z. Going in, it had a lot that made me nervous. First, it was an adaptation of what might be my favorite book of all time, and a very, very loose-looking adaptation at that if the running, swarming zombies were any indication. Second, it had a very troubled, very public production, with numerous problems and a complete third-act reshoot that very rarely bodes well for a movie. Third… PG-13! Who the hell makes a PG-13 zombie movie? I mean, The Walking Dead gets away with this, barely, but… come on! Zombies! Blood!

So what I’m saying is, I was a bit nervous going into it. By all rights I probably should have stayed away, but it has zombies, and it has Brad Pitt, both of which are things I enjoy in a movie, so I wanted to give it a chance. So I sat down with my wife at the wildly overpriced 3D showing of the movie, I unplugged my brain for a while, and I watched World War Z.

And you know what? I enjoyed the hell out of myself. I could point out everything wrong with the movie (and boy there is a lot of that), but like a low-quality roller coaster I still found myself exhilarated and thrilled by the experience just enough that I could excuse the fact that the lapbar kept disengaging during some of the loops.

Despite the grand scope of the movie, the plot is very slight. Brad Pitt plays Gerry Lane, a former UN Investigator, now a family man (not that they matter much) who is called upon to find out just what caused a worldwide epidemic of the undead in the hopes of finding a cure. The next 90 minutes are basically a series of excuses to show us just how awesome and capable Brad Pitt is, mostly in his ability at saving people’s lives, being an awesome zombie slayer, and just how noble he is in willing to sacrifice himself at a moment’s notice. This is fine and all, for a while, but toward the end it became something of a running joke between my wife and myself, where we would say, “We already know Brad Pitt is awesome, you don’t have to keep shouting this at us!”

Still, Brad Pitt and his greasy haircut aside, this is a very enjoyable movie. The scale of the first two acts is impressive, while the third act’s more restrained, more classic zombie movie tone is a bit jarring, I think it worked overall as it built tremendous tension. Honest to god, this movie’s a lot scarier than I expected and a lot scarier than it had any reason to be. While a good chunk of this came from some very well-executed jump scares, the constant, unending nature of the zombie hordes (which have been reimagined here as fast-moving, swarm insect-like creatures) is truly frightening, like watching a force of nature at work. The viral nature of these zombies is more present than ever, as they aren’t really interested in eating people, but rather just biting people and moving on so they can spread the virus to as many as possible. Though this is a bit jarring at first to the zombie media soaked mind, seeing them take running leaps at people, unmindful of their own safety is a pretty cool, creepy image.

As well, the setpiece sequences of this movie are well-executed as they should be in any blockbuster. The early sequences of Philadelphia quickly being overrun are creepy and awful in a traditional zombie movie, end of the world sort of way, while the zombie hordes breaking into the walled cities of Israel really allowed the film to show off what kind of zombie movie could be made with a really huge budget. Again, the third act, taking place in a World Health Organization facility in Wales, is a bit slower, a bit more traditional zombie movie than the global scale of the rest, but is tremendously creepy when it wants to be.

So, it’s an enjoyable movie, which is great. Now for the problems.

More than anything, World War Z reeks of a movie that doesn’t know what it wants to be. At first it seems to want to just use the title to tell the story of a global zombie epidemic but with a unique story all its own, but then we get some heavy callbacks to the book including a character who actually recites a few paragraphs of dialogue. Then, when it tries to tie itself into the book, it breaks with the story and creates a zombie plague that is nothing like what the book tried to portray, nor a comparable world response.

As well, I have to put a complaint out there about Brad Pitt’s family in the movie, that complaint being that he shouldn’t have had one in the first place. His wife and children offer nothing to the plot other than something for him to occasionally angst over at best, or something to actively put them in danger (repeatedly) at worst. The fact that they’re sidelined for two-thirds of the movie and we’re still forced to check in with them every so often even though they are doing nothing of consequence is, from a storytelling standpoint, weird.

Also, I will say that the movie didn’t take the greatest advantage of its attempt at a global scale. While the attacks we see are big, many of the international locations (including a South Korean army base, in a rainstorm, at night, and Wales) are not the most exotic to look at, and kind of squander its global potential. The Israel stuff was pretty cool though, I’ll give them that.

And for that ending, we’re going to have to enter… THE SPOILER ZONE!

(SPOILERS AHEAD)

(SPOILERS AHEAD)

(SPOILERS AHEAD)

All right, about that ending. In this movie, Brad Pitt, because he’s awesome ya know, quickly deduces that the zombies in this movie only infect healthy targets and will actively pass by people with any chronic or potentially life-threatening medical conditions, and with the help of some World Health Organization scientists figures out that by purposefully infecting ourselves with a fatal disease and then curing it, we can make ourselves invisible to zombies. On paper, I gotta say this sounds kinda cool and at the very least sounds like it has some basis in science. The more I think about it, however, the more it seems to unravel.

If anyone with a life-threatening illness is ignored, we probably would’ve seen a lot more people being passed up by the zombies. Chronic smokers and drinkers would probably be ignored, not to mention anyone with cancer, or heart disease, or any number of other conditions. Large portions of the world infected with HIV and AIDS would be immune. I’m pretty sure any leading minds with a set of eyes and a cell phone would have figured this solution out a lot sooner than Brad Pitt, who doesn’t have a medical degree as far as we know.

It also adds a rather sad tone to the orphan Brad Pitt rescues, Tomas. One of the first times we see this boy, he’s in an apartment with its door being knocked down by the living dead, and he is trapped inside with his parents. The next time we see him, he’s running to Brad Pitt completely ignored by the zombies, and his parents are chasing the rest of them down, now firmly among the ranks of the living dead. While it’s possible that Tomas may just have been faster than the zombies (which seems unlikely), it might be wise of Brad Pitt to tell the boy that he probably has cancer.

(END SPOILERS)

(END SPOILERS)

(END SPOILERS)

All griping aside, I gotta say I enjoyed the hell out of World War Z. It’s got its problems and it’s nothing like the book, but as summer popcorn movies go, you could do a lot worse.

Anyone else out there see the movie? Have any thoughts on it?

As always, please take the time to like me on Facebook or follow me on Twitter! I’m big into liking/following back, so just drop me a line!

