Josh Hilden's Blog, page 18

My Top 10 Favorite Scary Movies Number 07: “1408”

The Original Source Material



Yes I love Stephen King and all of his work.

I think it’s pretty clear by the amount of time I spend salivating over his body of work in these essays that I am a devoted disciple of the modern master of horror. I’ve said on many occasions that THE STAND is the single best book I’ve ever read and that THE DARK TOWER SERIES is my Lord of the Rings and Star Wars times eleven. THE SHINING is the scariest book ever written and ON WRITING is one of the single most influential tomes I’ve ever had the privilege to read. So of course at least one (hint there are two more) Stephen King adaption would be on this list.

But…

I don’t really care for the short story 1408.

Wait a second, where the hell are you going? Just sit your ass back down and listen to me before you take off in a huff and lay waste to the local Hardees or your local Carl’s Jr. if you are one of those freaks from the Western States. I want to explain my statement and hopefully frame it in a way that serves to inform why I love the movie version so much.

1408 the short story is a fine and serviceable tale. As a ghost story it does its job in a workmanlike manner. I have no actual complaints about it as a story, the problem I have is it’s caliber as a Stephen King story.

I am sure there is no one reading this meandering bit of conjecture who is unaware that love him or hate him Stephen King is the is the most successful English speaking writer of the last fifty years. I am almost as sure most of you actually consider him a good novelist. I don’t ask my readers to worship at the feet of King and treat him as the newest incarnation of the Buddha like I do. What you may not be aware of is my belief that Stephen King is the greatest short fiction writer ever.

EVER!

Unfortunately 1408 is not his finest hour. Like I said above it’s a GOOD story, I would even say it’s a scary story. It hits all of the beats you want a ghost story to hit but in the end it falls a little flat. Ironically it makes a better transition to Audiobook format than a lot of his other, far superior, short stories.

In any event I suggest reading the story AFTER watching the movie. But if you are lazy like me I have, of course, provided a Wiki pull for you.



1408 (Short Story) - Wikipedia

"1408" is a short story by Stephen King. It is the second tale in the audiobook collection titled Blood and Smoke, released in 1999. In 2002, it was collected in written form as the 12th story in King's collection Everything's Eventual. In the introduction to the story, King says that "1408" is his version of what he calls the "Ghostly Room at the Inn", his term for the theme of haunted hotel or motel rooms in horror fiction. He originally wrote the first few pages as part of an appendix for his non-fiction book, On Writing (2000), to be used as an example of how a story changes from one draft document to the next. King also noted how the numbers of the title add up to the supposedly unlucky number 13.


Plot summary
As in many of Stephen King's works, the protagonist of the story is a writer, Mike Enslin, who writes non-fiction works based on the theme of haunted places. His book series, Ten Nights in Ten Haunted Houses, Ten Nights in Ten Haunted Graveyards and Ten Nights in Ten Haunted Castles, prove to be best-sellers, but Enslin internally reveals some guilt and regret at their success, privately acknowledging that he is a believer in neither the paranormal nor the supernatural elements he espouses in these books.

Nonetheless, he arrives at the Hotel Dolphin on 61st Street in New York City intent on spending the night in the hotel's infamous room 1408, as part of his research for his next book, Ten Nights in Ten Haunted Hotel Rooms. At first Enslin is unfazed by 1408's morbid history. According to the hotel's manager, Mr. Olin (who has purposely left it vacant for over 20 years), room 1408 has been responsible for at least 42 deaths, 12 of them suicides and at least 30 "natural" deaths, all over a span of 68 years. While remarking that he doesn't believe there are ghosts in 1408, Olin insists there is "something" that resides inside, something that causes terrible things to happen to people who stay within its walls for anything but the briefest periods of time, something that affects various electronic devices, causing digital wristwatches, pocket calculators, and cell phones to stop functioning or to operate unpredictably. Mr. Olin also reveals that due to the superstitious practice of never recognizing the 13th floor (the room is listed on the 14th), it is a room cursed by existing on the 13th floor, the room numbers adding up to 13 making it all the worse. Mr. Olin pleads with Enslin to reconsider, believing that a skeptic such as he is even more susceptible to the room's curse. Enslin is shaken, but his determination to follow through with his research and to not appear frightened before Mr. Olin wins out. Olin reluctantly leads him to the 14th floor, unwilling to accompany him farther than the elevator.

Enslin's problems with Room 1408 begin before he even sets foot through the door; in fact, the door itself initially appears to be crooked. He looks again and the door appears to be straight - then again, and it appears to be crooked again (though this time leaning to the right instead of the left).

As Enslin enters and examines the room, and begins dictating into a hand-held tape recorder, his train of thought immediately takes unwelcome and chaotic turns - he compares it to "being stoned on bad, cheap dope". He begins experiencing what may or may not be hallucinations; the breakfast menu on the night-stand changes languages; first it's in French, then Russian and then Italian. After that, it simply turns into a picture of a wolf eating the leg of a screaming little boy. That picture then shifts into the menu again, this time in English. When this ends, Enslin sees that the pictures on the walls have shifted into frightening visions (a still life of an orange becomes Enslin's severed head, Enslin sees pictures disappearing and reappearing, Enslin's feet sink into the carpet like quicksand, paintings come alive, etc.), and Enslin's thoughts become bizarre and incoherent. He tries to make a phone call, but only hears a nightmarish voice on the end of the line chanting bizarre phrases, for example, "This is nine! Nine! This is nine! Nine! This is Ten! Ten! We have killed your friends! Every friend is now dead! This is six! Six!"

Enslin finds a book of matches and sets himself on fire, which breaks the spell of the room long enough for him to escape. As he collapses, on fire, outside the room, another hotel guest who is getting ice from the ice machine sees him and is able to put out the fire. The other guest looks inside the room and something about it is tempting him to enter, but Enslin warns him not to. When Enslin mentions that the room is "haunted," the door to 1408 slams shut.

In the aftermath, Enslin gives up writing. He has various problems stemming from his night in the room. These include sleeping with the lights on "so I always know where I am when I wake up from the bad dreams", removing the house's phones and closing the curtains at sunset, because he cannot stand the shade of yellow-orange that reminds him of 1408 before he saved himself.

The Movie



John Cusack was robbed by the 2008 Oscars. You heard me right. That he wasn’t even nominated for his work in 1408 is a crime against the art of acting. The man may be the greatest actor of my generation and his skills are on full display in 1408. He goes toe to toe with an actor like Samuel L. Jackson and not only holds his own but actually tops the man in some of his scenes.



I saw 1408 the Saturday it opened with my wife and one of my best friends, Sanford, who was down from Detroit visiting. Sanford and I are both King fans and we’d been looking forward to the movie. Sanford went in with high hopes, he’s a big fan of the short story, and I went in hoping for a good solid film.

We were both surprised.

Sanford thought the movie was a letdown. He didn’t hate it and theses days his opinion of it has softened but on the day he was less than pleased with what we saw on the screen. I on the other hand loved the fuck out of it. There was nothing about the movie I didn’t love in the theater and still love today.

The setting, the acting, and the cinematography were of the highest caliber. The chills and scares were real and in the end. Before you go to my wrap up go watch the movie, or at the least read the Wiki pull I’ve provided for your convenience.



1408 (Film) - Wikipedia

1408 is a 2007 American psychological horror film based on the Stephen King short story of the same name directed by Swedish director Mikael Håfström, who earlier had directed the horror film Drowning Ghost. The movie stars John Cusack, but also includes Samuel L. Jackson and Mary McCormack. The film was released in the U.S. on June 22, 2007, although July 13 is mentioned as the release date in the trailer posted on the website.

The film follows Mike Enslin, an author who specializes in the horror genre. Mike's career is essentially based on investigating allegedly haunted houses, although his repeatedly unfruitful studies have left him disillusioned and pessimistic. Through an anonymous warning (via postcard), Mike eventually learns of the Dolphin Hotel in New York City, which houses the infamous "Room 1408." Interested, yet skeptical, Mike decides to spend one night in the hotel although manager Olin (Jackson) warns him strongly against it. Mike has a series of bizarre experiences in the room.

Plot
Mike Enslin (John Cusack) is an unprosperous, skeptical author who, after the death of his daughter Katie (Jasmine Jessica Anthony), writes books appraising supernatural events in which he has no belief. After his latest book, he receives an anonymous postcard depicting The Dolphin, a hotel on Lexington Avenue in New York City bearing the message "Don't enter 1408." Viewing this as a challenge, Mike forces the hotel to allow him to book a stay in the room, referring to a law that any hotel room in New York can be requested as long as it is up to standards. The hotel manager, Gerald Olin (Samuel L. Jackson) tries to dissuade Mike from checking into the room, explaining that fifty six people have died in the room over the past ninety five years, and that no one has lasted more than an hour inside it. Mike, who does not believe in the paranormal, insists on staying in the room, and asks Olin if he thinks it is haunted; Olin replies that it's not haunted; it's just an evil room.

Once inside the room, Mike records on his mini-cassette the room's dull appearance and its unimpressive lack of supernatural phenomena. During his examination, the clock radio suddenly starts playing "We've Only Just Begun", but Mike assumes this is a trick of Olin's. At 8:07, the song plays again and the clock's digital display changes to a countdown starting from "60:00". Mike begins to experience supernatural events, including the window slamming down on his hand, the hotel operator calling about food he didn't order, and spectral hallucinations of the room's past victims as well as of his family, particularly his daughter. Mike's attempts to leave the room are in vain; the doorknob breaks off the door, climbing through the air ducts prompts an escape from the corpse of a former room victim, and climbing onto the window ledge reveals the windows of the other rooms are gone. The ledge scenes have a lot of similarities to King's short story "The Ledge".

Mike uses his laptop to contact his estranged wife Lily (Mary McCormack), but the sprinkler system shorts out his laptop. The room temperature drops to subzero when the laptop suddenly begins to work again, and Lily tells him the police have entered 1408, but the room is empty. A doppelganger of Mike appears in the chat window and urges Lily to come to the hotel herself, giving Mike a diabolic smile. The room shakes violently and Mike breaks a picture of a ship in a storm, flooding the room. He surfaces on a beach, the result of a surfing accident earlier in the film, and after returning to a normal life and reconciling with Lily, he assumes it was all a dream. Lily persuades him to write a book about it, but when visiting the post office to send the manuscript to his publisher, he recognizes a construction crew as the hotel staff, and they destroy the post office to reveal Mike is still trapped in 1408, the walls now burnt and broken. A vision of Katie appears to Mike, and after some reluctance, he embraces her before she crumbles to dust. Mike hears the clock radio begin to play and looks for it in the rubble, seeing it count down the final seconds. When the countdown ends, the room is suddenly restored to normal, and the clock radio resets itself to 60:00.

The "hotel operator" calls Mike again after the clock resets. When Mike begs to be released, she informs him that he can relive the hour over and over again, or utilize their "fast-checkout policy;" Mike sees a hangman's noose and has a vision of himself hanged, but refuses. Mike uses a bottle of cognac he received from Olin to make a Molotov cocktail and sets the room on fire. The hotel is evacuated and Lily is prevented from entering. Mike then throws an ash tray at the window, causing a back draft. Fire fighters enter the scorched room, and pull Mike to safety. In his office, Olin quietly says, "Well done, Enslin. Well done." As Mike recovers with Lily at his bedside, he tells her about Katie, but Lily doesn't believe him. The two reconcile and Mike moves back in with Lily. During the move, Lily finds a box of items retrieved from the rubble of 1408. Mike retrieves his tape recorder and after some tinkering, gets it to play. As Lily unpacks their stuff, he replays the conversation with him and Katie. Lily overhears the recording and drops the boxes, staring at Mike in horror. Mike stares at her grimly, as the scene blacks out.

Alternative endings

The Original Ending
Director Mikael Håfström has stated that the ending for 1408 was reshot because test audiences felt that the original ending was too much of a "downer". The original (alternate) ending, which did not make it to the final cut, saw Mike dying in the fire, but happy to see the room destroyed. During Mike's funeral, Olin approaches Lily and Mike's agent where he unsuccessfully attempts to give her a box of Mike's possessions, including the tape recorder. Before being cut off, Olin claims that the room was successfully destroyed and that it will no longer hurt anyone else. He later listens to the recording in his car, becoming visibly upset when he hears Katie's voice on the tape. He looks in the car mirror and sees a glimpse of Enslin's burnt corpse in the backseat. Olin places the tape recorder back in the box and drives off. The film ends at the gutted room, with an apparition of Mike looking out the window and smoking a cigarette. He hears his daughter calling his name, and disappears as he walks towards the room's door. A sound of a door closing is heard and the screen blacks out.

This alternative ending is the default ending on the Blu-ray release and two-disc collector's edition. Canadian networks Space and The Movie Network, as well as U.S. network FX, broadcast this version of the film; although, Space did broadcast the original ending version on July 23, 2012. This ending is also used on the U.K. and Australian DVDs, and the U.S. iTunes and Netflix versions of the film.

Alternative Ending #2
Another ending takes from both above endings, as Mike dies in the fire, as per the original ending, and Olin is seen in his office chair saying, "Well done, Enslin. Well done." Then, instead of the funeral scene, we only hear a faint voice over of the funeral for a few seconds (to establish that Mike died) over establishing shots of LA, and then we find Lily in her LA residence sorting through Mike's boxes with Mike's agent, who says, "Well, at least he went out in a blaze," drawing a disapproving glance from Lily. Mike's agent offers to stay and help her but she tells him she'll be fine. The agent goes back to his New York office, sorting through his mail, and in his pile of mail he discovers the actual manuscript that Mike sent him about Room 1408 that Mike wrote when Mike thought he awoke from his dream. As the wide eyed agent reads the story, audio scene flashbacks are heard from Mike's tale and the movie ends with the agent's office doors slamming shut as Mike's father's voice echoes, "As I was, you are. As I am, you will be."

