Dead Set is the newest in a very short list of television zombie series. Unfortunately its only a five episode series - but its definitely a step in the right direction. I have only watched the first couple of episodes of this series at the moment, so I’m not prepared to give it a full review but instead I will give it a first impressions look.

Dead Set is a story where a zombie apocalypse traps house mates and some production staff in the latest UK Big Brother house set.

So, recently, I (Who likes zombies and big brother) and a control group made up of friends Ben (who likes zombies and dislikes big brother) and Debbie (who is indifferent to zombies and dislikes big brother) sat down to slug it out with the first episode of this new series.

The Meat

The Zombies, the wounds and the death scenes in this series are really really good.

The Zombies in this series are the angry, yelling, burning eyed, running  type - previously found in the Dawn of the Dead remake, the Super Undead in Resident Evil: Extinction and the angry people in 28 Days later. I don’t necessarily have a problem with fast zombies (as opposed to, say, Simon Pegg) - but I do prefer the slow moving unstoppable force that the shambing horde represents. I understand however that this type of slow zombie is not really possible with the “sudden shock” horror which is so prevalent nowadays, and definitely not compatible with this series.

The character acting and indeed the writing itself I found top-knotch in this episode. The characters react to this impossible situation by falling apart realistically, which leads to certain personalities being able to survive and deal with the new world, easier. I found the whole powerplay between the characters and how differently each survivor dealt with the situation to be very interesting.

The Bones

Instead of instilling a deep-set unease and suspense in this horror series they are going for the startle reaction - which I find very boring.  A quiet moment pretty much guarantees that a zombie is going to come screaming around the corner and during very action packed running sequences that camera flops around like a suffocating fish, making it very difficult to determine what is going on, and giving us all headaches.

The flopping camera bit has done the rounds though a bunch of major motion pictures (The Chronicles of Riddick, Resident Evil: Extinction) and I just want to say a few words about it. Anyone who uses this camera style is under the mistaken impression that it adds a sense of urgency to the scene; where all it really does it make anyone who sees it look away and a select few of us throw up. It does NOT make your action fight sequence cooler, It does NOT instil a sense of urgency - it DOES make anyone who is watching your program not only painfully aware that a camera is recording the proceedings but also aware that you do not know how to display an action sequence properly. The flopping camera does have its place (see Cloverfield) but its place is not in a series where all the cameras are either stationary (as being in the big brother house) or supposed to be invisible (the ones following the survivors around).

Anyway.

The Taste

Ok, its zombies, and a surprising realistic rendition of a zombie outbreak with a fantastic twist (the big brother house) - that’s good; as I was probably going to support this series simply because its a zombie television series. Hopefully the support for this show will give “those people in charge of the networks” the idea that a series like this is something we actually want. Can you imagine an ongoing TV series based on something like The Walking Dead? I’m salivating just thinking about tit.

2/3 people who watched the show found it very enjoyable. I enjoyed it, Ben enjoyed it … but Debbie…. she didn’t enjoy it - in her own words “I did not find anything in that for me”. She will not be joining me and Ben for the rest of the season.

But we are sill going to watch all of it.

You can find the trailer for this series here.

“It is uncommon to fire all six shots of a revolver with great suddenness when one would probably be sufficient…”

Bum Lee is a is an animation artist and freelance illustrator, who, in 2004, developed this cool little Flash zombie shoot-em-up game. In the screen shot above, you are the weedy silhouette on the left, and, on the right, is the shambling hordes of animated walking corpses. You need to take your trusty six shooter and mow them down before they reach you.

The Meat

Like all fun games, the interface absurdly easy to use and the pay-off is immediate; just click away to your hearts content while the body count rises and the levels rack up.

The animation is also very well done, body parts fly off your enemies in reaction to your shots, and the scripted sequences (the death scenes) are fantastic.

The Bones

Allthough the game has some loose references to H.P. Lovecraft’s novels (Specifically the fantastic - Herbert West: Reanimator) , and provides links to his various fiction works - it would have been nice to have that feature more prominently in the game.

The Taste

De-Animator is a minimalistic 2d zombie shoot-em-up game, it’s very fun, addictive and a good time-waster.

You can get to the game by clicking on the screen shot at the top of this post - try it out!