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World War Z (The Book) Review

6/22/2013

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Max Brooks is a fascinating writer, and one who takes his work very seriously. Some might even say too seriously. I remember seeing him speak once at a Fangoria convention a few years back, and he is one of the most passionate defenders I have ever seen of the old-school, slow, viral-style zombies. He was funny, well-spoken, and loved shooting down anyone who would try to suggest that vampires or masked killers might be superior to zombies as horror movie villains (his rationale: you have to find most of those monsters, while zombies will always come down to finding you). I don't have the exact transcript of what was said that day, so I will have to paraphrase this next part, but I remember him saying, "You know that guy who's always sitting at the back of the movie theatre loudly complaining about how this or that is inaccurate? You all hate that guy, right? Well, I'm that guy." It got a good laugh. A few minutes later my wife and I got him to sign our copies of World War Z and The Zombie Survival Guide. I can honestly say that was the highlight of the whole convention, and I'm saddened by how few people were there in attendance of his portion.

I know that was a weird tangent to start out with, but I wanted to get into that before I went into my review of World War Z to offer some context. You see, I used to love reading zombie stories back in the day, and after the first half-dozen or so stories you realize they all roughly had the same formula: the world's either going to hell or has already gone to hell, a group of survivors rallies together, they find a hideaway, they barricade in, they start infighting, zombies overwhelm the defenses, a small portion of survivors manage to escape into an uncertain world. Sure, there's a lot of variety to be had if you really go looking, but at their core most zombie stories are small, personal stories with very little sense of scope beyond the boarded up windows of whatever novelty shelter our survivors are in. World War Z is anything but a standard zombie story. Brooks takes on the zombie apocalypse at a truly global scale, told as an after-action collection of interviews, featuring dozens of stories from people of all walks of life from all different parts of the world, all of whom offer unique horror stories of what happened to them in the days leading up to, during and after a zombie apocalypse that humanity barely won (and in some countries, won may not exactly be the right word).

His stories and characters are truly all over the place. We hear a lot from politicians and military commanders who either tried to prevent this from getting out of hand, or never believed it was a problem in the first place. A long time is spent with a schizophrenic South African war criminal who just so happens to be a messiah of sorts, whose Apartheid-inspired plan may very well have saved the world. Even more time is spent with people on the ground, from soldiers to civilians to even the odd celebrity who managed to make it through the undead apocalypse and tried to find some way to use their skills. We hear stories of true cowardice and moral decay, like the pharmaceutical executive who profits off of a fake cure at the begin of the plague, and stories of inspiration and bravery, like the defenders of Paris, fighting in the submerged catacombs with limited supplies and the astronauts who stayed behind on the International Space Station so they could keep the crucial satellite network working, even though it probably meant starving to death.

Max Brooks' study of history and technical detail is extensive, and offers perhaps the most realistic tale of what would happen to a world besieged by the living dead. It isn't a pretty picture, with cruelty and borderline (and sometimes not-so-borderline) fascism being necessary means to an end for most countries to pull themselves up and defeat the living dead. It isn't a fun book, though it is fun in places, and it takes some dedication to get through at points. I won't call all the stories within classics, as there are a few that run on a little too long, and others I'd like to hear more of are a bit on the short side.

A few truly minor, trivial complaints aside, I cannot speak highly of this book enough. World War Z is the zombie novel. Read it if you love history, global politics, or just a good old-fashioned zombie story.

The World War Z movie comes out this week, and though it appears to be based on the novel in name only, I intend to go in with an open mind. It could be awesome, it could be terrible, but for the most part I am just hoping to be entertained and call it a day, knowing that sometime in the next 20 years or so someone else will get the rights to the property and might make a more faithful adaptation. (Note: I wrote this review days before actually seeing the movie. Please excuse my late posting on it.)

So any other WWZ fans out there? Are you looking forward to, or dreading, the movie? As always, please take the time to like me on Facebook or follow me on Twitter! I’m big into liking/following back, so just drop me a line!

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Matt's Five Favorite Zombie Moments # 2: Dial Z For Zombies, The Simpsons

6/18/2013

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Oh man, I used to be the biggest fan of The Simpsons back in the day. Throughout most of middle school I had an obsessive knowledge of the ins and outs of the show and could quote pretty much every background joke off the top of my head. Mind you, this was back when they only had about 8 seasons to their name and it was fairly easy to do this. I haven't watched the show regularly for more than 10 years, and I won't get into the argument as to whether or not The Simpsons should still be on the air (my short answer: they probably shouldn't be, but I admire anyone with that kind of longevity). I have, however, always made it a point to catch their annual Treehouse of Horror episodes they always air around Halloween time (oftentimes a few weeks after Halloweentime). They aren't always scary, but they are usually some of the show's funniest episodes.

But when they are scary, they're the stuff of flippin' nightmares.

Their third Halloween Special would have to be among my favorites, as all three of its tales of (almost) terror are instant classics. Clown Without Pity takes on the killer doll genre, King Homer is an awesome parody of King Kong, and Dial Z For Zombies has always been among my favorite parodies of the zombie genre. In fact, the way it still makes me laugh so consistently after close to 20 years earns it the # 2 spot on my countdown.

As with most of their Halloween episode vignettes, the plot here is very slight. Bart is given an F on a book report he did on a pop-up book for toddlers and is told to read a more age-appropriate book. After determining that Waldo just isn't trying hard enough anymore, he stumbles across Springfield Elementary School Library's Occult Section, which for the life of me I'm certain is the basis for the Restricted Section of Hogwarts.

With books that scream and fly and can turn people into snails.

Bart picks up a spellbook that looks like fun and takes it home where he hears his sister, Lisa, bemoaning the death of their cat one year ago. Naturally Bart offers to use his book to resurrect the dead cat, and naturally something goes awry as he uses the wrong spell and raises the dead from the nearby cemetery as brain-hungry zombies.

It could happen to anyone.

What comes next are some of the most awesomely quotable and weird jokes The Simpsons ever pulled off in their first years. I could go on long rants explaining why each of these moments is hilarious, but that would take away from the purity of these moments. That being said, please enjoy this assortment of some of my favorite quotes and moments from Dial Z For Zombies with minimal commentary.

LISA: Dad, we did something very bad! HOMER: Did you wreck the car?

BART: No.

HOMER: Did you raise the dead?

LISA: Yes.

HOMER: But the car's okay?

BART & LISA: Uh-huh.

HOMER: All right then.