Alternative Ending #3
In an alternative addition to the main ending, Mike is alive, living with Lily, as per the main ending, but when he plays the tape where he hears his daughter calling out to him, this time Lily continues working in the house, not hearing what Mike hears. And as he "hears" his daughter, as recorded from Room 1408, Mike closes his eyes and clutches the tape recorder to his chest, as if it is something special that only he can feel.

The Wrap Up



1408 is my favorite Stephen King movie ever made. Once more listen to me before you storm away and declare war on some random fast food chain. I am not saying 1408 is the best adaptation of a Stephen King story to screen, that honor will probably always go to The Shawshank Redemption. What I am saying is that it is simply my favorite.

The movie is scary, entertaining, and heartbreakingly touching. In the end it’s the tale of a man who has been pushed beyond what he believes he can endure and comes out clean in the end (like Shawshank ironically) Mike fights the pervasive evil of the Dolphin hotel and defeats it. It has one of the only nihilistic endings I have ever enjoyed.

And that brings two final questions before I let you go today.

The first is a question unique on this list to this movie alone. Which ending do I prefer? To be clear, and by clear I mean crystal, I am a fan of all three endings. But when the bullet hits the bone I prefer the original ending. In that one we get the awesome scene with Olin, the jump scare with Mike, and the touching final scene with ghost dad and daughter. For all of its awfulness, cause you know Mike died and all that shit, this ending is the happiest. Mike died on his own terms, he defeated the room, and he was reunited with his daughter and made whole once more.

And the second question is of course, does it hold up? Of course it holds up, are you high? Watch the damn movie and then feel the shame you deserve for even thinking to ask me that question.

Shame on you, what would your granny say?





- Josh

My Top 10 Favorite Scary Movies Number 08: “Frailty”

A movie doesn’t need to star a supernatural slasher, demonic spirit, or zombies, and doesn’t need to be a post apocalyptic death fest for it to scare the shit out of me. Some of the movies that have stuck with me the longest are the ones that never made me fear for my life. Yes I know 99.99999% of the things in scary movies are complete bullshit but that doesn’t mean I don’t check my locks a dozen times before I go to bed because I’m convinced Jason Voorhees only enters unlocked doors.

So why did I choose Frailty as my number 8 scary movie?

So some back story might be helpful. I’ve loved psychological horror, as you will see by my number one scary movie, since my earliest years. The problem with being a true fan of Psycho-Horror is that so many of them are derivative. Yes other horror mediums can be even more derivative but at least in the slasher and zombie genres (as examples) I get the prurient joy of gore and jump scares. Derivative Psycho-Horror is just boring.

All of that is just a long winded way of saying when I was presented with Frailty I was dubious at best and apathetic at worst. Thank Tesla my baby brother Nick, the future scientist and all around good egg, changed my mind.

I first saw Frailty on VHS. I was at the forefront of DVD’s but the copy I watched belonged to my brother so I was at the mercy of his lack of technical sophistication and youth. That is to say he was saving for college and was loathe to spend money if he didn’t have too. So one weekend I slipped the small plastic brick in my last VCR and hit play.

The movie was, to say the least, fucking amazing.

I watched it three more times that weekend and upon each viewing I saw some new awesome detail. The story was fresh and original. The acting was top notch, to me it’s the single best thing Bill Paxton has ever done and I am a serious fan of the man’s work. The plot was complex and the action moved seamlessly from past to present in a concurrent story telling style I use in my own work. And more importantly the first time I watched it I DID NOT see the twist coming.

This flick still blows me away.

If you haven’t seen Frailty I’d like it if you watched it before reading my conclusions. If you have seen it but need a refresher or if you’d rather just get to the end of this essay then I have included the Wiki article with a hyperlink for your convenience. So bone up on the tale and join me at the end.



Frailty – (Wikipedia)

Frailty is a 2001 psychological thriller film, directed by and starring Bill Paxton, and co-starring Matthew McConaughey. This film is the directorial debut for Paxton. The plot focuses on the strange relationship between two young boys and their fanatically religious father, who believes that he has been commanded by God to kill demons.

Plot
A man (Matthew McConaughey) enters the Dallas, Texas FBI office one night and introduces himself as Fenton Meiks. He wants to speak to Agent Wesley Doyle (Powers Boothe) about his belief that his brother Adam (Levi Kreis) is the "God's Hand" serial killer that the FBI have been hunting.

Fenton explains he is only coming forward now because earlier that day, Adam called him to say that he cannot stop the "demons" because there are too many, and shot himself after hanging up. Fenton claims to have buried Adam's body at the Thurman Rose Garden. Doyle is skeptical, and Fenton unfolds through flashback the story of their childhood with their widower father, (Bill Paxton) referred to as Dad.

More than a decade ago, as children, Adam and Fenton lived a bucolic life under the caring attention of Dad. However, one night Dad claims to have had a vision from God that instructs them to find and destroy demons from a list of names provided by an angel to Dad. He's also been provided with special tools: gloves to insulate his hands, a lead pipe to knock the "demons" unconscious, and an ax named "Otis" to "destroy" them. Fenton goes into denial and likens the situation to a bad dream, finding it hard to believe Dad is capable of murder, while Adam wholeheartedly believes Dad to be doing God's work and is keen to help. Dad also tells them that God will protect them from being caught by the authorities and they must keep their activities a strict secret, to be shared by the three of them only.

Soon after, Dad captures his first victim and when he touches her, Dad claims to "see" the sins she has committed before using Otis to "destroy" her. Fenton is horrified but Adam claims he can "see" the woman's sins as well, which leads to Fenton accusing his brother of being brainwashed. The victim is buried outdoors in Thurman Rose Garden, which is adjacent to the Meiks' house.

When Dad kidnaps another victim and orders Fenton to "destroy" him, Fenton flees and informs the town sheriff (Luke Askew). Dad ends up killing the sheriff, blaming Fenton for the act that he believes to be "murder" unlike the previous killings. Dad then tearfully confesses that the angel told him that Fenton is also a demon and must be slain. But Dad has faith in Fenton so he instead locks Fenton in the cellar, thinking that Fenton can be redeemed. After more than a week, Fenton nearly starves to death and is only released when he says he had a "vision of God" and now understands what he needs to do.

Shortly after, Fenton, Adam and Dad track down and capture another "demon". This time, Fenton is given Otis to decapitate the man, but Fenton instead kills Dad with the ax. Fenton then moves to release the captured man, but Adam grabs the ax and slays the "demon", thus completing his father's work as Fenton looks on horrified.

In the present, Agent Doyle is intrigued by Fenton's story and drives him to the Thurman Rose Garden. Once they arrive, it is revealed that the man who has been calling himself "Fenton" is actually Adam, who has been loyal to his father's beliefs since he was a child. However, the real Fenton did end up becoming a serial killer and used the "God's Hand" moniker to ensure Adam knew it was him, knowing that his brother Adam would eventually kill him when Fenton's name appeared on the list. Fenton was buried in the Rose Garden, along with the other "demons" Adam "destroyed" over the years. It is also revealed in a flashback that all of the "demons" killed by Dad were in fact guilty of varied crimes and when Dad touched them, he really had visions of their crimes, visions which could also be seen by Adam.

Adam explains that he lured Doyle to the Rose Garden because Doyle was on "God's list". When Adam touches Doyle's hand, he has a vision of Doyle violently killing his own mother. Adam then uses Otis to kill Doyle before burying him in the Rose Garden.

A day after Doyle's disappearance, agents at the bureau search for "Fenton Meiks", the man with whom Doyle was last seen leaving the building. Agent Hull (Derk Cheetwood), who met "Fenton" (Adam) the previous night, inexplicably cannot remember the man's face and all security footage showing Adam's face has stupefyingly been distorted. The FBI then storm the real Fenton Meiks' house, where they find evidence of Fenton's murders and Doyle's FBI badge, alluding that Doyle could have also been a victim of Fenton.

Shortly after, Hull is seen visiting the office of a Texas sheriff, who is revealed to be Adam Meiks, but Hull does not recognize him. After Adam is briefed by Hull about the recent events, Hull takes his leave. In the last scene, Adam is revealed to probably have a wife who is pregnant with child.

So have you either watched Frailty or skimmed the Wiki pull?

Good, then let’s finish this one up and move on to the next.

So as you can see Frailty is a complex tale of dark psychological horror and mounting darkness. The movie is a great mystery, it’s a superior suspense tale, and it’s a heartbreaking portrait of a family torn apart by a secret. There is epic terror and some bone chilling sequences that have often been copied but never equaled in the years since.

But is it a scary movie?

As anyone will tell you scary is subjective. My wife thinks my fear of zombies and clowns is just precious but her constant fear of leaving the coffee pot on is nothing to joke about. So I will answer this question with a yes and a no because that’s how I roll, all bald and schizophrenic.

No, Frailty is not a scary movie. By this I mean it’s not scary in the classical sense. It’s not a slasher movie, or a true supernatural thriller movie, or some nihilistic kill fest. Frailty is smart and touching and can be enjoyed by nearly everyone. Frailty is never going to be on the lists of banned horror movies.

Yes, Frailty is a scary movie. It is a slasher movie. The reasons for the killings don’t negate a seriously dark and graphic body count. It is a supernatural thriller movie. The juxtaposition between good and evil is definitely grounded in supernatural/religious bedrock. It is a nihilistic kill fest. There is no room for negotiation in this world, the evil MUST be killed, burned, and cleansed from the earth.

So in conclusion, does Frailty hold up?

Yes, absolutely, no fucking question. Get off your butt and get your hands on a copy of this movie. I guarantee you will not be disappointed and if you are… well then blame Obama, everyone else does.







- Josh

My Top 10 Favorite Scary Movies Number 09: “The Day After”

How many of you reading my rambling bullshit remember the real fear of the Cold War? I’m sure many of you have either forgotten the reality of it or weren’t old enough when it was a going concern for it to imprint on your psyche. But if you do remember it then I don’t have to tell you just how much we thought our days were numbered and were convinced it would all end in fire. However, if you were born after the end of the cold war and the death of the USSR… why the fuck are you reading my essays?

Some of my earliest memories are of news stories about saber rattling between the super powers and threats of war. I’ve always been a news junkie and my great grandfather liked to encourage my love of current events. We’d sit and watch the news every day and I’d ask him about the different places and people involved in the stories. He’d laugh, tell me what he knew (usually in the cantankerous context of oldsters who lived through the great depression and referred to blacks as darkies but didn’t mean to be racist) and ask me what I thought.

Yeah, I’ve always been a giant dork.

I can’t tell you when I started to fear nuclear holocaust. I think most people of my generation were just born into a world where we accepted the commies were going to one day kill us all. My grandfather had his “Storm Shelter” in the back yard which in reality was the first bomb shelter I’d ever seen. So I think it’s safe to say I never knew not to be terrified of nuclear war and the end of the world.

However I can tell you when it became an all consuming terror.

In 1983, when I was in elementary school, ABC showed a movie that scared the seven year old piss out of me. The Day After was a realistic fictionalized scenario of global thermonuclear war. I remember seeing a story about it on one of the nighttime news magazine shows, I think it was 20/20 but I can’t be sure of that this many years removed from the incident, and being entranced. I think it was the next day that I asked my mom if I could watch it.

Something about my wonderfully weird mom before we continue on this adventure, bear with me it’s important. Mom let me watch almost anything I wanted. Did I want to see Bachelor Party so I could peep out some boobies? That was fine. Did I want to watch A Nightmare on Elm Street and laugh as Freddy Krueger sliced and diced his way through teenagers? Want to watch John Rambo blow people away? ABSOLUTELY NOT! Mom had a serious problem with what she considered “Real Violence”. By this she meant violence you could have a reasonable chance of encountering on the nightly news. I’m not sure how Sylvester Stallone blowing away small town hate filled cops with an M-60 counted as “Real Violence” and Jason Voorhees with his machete didn’t but that’s my mom and I love her. So when I asked about watching The Day After I received a resounding no… and much like with First Blood (still one of my favorite action movies ever) it only made me want to watch it more.

The movie aired on a school night and the next day it was the only thing people at school were talking about. I learned the plot and high points of the movie before the end of the bus ride to school and I returned home desperate to see it. Unfortunately it would be several months before I managed to pull that trick off.

For those of you born after 1994 you need to know a few things. Even though I lived in Detroit Metro we did not have cable TV, we didn’t have a VCR, and nobody outside of science fiction had ever conceived a TiVo. If I was going to see the movie I was going to have to rely on the kindness and willful ignorance of others.

My maternal grandfather, the bio one not the step one, was always at the top of the tech pyramid. He had the first VCR in the family, or at least the first one I can remember using. It was a top loading monster roughly the size and mass of a dwarf star. The thing was loud and generated enough heat to fry an egg… it was awesome. He was married to a lady other than my grandmother back then and her two sons (Bert and Ernie) were about my age and my constant companions.

I finally saw The Day After one weekend when I went to stay with them. We’d just finished a rousing game of guns, which meant we ran around in the dark screaming “I shot you” at the tops of our lungs, and were settling in for the night. Bert, the older of the two, slipped a cassette in the machine and we settled in to watch a movie. I expected an action movie or a comedy to play, secretly I was hoping to see boobs, but that was not what I got.

Less than two hours later I was scared out of my fat little head.







The Day After - (Wikipedia)

The Movie

The Day After is a 1983 American television film that aired on November 20, 1983, on the ABC television network. It was seen by more than 100 million people during its initial broadcast. It is currently the highest-rated television film in history.

The film postulates a fictional war between NATO forces and the Warsaw Pact that rapidly escalates into a full-scale nuclear exchange between the United States and the Soviet Union. However, the action itself focuses on the residents of Lawrence, Kansas, and Kansas City, Missouri, as well as several family farms situated next to nuclear missile silos.