Pro-Tip : Use the undocumented shift-key to switch weapons, also, shoot at their feet.

Those smarties at Wideload Games achieved two things when they developed Stubbs the Zombie; a top-knotch, darkly humorous game AND an outstanding soundtrack.

I got my copy of the soundtrack bundled with the original Stubbs the Zombie game, back in 2005. The game features a lot of the music on the soundtrack - so it was an amazing bonus, one I still listen to today.

The Meat

Now, I would be the first to say that I’m not a music expert, but I do know what I like, and its this. The soundtrack features covers of various songs from the 50’s and 60’s - such as “My Boyfriend’s Back” by The Angels, “Mr. Sandman” recorded by The Chordettes and my personal favorite The Wizard of Oz- “If I Only Had a Brain“. These classics are re-recorded and spun by fantastic bands like: Death Cab for Cutie, Cake, The Dandy Warhols, The Flaming Lips and many more. Phantom Planet’s The Living Dead is the only original recording on the soundtrack, but its a very welcome addition.

Here is the complete track listing.

1. Ben Kweller - “Lollipop“
2. The Raveonettes - “My Boyfriend’s Back”
3. Death Cab for Cutie - “Earth Angel”
4. Rose Hill Drive - “Shakin’ All Over”
5. Cake - “Strangers In The Night”
6. The Walkmen - “There Goes My Baby”
7. Rogue Wave - “Everyday”
8. The Dandy Warhols - “All I Have To Do Is Dream”
9. Oranger - “Mr. Sandman”
10. The Flaming Lips - “If I Only Had a Brain”
11. Clem Snide - “Tears On My Pillow”
12. Milton Mapes - “Lonesome Town”
13. Phantom Planet - “The Living Dead”

The Bones

No bones with this one, it is a little hard to get the soundtrack in stores - but you can thank the zombified deity of your choice that online distributors, like Amazon.com, still carry it.

The Taste

Its good, real good, I still listen to it - and I’ve had it for 3 years. Get your teeth into it.

Stubbs the Zombie is a fantastic video game which was released by Wideload Games in 2005 for both the Xbox and the PC. The avatar and anti-hero is Stubbs the zombie; initially a traveling salesman, Stubbs was brutally murdered by his girlfriends father after their union was unexpectedly blessed with fruit. Now, 26 years later, Stubbs has risen from the grave driven by a thirst for revenge and brains.

The Meat

Stubbs digs himself up in the city of Punchbowl during its opening ceremony in 1959. Punchbowl is a fictional retro-futuristic 1950’s city with lazers, hovercars, robots and a hell of a lot of civilians, police and military - ripe for the biting.

Whenever you kill somone with Stubbs they has a chance of returning to life as a zombie under your control. These zombies, when not specifically given an order, will lurch around and bite any humans they encounter - turning them into zombies as well; like some sort of cannibalistic pyramid scheme.

In order to facilitate the creation of your own zombie horde, Stubbs has many inventive and fun options to choose from when killing the humans who get in his way. Stubbs can: Tear off people’s arms and beat them to death with them, Fart so corrosively that nearby enemies are stunned with sheer horror, throw organs pulled from his own ribcage that explode with damp furiousity, possess enemies with his left hand that detaches and runs around by itself and even bowl his own head at the enemy.

Stubbs weapons are slowly revealed to him throughout the story where they are necessary to get him out of more and more sticky situations and game itself is filled with lots of dark humor which makes it very entertaining and funny.

The Bones

Because Stubbs is a zombie he is unable to speak, except for saying the word “Brains”. This is wholly sensible behavior for a zombie and is to be expected, but, it makes it very difficult to understand the reason Stubbs does things when he literally doesn’t tell you. Wideload games did their best and Stubbs is a very emotive character but every so often Stubbs does something that is not well explained that left me lost and trying to understand why I was in this particular situation and what i needed to do to get out of it.

The Taste

Luckily, if you missed this gem of a game the first time - it is available on Steam and the Xbox Live Marketplace! For approximatly $20 you get all the brain eating, organ throwing, head bowling action you can possibly handle.

Get and play this game, if you haven’t already. Its offbeat humor, engaging retro-futuristic environments and the fact that you actually play a zombie controlling hordes of undead makes this game a must-play if you are any sort of a zombie fan.