(Groundskeeper Willie is patting down some dirt near the school with a shovel.)

WILLIE: There, pretty as a picture!

(Zombies burst out and walk away.)

WILLIE: ACK! ZOMBIES!

(Looks back and forth, pats the dirt down.)

WILLIE: There, pretty as a picture!

I know this moment may not sound all that funny on paper, but considering the fact that the zombies burst from dirt that Willie has just freshly shoveled, I have to imagine he was burying bodies at the exact moment the zombie apocalypse began. I always knew Willie wasn't one to be trusted...

(Upon being told there might be a book at the library that might end the zombie menace, Homer pulls out a shotgun)

HOMER: To the book depository!

This scene will always make me laugh. Always.

(A number of zombie celebrities run for Homer)

HOMER: So long, Washington! Eat lead, Einstein! Show's over, Shakespeare!

ZOMBIE SHAKESPEARE: Is this the end of zombie Shakespeare?

(It is.)

I'd point out how unlikely it is that all these people were buried in Springfield, but given Springfield's proud history of graverobbing, I think it's entirely possible they'd have borrowed all of them over time.

And now, for my favorite joke of the entire segment...

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10 Random Things I Love About Jurassic Park

6/13/2013

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Jurassic Park was, hands down, the most important movie of my childhood. I was a huge dinosaur nut before I went in, with hundreds of toys, posters and even bedsheets dedicated to these ancient reptiles. And then when my dad told me that there would be a movie coming out soon where dinosaurs came to life, well, you might as well have told me Christmas was coming early this year. Of course, he had a condition on letting me see it. He heard it might be a bit scary, and to make sure I could handle it he gave me the book to read first. So, seven year old Matt Carter sat down and read a 300 page book full of technobabble, swearing and graphic violence cover to cover (I really wonder sometimes if my dad had actually read it before giving it to me), and he got to see his dinosaur movie, and he loved it! Over the next few months he dragged his dad and various adult family friends who would indulge him to see the movie at least a dozen more times (I've honestly lost count). The years 1993 through 1997 were dedicated to obsessing over just how awesome its sequel The Lost World would be (the answer: not as awesome, but still fun). As an annual pass holder to Universal Studios, I can swear to the fact that I rode Jurassic Park: The Ride more than 100 times, even taking a sign with me on my 100th ride so I could get a picture of myself holding it up to the camera on the drop.

So, yeah, you could say I had dinosaurs on the brain for quite some time.

As interests come and go, my obsession with Jurassic Park gradually transitioned to an obsession with nerddom in general and horror more specifically, but it has always held a warm place in my heart. Earlier this year, during its 3D rerelease into theatres, I took my wife to see it, and I am more than happy to report that the magic was still there. The movie still could make me feel like that kid, just sitting back and saying "wow" as dinosaurs came to life on screen. So, to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the release of one of the greatest summer movies of all time, I'd like to show off my list of 10 random things I've always loved, mixed with a few things I've learned to love as a cynical adult, about Jurassic Park. Enjoy!

1. The first time we really see a dinosaur

What people tend to forget is that, until Jurassic Park came out, CGI wasn't particularly refined and couldn't create convincing living things worth a damn. The first time we truly see one with the slow reveal of the Brachiosaur munching on a tree, and back in the day I can say without hesitation that it took all our breaths away. Again, fast forward to seeing this movie in theaters this year, now with my wife instead of my father, this scene made me feel like a kid again. I have no shame in admitting that there were a few tears in my eyes.

2. The long, drawn out way Muldoon yells "Shoot her!" during the first raptor attack

"Shoooooooot heeeeeeeer!" Come on, don't tell me you didn't hear that line in that voice right as I wrote it.

You did.

3. Ray Arnold's offscreen death

Back before he was the Samuel L. Jackson we know and love, Samuel L. Jackson used to die a lot in movies. His death in Jurassic Park is second only to his death in Deep Blue Sea in sheer violence/awesomeness, but when you look at it, it's pretty ridiculous. I mean, dinosaurs are loose and have already killed a few people, but nobody bats an eye when he volunteers to go outside, on his own, to restore power. I guess they must've been annoyed with how many times he told them to hold onto their butts.

4. Gennaro's less than offscreen death

I remember people cheering so loudly when the cowardly lawyer was killed on the toilet back in 1993. Flash forward twenty years to the theatrical rerelease, people still cheered.

It also leads to one of my favorite movie exchanges of all time:

"I think this was Gennaro."
"I think this was too."

5. The Dilophosaurus

I don't care if science can't prove if it spits poison and can actively disprove its frill. I've always loved how insane and creepy this dinosaur was.

6. The sudden, completely random, bottomless pit that appears during the T-Rex attack

One minute we have a downed electrical fence leading into the T-Rex's paddock, the next it's a more-or-less bottomless pit our heroes must traverse. I caught this goof when I was seven and it's distracted me ever since, but I get a kick out of it all the same.

7. How little impact the dinosaurs breeding subplot adds

They'd like us to think that this is a bigger plot point than it is (the serious music tells us so), but it isn't, as it is immediately forgotten right after its introduced. Usually that kind of oversight irks the hell out of me, but here it's so weird and out of place it always makes me laugh a little.

8. Jeff Goldblum

I'm pretty sure he just showed up on set one day and they just decided to film him, editing all of this footage together until they had all of his scenes and roughly created a character around him.

I'm OK with that if you guys are.

9. The Opening Trumpet blast as the helicopter's swooping in on the island

Fun story. Dad and I first saw this movie up on Universal Studios Citywalk back when it was brand new in 1993. They went all out for this movie's release, including a life-sized mockup of the Jurassic Park gates by the front of the theater and a few of the vehicles they used. When we finally took our seats in what at the time I was convinced was the biggest movie theater in the world, a very quiet, middle-aged British gentleman and his wife sat down in front of us. He asked my dad if they had good seats, and knowing the theater well enough, dad said yes. The gentleman said that was good, because he wanted to make sure he could hear well. Curious, dad asked why. The gentleman said it was because he'd played an instrument in the orchestra for the film, and he was nervous about how he finally sounded. It turned out that he was the lead trumpeter for Jurassic Park's score, and the moment the soundtrack really kicks ass with that trumpet solo when the helicopter swoops in, his wife started pounding him on the arm and cheering excitedly. Dad and I couldn't stop laughing and cheering with her.

True story.

