David Moody's Blog, page 26

One Cut of the Dead

As you may have noticed, I’m doing my best to catch-up on a backlog of film recommendations I’ve built up. Today I want to recommend an absolute gem to you for a couple of reasons. First, because it’s a micro-budget marvel that goes to show that a great concept and copious enthusiasm are infinitely more important than a big budget and faultless special effects. Second, on a more practical level, I’m mentioning it today because if you’re in the UK, you can watch it for free on Channel 4 for the next couple of weeks.

The less you know about ONE CUT OF THE DEAD, the better. Here’s a spoiler-free synopsis and trailer, followed by a couple of (also spoiler-free) thoughts.

Things go badly for a hack director and film crew shooting a low budget zombie movie in an abandoned WWII Japanese facility, when they are attacked by real zombies.

I’m going to keep these comments very, very brief – as I said, the less you know about ONE CUT OF THE DEAD, the more you’ll enjoy it. And I’m sure you will enjoy it. This film is a joy. Absolutely crazy, very funny, wildly surprising, and unexpectedly touching. I’ve read a lot of comments from people who switched off after the first half hour, but DON’T. After a few minutes you’ll probably think you know where the movie is going, and you’re likely very wrong indeed. Please just stick with it. The pay-off is so worth it.

ONE CUT OF THE DEAD comes very, very, very highly recommended by me. It’s a love letter to zombie movies, and also to low budget indie film making in general. If you’re not in the UK, it’s currently streaming on SHUDDER and is available from all the usual places on DVD, Blu-ray and as a download.

The post One Cut of the Dead appeared first on David Moody - author of AUTUMN and HATER.

AUTUMN: DAWN (book one of the London trilogy)

PRINT
AMAZON | BOOK DEPOSITORY | BOOKSHOP | INDIEBOUND

EBOOK
AMAZON | APPLE BOOKS | KOBO | GOOGLE PLAY | NOOK

SIGNED
INFECTED BOOKS | EBAY

The post AUTUMN: DAWN (book one of the London trilogy) appeared first on David Moody - author of AUTUMN and HATER.

Train to Busan Presents: Peninsula

When I started work on the new AUTUMN trilogy, and particularly throughout the writing of the recently released AUTUMN: DAWN, I gorged on zombie movies. Nothing unusual in that, you might think, but given the fact I’ve been writing about the undead for a long time, I think I probably watch these films through a slightly different filter than most folks.

If you’ve read my comments on ARMY OF THE DEAD from last weekend, you’ll no doubt have picked up on the fact that I hated pretty much every second of it. In hindsight that may have been, in part, because the zombie movie I’d watched prior to ARMY had a very similar set up and premise, but was infinitely more enjoyable. That film was TRAIN TO BUSAN PRESENTS: PENINSULA. Crappy title – passable film.

I wrote about TRAIN TO BUSAN here in 2017, commenting that it was a ‘top quality action flick that just happened to feature zombies’. This second movie is not a sequel as such, but another standalone story set in the same world as TRAIN TO BUSAN, albeit four years later. Here’s the synopsis and trailer.

It’s four years since the outbreak of a zombie virus in South Korea. The infection has spread throughout the country and it has been sealed off from the rest of the world. On the promise of a better life, four Korean refugees in Hong Kong agree to sail through the blockade to the port of Incheon to recover $20 million US dollars sitting in the back of a truck.

Zombies are incredibly adaptable creatures. You can drop them into virtually any scenario and enjoy the chaos which ensues. I think that’s probably why many zombie movies aren’t really zombie movies at all. In the same way I said TRAIN TO BUSAN was really an action film, they’re often all kinds of other movies, which just happen to feature zombies.

The same is true of PENINSULA. Whilst there are many thousands of zombies on show here, they’re more of a distraction than a real threat, and the film seems to have more in common with ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK and MAD MAX BEYOND THUNDERDOME than NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD. Accept it for what it is, though, and you’ll likely have a good enough time with it.

As is so often the way with standalone sequels like this, we begin with a series of scenes which show how our ‘hero’ characters coped (or, more likely, didn’t cope) during the initial outbreak of the virus. This section was well done, and laid the groundwork for many of the character interactions later in the movie. Nothing here is particularly surprising, but it helps keep the story moving along and serves to ramp up the tensions and set-pieces in the final acts.