I have noticed a trend in the reviews I have read for the Zombie Strippers movie; reviewers either love this film to bits or HATE it with a passion so intense - that it is usually reserved for people who club baby seals, or those who make bad fan-fiction. These intense reactions left me wondering if the reviewers saw the same movie that I did, or if there are two copies of this movie floating around - inducing feelings of hatred or devotion in anyone interested enough to watch them. Though probably not.

For me, this film stirs a resounding emotional ‘Meh’.

However, I did enjoy watching this film because it appears that I – quite accidentally – stumbled upon the only way to watch it without feeling the need to go online and pour my disgust or admiration into an IMDB forum post.

So on the weekend, five friends and I sat down with a bottle of Vodka, Zombie Strippers - and proceeded to drink every time we saw a breast.

The Meat

Zombie Strippers delivers what it promises. If you went into the film expecting anything else apart from a movie containing zombie strippers; like: a coherent plot, good acting or a script that doesn’t feel like its written by an adolescent with an echasketch - you’re going to be sorely disappointed. It might be possible to produce a coherent script which rivals the classics AND contains stripping zombies, but I have my doubts.

The film also has one hell of a make up and computer graphics artist team; the zombies, wounds and all, look very impressive and the death scenes are particularly well done.

The Bones

The synopsis for this film is “Worldwide media sensation JENNA JAMESON and Nightmare on Elm Street’s ROBERT ENGLUND star in ZOMBIE STRIPPERS.”, notice that Jenna’s name comes first - even before the movie title… you know you’re very desperate when you’re trying to sell a film by using a porn star pornographic actress’s name like a major selling point.

This desperation really shines through when the film gets one of the actresses (I’m not going to tell you which one, but you can guess) to trot out her vagina in the first twenty minutes of the movie.

Unfortunately, it seems that Jenna gives the best acting performance of all the cast members for the entire film. Shame on you other cast members, you have been out shone by a porn-star and they are not traditionally chosen for their acting talent. I am secretly harboring the hope that these other actors were deliberately trying to act terribly so that the film would earn a place amongst the B-movie ‘so bad it’s good‘ cult classic category.

However, the truth is, no actor is going to shine with this script. This script would have made more sense if they cut it up, put it in a big hat and pulled out the order of the scenes randomly.

The Taste

When it comes right down to it, I didn’t completely hate this film: it had its funny moments, its good moments and its cringingly horrible moments.

I recommend that you see it, if only so you can say that you have - just don’t forget your friends or your vodka.

Zombie Strippers was definitely the best zombie stripper film i have ever seen.

Aaron Duran from Geekinthecity has written a fantastic script review for the upcoming Michael Straczynski movie “World War Z”.

For those not in the know, World War Z was written by Max Brooks as a followup to his first book “The Zombie Survival Guide” both books were fantastic reads.

Check it out!

Playable only on the 360, Dead Rising has you piloting Frank West, a photojournalist (he’s covered wars you know) who jumps from a helicopter onto a zombie infested shopping mall to take some happy snaps of the denizens within.

Seriously.

The helicopter pilot is coming back for Frank in three days. During this time Frank can spend his time taking pictures, getting eaten by zombies, telling people he is a photojournalist and ferrying people back and fourth from relative safety. Generally all this occurs at the same time and because of the save system and terrible survivor AI this can make even a short trip out of home base a frustrating, television screaming, controller throwing, and nail biting experience.

Fun though.

The Meat

Killing Stuff

As it turns out, the entire zombiefied population of the fictional town of Willamette have decided to go shopping with Frank. To offset ceaseless masses of zombies milling around between objectives, Frank can hit the turned former-citizens with damn near everything that is not nailed down to the floor. Unfortunately, most of these things are completely useless (See: Nerf Weapons, Water Pistols, Pizza Boxes, etc.) and those weapons which are more effective (See: Samurai swords, Axes, Chainsaws, Lawnmowers, etc.) have a duration of half-a-dozen hits.

It’s a sad moment when the chainsaw you had to fight a god-damn sadomasochistic clown for falls apart in mid swing, leaving you stranded in the middle of an angry zombie horde with nothing but your fists and a prayer.