10. The wildly improbable finale

So, our heroes are cornered in the visitor center by a couple of raptors, they're about to be ripped to shreds, and then... IN COMES THE T-REX TO SAVE THE DAY! Everyone lives (except the raptors), the triumphant theme music kicks in, and all is well. Sure, there's the fact that nobody saw or heard or felt the T-Rex enter this room, which might be a little bit odd, but who cares? IN COMES THE T-REX TO SAVE THE DAY!

Please tell me I'm not the only kid who thought the summer of 1993 was the most awesome time to be alive. If you remember and love Jurassic Park, or have your own favorite random moment from it, sound off in the comments below!

And of course, as always, please take the time to like me on Facebook or follow me on Twitter! I’m big into liking/following back, so just drop me a line!

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Matt's Five Favorite Zombie Moments # 3: Celebrities vs. the Living Dead, World War Z

6/11/2013

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I know my last few posts have been a bit on the long side, so I'll try to keep this one short and sweet.

There's every chance that Max Brooks' World War Z is my favorite book. I'm not entirely sure as it's been in a battle royale with The Stand and Animal Farm for quite some time in my mind, but it's a very strong contender all the same. It is the sweeping epic of the zombie genre, taking a truly global look at the zombie apocalypse in a way that had never comprehensively been done before. We get individual stories from people around the world, covering almost every political, scientific and combat-related aspect of a worldwide war against the living dead. I can go on and on about all my favorite things about this book (and will in a review to be posted later this month), but for the sake of this month's list, I vowed to choose just one moment.

And no, it's sadly not Mark Hamill's awesome performance on the audio book.

There were a lot of contenders that have always gotten to me, from the story of ill-equipped American refugees having to resort to cannibalism in the frozen Canadian north, to a British gentleman's treatise on why castles won the war in Europe. A member of the French resistance's horror stories about fighting in the Parisian catacombs still gives me the chills, while the story of some abandoned astronauts fighting to survive in the near-empty International Space Station gets consideration for its sheer oddity. However, the part that wins out for me is, without a doubt, the story of celebrity bodyguard T. Sean Collins.

Who, if they ever make a faithful movie adaptation of the book, I sincerely hope is played by Bruce Campbell.

T. Sean is, for lack of a better word, a mercenary, and is damn good at his job. When the Great Panic begins to sweep across America and the dead start to take over, he is hired by a rich bigwig to help guard a bunch of the rich and famous in a specially built mansion/fortress on Long Island. Liking the money and safety this opportunity provides, he agrees to take the job and from here, well, you can get a fairly good handle of what Max Brooks thinks of celebrity culture.

Something like this.

T. Sean goes into fairly graphic detail talking about how awful these celebrities, their entourages and all the reporters who follow them are. He doesn't name names, not really, but the descriptions are detailed enough that you can get a fair idea of which celebutantes and high-paid prima donnas he's tearing apart. He looks on them with disdain as they arrogantly party and broadcast a live web feed of life within this fortified mansion to those struggling to survive on the outside, as clearly none of them have ever read Masque of the Red Death.

I'd post some pictures of these celebrities, but really, I'd rather not give them more press. Enjoy this picture of an orangutan hugging some leopards instead.

It comes as no surprise that when the walls of this palace finally fall, it is not due to the living dead, but the poor few on the outside who just want the safety this mansion all but guarantees. The mercenaries refuse to fight the living, and the celebrities, in an effort to protect their reputations, try to fight off the invaders with no success. The fact that pretty much all of the entourages mutiny and join in on the celebrity slaughter is icing on the cake.

Though would you really turn your back on anyone with scissors (and stock photo lines) like that?

There are many greater moments in this book and a lot more that are more epic or iconic, but for the life of me this part of the book never ceases to give me a grim chuckle.

So, what are your thoughts on World War Z? Enjoy the book? Curious/afraid to see what the movie will be like?

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I Survived The (More or Less) Great Horror Campout!

6/10/2013

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(NOTE 1: I apologize in advance for how long this entry is, but The Great Horror Campout is worth a detailed description. I take some storytelling liberties to spice things up a bit, because what can I say, I’m a horror guy, but everything you are about to read about actually did happen to us on that fateful night.)

(Note 2: I also apologize for the lack of pictures, as their security guys were very much against us taking pictures of the event. We snuck a few in, but could only get so many.)

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June 8, 2013

Tonight we are taking part in The Great Horror Campout, a horror experience that promises to be like no other. By the time you, dear readers, see these words, the experience will already be over and done, but I just wanted to get this out of the way beforehand so I can give an honest introduction.

I first heard about The Great Horror Campout from a co-worker of mine about a month ago. He knows how Fiona and I basically live to make Halloween a year-round, fully immersive experience, and after catching an ad for this he knew this was right up our alley. After reading the description of it, I knew it was something we had to do. In short, The Great Horror Campout is supposed to be a live-action, fully immersive, 12 hour long horror movie. Situated in a park in Los Angeles, we will be camping overnight in tents while completely surrounded by actors dressed as monsters who will do everything to scare the ever-loving crap out of us. This is no ordinary Halloween-maze style experience, as these actors are allowed to grab, harass and kidnap us as they see fit (we are given a safe word, as screaming "I want my mommy" will automatically make them desist). They can break into our tents and cart us off, locking us in cages with bags over our heads. If this experience is even half as intense as they're advertising it, we're in for some good scares. Of course, if we want to we could just spend time in the safe zone, watching horror movies and roasting marshmallows, but where would the fun in that be?

On top of all this, however, the experience is one big game. The main event of the night is The Hell Hunt, a scavenger hunt with a prize of free golden passes to this October's LA Haunted Hayride. Hidden around a variety of staged, horror movie themed sections of the event, are grotesque items (called SCAG) that we have to suffer to properly collect. We might have to dig through roadkill, or bathe in blood, or be partially buried alive in a voodoo ritual. Collect enough items and we win. However, if we are captured by any number of the monsters lurking through these areas, these items may be bartered for our freedom.

