The Zombie Survival Guide, a review

The next time a Class 2 zombie outbreak occurs in my neighborhood, I’ll be well-prepared to deal with the shambling corpses of hungry undead now that I’ve read Max Brooks’ The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection from the Living Dead.

The Zombie Survival Guide dispels exaggerated myths and legends of the undead and instead presents the reader with unvarnished “truths” about zombies. You’ll find information on zombies’ physical strength, sight, hearing, and rate of decay, and the pros and cons of various weaponry for battling the undead (everything from medieval maces and claymores, to M-16s and flamethrowers). It describes various scenarios for identifying early signs of localized (Class 1) outbreaks, to full-blown widespread undead infestation (Class 3). You’ll find best practices for battling zombies in urban settings, in harsh desert and swamp environments, even under the sea. The Zombie Survival Guide tells you how to defend your home by stocking up with key food and supplies, moving to your second floor and destroying all staircases (recommended for Class 2), or how to survive on the run as you move to the most remote and therefore safest parts of the planet in a world-wide zombie apocalypse in which mankind is overrun (Class 4). The best vehicle should an outbreak occur? You might not guess it, but it’s a bicycle. On a bike you can easily outrun the slow, slouching pace of zombies, it will never run out of gas, you can carry a bicycle over rough terrain, and you can maneuver a bike through the inevitable traffic jams that accompany a full-on panic. Motorcycles are very good too, though their noise attracts the undead. Boats are also a secure means of travel, says Brooks, but watch your anchor line—zombies walking on the ocean floor can use it to climb up to your boat. “Hundreds” of hapless victims have died this way, Brooks tells us.

Audio zombies: A review of We’re Alive: A Story of Survival, season one

As a lover of all things zombie I leapt at the chance to review the first season of We're Alive: A Story of Survival, the first season for SFFaudio.com. Following is the text of that review.

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Uneven and slightly amateurish, but also fun, mildly addictive and highly listenable, We’re Alive: A Story of Survival, the first season (Modern Myth Productions, LLC) should appeal to fans of the zombie/post-apocalyptic/survivalist genres.

Unlike most audio books, which typically feature a single narrator reading text in unadorned style, We’re Alive is an audio drama. It employs a large cast, incorporates a wide range of sound effects, and is scripted in a way that caters to the ear, emphasizing dialogue and interpersonal relationships over lengthy descriptive narrative. Our minds are left to fill in the gory details, and it works. It’s simultaneously fresh and retro, reminding me of what the old radio shows of yesteryear must have been like. We’re Alive was launched and remains an ongoing podcast (check it out here: http://www.zombiepodcast.com/The_Zombie_Podcast/Main.html) but you can obtain the entire first two seasons from Blackstone Audio, Inc.

The storyline is about what you’d expect: A zombie apocalypse strikes without warning, quickly overwhelming most of the population. Three young Army reservists (Michael, Angel, and Saul) commandeer a humvee and seek out survivors in downtown Los Angeles. After rescuing a couple civilians they find an apartment building, clear it of zombies, and begin to fortify it, rigging it up with a generator and stocking up on food, water, and ammunition. More survivors eventually trickle in and/or are rescued by the group, including Burt, an aging Vietnam veteran who acts and sounds a lot like Clint Eastwood. Soon there’s a small but thriving community holed up in the apartment building.

Getting a good chuckle—while feeling annoyed/confused—about The Walking Dead nerdrage

Returning to a bit of familiar turf for me...(ranting ahead)

You gotta laugh—or maybe weep—at hardcore nerds in frothing nerdrage with an over-inflated sense of their own creative abilities. The types who swear with a solemn face that Tolkien should have dropped books 2 and 4 of The Lord of the Rings, tightened up all those boring travel-y bits in book 6, leavened it with a liberal dose of combat carnage, and viola! The Lord of the Rings is 10x better than that crappy book sitting on your shelf.

The latest example comes courtesy of message board discussions of The Walking Dead. I’m not naming the board(s) in question to protect the guilty parties (e-mail me if you want the hard evidence), but really, when you’ve got (according to their avatar pictures) middle-aged men stating in non-ironic fashion that they could out-write the writers of The Walking Dead, no problem and for sure, then you follow their blog link back and find grade-school caliber fiction so bad it makes your eyes water … yeah. Hard to take these critics seriously. But it doesn’t stop them from wanting the rest of us to hear the truth about why this show sucks so bad.