The cast includes JoBeth Williams, Steve Guttenberg, John Cullum, Jason Robards, and John Lithgow. The film was written by Edward Hume, produced by Robert Papazian, and directed by Nicholas Meyer. It was released on DVD on May 18, 2004, by MGM.


Storyline

Background on the war
The chronology of the events leading up to the war is depicted entirely via television and radio news broadcasts. The Soviet Union is shown to have commenced a military buildup in East Germany (which the Soviets insist are Warsaw Pact exercises) with the goal of intimidating the United States into withdrawing from West Berlin. When the United States does not back down, Soviet armored divisions are sent to the border between West and East Germany.

During the late hours of Friday, September 15, news broadcasts report a "widespread rebellion among several divisions of the East German Army." As a result, the Soviets blockade West Berlin. Tensions mount and the United States issues an ultimatum that the Soviets stand down from the blockade by 6:00 a.m. the next day, or it will be interpreted as an act of war. The Soviets refuse, and the President of the United States orders all U.S. military forces around the world on alert.

On Saturday, September 16, NATO forces in West Germany invade East Germany through the Helmstedt checkpoint to free Berlin. The Soviets hold the Marienborn corridor and inflict heavy casualties on NATO troops. Two Soviet MiG-25s cross into West German airspace and bomb a NATO munitions storage facility, also striking a school and a hospital. A subsequent radio broadcast states that Moscow is being evacuated. At this point, major U.S. cities begin mass evacuations as well. There soon follow unconfirmed reports that nuclear weapons were used in Wiesbaden and Frankfurt. Meanwhile, in the Persian Gulf, naval warfare erupts, as radio reports tell of ship sinkings on both sides.

Eventually the Soviet Army reaches the Rhine. Seeking to prevent Soviet forces from invading France and causing the rest of Western Europe to fall, NATO halts the Soviet advance by air bursting three low-yield tactical nuclear weapons over advancing Soviet troops. Soviet forces counter by launching a nuclear strike on NATO headquarters in Brussels. In response, the United States Strategic Air Command begins scrambling B-52 bombers.

The Soviet Air Force then destroys a BMEWS station in RAF Fylingdales, England and another at Beale Air Force Base in California. Meanwhile, on board the EC-135 Looking Glass aircraft, the order comes in from the President of the United States for a full nuclear strike against the Soviet Union. Almost simultaneously, an Air Force officer receives a report that a massive Soviet nuclear assault against the United States has been launched, stating "32 targets in track, with 10 impacting points." Another airman receives a report that over 300 Soviet ICBMs are inbound. It is deliberately unclear in the film whether the Soviet Union or the United States launches the main nuclear attack first.

The first salvo of the Soviet nuclear attack on the central United States (as shown from the point of view of the residents of Kansas and western Missouri) occurs at 3:38 p.m. Central Daylight Time, when a large-yield nuclear weapon air bursts at high altitude over Kansas City, Missouri. This generates an electromagnetic pulse that shuts down the electric power grid of the surrounding area. Thirty seconds later, incoming Soviet ICBMs begin to hit military and population targets, including Kansas City. Sedalia, Missouri and all the way south to El Dorado Springs is blanketed with ground burst nuclear weapons. While the story provides no specifics, it strongly suggests that America's cities and military and industrial base are heavily damaged or destroyed. The aftermath depicts the central United States as a blackened wasteland of burned-out cities filled with burn, blast, and radiation victims. Eventually, the U.S. President delivers a radio address in which he declares that there is now a ceasefire between the United States and the Soviet Union, which has suffered similar damage, and states that there has not been and will not ever be any surrender by the United States.

Plot
The story follows several citizens and those they encounter after a nuclear attack on Lawrence, Kansas and Kansas City, Missouri. The narrative structure of the film is presented as a before and after scenario with the first half introducing the various characters and their stories. The middle portion of the film shows the nuclear disaster itself, and the latter half details the effects of the fallout on the characters.

Dr. Russell Oakes (Jason Robards) lives in the upper-class Brookside neighborhood with his wife (Georgann Johnson) and works in a hospital in downtown Kansas City. He is scheduled to teach a hematology class at the University of Kansas (KU) hospital in nearby Lawrence, Kansas, and is en route when he hears an alarming Emergency Broadcast System alert on his car radio. He exits the crowded freeway and attempts to contact his wife, but gives up due to the incredibly long line at a phone booth. Oakes attempts to return to his home via I-70 and is the only eastbound motorist. The nuclear attack begins and Kansas City is gripped with panic as air raid sirens wail. Oakes' car is permanently disabled by the electromagnetic pulse from the first high altitude detonation, as are all motor vehicles and electricity. Oakes is about 30 miles (48 km) away from downtown when the missiles hit. His family, many colleagues, and almost all of Kansas City's population are killed. He walks 10 miles (16 km) to Lawrence, which has been severely damaged from the blasts, and, at the university hospital, treats the wounded with Dr. Sam Hachiya (Calvin Jung) and Nurse Nancy Bauer (JoBeth Williams). Also at the university, science Professor Joe Huxley (John Lithgow) and students use a Geiger counter to monitor the level of nuclear fallout outside. They build a makeshift radio to maintain contact with Dr. Oakes at the hospital, as well as to locate any other broadcasting survivors outside the city.

Billy McCoy (William Allen Young) is an Airman First Class in the United States Air Force stationed at Whiteman AFB near Kansas City, and is called to duty during the DEFCON 2 alert. As a missile repair technician at a silo, he is among the first to witness the initial missile launches, indicating full-scale nuclear war. After it becomes clear that a Soviet counterstrike is imminent, the soldiers panic. Several airmen stubbornly insist that they should stay at their post on duty and take shelter in the silo, while others, including McCoy, point out that it is futile because the silo will not withstand a direct hit. McCoy tells them they have done their jobs and speeds away in an Air force truck to retrieve his wife and child in Sedalia, but the truck is permanently disabled and stalls from the EMP effect of the first high altitude detonation. Realizing what has happened, McCoy abandons the truck and takes shelter inside an overturned semi truck trailer, barely escaping the oncoming nuclear blast. After the attack, McCoy walks towards a town and finds an abandoned store, where he takes candy bars and other provisions, while gunfire is heard in the distance. While standing in line for a drink of water from a well pump, McCoy befriends a man who is mute, and shares his provisions. McCoy asks another man, who is walking along the road with other injured survivors, what happened to Sedalia, and the man indicates that Sedalia no longer exists. As they both begin to suffer the effects of radiation sickness, they leave a refugee camp and head to the hospital at Lawrence, where McCoy ultimately succumbs to the radiation effects.

Farmer Jim Dahlberg (John Cullum) and his family live in rural Harrisonville, Missouri, far from Kansas City but very close to a field of missile silos. While the family is preparing for the wedding of their eldest daughter, Denise, to KU senior Bruce Gallatin, Jim is forced to prepare for the impending attack by converting their basement into a makeshift fallout shelter. As the missiles are launched, he forcefully carries his wife Eve (Bibi Besch), who refuses to accept the reality of the escalating crisis while continuing the wedding preparations, downstairs into the basement from their bedroom. While running to the shelter, the Dahlberg's son, Danny, inadvertently stared directly at a nuclear explosion and was flash-blinded. A KU student, Stephen Klein (Steve Guttenberg), while hitchhiking home to Joplin, Missouri, stumbles upon the farm and is taken in by the Dahlbergs. After several days in the basement since the nuclear holocaust took place, Denise, distraught over the situation and the unknown whereabouts of Bruce, who, unbeknownst to her, was killed in the attack, escapes from the basement and runs about the field which is covered in radioactive fallout and cluttered with dead animals. Klein goes after her, attempting to warn her about the effects of the nuclear radiation that still lurks around. Eventually, Klein is able to chase Denise back to safety into the basement, but not before Denise runs to the stairs to find her wedding dress. Denise slowly develops radiation sickness and, during a makeshift church service, she begins hemorrhaging, while the minister tries to express how lucky they are to have survived and a Presidential address remarks that there is a ceasefire between the United States and the Soviet Union, which has suffered similar damage, and states that there has not been and will not ever be any surrender by the United States. Klein takes Danny and Denise to Lawrence for treatment. Dr. Hachiya unsuccessfully attempts to treat Danny, and Klein also develops radiation sickness. Dahlberg, upon returning from an emergency farmers meeting, confronts a group of survivors squatting on the farm and is shot and killed.

Ultimately, the overall situation at the hospital becomes grim. Dr. Oakes collapses from exhaustion and, upon awakening several days later, finds out that Nurse Bauer has died from meningitis. Oakes, suffering from terminal radiation sickness, decides to return to Kansas City to see his home for the last time, while Dr. Hachiya stays behind. Oakes hitches a ride on a Army National Guard truck, where he witnesses military personnel blindfolding and executing looters. After somehow managing to locate where his home was, he finds the charred remains of his wife's wristwatch and a family huddled in the ruins. Oakes angrily orders them to leave his home. The family silently offers Oakes food, causing him to collapse in despair, as a member of the family comforts him.

As the scene fades to black, Professor Huxley calls into his makeshift radio: "Hello? Is anybody there? Anybody at all?".

I think it’s safe to say The Day After had as large of an influence on me as writer as George Romero movies and Star Trek. Ever since experiencing this movie I’ve been obsessed with images of destroyed cities and the idea of the lengths people will go to in order to survive. After the terror I felt in the wake of The Day After I sought out everything post apocalyptic I could get my hands on, this is a habit I’ve kept to this very day.

Is The Day After a good Movie?

I guess for anti war propaganda it’s not bad, it did the job it was made to do and in that framework it’s decent. But in reality The Day After does not hold up, there are better post apocalyptic movies (I’m looking at you The Road) but that doesn’t matter. The Day After is burned into my mind and images from it find their way into my nightmares and writing till this very day.





- Josh

“Sickness and Fear of Death”

Illness scares me. In fact it would be completely accurate to say illness scares me more than anything else in the world. Yes I’m afraid of zombies and clowns bit those are fears that keep me centered and make me feel alive. Those fears are in the end almost fun. Sure it’s a fun that often ends in the need for adult diapers and weeks of nightmares but still fun.

My fear of illness only serves to make me feel small and insignificant in the universe. Unlike with zombies and clowns I know illness will almost definitely be the end of me. Most people end their lives in sickness, I’ve seen it and it scares the piss out of me. I fear dysentery, I fear pneumonia, I fear the most extreme forms of the flu, and I fear cancer. I know there are other worse and deadlier sicknesses but in the end those are the ones I have nightmares about.

The only other fears I have that even begin to match my fear of disease are fire and heights. I don’t know where my fear of fire comes from. Maybe it’s just the normal fear of fire all animals have hardwired into out DNA. All I know is that I have almost drowned twice and managed to hold my nerve and power through it without panicking but the one time there a legit chance of me being burned I turned into a caged animal. Heights on the other hand… I know where my fear of heights comes from.

When I was about six my best friend had a tree house in his front yard. It wasn’t much of a tree house but it was awesome for us. Instead of a ladder his father nailed a series of boards to the front of the ancient willow tree for us to climb to the top. Maybe if it’s happened on the fifth or the tenth or the hundredth time I climbed the tree it wouldn’t have affected me but not it happened the first time. We ascended the tree and cheered our conquering of the woody behemoth, if I’d been better read at the time I would have crowed about making Treebeard my bitch, and then it was time to descend. Three steps down the trunk my Ked clad foot slipped and I fell to the ground. After that heights of more than a few feet have had the power to freeze my heart in my chest.

Rational fears versus irrational fears.

That is all a very indirect way of coming to the topic of Ebola.

But before we talk about African Hemorrhagic Fever (no I don’t care if that’s accurate I just like the way it rolls off the tongue) we need to talk about the last truly great epidemic scare. We need to talk about AIDS.

The AIDS epidemic officially began on June 5, 1981, when the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in its Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report newsletter reported unusual clusters of Pneumocystis pneumonia (PCP) caused by a form of Pneumocystis carinii (now recognized as a distinct species Pneumocystis jirovecii) in five homosexual men in Los Angeles.



- Wikipedia Excerpt

I remember the very beginning of the AIDS epidemic. I was young, just about 5 years old. I know this without having to look it up because I have a very clear memory of a conversation between my kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Cupp who was so pretty and sweet I wanted her name to end in cake, and one of the other teachers in my school.

My kids tell me they don’t do nap time anymore in school but when I was young they made us lie down on the little mats for half an hour every day. I was lying there and wondering if I could convince Shannon Howard, the first girl I ever kissed by the way, to scoot over and share my mat when I heard it. Mrs. Cupcake was sitting at her desk in the front of the room talking to one of the first or second grade teachers while her class was on the playground. They were talking in hushed tones and it took me a minute to recognize the concern in their voices. I’ll recount the conversation as best as I can remember 33 years later.

“My dad says they’re rounding up the queers in California” the other teacher said. “He told me they’re talking about locking up and waiting to see if they get sick and die.”

“I haven’t heard that” Mrs. Cupcake whispered in shock.

“Well that’s what they get for being perverts” the other teacher declared a little too loudly. “It’s god’s way of punishing them.”

“What about the normal people who have it?” Mrs. Cupcake asked. I heard challenge in her voice. “I’ve heard people are getting it from blood transfusions.”

“Regardless” the other teacher said dismissively, “It’s here now and we all need to be careful. If I ever find out a pervert touched me I’m going right to the hospital. I’m not going to get AIDS.”

I’m sure I mangled the exchange badly but that’s the essence of what I heard that day. It was the first time I heard the term AIDS in connection with disease and death. I’m sure I’d been exposed to the term before that but this was the time all of the pins fell into place.

AIDS was a disease and it could kill me.

After that AIDS was the primary worry in my world following the impending nuclear war that never happened. I became obsessed with the disease and through it pathogens in general. I read and watched everything I could on the subject and in the days before the internet that was a pain in the ass. I remember in 1985 begging my mom to buy me the infamous LIFE magazine with the AIDS epidemic as the cover story. I read and reread that thing till it fell apart.