The ability to smack zombies with signs, bits of the roof and other zombies is incredibly fun to begin with, but quickly gets old. As Zombies spawn constantly from anywhere outside your field of view you are left with a feeling of futility which results in you just pushing past the zombies at later levels when the killing thrill subsides.

Of Sandboxes and Persistence

Dead Rising is a so-called “sandbox” game. Your avatar, Frank, can decide what to do with the hours he spends waiting for this elusive helicopter lift. If you want to run around and hit zombies with televisions until your ride arrives - you can! Or, you’re supposed to be able to.

You see, Dead Rising is built upon the premise that there is so much to do, you need to play through the game a bunch of times in order to see it all, get all the endings, reach all the achievements and unlock all the goodies. This is not a new game mechanic, however, in order to encourage this your character (who levels up during the game allowing you to be eaten more and sometimes pile-drive zombies into the ground) levels, items and clothing rolls over to the next time you play.

Yes, your clothing rolls over from game to game. Dead Rising lets you customize your Avatar, Frank, with a variety of fancy looking Headgear, Torsogear and Footgear. Different shops in the mall contain different clothing and these clothing items persist even in mission cut-scenes. I think this is a really cool feature and although Avatar customization is by no means a new feature in games nowadays, wading though hordes of zombies while you search the mall for the “perfect’ pair of sunglasses for your character has a certain charm I enjoyed

Unfortunately Dead Rising’s system of level rollover also means that Core missions (Missions which reveal portions of the story behind the infection) are almost impossible at a low level. Some enemies Frank needs to beat can kill you instantly at low level - meaning that you have the option to either wander around the mall, hitting zombies for experience, or constantly restarting the game, rolling over your character, until you can pass the missions. Needless to say, I found this incredibly irritating and only started to really enjoy the game when I was about level 25 (50 is the max level Frank can be).

The Why

You reveal portion of the games back story by completing core missions in the alloted time. Sometimes, if you do not complete a mission fast enough, you will not have enough time to get to your next objective and will loose all your progress up to that point. If you have saved poorly, this may mean that you need to start the game again.

Regardless the story is enjoyable, I found myself driven to find out more about this outbreak throughout the game, especially in the second half “Overtime”.

The game also provides a series of endings, depending on how well you play, a nice touch and a testimony to just how many different way you can be eaten by zombies.

Story Modes

Once you complete the normal game with the “good” ending you unlock Infinity Mode. This simply means you constantly loose health and you have to kill other survivors in the mall for food. The aim is to survive in the mall for as long as you can. If you survive for 7 days you get a laser sword! woo!

Wait… Thats 14 hours of continuous play….

With no save..

The Bones

Saving

I could go on about the saving for this game, but i’m not going to. I’m sure by now you have picked up the gut wrenching hate I have for the so-called saving procedure, I’ll just sum it up.

The saving feature is evidence that this game hates you.

The Janitor

Otis the Janitor is, quite frankly, the most irritating game dynamic I have ever encountered. He reminds me of Clippy from Microsoft Word, before right-minded people made him illegal.

Otis will call you on your Walkie-Talkie/Mobile-Phone device and offer you helpful-hints about where you are in the mall, what you can do there and the location of survivors he can see on the security monitors.

If you pick up his call (which is announced with a piercing ring) you are unable to fight anymore until Otis finishes rambling on about whatever useless bit of information he thinks YOU need to know. If you get attacked, or hang up on Otis out of frustration, he will call back, continuously, forever, until you listen to his entire spiel.

He will even tell you that “you were rude for hanging up on him”.

The one redeeming feature of this game, regarding Otis the janitor, is that he is the very first survivor you get to kill in Infinity Mode. I must have started that mode half-a-dozen times, cackling like mad as I beat Otis senseless with a handy Gas canister.

AI

The Artificial Intelligence for the Survivors for this game is bad, real bad, coupled with your indirect control of their actions may stop you from playing this game. You can tell all survivors to go to a place specified by you, or tell them to follow you, thats it.

If you do tell them to run to a distant wall, you need to be prepared to run around them and clear any: Flower pots, Zombies, Anything, Invisible walls, Other survivors, visible walls, on their way.

It really feels like the game is somehow punishing you for trying to save other people.