The parallels with ARMY OF THE DEAD are undeniable – a small team of damaged misfits is sent into an impossibly inhospitable location to recover a large amount of money for a very nasty man – but PENINSULA is a far, far better film. Whilst ARMY seemed to me to be hampered by Zack Snyder’s visual style, PENINSULA is suitably grim and grimy and takes its cues from TRAIN TO BUSAN. The zombies in particular are recognisable from the first film in that they continue to exhibit a bizarre, almost surreal physicality that often results in surprisingly arresting visuals.

The characters are slightly less cliched here than in Synder’s film, but are still more caricature than character. The cast do their best with the material presented to them and, unlike ARMY, there are moments of genuine tension and excitement. Both films reach suitably predictable finales, but PENINSULA’s tighter running time, more likeable cast, and better direction means its delivery is far more satisfying. That said, in terms of expanding the world of TRAIN TO BUSAN, it has to go down as a huge missed opportunity. PENINSULA is entertaining enough, but its distractions are ultimately fleeting and forgettable.

You’ve no doubt worked out already that films like this are not my preferred type of zombie movie. They play to a specific audience, and that audience is undeniably huge (far bigger than the audience for my kind of gritty, low-fi apocalyptic tales!). I won’t say much more about PENINSULA, other than it’s worth a watch, and if you ever find yourself tempted to watch ARMY OF THE DEAD then stop, remember this post, and watch PENINSULA instead.

TRAIN TO BUSAN PRESENTS: PENINSULA (that really is an awful title) is currently streaming on Amazon Prime.

The post Train to Busan Presents: Peninsula appeared first on David Moody - author of AUTUMN and HATER.

AUTUMN: DAWN – out today

Today sees the release of the first new AUTUMN novel since 2012. AUTUMN: DAWN – book one of the London trilogy – is available from all the usual locations (links below). I’m thrilled with how the book turned out, but don’t take my word for it. Here’s a great blurb from the brilliant CRAIG DILOUIE:

“David Moody’s AUTUMN: DAWN breathes new life into my favourite undead series. Moody brings his trademark approach to a zombie world: interesting and realistic characters, organic conflict, and always, always, the dramatic and horrifying struggle to survive in a world overrun by the dead.” –Craig DiLouie, author of THE CHILDREN OF RED PEAK

I wanted to thank everyone who ordered the limited edition of the book. All orders have now been despatched around the world. I’d hoped to have got them out sooner, but last minute delays with the printers scuppered that. Hopefully they should start being received in the next couple of days.

If you missed out, there are a handful of copies remaining, as well as signed paperbacks. Order them from www.infectedbooks.co.uk.

AUTUMN: DAWN is available in print (Amazon, Book Depository, Book Shop, Indiebound), and as an ebook (Amazon, Apple, Kobo, Google, B&N). An audiobook version and German translation will be released shortly.

The post AUTUMN: DAWN – out today appeared first on David Moody - author of AUTUMN and HATER.

Army of the Dead

I feel kind of obliged to say something about ARMY OF THE DEAD which arrived on Netflix this week. I can definitely say something, but it won’t be positive. I despised pretty much every second of it.

Following a zombie outbreak in Las Vegas, a group of mercenaries take the ultimate gamble, venturing into the quarantine zone to pull off the greatest heist ever attempted.

Maybe I’m just too fussy? Maybe I demand too much from my zombie movies? My basic requirements are a) a story that goes somewhere, b) characters that I give a shit about, and c) a film that moves at a decent pace and doesn’t have me checking my watch every few minutes. If it’s a large-scale action zombie movie, I want big set-pieces with plenty of undead. If it’s a comedy, I want jokes I can laugh at. If it’s a thriller, I want to feel the tension.

I don’t know what ARMY OF THE DEAD was originally pitched as, but it gave me absolutely nothing in return for the 2 hours and 28 minutes I invested in it.

Worst of it is, the film had ridiculous amounts of money behind it and arrived with extraordinary amounts of hype. A huge audience streamed it in the first week, and so to the people behind the scenes who are crunching the numbers, I expect they’ve classed it as a runaway success. The inevitable upshot of this will no doubt be more of the same.

I don’t know about you, but I find that pretty depressing.

Again, I’m an old-school, living dead purist who happens to have a new zombie novel out tomorrow, so I might well be in the minority. I’d be interested in hearing other people’s thoughts. The film is streaming now on Netflix.

The post Army of the Dead appeared first on David Moody - author of AUTUMN and HATER.

My approach to ebooks

A very boring title for a post, I’m sure you’ll agree, but this is something I think is worth repeating ahead of the release of AUTUMN: DAWN next week.