I remember the panic. I remember the children forced to stay home from school or else be isolated from their classmates in special chambers. I remember the hate for the homosexual community which had been ebbing in the years before AIDS exploding into the mainstream and setting things back a good 25 years at a minimum. As a young boy just beginning to realize he was not as straight as an arrow that aspect in particular fucked me up.

In the end the hysteria subsided and people took a good objective look at the situation. Treatments and protocols were developed and thing s stabilized. I’m not saying things are good. The disease is still spreading like wildfire in the third world, the treatments are absurdly expensive, and I am convinced there would be a vaccine if the government took the lead and not the pharmaceutical companies. In short I think, much like with other illnesses, that we are being fucked for profits.

But at least we know how to NOT get AIDS.

Fast forward to 2014 and we get the Ebola scare.

I’ve known about Ebola for a long time. Anyone who reads speculative apocalyptic fiction in any quantity heard about Ebola decades before it became the exciting new thing to be terrified of. I’m not minimizing the disease, it’s a nasty bug and it will kill your ass dead if you’re not careful. Ebola has been burning its way through West Africa all summer and has finally made the jump to the western world (The USA and EU as of this essay). Ebola did jump to the most populous country in Africa, Nigeria, and they kicked its nasty ass so keep that in mind.

So now America is shitting its collective shorts. We are freaking out and acting like it’s the judgment and we’re all doomed. People seem to think an Ebola infected hobo is lurking behind every corner waiting to shove a body fluid encrusted hand down their throats. People need to calm down.

Yes Ebola is scary, you bleed out in agony.

Yes Ebola is deadly, but people can and DO recover.

Yes Ebola is contagious, but only through direct fluid transfer.

Yes Ebola is in the USA, but Nigeria kicked its ass so… yeah.

Listen folks we’ve been through this before both as a nation and as a generation. There is no need to fly off the handle and act like we’re doomed. It’s an illness we understand, yes mistakes have been made and yes more will be made before it’s over. But guess what, that always happens. Do a little reading on every modern pandemic, in the end we always win. Wash your hands, see your doctor if you run a fever, disinfect body fluid spills, and use some damn common sense because when it comes to intellectual problem solving Nigeria ain’t got shit on us!







- Josh

My Top 10 Favorite Scary Movies Number 10: “Re-Animator”

This series of essays will obviously be a list of my favorite scary movies. I think that goes without saying. But I need to set a few ground rules before you dive in. This will only take a few paragraphs and then we can get on to the meat and potatoes of the piece.

First, yes I will be using properly linked Wiki pulls to give the movie plots. Yes I’m doing it because I’m lazy but I’m also doing it because these essays are about why and how I was scared by each of these movies and not the plots. If you’re not okay with that then I suggest you read no further. If you have no problem with it I think we can have an enjoyable reader/writer dialog.

Second, these are about what I find scary not what you find scary. We may agree on some of the criteria but like all lists of favorite things it’s a subjective and malleable thing. You may or may not agree with my reasoning but in the end each of these selections have left their dark mark on me.

Third, NO ZOMBIES! I love my zombies more now than I did when I was young. But I’ve done an entire series just about the living dead and rehashing that subject just isn’t in my wheelhouse. Nothing scares me more than zombies but I’m keeping them off this series.

Okay Boils and Ghouls those are the rules, let’s do this thing.





The Movie



My mother always encouraged my love of the horror genre. I may have mentioned this in an earlier essay, or maybe not but, I’m old so sue me. Maybe she didn’t actually encourage it but she never attempted to dissuade my fixation on something that scared the piss out of me on a regular basis.

Not long after we moved in with my grandparents in Dayton my mom started the practice of recording movies for my brother and myself to watch. Often the films she chose were odd and off beat comedies or legal/criminal thrillers she knew we’d enjoy. But every now and then she’d decided to record a selection of horror. They weren’t always good, hell most of the time they sucked, but when she picked right she was amazing.

But on one historic night she knocked it out of the fucking park.

We woke up on a fall Saturday morning in 1988 to several tapes. Stored on the magnetic ribbons were a clutch of movies I love to this day. They were Vindicator, a movie about a dead man kept alive and controlled by an advanced exoskeleton. The Stuff, a horror comedy which owes its existence to The Blob in all the good ways. Night of the Creeps… I’m not saying this one will be higher on this list but I’m not NOT saying it either. And last but not least one of the goriest movies I’ve ever seen in my entire life, Re-Animator.

For the record I will say this, mom hesitated before she let us watch it.

But in the end we watched it from beginning to end more than once that weekend. And true to form I was terrified following each viewing. The movie left me feeling uncomfortable and stayed with me for decades.

Re-Animator

At University of Zurich Institute of Medicine in Switzerland, Herbert West brings his dead professor, Dr. Hans Gruber, back to life. There are horrific side-effects, however; as West explains, the dosage was too large. When accused of killing Gruber, West counters: "I gave him life!"



West arrives at Miskatonic University in New England in order to further his studies as a medical student. He rents a room from fellow medical student Dan Cain and converts the building's basement into his own personal laboratory. West demonstrates his reanimating reagent to Dan by reanimating Dan's dead cat Rufus. Dan's fiancée Megan, who already thinks West is creepy, walks in on this experiment and is horrified.



Dan tries to tell Dr. Alan Halsey, who is Megan's father and dean of the medical school, about West's success in reanimating the dead cat, but the dean does not believe him. When Dan insists, the dean infers that Dan and West have gone mad. Barred from the school, West and Dan sneak into the morgue to test the reagent on a human subject in an attempt to prove that the reagent works, and thereby salvage their medical careers. The corpse they inject comes back to life, but in a frenzied, violent, zombie-like state. Dr. Halsey stumbles upon the scene and, despite attempts by both West and Dan to save him, he gets killed by the reanimated corpse, which West then kills with a bone-saw. Unfazed by the violence and excited at the prospect of working with a freshly dead specimen, West injects Dr. Halsey's body with his reanimating reagent. Dr. Halsey returns to life, but in a zombie-like state.



Dr. Halsey's colleague Dr. Carl Hill, a research-oriented brain surgeon, takes charge of Dr. Halsey, whom he puts in a padded observation cell adjacent to his office. He carries out a surgical operation on him, lobotomizing him. During the course of this operation, he discovers that Dr. Halsey is not sick, but dead and reanimated.



Dr. Hill goes to West's basement lab and tries to blackmail him into turning his reagent and notes over to Dr. Hill so he (Dr. Hill) can take credit for West's discovery. West offers to demonstrate the reagent, and puts a few drops of it onto a microscope slide with some dead cat tissue on it. While Dr. Hill is peering through the microscope at this slide, West decapitates him with a shovel, snarling "plagiarist!" as he drives the blade of the shovel through Dr. Hill's neck. West then reanimates Dr. Hill's head and body separately. While West is questioning Dr. Hill's head and taking notes, Dr. Hill's body sneaks up behind him and knocks him unconscious. The body carries the head back to Dr. Hill's office, with West's reagent and notes.



Exercising mind control over Halsey, Dr. Hill sends him out to kidnap Megan from Dan. While being carried to the morgue by her reanimated father, Megan faints. When she arrives, Dr. Hill straps her unconscious body to a table, strips her naked, and sexually abuses her, shoving his bloody, severed head between her legs. She wakes up in the middle of this experience.



West and Dan track Halsey to the morgue. West distracts Dr. Hill while Dan frees Megan. Dr. Hill reveals that he has reanimated and lobotomized several corpses from the morgue, rendering them susceptible to mind control. However, Megan manages to get through to her father, who fights off the other corpses long enough for Dan and Megan to escape. In the ensuing chaos, West injects Dr. Hill's body with a lethal overdose of the reagent. Dr. Hill's body mutates rapidly and kills West, who screams out to Dan to save his work.



Dan retrieves the satchel containing West's reagent and notes. As Dan and Megan flee the morgue, one of the reanimated corpses attacks and kills Megan. Dan takes her to the hospital emergency room and tries to revive her, but she is quite dead. In despair, he injects her with West's reagent. As the scene fades to black, Megan returns to life and screams.

I know what you’re thinking after reading the movie synopsis, but Josh you said no zombies and this is clearly a zombie movie. Well yes and no, to me this is more a medical/scientific horror film than a straight zombie movie. Yes there are zombies in it, some pretty fucking awesome zombies if you want to know the truth. But at the end of the day it just doesn’t watch or feel like a zombie film.

This movie holds up more than twenty-five years after it was made. There are many reasons for this but the number one reason I love this flick is the acting of one Mr. Jeffery Combs. Jeff is my all-time favorite character actor. He’s played more roles I’ve loved than any other actor living or dead. I think it may be a safe bet to say he will be on this list again.

Herbert West is one of the most entertaining yet disturbing characters in horror. He’s simultaneously the protagonist, the antagonist, and the comic relief. I’m sure he could have been played by another actor but I doubt any other would have done half of the job of Jeff Combs.







The Original Story



I am going to make a controversial statement.

Just remember that I am a fan of all things Lovecraft with the exception of his xenophobia and racism. I love his style, I love the way he uses language, I love the way he builds tension and mounting horror, and more than anything else I love how Mr. Lovecraft can leave an ending dark and obfuscated without making me sorry I read it.

Okay enough delay, here it goes.

Re-Animator is currently the best adaption of Lovecraft’s work to film… period.

Before you start throwing things at me remember I have a bone saw and I KNOW how to use it! Yes I know Re-Animator is not a truly faithful book-to-movie transfer and there have been major changes made to the story but in the end it embraces the spirit if not the literal story of the tale.

Let me give you the plot of the original story for comparison.

Herbert West—Reanimator

"Herbert West—Reanimator" is a short story by American horror fiction writer H. P. Lovecraft. It was written between October 1921 and June 1922. It was first serialized in February through July 1922 in the amateur publication Home Brew.[1] The story was the basis of the 1985 horror film Re-Animator and its sequels, in addition to numerous other adaptations in various media.



The story is the first to mention Lovecraft's fictional Miskatonic University. It is also notable as one of the first depictions of zombies as scientifically reanimated corpses, with animalistic and uncontrollable temperament.



Lovecraft originally serialized the story in Home Brew Vol. 1, No. 1–6, an amateur magazine published by his friend George Julian Houtain.



"From the Dark"

The narrator is a doctor who went to medical school with the titular character. Informing the reader that Herbert West has recently disappeared.

The narrator goes on to explain how he met West when they were both young men in medical school, and the narrator became fascinated by West's theories, which postulated that the human body is simply a complex, organic machine, which could be "restarted." West initially tries to prove this hypothesis, but is unsuccessful. West realizes he must experiment on human subjects. The two men spirit away numerous supplies from the medical school and set up shop in an abandoned farmhouse. At first, they pay a group of men to rob graves for them, but none of the experiments are successful. West and the narrator go into grave robbing for themselves. One night, West and the narrator steal a corpse of a construction worker who died just that morning in an accident. They take it back to the farmhouse and inject it with West's solution, but nothing happens. Later an inhuman scream is heard from within the room containing the corpse which forces the two students to instinctively flee into the night. West accidentally trips over a lantern and the farmhouse catches fire. West and the narrator escape. The next day, however, the newspaper reads that a grave in potter's field had been molested violently the night before, as with the claws of a beast.



"The Plague-Daemon"

Some time has elapsed since West and the narrator resurrected the corpse of the accident victim. Since the farmhouse burned down, West has been unable to perform many of his experiments, and as college Dean Halsey refuses to allow him access to human cadavers and the university's dissection lab, his research has been stunted. West has a stroke of luck, though, when a typhus epidemic breaks out and West and the narrator are called to help tend to the many dying victims. West, now finding himself consistently surrounded by the dead and the dying, begins injecting his patients with a new serum, which has no greater effect than causing some of the bodies eyes to open. Eventually, Halsey succumbs to typhoid, and as a final act of twisted respect for his former rival, West steals his corpse to reanimate. West and the narrator take Halsey's body back to West's room at a boarding house, where they inject it with West's new serum. Halsey does in fact reanimate, but is inexplicably less intelligent and more violent than their previous experiment. Halsey beats West and the narrator into unconsciousness and then embarks on a killing spree, beating and murdering over a dozen people before finally being apprehended by the police. The cannibal murderer is soon committed to an local mental institution.



"Six Shots by Moonlight"

Now licensed doctors, West and the narrator have gone into practice together as the physicians in the small New England town of Bolton, purchasing a house near the town's cemetery; so as to have consistent access to corpses. Still intent upon successfully reanimating a human being, West and the narrator claim the body of a black boxing champion, who died of a head wound in an illegal back-alley street fight. The men gambling on the fight arrange for West to dispose of the body, as it clears them of any crime; West happily agrees and he and the narrator hurriedly take the body back to West's lab and inject it with another new serum. When nothing happens, West and the narrator take the corpse out to a meadow and bury it. Several days later, there are reports around town of a missing child. The mother dies during a fit of hysteria, and the father tries to kill West in a fit of rage that West could not save her. That night, West and the narrator are startled by an aggressive pounding on their back door. Opening the door, West and the narrator come face to face with the corpse of the boxer, covered in mildew and dirt, hunched over at the back entrance. Hanging from his mouth is the arm of a small child. Almost instantly West empties an entire revolver into the beast.



"The Scream of the Dead"

Sometime after West killed the reanimated boxer, the narrator returns home from vacation to discover the perfectly preserved corpse of a man in his and West's home. West explains that during the narrator's absence, he perfected a type of embalming fluid that perfectly preserves a corpse as it is the moment the chemical is injected into the bloodstream; injected at the precise moment of death, the chemical prevents decomposition from even beginning. West reveals to the narrator that the dead man in their home is a traveling salesman who had a heart attack during a physical examination; as the man died before West's eyes, he was able to preserve it with the embalming fluid and has been waiting for the narrator to return so that the two of them can reanimate the body together. West injects the man with his latest serum. Signs of life gradually begin to appear. When the narrator questions the man he mouths words with seeming rationality and intent. Just before the man returns to a final death he begins screaming and thrashing violently, revealing in a horrible scream that West was in fact his killer.



