Hater

While not exactly a zombie story, this certainly has many zombie-esque elements, and therefore intrigues:

DAVID MOODY self - published Hater online in 2006. Without an agent, he succeeded in selling the film rights to Guillermo del Toro (director, Pan’s Labyrinth, Hellboy 1 & 2, and the upcoming Hobbit series) and Mark Johnson (producer, The Chronicles of Narnia). With the official publication of Hater (2/17/2009), David is poised to make a significant mark as a writer of “farther out” fiction of all varieties.

In the tradition of H. G. Wells and Richard Matheson, Hater is one man’s story of his place in a world gone mad— a world infected with fear, violence, and HATE. www.RUaHater.com

Weekend of the Living Dead

Charlotte NC., hosted a tribute to the pioneer who revived zombie movies without spending an arm and a leg.

Some horror history...

What twisted the teenage mind of George Romero, ultimately driving him toward a film career that has produced dozens of nightmarish visions?

A French opera.

He introduced a vintage print of “The Tales of Hoffman” 10 years ago at the Toronto International Film Festival, telling us that Michael Powell's adaptation of Jacques Offenbach's drama made him think seriously of being a filmmaker.

“Marty Scorsese and I took turns getting that print from a rental company,” he recalled of their New York boyhoods in the 1950s. But where Scorsese found magic in the music and the sumptuous colors, Romero was taken by bizarre mayhem – especially a scene where party guests dismembered the mechanical doll Olympia, heaving legs and arms around gleefully.

That vision resurfaced in “Night of the Living Dead,” the groundbreaking 1968 zombie film that made a name for its unknown writer-director. The film kicks off a three-day tribute to the 69-year-old Romero when The Light Factory and Reel Soul Cinema start “American Zombie: George A. Romero's Film Revolution” on Friday.

Why honor Romero, who is notoriously low-key and shy? Because he was a pioneer in four ways.

First, he proved you didn't have to have a lot of money to grab a national audience. Producers had released low-budget B pictures throughout the 1950s and early '60s, but they were played second on double bills and got no attention from such august media as The New York Times. “Night” became such a phenomenon that even the Times had to review it.

Second, Romero proved you could get attention even if you lived far from Los Angeles or New York – in his case, in Pittsburgh, where he and other guys in their 20s shot it for a reported budget of $114,000. It's common now to make movies anywhere you decide to put a camera, but that was rare then.

Third, he revived the zombie genre, which had languished since the atmospheric but less gruesome “I Walked With a Zombie” of 1943. Romero's work was more grisly and less subtle, but it kicked off a spate of zombie films, not least the sequels (“Dawn of the Dead” and “Day of the Dead”) that he directed.

Fourth, he reminded us that horror can be metaphoric. Science fiction had shown that long ago, with its thinly disguised commentaries about totalitarianism, thought control, nuclear war and other issues. The horror of Romero's time had been used mainly to shock, but he proved the genre could comment on society's racial divisions, abuse of authority or consumerism.

No more Mister Rogers

“Night” broke ground partly by having a black hero as the most resourceful person in its mostly white cast – in the same year Congress passed a Fair Housing Act that stopped sellers and lenders from discriminating on the basis of race.

Romero's feature debut took him away forever from industrial films, commercials and shorts. (The latter famously included mini-films for “Mister Rogers' Neighborhood,” which was produced in Pittsburgh.)

But success typecast Romero quickly. He tried to break out of his chosen field, but audiences wanted scares. So he kept up with the times, elevating body counts, blood flow and satirical content, and he kept shooting features whenever he could find funding.

More zombies on the way

His latest film “Survival of the Dead (2010),” goes back to his roots. It has a little-known cast, a small budget and zombies: On an island off North America, residents fight a zombie epidemic while seeking a cure to make their undead pals human again.

Romero was working on it when he postponed the Light Factory/Reel Soul event in October 2009; it was ultimately released in 2010 through Artfire Films.

The main thing, of course, is that he's working. He'll be 74 next February, and only a handful of his peers now make films at all, let alone struggle.

Scorsese, Woody Allen and Clint Eastwood are buoyed by studios, while Romero tries to realize his vision down in the dog-eat-dog world of limited distribution. That alone makes him worth celebrating.

Charlotteobserver.com

The Walking Dead - A Graphic Novel Review

I love it - love it - love it!!!

The Walking Dead graphic novel series is a soap opera set in a world devastated by -- well, you know I'm not really sure. But it's being over-run by lumbering, blood-thirsty zombies.

If you think this sounds all too familiar, think again.

The Walking Dead is really a story about the people and their relationships, and how this unfolding horror affects their lives.

It begins with our main protagonist, Rick awaking from a coma, to find himself alone-- alone aside from the odd lurking, shuffling horror-- "roamers"-- in the midst of a city infested with the living, walking dead. His first thought-- his family, his wife Lori, and his son Carl. Racing back to his home, he finds they have fled, like the rest of the city, and so he begins his search to find them, with the hope that they have not become "one of them." Not far into his trek, he comes across a rag-tag bunch of folks, who have huddled together against the onslaught, and "god-have-mercy" -- he finds his wife and son.

So begins the tale, the soap-opera, if you will. You are introduced to a slew of intriguing characters which continues throughout the novels , all intertwined together-- loving, hating each other (but don't get too attached to any of them, because in a single page-turn, they can be gone in a flash of blood-spatter and teeth).

Robert Kirkman has crafted a continuing masterful tale about people you'll love and hate, in a story set in a world we, as zombie fans, live for. In the conclusion at the back of the first collection of his graphic novels, Kirkman explains why he decided to create this continuing story of survival in a zombie-infested world. He explains that he was always sad to see a great zombie movie end, and often unsatisfied at it's conclusion. Where did the survivors go, how did they continue to live in this world that would never be the same again? The Walking Dead is his answer.

Here's a taste of the craziness that Kirkman spins:

Sixth edition: A scene in which the Governor, a complete incestuous psychopath who is also the the leader of a very dysfunctional community, makes out with his young undead daughter after he removes all her teeth with a pair of pliers so she can't bite him.

Edgy stuff indeed!

Kirkman writes in the conclusion of Book One that he intends to keep creating these novels indefinitely. For this I'm extremely excited. But I'm starting to get to the end of his last few novels, and I'm not looking forward to having to wait for the next one!

Let me reiterate. I love it - love it - love it! I haven't experienced something that has gotten me this excited in a long time! Make sure you work your way through at least Book 2. The Walking Dead hits it's stride there, and continues to get better and better!

***** ***** 10 Stars outta 10!!!!!