The Walking Dead Season 2: Stop and Smell the Dessicated Roses

Warning: Some spoilers follow

Season 2 of AMC’s The Walking Dead is nearing its midseason point, and apparently it sucks, at least according to a vocal minority of viewers. Why? Too much talking and not enough action. With a name like The Walking Dead, each episode should be wall-to-wall flesh munching zombies and humans gunning down undead with head shots on the wing. Or so the detractors say.

Me? I’ve been enjoying the heck out of the series, and think it’s pretty darned perfect as far as serialized television goes. The Walking Dead isn’t just about zombies. It’s also a human drama, and I’m hooked.

But I guess characterization and engagement with philosophical and moral questions aren’t what the zombie diehards want. Here’s a real sampling of some of the comments I’ve found:

To read the rest of this post, visit The Black Gate website .

I’m an Elvis man when it comes to zombies

It’s often been said—I believe the saying originated with the film Pulp Fiction—that you’re either an Elvis man or a Beatles man. You can’t be equal parts fan of the larger than life King of Rock and Roll and his bombastic, hip-shaking style, and love the cerebral, trippy sounds of the Fab Four with equal fervor (though apparently the Beatles were themselves big Elvis fans—go figure).

Whether or not you buy into the theory I think it can be profitably applied to the dual nature of zombie fiction.

Zombies are certainly malleable monsters and can represent concepts like out of control consumerism, or the dangers of conformity, as well as mortality, cancer, and other real-life issues. Zombie literature can be "literary," in short. But in the end when I pick up a zombie anthology I want mostly stories about flesh-eating undead overrunning the world, and humans stubbornly fighting back. World War Z by Max Brooks is still the high water mark for this type of zombie fiction. If you’re going to publish an anthology about zombies, the stories ought to have a lot of red meat and apocalypse to them. Deep literary and/or philosophical subtlety? Yeah, zombie fiction can do that too, but I prefer a little less conversation and a little more action in my zombie stories. Literary is okay in smaller doses.

Fortunately Zombies: Encounters with the Hungry Dead (edited by John Skipp) contains enough Elvis to scratch my rock-and-roll itch. It doesn’t warp the term “zombie” beyond all recognition, as does the John Joseph Adams anthology The Living Dead, which features a few stories with no zombies at all and lots of ham-handed political commentary. There’s a little of that here (Lisa Morton’s cartoonish “Sparks Fly Upwards”) but not enough to be a deal-breaker. Zombies: Encounters with the Hungry Dead contains 32 short stories by such luminaries as Stephen King, Robert Bloch, and Ray Bradbury, as well an introduction by Skipp and two concluding essays on the history of the zombie genre and the reasons for its enduring popularity. Checking in at 700 pages, the book is so thick it “can also be used for staving in heads,” proclaims a back cover blurb. I believe it.

The Rising by Brian Keene, a review

If there’s one comforting aspect to zombies, it’s the fact that they’re brainless, depicted in most mediums as well below the level of primates. While some of the undead maintain vestigial memories of the person they once were, and might be able to work a door handle or remember the location of a concealed room, they don’t organize or coordinate their attacks. A man with a gun and a lot of ammunition situated on high ground can hold out against them for a long while. Spread out a group of zombies thin enough and a desperate survivor can run right through them, if he’s lucky enough to avoid being snagged by a grasping hand. At worst they might use a tree limb to batter down a door or break a window. They’re deadly in big clusters, but one-on-one they’re manageable. They don’t set ambushes. They can’t operate heavy machinery. They don’t use weapons.

But in author Brian Keene’s universe of The Rising (2004), slow, stupid, Romero-style zombies have undergone a paradigm shift. You thought you were safe behind boarded-up windows, confident they would hold up against the pounding fists of the living dead? Now add a high-speed zombie-driven van into the equation. The man shooting zombies from a roof in The Rising will find the creatures shooting back, or coming around from behind while creatures in front draw his fire. Keene’s zombies can plan, and calculate, and employ tactics. We’re all screwed in this type of scenario, more or less meat for the hungry dead. And that’s before you add in the fact that dead animals are reanimating as well; some of the most dangerous creatures in The Rising are swarms of undead rats and birds, largely resistant to gunfire as they make such small targets.

This all makes The Rising a bleak novel, indeed. But there's a bit more to it than meets the eye.

Zombies on the brain

I've got zombies on the brain. Watched The Walking Dead season two premiere last night (good stuff) and I'm about to start reading Brian Keene's The Rising. With two weeks to Halloween I'm going full-bore horror.

Did anyone else catch The Walking Dead last night? If so, I'd like to know your thoughts on it and/or the series thus far. Discussion/spoilers follow after the break (now that Blogger has added the "insert jump break" button, I might as well start using it).