"The Horror From the Shadows"

Five years have passed since West temporarily reanimated the traveling salesman and West has joined the Great War as a means to procure more bodies. Now serving as a medic in Flanders during World War I, West has gone beyond the point of simply trying to reanimate corpses; his experiments now include isolating parts of the body and reanimating them independently in an attempt to prove the machine-like quality of the human body. On the battlefield, West befriends his commanding officer, Major Sir Eric Moreland Clapham-Lee, also a medic, and shares with him his theories and methods on reanimation. Shortly thereafter, Clapham is killed as his plane is shot down (along with the pilot, Lt. Ronald Hill). West immediately begins work on his body. Clapham was nearly decapitated in the crash and West finishes the job and injects the trunk with his serum, the head being placed in a vat (West could not use Hill's body as it was torn to pieces in the crash). The corpse comes to life and begins thrashing violently, reliving its last moments of life. Clapham's severed head begins to speak from across the room, shrieking out, "Jump, Ronald, for God's sake, jump!". Just then the building is destroyed by a bomb shell. West and the narrator survive, but there is no sign left of their commanding officer. The two men assume that he was vaporized in the blast, although West is since known to speak fearfully of a headless doctor with the power of reanimation.



"The Tomb-Legions"

A year after returning from World War I, West, now described by the narrator as degenerating even further in his thinking, has moved into a house which is directly connected to an ancient system of catacombs which served as tombs for early settlers. One night reading the newspaper, West comes across an article detailing a series of strange, seemingly nonsensical events involving a riot at an insane asylum. A wax-headed man (Clapham) followed by a group of disturbing-looking followers carrying a box demanded that the "cannibal" killer (Halsey), who was locked up in the asylum 16 years prior, be released to them. Witnesses claimed that his voice came not from himself, as his lips or wax face did not move, but he seemed to speak as if ventriloquist. When the invaders were refused exchange for the killer, they took him by force. West spends the remainder of the night in a near catatonic state until someone comes to the door. The narrator answers it only to find a group of men. One of the figures presents the narrator with the large box, which the narrator then gives to West. West refuses to open the box and insists that they incinerate it. The two men carry it to the basement and burn it. As soon as the box burns, the zombies tear through the wall of West's home via the catacombs to which it is connected. Leaving the narrator alone, the zombies soon attack West. Realizing that his own death is imminent, West allows the zombies to disembowel him. As an final insult, Major Clapham-Lee decapitates West's corpse before leading his army of zombies off into the night. The narrator does not reveal much to the police about the missing Herbert West, and the information he does reveal they refuse to believe since the catacomb wall seems intact and undisturbed. He is forever haunted, considered mad, by his knowledge of what transpired and the lack of resolution regarding the raised corpses.

The story Herbert West Re-Animator is really good. Lovecraft was never happy with it but in the end it’s one of his best known and loved stories. It has its technical flaws, the thing was written between the world wars so I think we can cut him some slack, but it still rocks.

Just an additional bit of information before moving on. The audiobook version was read by the one and only Jeff Combs. He did a masterful job, if you have no desire to actually read the story I recommend downloading and experiencing the audio version, you won’t be disappointed.





Why It Scares Me



Once you sift through the gore, violence, necrophilia, and zombie cats (seriously that cat was scary as hell) Re-Animator is the story of mad science gone wrong. The film and the original source material are the spiritual decedents of Frankenstein. This 20th century retelling of the classic tale of forbidden knowledge and monstrous consequences terrified and excited me to new and unexpected levels.

Zombie cats bent on murder. A dark morgue full of psychotic reanimated corpses raging against the living. A headless doctor performing oral sex on a young woman. The pathos of a daughter and her living dead father. Exploding guts and prehensile intestines combined with a bone saw through the chest.

Do you really need to ask why I love this movie?





- Josh

I’m a Bisexual Part 2 - “Self Evaluation”

"To deny it implies that it's wrong."

- Alan Cumming

I kissed my first girl at five, but that’s boring to everyone but me. I will say it was on the school bus on my way home from kindergarten and we spent the entire trip stealing kisses across the aisle. It’s a great memory.

I kissed my first boy when I was six years old. He was my best friend and over the course of a few weeks we played doctor and smooched a lot. There was NOTHING wrong with it. It was simply the innocent first steps kids take in exploring their mutual sexuality and there was a sweet purity to it. After years of distance I can look back on it and smile. Everyone should be able to look back at childhood puppy love with rose tinted goggles. You don’t get to be in the state of grace for long.

Now take a deep cleansing breath.

When I was seven I was raped over the course of several months by a neighbor. Does that sound overly dramatic? Would you, like so many other people, prefer I used the term molested? Well I can’t, sorry. I hate the term molested, I realize it has its place but what was done to me and what is done to so many other children is rape pure and simple.

Maybe if the assault never happened I would have been able to accept who I am from the beginning. I don’t know but I like to think it’s possible. But the reality is it might be for the best that I didn’t truly face the situation until I was all but an adult. My family is a little conservative and a bit religious. I’m not saying they are hate filled or bigoted, well some are but for the most part they are good people. That being said it would have been a serious problem if I’d come out earlier, these are some of the same people who said I’d go to hell for playing Dungeon and Dragons.

I was pretty messed up after that. I’ve told the story in a previous essay about how I learned what a “Faggot” was and that they were horrible creatures. This happened after the rape… but I think it was in the same year. Those things remained linked in my mind and coupled with my belief in the veracity of the Bible and the Baptist faith resulted in a shame spiral (totally stole that from the Simpsons) of epic proportions.

The years between that summer and when I was thrust into the insanity of puberty were scary. There was an older boy down the street who I’m convinced was another victim of the man who raped me. This boy… let me say this up front he didn’t assault me. He was nice to me and we “Played Doctor” on many occasions but at a level nowhere near appropriate for either of our ages. It’s not a bad memory but it did leave me feeling even more confused and ashamed.

I’ll counterpoint that with an opposite sex questionable incident.

One night my mom went out and my regular babysitter was nit available. For the record she was the sister of my best friend, the first boy I ever kissed, and the inspiration for many a naughty fantasy. But that night another girl from the neighborhood came over to watch us. She sent my little brother to bed early and let me stay up as late as I wanted. We ate junk food and watched horror movies. I’m not sure the exact sequence of events but by the time the night was over I’d handled my first real boobs and a young woman had touched me sexually.

I’m sure right now some guy reading this is mentally high fiving me. Please put your hand down. While like with the older boy I don’t feel like I was violated it is still a confusing memory. Do I think she had bad intentions? Much like the boy no I don’t. Did I enjoy it? Much like with the boy yes. But the important question is like with the boy did it leave me feeling bad and ashamed?

Of course it did.

When I was 16 I admitted to myself that I was not straight. It might have been easier to deal with if I was flat out gay but oh no, as usual the universe decided to fuck with me in a more unique way. Not only did I lust over my high school girlfriend but I was also head over heels in love with a boy one grade above me. My nights were filled with sweaty confused fantasies that left me feeling, like when I was a child, excited and ashamed.

It was confusing as hell.

In the end I got to be with both of them. No not at the same time you wonderful pack of pervs. But I do love each and every one of you for thinking it. Although these days the idea of a Polyamorous relationship doesn’t seem particularly odd to me 16 year old Josh would have had an aneurysm.

I dated one then the other, then back to the one. My boy/boy relationship was short but intense. It was punctuated by a lot of stolen moments and secret glances. There was also a lot of pain and heartache which culminated in him telling me he wasn’t gay or bi and that it was all a mistake.

I was shattered.

Let me put this right on front street. Yes I tried to kill myself not long after the rejection but it was NOT because of him. I’m sure the depression from that rejection coupled with the confusion of the situation played a significant part in my stupidity but I had a hell of a lot of other issues in my life driving me toward the brink.

Ironically spending a large part of the summer between my junior and senior years of high school in a shoddy mental institution was one of the best things I ever did. Sometimes people need to break free from their environment. Sometimes everyone needs a little me time to sort through the confusion. While in there I managed to begin to get my head around the reality of my situation. Or at least enough to function if not thrive in the real world. While in there I bit the bullet and came out to my dad, that didn’t go so well.

Once I was home I kept my mouth shut. I dated mostly girls but my ex and I did reconnect on a couple of occasions, I worked, I spent time with my friends, and with a few exceptions I kept my secret. Back then I never saw it as a possibility that one day in my lifetime there would not only be tolerance but growing acceptance for the LBGT community.

To be fair I never knew there was a community back then.

I did come out to one person who made a huge difference and most likely kept me from slipping back into extreme depression my senior year. Mrs. Wright was my junior year German teacher. She was the first person I can honestly say figured out I wasn’t straight with no prompting from me. She was my confidant and sounding board in that last strange year before I was officially an adult. She went a long way to making that last year survivable.

When I left high school I was more or less whole. I was mentally and emotionally loose and creaky but all of the component parts fit and were more or less functional. It would still be many years before I finally not only accepted but came to love that side of myself but I’d taken the first steps. I’d like to say it was all uphill from there but the truth is nothing is that easy. It was a long and stumbling journey filled with twists and pitfalls. And it was not a journey I would have survived on my own.





In the next part we’ll talk about the people I confided in during the years I remained in the closet. They are good folks who never betrayed or judged me and they deserve a shout out and some public thanks.





- Josh

You’re The Inspiration 13 “Shoot For the Head Part 6 – Max Brooks”

Just a quick heads up, which at this point probably isn’t needed, but there are a lot of Wiki pulls in this essay. Am I doing this because I’m lazy? Yes, absolutely I am using Wiki pulls because I am lazy. Also because when it comes right down to it I wouldn’t be able to write better and more accurate synopsis’s than the ones available on Wikipedia. I just wanted to get that out there before delving into the subject. As always the individual wiki articles are hyperlinked.


When you talk about the modern Zombie Genre you have to acknowledge the contributions of one man. Max Brook has arguably done more to expand and popularize the zombie genre than any other single person. His books have had a profound and permanent effect on the fandom as a whole.

From books to comics Max has blazed a trail through new ground and made the realm of zombie fiction a more interesting place. I think it’s safe to say I never would have taken the plunge and written my Zombie Apocalypse RPG Dead Reign if not for the influence of Max Brooks. I’ve also talked to more than a few of my fellow indie zombie writers who feel the same way. Max is an inspiration to us all.

I’ve never had the pleasure of meeting the man. That hypothetical scenario falls under my “Never Meet My Heroes” policy. Much like Stephen King, George Romero, Joss Whedon, and Kevin Smith I don’t want to meet Max. I met a hero once and the results were less than pleasant.

What I do have related to Max, thanks to my friend Mark Oberle, is a personalized autographed copy of The Zombie Survival Guide. It’s up there as one of the jewels in my zombie collection.

So who is Max Brooks?

Bio
Maximillian Michael "Max" Brooks (born May 22, 1972) is an American horror author and screenwriter. He is the son of comedy filmmaker Mel Brooks and actress Anne Bancroft. Brooks' writing focuses on zombie stories. Brooks is also a television and voice-over actor.

Max Brooks was born in New York City, the son of actress Anne Bancroft and director, producer, writer, and actor Mel Brooks.

Brooks is dyslexic and attended Crossroads School in Santa Monica, California. He studied history at Pitzer College in Claremont, California but dropped out. He spent a semester at the University of the Virgin Islands. He graduated from American University in Washington, D.C. in 1994.

From 2001 to 2003, Brooks was a member of the writing team at Saturday Night Live.

Brooks' first book, The Zombie Survival Guide, was published in 2003 by Three Rivers Press. The book described in depth the creation of and lives of zombies. The book was later followed up in 2009 by The Zombie Survival Guide: Recorded Attacks, a graphic novel depicting several of the events detailed in the book's latter section.

In 2006, Brooks followed with World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War, which deals with the war between the human race and zombies. Paramount Pictures acquired the movie rights with Brad Pitt's production company Plan B Entertainment producing the film. In the October 2006 issue of Fangoria Magazine, Brooks stated that he would not be writing the screenplay for the motion picture, as he felt he was not an accomplished enough screenwriter to "do it right" (J. Michael Straczynski wrote the first version of the screenplay).

In 2013, Cemetery Dance published a new limited Edition of World War Z. Jeremy Caniglia created all new artwork for this special release to coincide with the film release.

Brooks wrote the introduction for the hardcover collected edition of Dynamite Entertainment's zombie miniseries Raise the Dead released in 2007.


The New Dead, a 2010 anthology of previously unpublished zombie stories edited by Christopher Golden, contains an additional World War Z story titled "Closure, LTD".

In 2010, Brooks wrote the IDW comic book mini-series G.I. Joe: Hearts & Minds.

In 2011, Brooks wrote the foreword for Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Zombies, a 300-page fiction book written by Matt Mogk.

In 2013, Avatar Press released The Extinction Parade, a comic book series based on the 2011 short story created by Brooks.

In 2014, Broadway Books published The Harlem Hellfighters, a graphic novel which portrays a fictionalized account of the entirely African American 369th Infantry Regiment's experiences in World War I, with writing done by Brooks and illustrations by Caanan White. Sony Pictures has purchased the rights to create a film version of the novel, with Caleeb Pinkett and James Lassiter producing on behalf of Overbrook Entertainment.

Acting and voice-over work
Brooks has a number of other creative credits. As an actor, he has been seen in Roseanne, To Be or Not to Be, Pacific Blue, and 7th Heaven. He also has a career voicing animation; his voice has been featured in the animated shows Batman Beyond, Buzz Lightyear of Star Command, Justice League and All Dogs Go to Heaven: The Series. During the start of the 3rd season of Lost Tapes, he was cast as himself in the zombie episode, telling the audience about how zombies come to be. He also appeared on Spike TV series Deadliest Warrior, in which he represented the zombie team in the "Vampires vs. Zombies" episode, as one of the Zombie experts along with Matt Mogk the Founder of the Zombie Research Society. He also appeared on the Discovery Channel’s Sons of Guns in a zombie gun build off ("Civilian vs. Military").