Each tent is made to fit four people, and if you do not have a full group, more people can be assigned to you at random. Knowing this, I enlisted an old high school friend of mine, Ashley, and her fiancé, Patrick. They immediately signed on to join us in our tent, and I must say we make the perfect cast of horror movie archetypes, with Patrick as "The Jock", Ashley as "The Oddball", Fiona as "The Blonde" and myself as "The Nerd". We have printed up our provided dossiers of clues for the Hell Hunt, we are studying the (alleged) weaknesses of the monsters to hope to avoid capture, and we are wondering just how bloody we will be by the end of the night. I will try to take notes and pictures as time permits, but as of yet, I cannot guarantee our survival. If these notes are found, and I am not, please send a rescue party with torches, and pitchforks, and shotguns, and holy water, and...

Well, you get the idea.

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8:00 pm - After entering the field where the event takes place, we are accosted by a few of this camp's "counselors", mutated freaks with poor southern accents. They offer to help us, but look more pleased with sneaking up on us and occasionally grabbing us promising fun times later. We are soon accosted by another unpleasant fact: our tent is missing. It appears that all of the assigned tents in our section have been misnumbered. This night is not off to a great start.

8:22 pm. - The tent situation has finally been sorted out, and the four of us find our new home for the night. It is cramped and barely able to hold four people, but we vow to manage on through for the night. Surely our closeness and numbers must keep us safe from the horrors outside, right? Our tent is close to the center of the tent area, near a tower with a loudspeaker and a cage at its base, blaring loud music that should make sleep difficult. Any illusion of safety in our position is immediately thrown out the window when our tent is attacked by a mutant, shaking the outside and unzipping the flap, partially coming in and warning us to watch out for the weirdoes. We do not take his warning lightly.

The four of us in happier times.

8:35 pm. - The Hell Hunt will not begin for another hour and a half. As we are a competitive lot, we decide to spend our time scouting the area, getting a lay of the land. The Hell Hunt is fenced off by an imposing wooden wall, while we soon find some of the many massive stretches of empty ground hiding treasure troves of loose SCAG. We quickly find some used band-aids and rubber worms, and after confirming these to be valid SCAG items and not just refuse left around the park, we continue scouting, confident in our chances of victory. This confidence will not last very long.

The more we wander, the more we see people wandering in the dark, methodically searching the ground with their flashlights and occasionally grabbing at pieces of trash. It reminds me of a crime scene, possibly a plane crash as investigators search for clues.

9:00 pm. - We are summoned to the bonfire area by the Headmaster, by far the most articulate of all the mutant counselors wandering around. He announces the rules of the night and the hunt, mostly involving not touching the monsters, not drinking or doing drugs, not touching the monsters... I am uncertain as to his motivations, as I analyze them. He seems to be interested in seeing our deaths, yet touching the monsters and drinking/drugs have always proven the fastest way of finding death in horror movies. I believe he is trying to throw us off our game, to make our imminent deaths more unexpected. He illustrates his point by tossing out a drunken fool who stands at the front of the audience yelling at him, though this drunken fool's resemblance to one of the mutants, sans facial peeling, leads me to believe this all a part of some clever ruse. Well played, Headmaster, well played. At this, he sets fire to the bonfire, and leaves us to our own devices.

9:20 pm. - As we wander the tents in search of more SCAG, someone runs by us screaming at the top of their lungs, a monster right behind them. I know now that only the strong will survive this night.

9:40 - Even the bathrooms offer no safety from the horrors. Those who go in the port-o-pottys have to contend with the Leech Girl, a ghostly young girl covered in leeches, hitting the sides of the port-o-pottys with her cleaver and shaking them as she sees fit. I believe there will be more than a few unintentional messes in this room by the end of the night. As we wait outside while everyone does their business, I can only watch as Ashley is grabbed by a counselor with a sledgehammer. Luckily, she is feisty, and fast, and is able to elude this beast for now.

While temporarily adjourning to our tent, we are met by a celebrity. Apparently Cthulhu has deemed this event worthy of his presence and is wandering the aisles! Now, given the budget of the event and his size being a little smaller than Lovecraft described, I am fairly certain this is a lesser Great Old One, possibly impersonating Cthulhu for freer access to our souls. Still, in the spirit of the night he is a rock star, and I must have my picture taken with him.

Ashley and I are photobombed by a couple counselors before we can get Cthulhu's autograph.

Retreating back to our tent after this proves to be a mistake, as we are immediately assaulted by another zombie who keeps battering our tent walls and knocking stray rods within the tent astray. Unzipping our flap, he threatens to come inside. Seeking a moment of peace, I make him an offer: our lives in exchange for a pretzel. He reaches his hand inside, he takes my pretzel. Our lives, for now, have been spared. Nevertheless, that does not stop him from one final assault on our tents outer defenses, and for about the third time this night, Patrick has suffered some light head trauma. We all share merry laughter reminding him about the liability waiver's policy of not covering lawsuits based around concussions.

10:00 pm - We stand with great anticipation by the doors of the Hell Hunt, waiting for them to open. A mad rush ensues as nearly half the attendees file in at once. We are in the middle of the pack, clawing our way through, going to the event at the furthest end of the Hunt's field, The Ritual. A simulated voodoo ritual (though I have my doubts as to the accuracy of their portrayal of voodoo), we take part in rhythmic dancing and the ritualistic beratement of attendees, all in the hopes of winning the SCAG they have to offer, the coveted severed head. Several people are locked in coffins for extended periods of time, let out when their tormentors feel they have been scared enough, or if they offer up some of their SCAG. Try as I might to be one of these unfortunate few, I find myself free from a shallow grave for the night.

We next make our way to Bigfoot Country, though it has been invaded by a fair number of zombies and werewolves for some reason. Dead bodies litter the ground, and we have been instructed to reach into the gore in search of several coveted items of SCAG, namely broken ribs and some odd bits of gore. We all roll up our sleeves and dive in, but it appears the spoils of war here come on a first come, first serve basis, and we come out messy, but lacking any new SCAG of significance. This experience jades us as to our chances of winning.

10:45 pm - Ashley has been kidnapped! While wait in line for a maze, Patrick was pulled out of line by a monster and told that he was about to be head-bagged. He did not comply, so the monster took Ashley instead, putting her in a line of similarly bagged people and forced to march outside the Hell Hunt to be locked in a cage. We try to barter with her keepers for her release, offering them some SCAG. They do not want SCAG from us, only from Patrick, the one who defied them. This will take some arguing to secure her release. Ashley bids Fiona and me on our way while she tries to figure out an escape. I fear this may be the last time we see the two of them, as in typical horror movie fashion, our group has been split up.

Anyway, on to find more SCAG!