The Taste

Dead Rising has its problems and they are big ones. So big it makes me wonder if the people who made the game actually played the game. It also makes me wonder if, Capcom, developed this game to give me a rage induced heart attack.

Because no matter how much I yelled at the screen, I would always pick that controller back up to play again.

I don’t believe that you should purchase a XBox 360 just for this zombie extravaganza, but if you already have one, you could do a lot worse.

And hey, you can kill zombies with a lawn mower.

The Meat

You. Yes, you. Stop what you are doing right now and go find a copy of Fido. I mean it. Don’t even bother reading the rest of this review, we will all wait for you. Do not miss out.

…

Many years ago, a cloud of radiation engulfed our planet. These space particles caused the reanimation of dead bodies - Zombies! Creatures with but one destructive need, to devour the flesh of the living and so, we were forced to defend our homeland. The Zombie Wars!. Mankind pitted against legions of the unstoppable undead. But, in our darkest hour - a savior - Zomcom! Zomcom disovered that if the brain was destroyed, the zombie was destroyed, never to reanimate. And so the Zombie wars - were won!

Zomcon built security systems like the perimeter fence that surrounds our towns in a wall of protective steel. But even within the fence, danger lurked. Lingering raditation ensured that anybody who died became a zombie! And then - a breakthrough! the domestication collar. With the collar in place, the zombies desire for human flesh has been contained. Making the zombie as gentle as a household pet.

Thanks to Zomcon we can all become productive members of society. Even after we die. Zomcon a better life though containment.

…

Fido is set in a post apocalyptic society, 5 years after the Zombie wars in the 1950’s. Its a beautiful fenced community, nobody locks their door and everyone has a flower bed, a white picket fence and a domesticated Zombie slave. In this community young Timmy’s mother (played by Carrie-Anne-Moss) has just rented a new Zombie (played by Billy Connolly) from Zomcon. This zombie comes into a family with a distant father, a mother trying to hold the family together and Timmy, who is bullied at school and holds opinions of zombies which differ from the norm and changes all their lives.

The Bones

The cinematography in this movie is fantastic and the performance by Billy Connolly, who can only communicate through facial expressions, grunts and roars really brings this movie to life.

The Zombies are portrayed as your standard lurching type and although the makeup used makes the zombies look like people with skin conditions, little touches like torn mouths make a big difference.

If you are into dark comedy see this movie while you can, i highly recommend it.

The Meat

The Walking Dead is an American ongoing survival horror comic in which a small group of mismatched civilians and police officers try to survive in a world recently beset by a zombie outbreak.

Their story starts in Book 1 with Rick Grimes. Rick is a police officer, father and husband and is caught in a gunfight with an escaped convict. Rick is hit with a bullet and blacks out. He wakes up in hospital after an undetermined amount of time and finds that the hospital is infested with the living dead. Terrified and confused, his first priority is to escape the hospital and then to find his family. Rick Grimes eventually meets up with a number of survivors and with them they start a search for safety.

The Walking Dead story was written by Robert Kirkman who also wrote the wonderful Marvel Zombies comic series and is currently being drawn by Charlie Adlard.

Pick the Bones

Through this story Robert Kirkman explores the hardships and emotional distress that long-term survivors deal with, something which many other Zombie media gloss over. This exploration really brings this comic alive and its character portrayal has been done fantastically. Every character in the story reacts to the stressful situations (such as a surprise zombie attack, or running out of food) they encounter very believably and their personalities evolve and grow over time, characters overcome their fear, get complexes, fall in love, grieve, fight and generally act like people. Because of this human angle when they are not fighting zombies, or looking for somewhere safe to sleep, the survivors often end up fighting each other. This interaction and progression makes for extremely gripping story telling.

The Zombies are your classic zombie menace. slow, stupid and clumsy, but a real danger in great numbers. Its really refreshing to see a zombie menace which has not been re-imagined as being super fast or with superpowers by popular media.

The Walking Dead is a black and white comic and its this style that suits the story completely. The Zombies are grisly, bloody, decaying shadows of living creatures and beautifully portrayed. I have heard that many of the zombies are based on real people in the artists life, but even if this is untrue great care has been taken to make each zombie look unique.

Do not miss out on this fantastically crafted ongoing story of survival and Zombies!