Personal life
Brooks has been married to Michelle Kholos since 2003. They have one child, Henry Michael Brooks (born March 2005). They live in Venice, California.

My little brother Nick was the first person to tell me about the Zombie Survival Guide. I think it was in the spring of 2004 but it might have been the summer. The only thing I know for certain it was after I saw Land of the Dead…

I’m old cut me some fucking slack.

I am a sucker for fiction presented in a textbook fashion. I read Tolkien’s Silmarillion for the first time when I was in the eighth grade and it captivated me. My first time reading the survival guide wasn’t quite so intense, but it came close.

Like many people my favorite section of the book is the last one. It’s a fictional history of recorded zombie attacks around the world. It’s a creative and captivating piece of faux history. When it was released as a standalone graphic novel a few years ago I was on that like Garfield on lasagna.

Okay… that was dumb, and I ripped off the Simpsons.

The Zombie Survival Guide
The Zombie Survival Guide, written by American author Max Brooks and published in 2003, is a survival manual dealing with the fictional potentiality of a zombie attack. It contains detailed plans for the average citizen to survive zombie uprisings of varying intensity and reach, and describes "cases" of zombie outbreaks in history, including an interpretation of Roanoke Colony. The Zombie Survival Guide was also featured on The New York Times Best Sellers list. Max Brooks got his inspiration to the Zombie Survival Guide from early childhood interest in zombies originating to when he was about 10 and saw his very first zombie movie, Revenge of the Zombies (1943), and sparked his interest.

Contents
The book is divided into six separate chapters, followed by a list of fictional attacks throughout history and an appendix. The first chapter, "The Undead: Myths and Realities", outlines Solanum, a fictional and incurable virus that creates a zombie, along with details on how it is spread (such as through an open wound, or in contact with infected blood or saliva), and treatment of the infected (such as suicide or amputation of the injured limb, though it rarely works). The middle of this chapter explains the abilities and behavioral patterns of the undead and the differences between "voodoo" zombies, movie zombies, and zombies created by Solanum.

In subsequent chapters, the book describes weapons and combat techniques; places of safety; and how to survive a zombie-infested world. In the section describing weapons, Max Brooks talking about the human body states that "If cared for and trained properly, is the greatest weapon on earth". The guide concludes with a fictional list of documented zombie encounters throughout history. The oldest entry is 60,000 BC, in Katanga, Central Africa, although the author expresses doubt about its validity. Instead, he presents evidence from 3,000 B.C. in Ancient Egypt as the first verifiable instance of a zombie outbreak. The most recent entry is 2002, in Saint Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands. Some of these encounters make reference to historical events, such as Roanoke Island.

Appendix
This is a sample "outbreak journal:" the author notes covered-up zombie outbreaks seen on the local news as well as the preparations he recommends in the event that the outbreak worsens. The following pages are blank entries, for the reader to use as a basis for his or her own notes on surviving zombies.

I picked up World War Z the day the hardback was released at my local Borders Books. I miss Borders, the massive corner of the Dayton Mall where is once lived still lies abandoned and sad. I settled down with the book and a case of coke and didn’t come back up for air until I was finished.

It was a transcendent experience.

I’m not sure there is anything I can add to the acclaim that’s been heaped upon this book. That being said let me jump to my favorite and least favorite things. Funnily enough neither of those things have anything remotely to do with the print version of the book.

I am an audiobook slut.

Seriously, as much as I love the printed word I will almost always prefer to have it read to me. There’s just something about being told a story that never gets old, as a matter of fact it enhances the experience for me tenfold. When I heard about the release of the World War Z audiobook I was as giggly as a school girl.

Then I bought it and it was abridged.

I hate abridged audiobooks like the fucking plague. I consider them a crime against art and my ultimate goal is to see them blasted and purged from the entertainment landscape. I will NEVER allow one of my books to be released in any reduced form ever. They are the audio version of the Readers Digest condensed books but with even more evil. They were created by Satan in the darkest pits of hell and should have remained there.

I really do not care for them.

Still, World War Z is an awesome book.

World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War (Book)
World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War (2006) is an apocalyptic horror novel by Max Brooks. The novel is a collection of individual accounts narrated by an agent of the United Nations Postwar Commission, following the global conflict against the zombie plague. Other passages record a decade-long desperate struggle, as experienced by people of various nationalities. The personal accounts also describe the social, political, religious, and environmental changes that resulted from the devastating war.

World War Z is a follow-up to Brooks' "survival manual" The Zombie Survival Guide (2003), but its tone is much more serious. It was inspired by The Good War: An Oral History of World War Two (1984) by Studs Terkel, and by the zombie films of George A. Romero. Brooks used World War Z to comment on government ineptitude and American isolationism, while also examining survivalism and uncertainty. The novel was a commercial hit and was praised by most critics.

Its audiobook version, performed by a full cast including Alan Alda, Mark Hamill, and John Turturro, won an Audie Award in 2007. A film inspired by the novel, starring Brad Pitt, was released in 2013.

Plot
Throughout the series of oral interviews compiled by the narrator (an agent of the United Nations Postwar Commission), the story of the global war against zombies, "World War Z", is told. The zombie pandemic's "patient zero" was a young infected boy in China; although it is implied that the boy was not the first victim chronologically, his infection (as well as those he infected) is the first to be recorded. It marks the point when the Chinese government attempts to contain the infection and concocts a crisis involving Taiwan, to mask their activities. Regardless, the infection is spread to other countries via the black market organ trade and refugees, with a larger outbreak in South Africa bringing the plague to public attention.

As the infection spreads, Israel abandons the Palestinian territories and initiates a nationwide quarantine, closing its borders to everyone except uninfected Jews and Palestinians. Its military then puts down an ultra-Orthodox uprising, which is later referred to as an Israeli civil war. The United States does little to prepare because it is overconfident in its ability to suppress any threat. Although special forces teams contain initial outbreaks, a widespread effort never starts: the nation is deprived of political will by "brushfire wars", and a widely distributed and marketed placebo vaccine creates a false sense of security.

As many more areas around the globe fall to infection, a period known as the "Great Panic" begins. Pakistan and Iran destroy each other in a nuclear war, after the Iranian government attempts to stem the flow of refugees fleeing through Pakistan into Iran. Following the fall of New York City, the U.S. military sets up a high-profile defense in Yonkers, New York. The "Battle of Yonkers" is a disaster; modern weapons and tactics prove ineffective against zombies, as the enemy has no self-preservation instincts and can only be stopped if shot through the head. The unprepared and demoralized soldiers are routed on live television. Other countries suffer similarly disastrous defeats, and human civilization teeters on the brink of destruction.

In South Africa, the government adopts a contingency plan drafted by apartheid-era intelligence consultant Paul Redeker. It calls for the establishment of small sanctuaries, leaving large groups of survivors abandoned in special zones in order to distract the undead and allowing those within the main safe zone time to regroup and recuperate. Governments worldwide assume similar plans or relocate the populace to safer foreign territory, such as the attempted complete evacuation of the Japanese archipelago to Kamchatka. Because zombies freeze solid in the cold, many civilians in North America flee to the wildernesses of northern Canada and the Arctic, where millions of people die of starvation and hypothermia. It is implied that some turn to cannibalism to survive; further interviews from other sources imply that cannibalism occurred in areas of the United States where food shortages occurred. The three remaining astronauts in the International Space Station survive the war by salvaging supplies from the abandoned Chinese space station and maintain some military and civilian satellites using an orbital fuel station. A surviving member of the ISS crew describes "mega" swarms of zombies on the American Great Plains and Central Asia, and how the crisis affected Earth's atmosphere.

The U.S. eventually establishes safe zones west of the Rocky Mountains and spends much of the next decade eradicating zombies in that region. All aspects of civilian life are devoted to supporting the war effort against the pandemic. Much of it resembles total war strategies: rationing of fuel and food, cultivation of private gardens, and civilian neighborhood patrols. The U.S. government also initiates a "Re-education Act" to train the civilian population for the war effort and restore order; the people with skills such as carpentry and construction find themselves more valuable than people with managerial skills.

Seven years after the outbreak began, a conference is held off the coast of Honolulu, Hawaii, aboard the USS Saratoga, where most of the world's leaders argue that they can outlast the zombie plague if they stay in their safe zones. The U.S. President, however, argues for going on the offensive. Determined to lead by example, the U.S. military reinvents itself to meet the specific strategic requirements of fighting the undead: using semi-automatic, high-power rifles and volley firing, focusing on head shots and slow, steady rates of fire; and devising a multipurpose hand tool, the "Lobotomizer" or "Lobo" (described as a combination of a shovel and a battle axe), for close-quarters combat. The military, backed by a resurgent American wartime economy, began the three year long process of retaking the continental United States from both the undead as well as groups of hostile human survivors. Prewar military doctrines and equipment are mentioned as being employed to deal with sometimes well-armed and organized criminal or rebel opposition.

Ten years after the official end of the zombie war, millions of zombies are still active, mainly on the ocean floor or on snow line islands. A democratic Cuba has become the world's most thriving economy and the international banking capital. Following a civil war that saw use of nuclear weapons, China has become a democracy and is now known as the "Chinese Federation". Tibet is freed from Chinese rule and hosts Lhasa, the world's most populated city. Following a religious revolution and the revival of Russian orthodoxy, Russia is now an expansionist theocracy known as the Holy Russian Empire. Owing to the fact that many young Russians either became zombies, were infected with HIV, or died due to drugs, the government has initiated a "breeding" program, with the remaining fertile women implied to be coercively impregnated to raise the birthrate. North Korea is completely empty, with the entire population presumed to have disappeared into underground bunkers.

The situation in the British Isles is not entirely clear in the novel. The Pope and members of the British Royal Family had fled to Ireland (specifically Armagh) and the Isle of Man,[1] following the military retreat to the Antonine Wall, and now exports oil from a reserve under Windsor Castle where the Queen held out for the war's duration, refusing to flee with her relatives. In France, the Palace of Versailles was the site of a massacre and has been burned to the ground; military losses were particularly high clearing the catacombs underneath Paris, because the catacombs housed nearly a quarter of a million refugees during the early stages of the war, all of whom became zombies. Iceland has been completely depopulated, and is the world's most heavily infested country.

The Israelis and Palestinians have made peace, and the former occupied territories have been renamed "Unified Palestine". Mexico is now known as "Aztlán". Several countries are described as having revised borders due to the "dumping" of convicts into infected zones; these convicts rose to command "powerful fiefdoms" that later became independent states. A so-called "Pacific Continent" appears to encompass previously uninhabited islands as well as ships rendered immobile due to lack of fuel after the Saudi Royal Family have destroyed the oil fields in Saudi Arabia.

The United Nations fields a large military force to eliminate the remaining zombies from overrun areas, defeat hordes that surface from the ocean floor, and kill frozen zombies before they thaw. Life on Earth is hinted at being brought to near extinction.

I really don’t blame Max for taking the money and walking away from the World War Z movie. Hell I probably do the same thing in his shoes. Unlike a lot of people I was cautiously optimistic about the coming film even after it was announced that there would be major divergence from the original source material.

Although fast zombies irritated me then and still do.

I love this movie. It may be the best acting I’ve seen out of Brad Pitt in a long damn time. The pacing is good, the action is tight, the story and characters are engaging, and the horror is just right. Plus Segen proves badass bald chicks are sexy. The only thing I didn’t like was the name.

I really believe they should have changed the name of the movie to something like “The Zombie War” and all of the controversy could have been avoided. But they didn’t and I was forced to listen to the bitching and moaning of the purists who made the biggest Star Wars fans sound like whiney babies for a few weeks.

But Star Wars belongs to Disney now…

World War Z (Movie)
World War Z is a 2013 American disaster zombie film directed by Marc Forster. The screenplay by Matthew Michael Carnahan, Drew Goddard, and Damon Lindelof is from a screen story by Carnahan and J. Michael Straczynski, based on the 2006 novel of the same name by Max Brooks. The film stars Brad Pitt as Gerry Lane, a former United Nations investigator who must travel the world to find a way to stop a zombie pandemic.

Pitt's Plan B Entertainment secured the film rights in 2007, and Forster was approached to direct. In 2009, Carnahan was hired to rewrite the script. Filming began in July 2011 in Malta, on an estimated $125 million budget, before moving to Glasgow in August 2011 and Budapest in October 2011. Originally set for a December 2012 release, the production suffered some setbacks. In June 2012, the film's release date was pushed back, and the crew returned to Budapest for seven weeks of additional shooting. Damon Lindelof was hired to rewrite the third act, but did not have time to finish the script, and Drew Goddard was hired to rewrite it. The reshoots took place between September and October 2012.

World War Z premiered in London on June 2, 2013 and was chosen to open the 35th Moscow International Film Festival. The film was released on June 21, 2013, in the United States, in 2D and RealD 3D. The film received positive reviews and was a commercial success, grossing over $540 million against a production budget of $190 million. A sequel was announced shortly after the film's release.

Plot
A worldwide zombie outbreak erupts in several metropolitan areas around the world; those bitten by the creatures become zombies themselves. Former UN investigator Gerry Lane, his wife Karin, and their two daughters manage to escape the outbreak in Philadelphia and take shelter with a Hispanic family in Newark, while waiting for special evacuation the next day thanks to Gerry's friend UN Deputy Secretary-General Thierry Umutoni. Their hosts choose not to accompany them when they flee the next day, and are subsequently killed by zombies. Their son, Tommy, manages to escape, and Gerry's family takes him in. They are flown to an offshore U.S. Navy carrier group where Umuntoni is overseeing the remaining worldwide governments' reactions.