11:03 pm - The night brings us next to the territory of the Mothmen, a small forest clearing with several clothlike cocoons hiding dead bodies. Hiding among these cocoons, their wings masking them, are the Mothmen themselves, horrible human-insect hybrids. They are easily distracted by our flashlights, but delight in closing their wings around people who get to close to them. At first we are carefree as we fruitlessly search their territory for SCAG, but we soon notice that, though our flashlights freeze them in place, they are adept at surrounding us. It is only with the greatest luck that we escape their lair intact, though free of any SCAG.

We make our way to The Homestead, a maze of sorts simulating a junkyard overrun by various murderous characters of urban legend. It's a twisting, turning maze, often forcing people to crawl through junked vehicles and through truck tires. It appears physically demanding, but we are certain that we are in the prime of our lives enough to handle this. While waiting in line, a van makes slow circles around the area of The Hunt. It is unmarked, but has a sign on the side boasting FREE CANDY. Basic survival instincts tell us that staying away from this would be a good thing, but the hunt for SCAG removes such instincts. One of the pieces of SCAG is a piece of candy, and we are tempted to risk the horrors of this van to get that candy. One particularly athletic man from the line sprints after the van for a long time but is unable to catch up. God speed, good soldier, god speed...

We soon enter the maze and find through some difficulty that The Hunt within this maze creates considerable congestion as people navigate the twisting, narrow passages of The Homestead while looking for some of the most coveted pieces of SCAG, namely the Green Toenails and the Used Condoms (not that used, thankfully). Though we find numerous severed feat lying about, their toenails (and oftentimes, toes) have been picked clean. Thankfully, while investigating an abandoned RV, we find more than a few used condoms lying around and add them to our SCAG bags.

It is after we enter a simulated meth lab that the event I feared most happens: Fiona is kidnapped. A freak in a mask throws a sleeping bag over her head and escorts her from the maze, opening a fence and throwing her out, slamming the fence behind me. I am left to my own devices navigating the remainder of the maze, harassed by clowns and a man with a big metal hook for a hand. I steel my reserves of strength and push on. I can make it.

I find Fiona by the end of the maze, thankfully free of a head bag or a ransom. We find Ashley and Patrick not long after. I am feeling more hopeful by the moment that we will survive this night.

11:46 pm - As Ashley and Patrick have not visited The Homestead yet, and Fiona did not finish it, we get in line again. The Candy Van comes by, a trail of runners behind it hoping for their piece of candy. Losing our better judgment, Ashley and I follow them, sprinting alongside the window as we beg and plead for candy. A woman I have never met tries to offer me to the men in the van in exchange for candy, saying I look pretty enough for them. I make them the same offer with her. Though we both laugh, we both know that we will be enemies should we ever see each other again this night (we don't). When the van speeds off, Ashley has secured a piece of candy, though I am empty-handed.

We make our way through The Homestead again, and though we all have fun, this lack of SCAG is getting to all of our spirits. Victory is gradually inching out of sight. It is when we step out of the maze and see the candy van with its door open (and a line of people wearing head bags being filed out of the back) that I see it: SCAG! One of the pieces of SCAG to recover is a Missing Child Poster, and the interior of this van is covered in them! Seeing no one in sight, I dash inside the van, quickly grab a couple posters and thrust them into my SCAG bag, turn around to exit... AND THE VAN DOOR CLOSES IN MY FACE.

I am trapped. I cry out for help. I cry out to warn people away from this van of horrors. Then I hear him behind me. The Free Candy Man.

He tells me to sit down with my arms behind my back and pulls a bag over my head. He takes away my flashlight. I can do nothing but comply, hoping for a quick death. The van continues to drive, bouncing on the uneven ground as the man yells at me, slamming his fists into the wall and occasionally blinding me with my flashlight. At one point I can hear the door open and a woman is dragged inside, forced to sit behind me. I ask her name, but the man screams at us not to talk. This will not end well.

12:03 am - It ends better than I expected. Once the van stops, we are led out into one of the many prison cages that litter The Great Horror Campout. Fiona and my crew are not far behind, though it appears that Ashley has done something else to upset the event's keepers, as she soon joins me in the cage. We try to barter SCAG for our release, but our keepers are cruel and shrewd, not wanting any of our cheap, low-level SCAG. Another inmate with us suggests a break, and the next time the door opens to free a paroled prisoner, Ashley, myself and this stranger throw ourselves against the door. Our keeper is surprisingly strong, however, and keeps us in, and eventually we surrender SCAG to free ourselves.

It is time for a strategy session. We talk back at our tent, content now with the realization that we cannot all come out winners, especially given the scarcity of certain SCAG items. We collect one set of unique items and hide them in our tent, while we collect our extra and unnecessary items for bartering purposes. Ashley proves a shrewd negotiator and we are able to secure a couple of the more uncommon items, and our hope, however briefly, returns.

1:41 am - The Hunt winds to a close. We make our way to The Nest, an area infested with insect-human hybrid monsters. We are told that if we douse ourselves in blood and shove our arm into a hole in the base of The Queen's pulsating abdomen, we might be rewarded with a grub, one of the most coveted pieces of SCAG. However, after seeing a woman literally jump into a bath of blood and come away unrewarded, we are less than enthusiastic for this task. Fiona, Ashley and Patrick cover themselves in some blood, I do not. We all reach inside, some of us are grabbed, some of us (myself included) are not. We do not escape with a grub.

Then it is on to the Labyrinth, a maze of chain link fences inhabited by El Chupacabras. We are told that their vision is based on movement, and that if we are still they will not capture us. This is proven quite quickly as we see several cavalier people in front of us not heed the warnings, quickly being head-bagged and carted off by El Chupacabras. Though our group is split up at several points during this Labyrinth, we make slow progress forward, pausing and waiting for each El Chupacabra to pass. At one point, even though I have frozen, an El Chupacabra throws me against a wall, pins me to it and smells me for a long time. I dare not move. Its appraisal of me seems to take forever, but it must not have found anything appealing about me, as it soon moves on. I breathe a sigh of relief.