AMC’s The Walking Dead: Devouring six million viewers, and me

Confession: I watch almost no TV. Well, that’s not quite true: NFL football, an occasional news program, and the odd episode of The Simpsons aside, I watch no TV. Lost is lost on me. There aren’t enough hours in the day for 24. The Sopranos? Fuggedaboutit. There are too many good books to be read in the world and not enough time for television.

Another reason I avoid TV, particularly serialized programming, is the “that guy” phenomenon. When it comes to shows like Lost, there’s always one person in the office who insists on telling you how much you’re missing, or describing the minutiae of a cast of fictional characters’ lives for whom you know and care absolutely nothing about. It just ends up making me hate the boob tube even more.

So now that I’ve set the stage for why I avoid TV, let me tell you all about AMC’s The Walking Dead! I’m a huge fan of the zombie genre and the temptation to watch a TV program about the undead was too great not to tune in. After an excellent episode one I was hooked. I’m mortified that I have to wait until the fall for episode 2.

To read the rest of this post, visit The Black Gate website.

Lansdale and Keene: Two tastes that taste great together

Over the last couple weeks I’ve managed to plow through two of Joe Lansdale’s Hap and Leonard series of novels and Brian Keene’s City of the Dead. I enjoyed the heck out of all of them and thought I’d write a combined review here.

(As an aside, my posting has recently suffered quite a bit, and that’s because the high school team I’ve been covering for the local paper is playing in the Super Bowl today. From Thankgiving through the playoffs, Massachusetts high school football is crazy. I plan to get back to posting on a more regular schedule).

As I’ve said before, Joe Lansdale tells a story as well as any author writing today. Reading one of his books is like listening to a weathered Texan grandfather who saw time in the South Pacific in the Big One spinning raw war stories seasoned with equal parts humor and horror.

The two books I read were The Two-Bear Mambo and Bad Chili. In The Two-Bear Mambo Hap and Leonard set out to find Florida Grange, Leonard’s gorgeous ex-girlfriend. Florida disappeared while investigating the suspicious suicide of a black criminal, found dead in his jail cell in the Ku Klux Klan infested town of Grovetown.

Hap and Leonard are both martial arts experts and The Two-Bear Mambo features a memorable fight in a Grovetown diner that Lansdale describes as an episode of The Andy Griffith Show by way of Deliverance. Lansdale’s fights aren’t the stylized, dramatized stuff of Quentin Tarantino films, but short, fast, ugly, and dirty.

Lansdale always kicks off his books with a gripping action scene that combines drama with comedy. In The Two-Bear Mambo Leonard has just set fire to a crack house across the street, spilling a motley assortment of low-lifes into the East Texas night. Bad Chili features the two men attacked by a rabid squirrel while taking target practice in the woods with a pistol. Yes, I’m serious.

Bad Chili took a while to heat up (pardon the pun) but I very much enjoyed the slow, deliberate pace with which Lansdale sets up its frenetic payoff of a finish. In this one, Leonard’s boyfriend Raul leaves him for a biker and when both turn up dead the police point the finger at Leonard. He and Hap begin an investigation into the death that exposes an underground crime ring of violent gay pornography and larceny.

You have experience to fully appreciate Lansdale’s always-entertaining writing style. Here’s a description of a barber-shop owner from Bad Chili that I found hilarious and also brilliant in its details, immediately sketching a believable, real character:

Finally a man came over to help us. He was short and pale-skinned and had his dark hair combed back tight and plastered with something so shiny you could almost see your reflection in it. He had one of those pencil-thin mustaches like forties movie stars wore, ones make you look like you had a drink of chocolate milk and forgot to wipe your mouth. He had his colorful shirt open almost to his navel, and let me tell you, that was no treat to view. He had a chest like a bird and a little potbelly and a thin straight line of hair that ran from chest to navel and looked as if it had been provided by the nose hairs the blonde had clipped. He was wearing a gold medallion on a chain around his neck. The medallion reminded me of those aluminum-foil coins you unwrap and find chocolate inside. He must have been on the bad side of forty. A face, a body like that, you’re not born with it. It takes some real abuse and neglect to create.

As with all the two other Hap and Leonard novels I’ve read to date (Savage Season and Mucho Mojo), The Two-Bear Mambo and Bad Chili are highly recommended. I’m looking forward to picking up Rumble Tumble next.

City of the Dead is an absolutely gonzo novel. Graphic gore and sex, morbid humor, religious issues, cosmic tragedy, and more are splashed all over its pages in an entertaining package, albeit not one for the easily offended or the faint of heart.