The scientists there believe they must find the first case of the zombie outbreak, believed to be in South Korea. A team is dispatched to go, and Gerry is coerced into going with them under the threat of having his family sent to a potentially unsafe mainland refugee camp. The team lands at Camp Humphreys, where the surviving soldiers hold back zombie attacks: the zombies are fast and vicious, and once bitten, a person turns within seconds. Gerry learns that a Korean doctor was the first to come down with the rabies-like infection, after being bitten by a soldier he was treating whom local villagers had captured when he tried to attack them. A former CIA operative held at the base reveals that Israel had reacted a week before the outbreak, building giant walls around Jerusalem, and suggests that Gerry talk to Mossad agent Jurgen Warmbrunn.

Gerry is flown to Jerusalem and is brought to Jurgen Warmbrunn. The Mossad agent reveals they had intercepted a message from the Indian army on fighting the rakshasa ("zombies"). He and other Israeli experts convinced the government to build the wall to protect themselves. As Gerry is escorted back to his plane by the IDF, zombies are drawn to the loud music playing in the city and pile themselves against the wall, forming a mound of bodies that allows many to clear the wall. As the city is quickly overtaken by zombies, Gerry and the IDF members battle their way to escape. On their way, Gerry notices that the zombies avoid attacking an old man, and in another instance, a young feeble boy. A zombie bites Gerry's IDF escort and he quickly amputates her hand, which prevents her from being infected. Eventually, Gerry and the same female IDF member, who only identifies herself as Segen, are able to board the last passenger jet leaving the city.

Gerry recounts the zombie attacks and remembers seeing sick, injured, and elderly people passed over by the zombie hordes, which leads him to believe this is evidence of some way to deal with the hordes. He contacts Umuntoni to help convince the pilots to take them to Cardiff where an operational WHO facility is located. Nearing approach, a single zombie is discovered on the plane, and most of the passengers are quickly infected and converted. Seeing no other option, Gerry uses a grenade from Segen's pack to rupture the cabin and blow out the zombies, but this also causes the plane to crash. Gerry and Segen survive, though Gerry is impaled by a piece of shrapnel. They make their way to the WHO facility, where Gerry blacks out.

Gerry wakes up a few days later, nursed back to health. He contacts Umuntoni to help convince the WHO employees of his identity, but learns that Karin and his family were shipped to the mainland, as they believed he had died in the plane crash. Gerry explains his theory that the zombies ignore the infirm for the healthy, and suggests injecting themselves with a deadly but curable disease to mask themselves from the zombies. The WHO scientists agree but point out the pathogens are located in one of the zombie-infected labs. Gerry, Segen, and another WHO scientist carefully work through the infested labs but are detected. Segen and the WHO scientist get to safety, while Gerry finds himself in the vault with the pathogens, cornered by a lone zombie. Without the ability to identify the strains in storage, many of which could kill him, Gerry injects himself with one of the samples and finds himself still alive. His hypothesis is proven correct as the zombie enters the vault but does not attack, allowing him to walk back to safety with more samples as the rest of the zombies run right past him. Gerry is then treated for the disease.

In a voice-over, Gerry explains they were able to use these diseases to create a masking agent, allowing them to rescue refugees still trapped by zombies and fight against them. He says that this isn't the end and our war has just begun, but there is hope as people have used the masking agent to evacuate people or fight back. The final scene shows Gerry and Segen being taken to the mainland refugee camp where Gerry is reunited with his family.

And that boils and ghouls is a wrap on Mr. Max Brooks and his contributions to the genre I love so much. He is a many of many talents and a true fan of the reality he works in. The only thing I have to say about Max and his work is that I want a World War Z television series, preferably on HBO, based on the book. I have no idea if that has been kicked around or not but hey… a guy can dream.


I am happy and sad to tell you the next installment of the Shoot for the Head will be the last. This has been a really kicking series of essays to write but it’s time to move onto the next thing. If you’ve been keeping track of all the things I’ve covered I’m sure you’ve noticed one glaring omission.
But really, Daryl Dixon plays second fiddle to no one.


- Josh

Favorite New Thing 2: “Devils Pass”

I never know when something I’ve just discovered is going to snag my interests. I have no set criteria for these essays. They can be about any subject. Books, movies television, art, people, or objects nothing is banned from being included here. As far as that goes timeframe isn’t relevant either. As long as it’s new to me in so abstract way it can make it onto this list. Basically if it strikes my fancy I’ll showcase it.

That’s my way of saying don’t bust my balls.

So with that out of the way on to this installment.

It’s Fall and that means two things in the Hilden household. The first is my middle daughter engrossed in the high school play season, this year she is playing the gender flipped Mrs. Potter in It’s a Wonderful Life. The second is the transformation of our home into a 24/7 horror movie cinema.

I love horror, bet you couldn’t have guessed that. What I bet you wouldn’t have guessed considering my passion for the zombie genre is my undying commitment to the found footage genre.

Get that look off your face, no I haven’t lost my mind!

Let’s take a moment and rewind to 1999.

In that year a little movie called The Blair Witch Project was released. The roll out of this flick had more than a few people convinced the story of three filmmakers lost in the forests of Maryland was real. There were folks all across the country who thought the footage was genuine. This was further reinforced by the brilliant fake documentary the then young Sci-Fi network put out. If you weren’t around or paying attention that year I need to tell you it was a fucking cultural phenomenon.

I love that movie.

But tell the truth and shame the devil. I will admit it has its flaws. The movie is a product of its times and budget. Blair Witch is far from a perfect example of the found footage genre, for many years I’ve considered George Romero’s flick Diary of the Dead as the best of the bunch.

I continued to think that right up until last weekend.

Last Sunday I was skimming through Netflix looking for something new to satiate my palate. I nearly settled on Insidious 2, good scary movie by the way, but instead clicked on a little flick I’d never heard of before…


DEVILS PASS

Five college students set off to find out what happened to the nine skiers who mysteriously died in the Dyatlov Pass incident. Holly and Jensen are co-directors, J. P. and Andy are expert climbers, and Denise is the sound engineer. After the film introduces the characters, Russian-language news discusses the students' disappearance. The Russian government recovers video footage but refuses to release it to the public; hackers release the footage, which forms the rest of the film.

In Russia, the students first try to contact a member of the initial expedition who turned back after the first day. However, the man has been hospitalized following a nervous breakdown. The administrators at the hospital claim that he is dead and attempt to turn away the filmmakers. In an upstairs window, the students see a man they assume to be the survivor; he holds up a sign in Russian and is dragged away by orderlies. At a bar, the students recruit Sergei, who translates the sign as a warning to turn back.

Undeterred, Sergei introduces them to his aunt, Alya, who was part of the original rescue team. She tells them that a machine and eleven bodies were found at the site, not nine, as is commonly reported. The final two bodies had something wrong with them.

At their camp site, Holly hears howling. The next morning, the group notices barefoot prints in the snow that start and stop suddenly. Jensen claims the footprints are from yeti, but the others claim that Holly is messing with them. After hiking further, they again hear howling and find footprints that lead to a weather tower. Inside the weather tower, they find a human tongue. Denise wants to leave, but the others convince her to continue. Jensen reveals that he heard the howling during a bad acid trip that ended with his yelling incoherently about demons. Holly attempts to comfort Jensen by relating that she has had recurring dreams about Dyatlov Pass, which she interprets as fate. As they talk, two white figures in the background move on the hill and disappear without anyone seeing them.

According to their map, the group arrives at Dyatlov Pass too early. J. P. and Andy are further spooked when their navigational equipment malfunctions. Using a Geiger counter, Holly and Jensen are led to a bunker that locks from the outside. The door is already unlocked but frozen shut; they manage to open the door. They return to the camp without telling anyone about the bunker. The next morning, the group wakes to explosions that cause an avalanche. Denise is killed, and Andy suffers a bad fracture.

After they fire a flare, Russian soldiers arrive, kill Andy, and chase the survivors to the bunker. J. P. is shot as they enter, so Holly and Jensen leave him as they explore the bunker. Inside, they discover evidence of teleportation experiments, a dead soldier who is missing his tongue, a camcorder that has footage of their present conversation, and dead bodies stacked in a pile.

J. P. screams, and Jensen and Holly find him under attack by teleporting mutants. The mutants kill J. P. and chase Jensen and Holly into a sealed room. There, Jensen theorizes the tunnel that leads further into a natural cave is a wormhole. Unwilling to starve to death or face the mutants, Jensen and Holly choose to step into the wormhole. Since there are no controls, Jensen suggests that they visualize a nearby destination. Holly suggests the bunker entrance, and they enter the wormhole. In the next scene, the Russian military in 1959 discover two bodies, recover a camcorder, turn away Sergei's aunt Alya, and hang the bodies on meat hooks inside the bunker, which is fully operational and manned. In the final shot, the bodies are revealed to be Holly and Jensen, transformed into mutants.

… sounds pretty generic right?

I will plant my flag on this mountain and declare that of all of the found footage horror movies I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen more than anyone should have to, that Devils Pass is the best. I am dead fucking serious this movie is excellent.

It’s also awful.

Nothing in this movie should work. The plot is lame, the twist was telegraphed, the characters are cookie cutter, the acting is marginal, and the scares are predictable. By all accounts this should at best be one of my favorite bad movies instead of my new favorite thing. So why does it work?

The sum is greater than all of its parts.

I can’t explain it. I know it sounds like a massive copout but for some reason once you mash all of the subpar and mediocre elements together you get a movie I’ve watched three times in a week. Will it win any awards or be on the best of list of a person with better taste?

Never.

You know what though? I don’t care. This movie managed to catch me off guard and work its way into my mind. I loved it and I recommend it to anyone willing to go inside with an open mind. Will it change your life or cure death?

Of course not…



- Josh

I’m A Bisexual Part 1 – “Why I’m Doing This”

“My sexuality is something I'm completely comfortable with and open about. There's a lot of prejudice toward us but the more people talk about it, the less of a big deal it will be. And that will be better for everyone.”

- Anna Paquin



Unless you are brand new in my life or have been living in a bubble under the sea for the last three years you all know I’m Bi. If you don’t then stop reading this essay immediately and go back to reread some of my other nonfiction writing… I’ll wait.

All caught up now?

Do you need a definition?

Bisexuality

Bisexuality is romantic attraction, sexual attraction or sexual behavior toward both males and females, and may also encompass romantic or sexual attraction to people of any gender identity or to a person irrespective of that person's biological sex or gender, which is sometimes termed pansexuality.

The term bisexuality is mainly used in the context of human attraction to denote romantic or sexual feelings toward both men and women, and the concept is one of the three main classifications of sexual orientation along with heterosexuality and homosexuality, which are each parts of the heterosexual–homosexual continuum. A bisexual identity does not necessarily equate to equal sexual attraction to both sexes; commonly, people who have a distinct but not exclusive sexual preference for one sex over the other also identify themselves as bisexual.

Bisexuality has been observed in various human societies and elsewhere in the animal kingdom throughout recorded history. The term bisexuality, however, like the terms hetero- and homosexuality, was coined in the 19th century.

Did you read enough to get the gist?

Good, then I don’t need to do more than ascertain that I am a bisexual American male who is happily married to a woman. For that matter I am happy with my sexuality, I can equally lust after Christmas Abbot and John Barrowman without batting an eye. It’s a good life and I have no regrets in coming out of the closet… I hate that fucking term by the way. But the journey to my acceptance was hard and while I was never in fear for my life or soul it was still a weight I was almost not strong enough to bear.

Let me put this right at the top of the deck. I am not a strong man. I know people who have shouldered difficulties that would have left me broken and ready for that mercy bullet. They do it without complaint and with a quiet dignity that leaves me in awe and a little ashamed.

But I’m me and I can’t be them, I don’t know how to be them.

So why am I doing this?

That’s a fair question. I have written on the subject of my sexuality and how I’ve been shaped by it quite a few times. But it’s always been in isolated pieces or as part of a larger more complex narrative. I have never, to my recollection, tackled the subject head on and with no other topics (such as my depression) to obfuscate the issue.

Lately I’ve felt the need to speak up.

Why?

That’s complicated. There was no need for me to come out. If you ever meet me and spend time with me I doubt you’d be able to tell I am not “Straight as an Arrow”. There’s nothing special about me, other than my beard that thing is hardcore. I’m just a guy, I work a crap job, I have a great partner, my kids are my reason for getting up, and I write whenever I have a free moment.

I’m boring but happy.

But in the end I am still me and I am a bisexual man. If regular people who are gay, straight, and bi don’t speak up and say that there is nothing wrong or unnatural with being the way you were born then the bigots and fanatics win. But I have to keep it honest, there was something that ignited this series of essays.

Deep breath…

I keep seeing posts on the vile cesspools of social media that boil down to one thing. I’m not going to find a direct quote to call out but instead I’m going to give you a paraphrased amalgamation.

All of you queers are winning and we are letting you have your rights. Now won’t you just shut the fuck up and leave all of us normal folks alone… but you’re all still going to hell.


I would like to say that is hyperbole but sadly not so much.

I usually hold my tongue, or at least my keyboard, when I see people spouting nonsense like that. But they do bother me a lot. I know there are people in my family who have taken the reality of my sexuality, no matter how little effect it has on them, very badly.

This is NOT a poor me thing. Like I said the people who know me and love me don’t care that I’m a little bent (see what I did there) and have always accepted me for who and what I am. They’ve always been the ones in my corner telling that I could do it and they’ve always believed in me.

Even when I didn’t.

In this series we’ll talk about the key points in my life and how they related to my sexuality. We will also talk about the high and low points in my coming to terms with myself and my place in the world. I have no idea how many installments there will be but when I am done maybe I will feel like I’ve done my bit for the cause.

Fuck me that was preachy and arrogant.