In the middle of the Labyrinth is a grim temple, guarded by two living statues. They let us through to the middle of the temple three at a time, where three Hell Lords mark us with blood with whatever our pleasure is. Early clues had led us to believe that if we tell them "Pain", we will receive some SCAG. We receive no SCAG, but we do wander around for the rest of the night with PAIN written on our foreheads in blood. After this grim ceremony, we are let into the bowels of this temple, which mostly just means walking through a narrow corridor with confining, inflatable walls. Abruptly soon after this long corridor, we are let out into the world, free and wondering just where the promised Labyrinth was.

We soon retire to our tent. Ashley and Patrick want to see some movies, Fiona and I, exhausted, lie down in the tent for a while. We have contented ourselves with the fact that we will not win, barring some miraculous bargaining. Though it feels good to lie down, the lantern in our tent attracts a lot of negative attention. This will be a long night.

The four of us after much less happy times.

2:24 am - The Headmaster summons people from our section to the bonfire. Though we are dubious as to whether or not we want to attend, especially since his last few announcements have not been particularly noteworthy (mostly involving blood-soaked tug of war), we attend and answer some horror movie trivia. The questions are easy, I get all seven with little effort, and we are told our answers can be redeemed later for raffle tickets. This victory feels slightly hollow, at best, but it is a victory all the same.

3:00 am - Lights out time. The music stops, we are told we can get some sleep, but we all know that this is a lie. The true horror is soon to come, I am certain. Regardless, we attempt sleep.

6:00 am – What time passes here is blurry, at best. I’m not sure if I am awake or asleep most of it. There are attacks, I know, and there is a blast of music. I can hear screams. I can hear people being taken from our tents. We hold onto the zipper as they shake and attack, but we are fortunate to remain unbothered otherwise. The night passes on.

We wake up early. The breakfast included in the admission doesn’t call to us. Nor does waiting around to see who won the grand prize, because we know it will not be us. We decide to pack in early and go to our respective homes for some more quality sleep. We see the dawn. It is glorious. We have survived.

If I can take one point of pride away from this experience, it's that not once did any of us have to cry out, "I want my mommy!" Though we may not have won the Hunt or made it all the way through to the end, we can take this pride with us.

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FINAL THOUGHTS:

All exaggeration and storytelling aside, I gotta say that The Great Horror Campout was a fun, if seriously flawed event. I enjoyed most of the production values, the tasks were fun and varied and creepy and messy, and the actors had a tremendous amount of enthusiasm. Knowing the monsters "weaknesses" and actually getting to put them into use was awesome. The company was great (thanks for joining us, Patrick & Ashley!) and this was an event best shared in a group. These factors added up to an event that was quite a bit of fun. The events flaws, on the other hand, occasionally threatened to overwhelm the good things it had to offer. Discouraging the taking of pictures was a little strange. Organization was a major issue, with events scattered and managed without much concern for the amount of people they were going to have. The uncertainty at how the Hell Hunt worked, combined with the fact that they did not restock most SCAG items throughout the night led to a lot of confusion and discouragement. I know not everyone can come out a winner, but the illusion that we all could win I think would have kept people's enthusiasm for the hunt up instead of just making us give up. As well, certain logistical issues really distracted from the fun, including inconsistent exchange rates in getting people out of the cages and bottlenecks in some of the mazes as people spent more time looking for SCAG than they did being scared of the maze. While this is fine, in principle, in a maze as narrow and circuitous as The Homestead, this created some pretty major backups as people searched for SCAG. The fact that the police spent a fair amount of time on the margins of this event, no doubt due to noise complaints from the blaring music going on until 3 in the morning, only adds to this clear lack of forethought. The fact that The Hell Hunt ended at 2 and had nothing really scheduled afterward further illustrated this problem, as people began filing out in droves instead of staying the night as intended.

I hope they continue doing these Great Horror Campouts, as it is clear they've got a lot of good ideas and enthusiasm, but for now I feel fairly safe to say that I will not likely attend another. I hope they redo it so it is not an overnight excursion, with a challenging but not discouraging Hell Hunt, and some better organization, as this could really become a premiere Halloween-esque event with just a little work.

Also, ditch the Leech Girl. She's creepy, but when you're using the bathroom and the toilet seat keeps falling down because she's hitting the port-o-potty's so hard, you're just asking for a mess.

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Matt's Five Favorite Zombie Moments # 4: "Send More Paramedics!", The Return of the Living Dead

6/5/2013

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Continuing with our month dedicated to great moments with the living dead (please check out my wife and co-author's blog here as she tackles the same subject), I present a classic little moment from The Return of the Living Dead.

When I first got into zombies, I was a Romero-style zombie purist, hands down. My zombies had to be slow, they had to be stupid, and you could only kill them with a headshot or fire.

Basically, I comforted myself with the fact that I'd be able to run away from them if they did turn out to be real.

My tastes have since broadened, and I have gained an appreciation for a well-executed fast zombie (I will likely be doing an article on Fast vs. Slow Zombies at some point this month, stay tuned), or other types of zombies that break the Romero mold. I only make this point to illustrate the fact that, much as I heard great things about Return of the Living Dead back in my early days of horror appreciation, I was reluctant to go in. Its brand of unstoppable, fast and yes, even smartass, zombies didn't appeal to me. In fact, they seemed downright blasphemous. But I one day with little to do and a few bucks to spare, I bowed to peer pressure and picked up a copy of Return of the Living Dead. And of course, I loved it.

Yes, let it be known kids that sometimes that giving into a little peer pressure can be a good thing. That being said, always be sure to stay in school, don't do drugs, and eat your vegetables.

Return of the Living Dead is an off-the-wall horror comedy about a couple idiots working at a medical supply warehouse who accidentally unleash a zombie gas that infects a nearby graveyard where a group of punk-rock-loving kids just happen to be partying with some beer, a boombox the size of a coffee table, and a bunch of road flares.

Also, it had Trash, who spends about 90% of the movie wearing nothing but a pair of leg warmers. Had a teenaged Matt Carter known this going in, I imagine he might have rushed out to grab a copy of this movie sooner.

So it's got punk rock, ultraviolence and gratuitous nudity. Really, it's hard to get more 80's than that, which makes this movie at the very least a wonderfully cheesy time capsule. On top of that, however, this movie also has a tremendous sense of humor, making fun of the zombie genre before self-aware parody was really that much of a thing. You see, the characters in this movie have actually seen Night of the Living Dead, and are shocked when they find out that the movie was wrong.

"You mean the movie lied?"