Keene takes the familiar trope of zombie apocalypse but instead of attributing the cause to biochemical spill or ancient curse or interstellar plague Keene’s zombies are possessed by the souls of demons from the void. When they inhabit the bodies of the dead they take on the deceased person’s memories, which them doubly dangerous. In City of the Dead zombies can speak, use guns, drive cars, communicate and coordinate their tactics, etc. Animals, including dogs, birds, alligators, are zombified, too. Humans don’t stand a chance in this scenario.

A small group of humans manages to fight their way into New York to take refuge in Ramsey Tower, a reportedly indestructible skyscraper where a few hundred human survivors have holed up. The tower is a fortress, but the humans have underestimated the zombies’ intelligence and force they ultimately bring to bear to force an entry.

Keene’s book is full of morbidly funny humor: A zombie sings “the roof, the roof, the roof is on fire” after setting fire to a home with human defenders on the second floor. A zombie, ready to throw a grenade, has his hand shot off, and the grenade falls at his feet and explodes, blowing him to bits. “Now that’s what I call a hand grenade!” another zombie quips. Think of Army of Darkness level of humor.

At the same time the book takes seriously the existence of God and the demons that inhabit the bodies of the zombies. Called the Sissquim, they once walked the Earth but were banished to the outer spheres by God millennia ago. As a result they despise God and kill and eat humans out of that spite. They want to see His most beloved creation and the planet itself utterly destroyed.

City of the Dead is marred by a few lapses in logic. The zombies at times are portrayed as attacking in mindless waves, like Romero-style zombies; at other times they operate with a sense of self-preservation and shy away from shotgun blasts and so forth. The humans defending Ramsey Tower—some of which are hard-bitten military veterans with combat experience—woefully overestimate the building’s defenses, holes that are obvious to any half-attentive reader (the damn building has windows—even though they’re reinforced glass, how can they stand up to a zombie-driven truck at full speed, let alone explosives?)

If City of the Dead sounds a little like a mess, well, it is. I’m not sure how Keene intended the book to be read, as farce or serious fiction. It’s both (probably a little more of the former), but if you’re looking for a book that tells a rip-roaring, entertaining story, City of the Dead succeeds. I listened to the Audio Realms production while driving to work and I can honestly say it made my commute a much more enjoyable experience.

Zombieland: Bringing the fun, and a few rules to live by

Like most horror fans, I love zombie movies because they’re fun, gory, and suspenseful. I find the survivalist angle intriguing, too (I often find myself wondering if and how I could survive an initial outbreak of the walking dead. Equipped with my copy of The Zombie Survival Guide I’d like to think at least I’d have a fighting chance. But probably not).

But in the end the zombie films I like best are those that aspire to more than just empty action. Like all good movies, the best zombie films contain underlying social and/or political messages that give them an added dimension and another level on which they can be enjoyed.

I’m not a horror historian, but as far as I can tell the zombie film as social commentary started with George Romero. Broadly, zombies have always been a metaphor for death, but it wasn’t until 1978’s Dawn of the Dead that the walking dead were used to critique concepts like capitalism and unchecked consumer culture (as a sidenote this is why I didn’t like the new Dawn of the Dead as much as the original—the 2004 version is not only too nihilistic, but it removes all the subtext in favor of high-speed, sprinting zombie carnage).

Since Dawn other zombie films have hopped on the bandwagon of zombie apocalypse as societal/cultural critique. The most recent example is the comedic zombie horror of Zombieland (2009). Zombieland tells the story of a group of survivors trying to find their way in the aftermath of the zombie apocalypse. These include 20-something “Columbus” (played by Jesse Eisenburg), a nerdy, World of Warcraft playing recluse; “Tallahassee” (Woody Harrelson), a modern cowboy with an apparent death wish, a sardonic sense of humor and a mean streak a mile wide when it comes to zombies; “Wichita” (Emma Stone), a beautiful, guarded, hard-bitten realist, and “Little Rock” (Abigail Breslin), Wichita’s younger sister and resourceful partner in crime.

To read the rest of this post, visit The Black Gate website.

Cimmerian sighting: The Living Dead zombie anthology a feast for the brain

When I ordered the new John Joseph Adams zombie anthology The Living Dead, I was hoping for stories of zombie carnage on a large scale, a-la Max Brooks’ terrific World War Z and George Romero’s classic “living dead” films. As I read one story after the next, however, it soon became evident that all-out zombie war was (mostly) not the focus of this book.

Some disappointment naturally ensued. When the book arrived with its cover shot of a horde of shambling undead, zombie wars and tales of gun-porn survival were what I thought I was getting. I liken the experience to purchasing a book entitled “heroic fantasy” with a barbarian on the cover, and opening it to find that, instead of warriors and wizards, it’s mostly about everyday, modern people involved in acts of bravery, sans battle-axes.