My approach with books I’ve released through Infected Books is this – if you buy the paperback or hardcover, you should be able to access an eBook version for free. On the rare occasion I buy a CD, the first thing I’ll typically do is rip it to my computer so I can listen to it however/whenever I like. To my mind, it should be no different when you buy a book. You’ve paid for the story and should be able to access it where you want.

Turn to the back of most Infected Books print releases and you’ll see a page like this:

Go to the page, fill in the form, and an ePub or Kindle version of the book will be sent to you. If you buy an Infected Books title directly from www.infectedbooks.co.uk, you’ll get a download code automatically sent to you as soon as your order is placed.

I just think it’s the right thing to do. Also, so that folks have access to Infected Books titles regardless of the eBook provider they prefer, most of my independently published books are now available from Apple Books, Kobo, Google Play, B&N and Amazon.

I know you’ve probably heard all this before, but AUTUMN: DAWN is the biggest IB release for a number of years so I wanted to share again.

The post My approach to ebooks appeared first on David Moody - author of AUTUMN and HATER.

’71

I recorded an episode of a podcast this week with my pal MARK GODDARD of Snakebite Horror and Bloody Good Reads. This time we were talking about movies, and CHILDREN OF MEN came up. I’ve written about CHILDREN OF MEN on this site before. I think it’s a spectacular film for a number of reasons, not least because of the way it’s filmed. Fluid camera work, subtle editing, and seamlessly integrated visual effects combine to bring an involving, almost documentary-like feel to scenes. I had that same feeling recently when I discovered another movie, ’71.

A young British soldier is accidentally abandoned by his unit following a terrifying riot on the streets of Belfast in 1971. Unable to tell friend from foe, the raw recruit must survive the night alone and find his way to safety through a disorienting, alien and deadly landscape.

Almost all of the films and books I recommend here can be broadly labelled science-fiction, fantasy, or (most usually) horror, but I try not to be restricted by genre labels, because I don’t actually think they count for much. What’s a horror story, for example? Is the story of a kid gone off the rails who’s responsible for something awful (WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN), any less horrible than THE EXORCIST? I just picked those two at random, but I hope you can see what I’m saying. Sure, one’s more implausible and much, much, much bloodier than the other, but they’re both horrific to watch.

Ultimately, what really matters is the characters and what they’re going through. I mentioned how similar ’71 felt in tone to CHILDREN OF MEN, and that’s one of the reasons why. In CHILDREN OF MEN, Theo Faron is ripped out of his world and thrust, ill-prepared, into the middle of a conflict. In ’71, young soldier Gary Hook finds himself stranded alone behind enemy lines in Belfast in the midst of the troubles. Replace the dystopian themes of the former film with the historic conflict of the latter, and in some ways you’re left with a similar dynamic.

And the comparison goes further, because ’71 has a similar visual style. From the moment Hook is deployed onto the streets of Belfast, right through to the climactic, rain-drenched confrontation, the film moves along effortlessly. It’s fluid in the same way as CHILDREN OF MEN, the camera giving you an unblinking view of everything that’s happening and not allowing you to look away. ’71 sucks you in and doesn’t let go for the duration of its reasonably short running time.

Directed by YANN DEMANGE (who previously helmed episodes of DEAD SET), and starring JACK O’CONNELL, I definitely recommend hunting out ’71 and giving it a watch. I found it thoroughly absorbing, and genuinely shocking at times. The film can currently be streamed on Amazon Prime.

The post ’71 appeared first on David Moody - author of AUTUMN and HATER.

Look what I’ve got!

A week and a half until release, and print copies of AUTUMN: DAWN have started to arrive for signing. They’ll start shipping around the world shortly. Huge thanks to all those who’ve pre-ordered. If you’re interested, there are still a few limited edition hardcovers left, and signed paperbacks are also now available from Infected Books.

You can also pre-order print copies from Amazon, Book Depository, Book Shop, Indiebound and other retailers. eBooks can be pre-ordered from Amazon, Apple, Kobo, Google and B&N. An audiobook version is currently in production, as is a German translation – I’ll share more news about release dates as soon as I can.

Thrilled to see reviews appearing too. BookNest said: “AUTUMN: DAWN is an unabated, unforgiving onslaught of intensity that takes aim at both the light and dark side of humanity. Like a punch to the gut, it knocks the wind out of you on the opening page and keeps you gasping for air until the very end.”