They soon find out that these zombies can't be killed when you destroy their brains, have an insatiable hunger for human brains themselves, and are actually pretty damn smart. Which brings us to my # 4 favorite zombie moment...

Our two lovable idiots working at the medical supply warehouse, Frank & Freddy, have inhaled a hearty dose of zombie gas and get progressively sicker throughout the first half of the movie (apparently inhaling massive amounts of experimental government chemicals is bad for you, who knew?). After taking refuge in a nearby mortuary, before things really hit the fan, they call some paramedics who give the men the bad news that they no longer have a pulse, lack reflexes and pupillary constriction, and have bodies that are room temperature. Technically speaking, they're dead, but conscious.

The paramedics are responsible guys, so they try and evacuate the two medical oddities to the hospital, only to run into some unwelcome guests around their ambulance.

These guys.

They're quickly killed and have their brains feasted upon by the hordes of the living dead. It is during this brain buffet that one of the zombies hears the radio inside the ambulance, and then the magic happens.

"Come in, dispatch. Send more paramedics."

This moment never ceases to crack me up. It's made even better by the fact that these zombies repeat the same tactic over and over throughout the rest of the movie, first calling in more paramedics, then some cops, then even more cops, and so on until they've more or less gone through half the city's police force. It's one of those jokes that should get boring or redundant the more they repeat it, but manages to be funnier (and creepier) every time it happens.

Sometimes endless repetition has its points.

SIDE NOTE: While this movie is, for the most part, a fantastic comedy, there is one character in it that will always be one of the creepiest things I've ever seen in a zombie movie. I'm talking, of course, about...

The Tar Man.

Played by an ultra-skinny mime, The Tar Man looks like little more than a slimy rag-swathed skeleton and moves like his bones are barely connected to each other and gives me the chills just writing about him in a poorly air-conditioned office. Any Return of the Living Dead fans out there? Sound off in the comments!

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Matt's Five Favorite Zombie Moments # 5: Dawn of the Dead

6/1/2013

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In honor of the upcoming release of the long-awaited film adaptation of World War Z (whether or not it is any good is still yet to be seen), Fiona and I are dedicating our blogs during the month of June to our Five Favorite Zombie Moments in pop culture (please check out hers at http://fjrtitchenell.weebly.com). Some of them will be scary, some of them will be funny, some of them will be downright sad (and more than a few will be pretty gooey, so fair warning in advance). We both have different ideas about what we love in our zombie culture, so check back on both our blogs regularly to check out our differing takes on what makes the living dead so fun.

So, sit back, crack open a fresh six-pack of brains, and enjoy our month dedicated to the living dead!

Coming in at # 5, we have one of my favorite moments from George A. Romero's 1978 classic, Dawn of the Dead.

Before I go into too much detail here, I'd like to relate a quick personal story. By far, Dawn of the Dead is the most important movie in my development as a big time horror fan. When I was little, I had a morbid fascination with horror, even though I kept my distance from it. I watched my dad's old monster movies, I devoured Goosebumps books, but I still kept my distance from pretty much all of what would be considered modern horror as I thought it would be "too scary".

That being said, I probably had a point there.

However, being obsessed with special effects and behind-the-scenes magic, I one day picked up a fantastic book on special effects makeup at my middle school library called Men, Makeup and Monsters. In addition to profiles on my idols like Stan Winston and Rick Baker, there was this makeup artist I'd never heard of named Tom Savini, "The Master of Splatter". I didn't expect much going in, but I read anyway and was completely enthralled with the man's story. A Vietnam vet who uses his experience as a combat photographer to inspire a more realistic take on onscreen violence than had been attempted up until that point, basically creating 80's horror with his graphic, onscreen accomplishments. A particular amount of time his section was spent talking about his freedom and creativity in pulling off much of the craziness that was Dawn of the Dead, and for the first time, I was curious. I wanted to check out some modern horror. One surreptitious recording of the movie from IFC on Halloween later, and I was hooked.

Thanks Tom, for getting me into horror.

All right, so where were we?

Right, thanks!

Dawn of the Dead is a sequel to George Romero's original classic Night of the Living Dead. Like its predecessor, Dawn of the Dead is at times a heavy-handed allegory for some of the major societal issues that were taking place during the time it was produced. Unlike Night, Dawn is also a damn fun, and damn funny, epic zombie adventure that really tries to go as over the top as its limited budget would allow.

All set in an abandoned shopping mall, back when indoor malls were so new at the time that one character doesn't even recognize it. Also, yes, this is a picture of me at the Monroeville Mall, where the movie was filmed.

Filmed in an active shopping mall while it was closed, I can't believe half the stuff they got away with here. Zombies are dragged from the back of a moving car through the concourse, storefronts are smashed, zombies are splattered all over the place... I have to imagine they didn't tell mall management half the stuff they were doing (and their insurance people that their two "stuntmen" didn't have any formal stunt training).

Tom Savini was given more or less free rein to kill zombies in as many different and creative ways as possible (within budget). Now, despite a budget that had most zombies wearing bright blue skin makeup and blood that was more or less pink paint, Savini put his tremendous skills to work making us enjoy just how gooey the human body is. Limbs are lopped off, heads are shot and exploded, zombies are offed with swords, maces, hammers...

...the list goes on. However, my favorite standout zombie kill of this movie (and until further notice, any movie) is the infamous Helicopter Zombie.

At this point in the movie, our heroes are on the run with a stolen news helicopter, trying to run away from a society that is rapidly crumbling with the help of the living dead. They stop at an abandoned airstrip in the middle of the sticks to refuel. Naturally they split up, naturally there are some zombies hiding, and naturally things go downhill pretty fast.

Running into a couple zombie kids will do that.

Ex-SWAT officer Roger is left refueling the helicopter, and with the engine running, he cannot hear our flat-topped friend sneaking up on him.

This guy.

The zombie stumbles toward Roger, climbs upon a pile of boxes, and moans loudly enough for Roger to hear. Thinking it has an easy meal, it stumbles closer to Roger, and then this happens...

I apologize for the poor sync of this video, but you get the idea.

The top part of his head is chopped off a section at a time by the helicopter rotor! It's so elaborately set up, so comedically violent that I think the only fitting word for this is splatstick. A simple, short moment with a lot of leadup, I know, but it will always be one of my favorite zombie movie moments.

So what is your favorite zombie movie kill? Would you have had as much fun in an abandoned mall as these guys did?

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