In short, sometimes all you want is a little zombie mayhem. I was hoping that The Living Dead would afford me the opportunity to just turn my brain off and enjoy.

But once I got past my initial disappointment, The Living Dead turned out to be a very good collection of horror stories. On a scientific scale of 1-5 stars, I’d give it a solid 3 ½, a very good score for an anthology, given that any collection of short stories is going to contain a few duds. And upon further reflection, The Living Dead does have its fair share of carnage and zombie apocalypse, albeit not as much as I was hoping for.

To read the rest of this post, visit The Cimmerian Web site.

Cimmerian sighting: Will World War Z translate to the screen?

War and zombies are two of my favorite subjects. So it should come as no surprise that Max Brooks’ terrific tale of the zombie war that nearly ended of all humanity—World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War—made for some damned fine reading in my household. Pardon the pun, but I devoured this book the minute it came in the mail.

The best zombie stories are not only fun and gruesome, but also reveal truths about the human condition. In this regard, World War Z can stand alongside the George Romero films with its combination of violence and horror sandwiched around a heaping helping of thoughtful social and political commentary.

The zombie plague of World War Z is deliberately left unexplained—it starts in the heart of China, half-hinted as the result of some undescribed industrial waste leak. But beginning with “Patient Zero,” an infected, gray-skinned, 12-year-old-turned zombie, Brooks manages to paint a very convincing picture of how the plague quickly spreads and threatens to overwhelm all of humanity. Brooks has done his research on politics, world economics, plague outbreaks, military tactics and technology, combat fatigue, and climate conditions, and the result feels like history, an event that really happened (or, chillingly, could actually happen).

To read the rest of this post, visit The Cimmerian Web site.

Matheson’s I Am Legend falls short of classic status

Warning—stop here if you don't want to be spoiled.

So I just finished re-reading (actually, listening to the audio version of) Richard Matheson’s 1954 horror novella I Am Legend, and for the second time I came away with the same reaction: Good book, worth reading--but a horror classic, top 10 material as I’ve frequently seen it praised around the Web? I’m not so sure, Stephen King.

First, let me state the obligatory and not undeserved praise for I Am Legend:

• Matheson deserves a lot of credit for taking a creative, unique approach to the tired vampire genre.
• I am Legend helped to inspire the excellent zombie films of George Romero, and Romero’s recent successors. More reason for praise.
• Matheson was, I think, the first to tackle the scenario of the last man on earth. It's a nifty concept.
• In general, it’s a well-written, easy to read book.
  

Now that that’s out of the way, I'll admit that I found I Am Legend a bit disappointing. Yes, I know it's acknowleged as a classic in the genre. Yes, I realize it's been adapted for the screen no fewer than three times. But even though it may cost me my "horror cred," I Am Legend for me is a bit overrated.

For starters, there’s not enough introspection and depth to the story. Robert Neville is the last man on Earth. Barricaded in his home and surrounded by vampires by night, he hunts the creatures by day while searching for a scientific answer to the virus that infected all of humanity. Such a tightly-focused, one character book has the opportunity to explore what it means to be a human, for example. It could have been a powerful statement against anti-conformity (Neville is the ultimate non-conformist, as he deliberately holds out against the living dead as the last living man on Earth).

But Matheson, in my opinion, opts for mere plot over substance, and I Am Legend is a lesser book for it. What we do get is a semi-interesting tale of survival and a man trying desperately to crack the code of the vampire virus, and not much else. It should have/could have been much more.

I’m the first one to praise short stories and lament their fading influence, but I Am Legend reads like a novella that should have been a novel. In short, it’s too short. There are some interesting, fertile concepts here that unfortunately aren’t played out. For example, I wanted to see more of the society being rebuilt by the “living” vampires who eventually exterminate their undead brethren. I would have liked more flashbacks to the collapse of society and scenes of the chaos of the virus spreading across the globe. Instead, Matheson provides only the briefest of glimpses. More than that, I wanted more introspection, more of what makes Neville tick. We’re given tantalizing glimpses of Neville’s humanity in his friendship with a dog, and in a budding romance with a female survivor. Again, these are unfortunately quite cursory. Matheson spends a lot of I Am Legend’s limited page count showing us the science of vampirism, a rather dry, unconvincing explanation I could have done without.