Very happy with that! I can’t wait for AUTUMN: DAWN – and the rest of the LONDON TRILOGY – to stagger and lurch out into the open soon.

 

The post Look what I’ve got! appeared first on David Moody - author of AUTUMN and HATER.

Recommended reading – WE

I pride myself on having a pretty good knowledge of dystopian film and fiction. Sometimes, though, you discover a gap in your knowledge that leaves you scratching your head and thinking, ‘how did I not know about this?’ I made such a discovery earlier this year when I found out about WE, a Russian novel from the 1920s, written by Yevgeny Zamyatin. I’d been intending to post about it, but was prompted to do so now when I heard that a new Russian film version is due to be released shortly. You can see the trailer at the end of this.

The reason I was so surprised not to have come across WE before, is because the book was clearly so influential. George Orwell accused Aldous Huxley’s BRAVE NEW WORLD of taking cues from WE (though Huxley denied this). Later, prior to writing 1984, Orwell stated that he intended to use WE as his ‘model’ for his next novel. Whatever each writer’s influences were, there’s no doubt that, collectively, these novels form the foundation of the modern dystopian genre.

In a glass-enclosed city of absolute straight lines, ruled over by the all-powerful “Benefactor,” the citizens of the totalitarian society of OneState live out lives devoid of passion and creativity—until D-503, a mathematician who dreams in numbers, makes a discovery: He has an individual soul. Set in the twenty-sixth century AD, Yevgeny Zamyatin’s We is the archetype of the modern dystopia and the forerunner of works such as George Orwell’s 1984 and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. Suppressed for many years in Russia, it details the fate that might befall us all if we surrender to some collective dream of technology, and remains a resounding cry for individual freedom.

I’ll be honest, I read WE after reading an article about the influence of the novel on 1984. At the time I thought it was just an attention grabbing headline, because to my mind, 1984 holds an unassailable position as the pinnacle of 20th century dystopian literature. And yet, that headline was bang on. In D-503 we have a character as worn down and beaten as Winston Smith, who is undone in the end by sex and the promise of love and for daring to think that there’s an opinion other than the will of ‘the party’. Similar to 1984, D-503’s nagging doubts are amplified by a woman who takes him beyond the facade. Smith finds a world beyond the view of Big Brother’s telescreens in the top floor of a prole antique store, while D-503 is taken to an ancient house from before the war, far removed from the featureless glass boxes in which he and the rest of the residents of One State live out their pre-programmed lives. Big Brother himself has a rival in WE’s Great Benefactor – an unchallenged leader who is afforded almost god-like status.

WE initially feels closer to an HG Wells utopia (think THINGS TO COME), than the grubby world of Airstrip One in 1984. Whilst the horror of the world portrayed by Orwell is clear, there’s something insidious and unsettling about Zamyatin’s dystopia presented as utopia (also the case with BRAVE NEW WORLD). Perhaps it’s because the characters here are so deeply entrenched in the lie, and therefore have more to lose and further to fall?

I’m not going to say anything more. It’s been a while since I’ve recommended a book on this site, and that’s all this post is intended to be – a recommendation. To give more away about WE, or to further compare it with other novels, would lessen the impact of the book for any new reader, and that’s absolutely the last thing I want to do. Whilst it didn’t have anywhere near the impact on me that 1984 had, I wish I’d found WE much earlier. It’s an important, thought-provoking novel that deals with themes which remain frightningly relevant today (though not, perhaps, in the way Zamyatin, Orwell and Huxley might have expected).

The book is widely available. As with many other books of that age, there’s a proliferation of eBook versions available, no doubt of varying quality. Alternatively, I’ve discovered a 1982 German TV adaptation of the novel that happens to available on YouTube in its entirety. And as I mentioned earlier, there’s a considerably bigger budget Russian movie version on the way. Here’s the CGI heavy trailer.

If you’ve even a passing interest in dystopian fiction (and I’m pretty sure you must have if you read my stuff!), then I highly recommend picking up a copy of WE. More than anything, it’s fascinating to consider its influence on some of the other well-known classics of the genre.

The post Recommended reading – WE appeared first on David Moody - author of AUTUMN and HATER.

A peek into the Dawn…

The release of AUTUMN: DAWN is just over two weeks away. There are about 20 copies of the limited edition hardcover available for sale. eBook pre-order links are live for Kindle, Apple Books, Nook, Kobo and Google Play. Paperback pre-order links will start to appear next week. The audiobook is in production. It’s getting very close now! Close enough, I thought, to give you a sneak peak. Here’s an excerpt from chapter one of the book.