Truth is maybe I just like writing about my life and I would keep doing it whether people read it or not. It makes me feel better about myself and my life the more I put out there. When I first started writing about my life two and a half years ago I was scared and tentative. The words were hard to mine and I deleted more essays than I published. But as time went on it became easier and the good feeling when I was done was almost like a minor high.

But it’s still scary as fuck.

That being in the forefront of my mind I’ve resolved to push forward. This needs to be done. Not because I’m stupid enough to believe anyone will read it or that there is some underlying poignancy to it either. I’m doing this because I need to.

I hope you forgive this digression into hubris and indulge me for a little while. I promise in the end we’ll return to my bitching about morons and talking about zombies.


- Josh

Shoot For the Head Part 5 – Zombies in Print

There is a long and gory history of the zombie genre in the print universe. From novels to comic books and everything in between the written word has allowed the scope of an Earth overrun by the living dead to be opened in an infinite number of directions. In this section I am going to hit the highlights and works that have been an influence on me as a creator.
This will be by no means a comprehensive listing of all things zombie in print. I could likely write an entire book just on that subject alone but you people will have to settle for yet another rambling essay packed with Wiki pulls and Amazon author bios.
Because… lazy writer and all that shit.
For everything and person on this there are dozens more I should have included but didn’t. That being a truth I want to take this moment before we delve into the madness to encourage you to seek them out. I promise if you are a fan of zombies you will not be disappointed.
Enough of the preamble, on to the zombies.


Novels/Anthologies

There are hundreds of amazing zombie novels, novellas, novelettes, and short stories on the market. The eBook lists are stiff with them… stiff. I was going to do a rundown of my favorite individual books but I realized that I was more influenced by the individual writers as opposed to specific works. That being said my favorite zombie authors het their own section.
However, there is one exception to this decision.

The Books of the Dead

In 1990 I was in the Walden Books (if you remember that chain then welcome to middle age) at the Westland mall when I saw a paperback with an awesome cover. I’d never before that day seen a zombie centric novel, with the exception of the Dawn of the Dead movie adaptation, and the idea of reading zombie fiction sent my dark heart fluttering.
By the way I have a hard back copy of that book… so yeah, I rule.
The Book of the Dead and it’s follow up are still two of my all time favorite books. The stories run from the terrifying to the troubling. The anthologies covered so many different angles on the zombie genre that in a time bereft of new zombie fair it was like rediscovering my passion all over again.
The books, as far as I can determine, are out of print and have both been released in eBook format. I still have my paperback copies but I would pay a premium for audio versions.
You don’t want to know what I would give to contribute to a new Book of the Dead anthology… you really don’t.
Book of the Dead is an anthology of horror stories first published in 1989, edited by John Skipp and Craig Spector. All the stories in the anthology are united by the same premise seen in the apocalyptic films of George A. Romero, depicting a worldwide outbreak of zombies and various reactions to it. The first book was followed three years later by a follow-up, Still Dead: Book of the Dead 2, with a new group of writers tackling the same premise, though the second book put the stories in order according to their imagined chronology of the zombie takeover.

The Book of the Dead compilations are regarded as classic anthologies in the horror and splatter punk genres, featuring a great number of famous names including Stephen King, Joe R. Lansdale, Robert R. McCammon and foreworded by George A. Romero and Tom Savini. They are likely the first anthologies of zombie-themed tales ever printed, and have been cited as perhaps the first true "zombie literature" as such.

Comic Books
Zombies in the comic book setting were once a thing just for the independents. But with the breakout success of The Walking Dead (discussed below) the mainstream companies took noticed and started producing their own fare.
Some of them great most wretched.
I am only touching on the ones that’ve made a serious impression on me. If you want to find out what others think about the various zombie themed comics just Google the subject and be prepared to want to bleach you brain.
People are assholes.


Deadworld

I still remember the first time I saw an issue of Deadworld. It was 1989 and I was at Mavericks the local comic book and baseball card store I frequented when I live with my grandparents. I was swiping up my usual picks of X-Men titles and The Flash when I saw the cover of Deadworld 9. Done by the amazing Vince Locke it was dark and horrifying.
Full disclosure… it gave me nightmares.
I was not the one who bought it, that would be my unnamed middle brother. If I got my love of horror in general from anyone it would have to be him. But while he bought that issue (actually mom bought it for him) I was the one who read it a hundred times. That might be an exaggeration but not by much.
I didn’t start collecting Deadworld until the 1991 Motor City Comic Con. That year I met one of my artistic heroes Mr. Vince Locke. I was the prototypical Fanboy. I pestered and fawned over him and will say no matter how irritating I had to be he was the nicest most generous guy in the world. That day I bought the entire first run of Deadworld and blew through all of my petty cash.
Worth it!
Deadworld showed me how to blend supernatural elements and the modern world and have the result be amazing. Yeah I know these days with shows like Supernatural and True Blood that seems like a no brainer but back then it had yet to truly be executed in a non tongue in cheek manner.
It is fair to say that after Romero nothing else has influenced my work in the zombie genre more than Deadworld.

Deadworld is an ongoing American comic book published by Desperado Publishing in association with IDW Publishing.

The series follows survivors in a post-apocalyptic scenario brought on by zombie attacks. Led by King Zombie, Deadworld brings forth a different slant than just humans slaughtering zombies.

Marvel Zombies

I wanted to hate this series.
I didn’t care that Robert Kirkman (The man behind The Walking Dead) had his finger prints all over it, it just sounded dumb as fuck. The idea of a universe where the zombie virus has overrun the Marvel heroes and villains rang every wrong bone in my body. Then one day it was available as a digital download really cheaply, it might have been a freebie but I’m not sure.
It was good.
Marvel Zombies unsettled me, seriously unsettled me. Watching the heroes I’d grownup with devour their friends and loved ones left me feeling off balance and wanting a stiff drink… stiff.

Marvel Zombies is a five-issue limited series published from December 2005 to April 2006 by Marvel Comics. The series was written by Robert Kirkman with art by Sean Phillips and covers by Arthur Suydam. It was the first series in the Marvel Zombies series of related stories. The story is set in an alternate universe where the world's superhero population has been infected with a virus which turned them into zombies. The series was spun out of events of the "Crossover" story-arc of Ultimate Fantastic Four, where the zombie Reed Richards tricked his Ultimate counterpart into opening a portal to the zombie universe.

The Walking Dead

Of course I have to mention what might be the single most popular non Super Hero comic book of all time. The Walking Dead comic book series revitalized and changed the zombie genre more than anything else since the release of the original Night of the Living Dead. The second golden age of zombies was born in the pages of this humble black and white book.
If it wasn’t for the Walking Dead I never would have written Dead Reign. If I’d never written Dead Reign, despite the awfulness of the ending to the experience, my career never would have gained traction.

The Walking Dead is an ongoing black-and-white American comic book series created by writer Robert Kirkman and artist Tony Moore. It chronicles the travels of Rick Grimes, his family and other survivors of a zombie apocalypse.

Roleplaying Games (RPG’s)

Even though I made my writing bone in the RPG universe I have very little experience with the plethora of Zombie Games. That being said there are two exceptions. One of them id strictly based on the experience of reading the books and the other is a bit more… personal.

All Flesh Must Be Eaten (AFMBE)

All Flesh Must Be Eaten is the gold standard of zombie RPG’s. People love this game and from what I’ve read I can’t say I blame them. I’ve never played it myself and I probably won’t but I couldn’t talk about what comes next without mentioning AFMBE.

All Flesh Must Be Eaten or AFMBE (ISBN 1-891153-31-5) is a multiple Origins Award winning and nominated survival horror role-playing game (RPG) produced by Eden Studios, Inc. using the Unisystem game system. AFMBE is derived from the traditional horror movie depictions of zombies who rise from the dead as mindless monsters that consume the living. In addition to producing a revised edition and many RPG supplements, there have been many works of fiction published that take place in one of the game’s many settings.

AFMBE is one of the first RPGs to focus on zombies as the main aspect of survival horror. While other games do have zombies, AFMBE was the first to make them central. AFMBE was also the first new Unisystem game produced by Eden under their exclusive licenses of the Unisystem game.

The main rule book details character creation, skills, qualities (positive characteristics), drawbacks (negative characteristics), zombie creation rules, character archetypes and several campaign settings (called "Deadworlds" in the jargon of the game). The game has a large following and several expansion books.

AFMBE genre books also serve double duty as expansions to the Classic Unisystem rules for various movie, TV and literature genres, such as the Western, pulp fiction, and sci-fi. The Revised Edition also includes an appendix detailing conversions to the d20 System.

Dead Reign

Yeah I know those of you familiar with my past were wondering when I would get to talking about Dead Reign in this series of essays. I’m not going to delve very far, if at all, into the history of the title. The below Wiki pull is a more or less accurate if truncated version of what went down.
But I want to put a couple of things out there.
The first, and most important thing, I want everyone to know is the contribution of my writing partner Joshua Sanford. Sanford is one of my oldest and best friends and without him Dead Reign never would have been anything more than a collection of pages of notes in a three ring binder. He created the Reapers, the real hard assed version the kid friendly ones eventually published. He pushed me and is one of the best creative people I have ever worked with.
The second thing I need people to know is that I am still proud of the original manuscript. Even with six years and a mullion more published words behind me I would still prefer my version saw print, flaws and all it was the superior product.
But in the end I wouldn’t have my career if things had gone different.

Dead Reign is a zombie apocalypse role-playing game published by Palladium Books. Originally created as an alternate setting for Beyond the Supernatural, it was put on track to be turned into a stand-alone title after first appearing in Palladium Books' Rifter series. The game's creators, Josh Hilden and Joshua Sanford, wrote a manuscript and turned it in, but during the five weeks between manuscript submission and the book going to the printers, Palladium president and lead game designer Kevin Siembieda rewrote roughly eighty percent of the game and changed its basic premise.

Favorite Zombie Authors

Like I said before I could write an entire book on all of the zombie novels I have loved. Instead of doing that, because hey lazy over here, I am just throwing out the links to my favorite authors working in the genre. For everyone here there are a dozen more I am forgetting these are just the ones currently sticking with me.
The links and pulls are from their Amazon Bios.

Eloise J. Knapp
Eloise J. Knapp lives in Washington state and never complains about the rain. She recently finished her bachelor's in graphic design with a minor in creative writing at Seattle University. When not writing she enjoys a variety of hobbies, such as yoga, cooking, shooting, and archery.
Knapp's work includes Pulse, The Undead Situation, and The Undead Haze. The final installment of her Cyrus V. Sinclair trilogy is slated for 2015.

Gareth Woods
Gareth Wood is the author of three books so far, and has no plans to stop writing unless forced to by an apocalypse or an annoying pet. He considers his work so far to be practice for the real work ahead, and hopes to write the definitive work of apocalyptic fiction for the 21st Century.

His books so far include RISE and its sequel AGE OF THE DEAD. The third volume of the series is called DEAD INSIDE, and should be released in March of 2014. All three books are set in Canada after a zombie apocalypse, and began in 2004.

Joe McKinney
Joe McKinney has been a patrol officer for the San Antonio Police Department, a homicide detective, a disaster mitigation specialist, a patrol commander, and a successful novelist. His books include the four part Dead World series, Quarantined, Inheritance, Lost Girl of the Lake, Crooked House and Dodging Bullets. His short fiction has been collected in The Red Empire and Other Stories and Dating in Dead World and Other Stories. In 2011, McKinney received the Horror Writers Association's Bram Stoker Award for Best Novel. For more information go to http://joemckinney.wordpress.com.

Mark Tufo
Mark Tufo was born in Boston Massachusetts. He attended UMASS Amherst where he obtained a BA and later joined the US Marine Corp. He was stationed in Parris Island SC, Twenty Nine Palms CA and Kaneohe Bay Hawaii. After his tour he went into the Human Resources field with a worldwide financial institution and has gone back to college at CTU to complete his masters.

He has written the Indian Hill trilogy with the first Indian Hill - Encounters being published for the Amazon Kindle in July 2009. He has since written the Zombie Fallout series and is working on a new zombie book.

He lives in Maine with his wife, three kids and two English bulldogs. Visit him at marktufo.com or http://zombiefallout.blogspot.com/ or http://www.facebook.com/pages/Mark-Tu... for news on his next two installments of the Indian Hill trilogy and upcoming installments of the Zombie Fallout series.

Rhiannon Frater
Rhiannon Frater is the award-winning author of over a dozen books, including the As the World Dies zombie trilogy (Tor), as well as independent works such as The Last Bastion of the Living (declared the #1 Zombie Release of 2012 by Explorations Fantasy Blog and the #1 Zombie Novel of the Decade by B&N Book Blog), and other horror novels. She was born and raised a Texan and presently lives in Austin, Texas with her husband and furry children (a.k.a pets). She loves scary movies, sci-fi and horror shows, playing video games, cooking, dyeing her hair weird colors, and shopping for Betsey Johnson purses and shoes.

Timothy W. Long
Tim has been writing tales and stories since he could hold a crayon and has read enough books to choke a landfill. Tim has a fascination with all things zombie, a predilection for weird literature, and a deep-seated need to jot words on paper and thrust them at people.

Tim is the the author of 8 novels including the bestselling, AMONG THE LIVING, and the sequel AMONG THE DEAD. His other works include the zombie book BEYOND THE BARRIERS and the deserted island 'zombedy' THE ZOMBIE WILSON DIARIES, and his latest, the Z-RISEN series of military styled zombie books.

Tim resides outside of Seattle where he lives with his wife, 2 children, 3 dogs of various sizes and dispositions, and a near constant supply of overpriced and overcooked coffee beans.

Tim can be found tooling around his website at HTTP://TIMOTHYWLONG.COM for more information on Z-Risen: HTTP://Z-RISEN.COM.



That’s it for this one. Next time we will tackle all the other bits and pieces of zombies in popular culture I’ve loved. It will be the last entry in this series before I do the Max Brooks… no I don’t mean DO Max Brooks!

Or do I?


- Josh