Another problem I have with the novella is that Matheson’s vampires aren’t particularly scary, and their behavior is inconsistent. They’re dangerous in hordes, sure, but how can we take seriously creatures that prove utterly incapable of breaking into a boarded-up house (if the garlic on the doors and windows are too much, couldn’t they knock a hole in its side)? Matheson also doesn’t sufficiently define their abilities and limitations, at least for my tastes. Are the undead vampires of I Am Legend possessed of mere animal intelligence? It’s unclear. At times, they are able to reason. For example, female vampires are capable of using crude sexual acts in attempt to seduce Neville into coming out of his home. Neville’s neighbor calls him by name, and in one scene anticipates Neville returning back home and circles back to wait for him. These are the actions of something more than animal. Yet the vampires are unable to come up with any plans more cunning than lobbing bricks at Neville’s house, and at times appear no more intelligent than Romero’s zombie hordes. Stoker's Count Dracula is scarier and far more capable than the bunch of them combined.

I’ll admit that the ending of I Am Legend is pretty brilliant. Matheson turns the vampire legend squarely on its ear with Neville’s realization that he, as the last man on Earth, has become a reviled creature of superstition and legend, personifying the myth of the ancient, blood-sucking vampire. He knows what it’s like to walk in the shoes of a hunted, misunderstood “monster,” and remains defiant until the end. I just wish the rest of the book measured up with its shattering conclusion.

Cimmerian sighting: Are fast or slow zombies scarier?

The recent remake of Dawn of the Dead (2004) surprised many fans of the horror genre—myself included—by tweaking one of its oldest conventions: That of the slow moving zombie. The shuffling, shambling hordes of George Romero were suddenly yesterday’s news, replaced by flesh-eating sprinters courtesy of Zach Snyder, director of the remake of Dawn.

This surprising twist was more than many horror fans bargained for. Suddenly, hard-core zombie survivalists who prided themselves on their (theoretical) ability to run rings around slow-moving corpses in order to grab guns and food found their odds of survival (ahem) eaten away.

Snyder certainly deserves credit for attempting something new in his remake of Dawn. Although I’m a purist in some respects, I’ve never understood the purpose of frame-by-frame remakes of films (see Gus Van Sant’s 1998 soulless photocopy of Psycho). Refreshingly, Dawn of the Dead 2004 was not afraid to embrace change. Zombies are fast in Snyder’s universe, at least as fast as their fleeing prey (and what’s worse is that the pursuers presumably never get tired). It’s a pretty scary thought, and I was admittedly shocked at the high-speed carnage shortly after the credits of the new Dawn of the Dead began to roll. In fact, I think the opening 10-minute sequence of that film is an improvement on the original, which is high praise, given the esteem in which I hold Romero’s masterwork. The new Dawn also has a pretty great soundtrack going for it as well.

But after the initial shock of watching zombies chasing prey into their homes and launching themselves onto screaming victims, the effect became progressively less scary. Ultimately, I discovered that I prefer the creeping death of Romero’s shamblers over the high-speed cannibals of Snyder’s new Dawn. Here’s why.

To read the rest of this post, visit The Cimmerian Web site.

Zombie alert!

I'm taking a momentary diversion from fantasy battles to report an important news flash: Run, zombies are on the loose!

One of my worst fears, along with being consumed by a great white shark, is the possibility that one day the dead will walk the earth (presumably when there's no more room in hell, to steal a line from George Romero). I mean, I love zombie books and films, but when I watch or read about cannibal corpses it's with a strange mixture of revulsion, terror, and relief that I'm not one of the poor souls holed up in the shopping mall. Thus, when I clicked the link above I had a moment of panic before I realized it was a hoax.

Suffice to say that if I was driving along I-95 on the way to work and passed a sign that said "Caution!! Zombies Ahead!!", I'd be the guy you heard about on the evening news who was hospitalized after veering off into the nearest ditch. Missing the ditch, I'd be headed for home to grab canned goods, bottled water, shotgun, and axe and bee-line for my zombie-proof shelter in the basement.

(Thanks to my friend Falze for bringing this impending catastrophe to my attention).

The end of the world as we know it: And I feel fine

Yesterday I simultaneously finished two books about the apocalypse, albeit from two very different causes: World War Z, by Max Brooks, a tale about a massive zombie infestation that threatens to overwhelm the world; and The Children of Men, by P.D. James, a story that takes place in 2021, 25 years after the last child on earth is born with the world's infertile population left to age and die.

Both books are very different, and not just in their subject matter: World War Z is much more action-oriented, a series of powerful narratives told through multiple characters' eyes in a series of flashbacks, while The Children of Men is written from the viewpoint of Theo Faron, a 50 year-old Oxford professor, and is a slower-moving character portait. They do share one likeness in that both contain strong political commentary.