DAY THIRTY-SIX

There must have been several hundred corpses on the other side of the window, and it felt like every last one of them was staring right at Vicky. It had been over a month since they’d died. She’d been terrified non-stop from the outset, but in the last hour things had become immeasurably worse. Until now the dead had been meandering, appearing vacant and directionless, reacting to occasional movements and noise. Inexplicably, today they had begun herding purposefully together in unprecedented numbers along The Strand. It felt like they were hunting, seeking out the last of the living, and, in the absence of anything else capable of conscious control in this decaying shell of a city, Vicky, Kath and Selena felt like easy targets. Vicky couldn’t think of a worse place to be trapped at the end of the world than this sprawling, chaotic, overcrowded metropolis.

Kath hauled her rucksack onto her aching shoulders. ‘What could have caused this?’

‘Us,’ Selena said. ‘You’ve not worked that out yet, Kath? It’s always us. I wish they’d just fuck off and leave us alone.’

‘Language,’ Vicky said.

‘Whatever.’

‘We’ve talked about this. It’s not necessarily us, per se, it’s more the fact there’s nothing else left. This is different, though. There’s something new going on out there. We haven’t seen them acting like this before.’

‘Different? How?’ The teenager’s voice was edgy, her panic barely contained.

‘They’re mostly heading in the same direction, for a start. We’ve never seen them do that. Before now they’ve always just drifted along. It’s like we’ve walked into the middle of a migration. There could be tens of thousands of them heading this way. There probably are.’

Kath moved a little closer, out of Selena’s ear range. ‘Careful what you tell her,’ she whispered.

‘She needs to hear this.’

‘I know, but she’s not in a good way this morning.’

‘None of us are in a good way, Kath. Being in a good way went out the window when the rest of the world dropped dead then decided to get up again.’

‘I know, love, but she’s just a kid. Imagine everything we’re both having to deal with – the loss, the fear, the disorientation – then chuck in a load of hormones and angst as well. She can’t help it.’

Vicky sighed and leant her forehead against the cold glass. Outside, a woman, who might have been a similar age when she’d died, clattered into the front of the store. Vicky caught a glimpse of her own reflection, mapped almost perfectly onto the face of the corpse by chance. Where Vicky’s complexion was relatively clear, the dead woman’s skin sagged like an ill-fitting mask, slipping down and leaving drooping bags under her eyes. Her mouth was pulled out of shape like she’d had a stroke, and she ground her jaw continually, making her look like she was alternately chewing then groaning. A string of drool the colour of mud oozed down her chin. Her clothes were tattered and soiled, her decayed body misshapen, swollen in some places, hollowed out in others.

You look as bad as I feel, Vicky thought. She’d known nothing but loss and disorientation for more than a month now. Five weeks of running on adrenalin, scavenging for food, and snatching fractured moments of sleep. It was thirty-six days since the world she’d known had been stolen from her and replaced by this utter hell and right now, other than a heartbeat, Vicky could see little difference between the living and the dead. Like the millions of impossibly reanimated corpses roaming the streets without purpose, she too was barely even existing.

‘We should make a move,’ Kath said. ‘There are more and more of them. The longer we leave it, the worse it’s going to get.’

‘I’m not going back out there,’ Selena said, nervous.

‘Kath’s right. We can’t stay here,’ Vicky told her.

‘Why not? There’s food and space and—’

‘And judging from the numbers out there today, if we wait much longer we won’t have any choice. Lovely as it is, this place will be our tomb. Is that how you want to end your days, hiding in the corner of a bloody Tesco Metro store?’

‘Go easy on her,’ Kath hissed, trying not to let Selena hear.

‘I’ll go easy on her when we’re safe,’ Vicky replied, at full volume. ‘We don’t just need to get out of this bloody supermarket, we need to get out of London altogether.’

Selena edged closer to the front of the store. The sheer number of corpses outside was now blocking much of the available light. ‘Why are they all coming this way?’

‘It doesn’t make sense,’ Kath said. ‘They’re heading out of the city. Why would they be doing that?’

‘They must be reacting to something,’ Vicky said.

‘Us?’ Selena asked, panicked.

‘I don’t think they know we’re here.’

‘Good.’

‘Not yet anyway. It’s only a matter of time, though.’

 

The post A peek into the Dawn… appeared first on David Moody - author of AUTUMN and HATER.