What I liked about the books
First of all, I'm a huge sucker for books and movies about the apocalypse. It's not the violence and chaos in and of itself that I find interesting, it's watching people's reactions in extremis. Wiser men have said that true character is revealed in times of crisis, and The Children of Men and World War Z certainly deliver the calamity and the truth born from it.

I cannot recommend World War Z highly enough if you love zombies, warfare, or simply action-packed page turners. I'm not a particularly fast reader, but I was absolutely unable to put it down and burned through its 350-odd pages in three days. While the zombie plague is deliberately left unexplained--it starts in the heart of China, half-hinted as the result of some undescribed industrial waste--Brooks manages to paint a very convincing picture of how the plague quickly spreads and threatens to overwhelm all of humanity. Brooks has done his research on politics, military tactics and technology, combat fatigue, climate conditions, and the result feels like history, an event that really happened (or, chillingly, will happen).

Here's some highlights: The Great Panic, the initial outbreak of suffocating fear and rout that sent millions or billions to their deaths on traffic-choked highways; The Battle of Yonkers, which pits a large ground force of U.S. Marines, tanks, helicopters, and jets against a horde of more than a million zombies pouring out of New York; a voluntary quarantine of all of Israel to prevent the spread of the hordes; a limited nuclear exchange between the suspicious countries of Pakistan and India; hordes of zombies emerging from the oceans, attacking in massive, unexpected beach invasions; zombies attacking across the Russian steppes, slaughtering thousands before freezing in the winter (and thawing and re-animating in the spring), and much, much more. I was horrified, entertained, and best of all, convinced by the events in this book, which was deliberately written as a series of memoirs. in fact, World War Z reads much like the very well-done war documentaries of Ken Burns.

Whereas George Romero's classic Dead films (Night, Dawn, and Day of the Dead) were brilliant social commentaries that focused on portrayals of small groups and individuals struggling for survival, Brooks takes the 10,000-foot view, casting his gaze on countries and nations, examining their weaknesses, flaws, and ultimately the strength that makes them able to regroup and survive. Despite its horror, gore, and destruction, World War Z is a refreshing change from the often too-nihilistic zombie genre.

The Children of Men, while far less visceral, asks the larger questions: What gives mankind meaning, does God exist, and how can we cope with our own stark mortality? At the outset of the book Theo is living a life that should sound very familiar to 21st century man: Protected, pampered, insulated by his profession, his comfortable home, his refined tastes in books, food, music, and wine. But there's a black hole waiting at the end of it all: Oblivion.

James brings mankind's ever-present fear of mortality into stark relief by removing the universal hope that our children will carry on our works, our stories, our history, and our culture after we die. Bereft of that hope, we're left with meaningless trappings and empty existence.

Like World War Z, the cause of the blight--worldwide infertility--is left unexplained, but while James does not delve into the scientific root causes, she describes its chilling consequences in convincing fashion. To quell the widespread crime caused by crumbling societies, the British government institutes a tight-fisted, near dictatorial rule, run by prime minister Xan, who is actually Theo's cousin and childhood friend. Immigrants are turned away at the borders and criminals and dissidents are shipped off to the Isle of Man, while the aged take their own lives in government-sponsored mass suicides called a Quietus.

The story builds slowly but kicks into high gear when Theo falls in with a small band of young rebels battling against the government's atrocities.

What I disliked about the books
World War Z was great all the way through. Although there were no fully fleshed-out, truly memorable characters, it was told using dozens of post-war "interviews," so development wasn't possible (or intended). I found Brooks' portrayals of some of the cultures to be a bit stereotyped (particularly the katana-wielding Japanese survivors), and it's no surprise that the strongest and truest sections were his portrayals of the crisis in the U.S.

Overall rating: **** stars out of five.

The Children of Men had a few flaws as well. I found the whole Xan-Theo relationship to be forced, and their final face-off was heavily telegraphed. In fact, I think the film of the same name, though shallower and much more violent (often needlessly so), improved on the book by cutting out the tiring backstory, dropping Xan and focusing on Theo and the rebels.

Overall rating: **** stars out of five.

A feast of flesh: Digesting Dawn of the Dead

Part 4 of a 10-part series in which I examine my favorite films, and the reasons why I love them so.

I still recall the first time I watched Dawn of the Dead. The violence and gore were shockingly graphic, and the dread I felt from the zombie hordes enveloping the earth was palpable. But it was the feeling of isolation and spiritual stagnation of the survivors in the mall that really made Dawn stand out for me, elevating it into something much more than traditional horror fare.

Made in 1978, Dawn of the Dead is the second in what has become director George Romero's zombie quadriology (is that an actual word?). The series started with the low-budget black and white 1968 Night of the Living Dead, then Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead (1985) and, most recently, Land of the Dead (2005).

Dawn of the Dead stands out above the rest of the series for several reasons. While Night is quite good, Dawn features a true full-blown zombie apocalypse in which mankind is overrun. While the zombie virus-as-pandemic first surfaced in Night, that film focused on a small group of survivors in a farmhouse, and, by the end of Night, the implication was that the outbreak was under control.

Not so in Dawn. In the first act, the world is plunged into chaos and we get to watch the disintegration of order as institutions crumble and populaces panic. Four survivors band together and manage to clear out a huge shopping mall, then "batten down the hatches" and attempt to live while death and destruction reigns outside.

While the four survivors (three men and a woman) have plenty of food and every material desire at their fingertips, their "bliss" proves very shallow and temporary.

In its second act, Dawn takes an introspective look at the human condition: While we may think death is at a comfortable distance, and that having money and all the "stuff" it buys will make us content, this is a lie. Ultimately, we as humans need something more. The zombies become a symbol of the ever-present disease and death that threatens to devour us, and ultimately will consume every man, woman, and child born. They are also a symbol of unbridled materialism, mindless "shoppers" drawn to the mall that you can find in any large or small-sized city across the United States, every day.

When a roving band of armed, militant bikers break into the mall in the final act of Dawn, all hell breaks loose. For sheer, unbridled fun and over-the-top gore, you can't beat the scene of bikers hacking and beheading zombies with machetes, bats, and axes, lobbing grenades and firing shotguns and pistols, and watching raiders get hauled screaming from their bikes and eviscerated and consumed alive. The scene of the guy who insists on using the blood pressure machine even as zombies converge on him and eat him is dark comedy at its best.

Despite the death and destruction, Dawn ends on a positive note as the last two survivors ultimately choose life, and a chance of salvation elsewhere. Whether or not they find it in their low-fuel helicopter is another story, but it's noteworthy that, even in the depths of despair, they make the choice to move on and live, despite the odds. When confronted with our own stark mortality, this is all we as mankind can do.

On a side note, Dawn was remade in 2004. Romero was not involved in the project. While the new Dawn is quite enjoyable, and perhaps even scarier than the original (the running zombies are shockingly unexpected and terrifying, and the opening sequence is amazing), it unfortunately loses much of the subtext and themes that made the 1978 version so great.

Celebrating Halloween: My top 10 scariest films

In honor of Halloween, my favorite holiday of the year, I'm offering my top 10 scariest movies of all time. These aren't necessarily my favorite horror films, but are the ones that either chilled, disturbed, or downright scared the hell out of me.

1. Jaws. Still the scariest film I've ever seen, Jaws forever ruined my ability to swim in the ocean. Heck, if I make the mistake of thinking of the opening scene when swimming over my head in fresh water, I feel uneasy.

2. Alien. Despite its sci-fi trappings, Alien succeeds as a horror film because, frankly, the Nostromo is basically a big floating haunted house in space, and the alien is the ultimate stalker. Between the chest-bursting dinner scene and the guy with the spider-thing attached to his face, Alien has me convinced that I want no part of any beings from space, no matter what E.T. taught me. It's sequel, Aliens, was awesome too, though it succeeds more as an action film.

3. The Ring. I thought I was done getting scared at films as a grown man until I watched The Ring (the American version, not the Japanese original). Samara's awful disjoined movement, long, face-concealing black hair, and hate-filled eyes are terrifying, and the awful looks of her victim's faces still haunt me at night.

4. The Shining. The twin girls. The woman in room 213. Jack Nicholson's madness and axe-work. The isolation of the Overlook. Director Stanley Kubrick's studied, unflinching camera work showing it all. These elements combine to make The Shining the best haunted-house movie ever.

5. Jacob's Ladder. While it's not a pure horror film, Jacob's Ladder succeeded in disturbing me like few movies ever have. Tim Robbins' portrayal of a traumatized Vietnam veteran leaves you wondering what horrors are real, and which are imagined, the result of his damaged psyche. Demons and other horrors crop up unexpectedly and forcefully and the effect of Robbins' slow descent into madness is suffocating.

6. Dawn of the Dead (original). Before the credits were rolling, I was already making preparations for the zombie holocaust I knew was coming. Dawn of the Dead has some shocking scenes of gore and nasty, rotting zombies, but more terrifying still is the quick collapse of society and the monsters that men become when order breaks down. The 2004 (?) remake works too--while it loses some of the feeling of dread of the original, the running zombies are quite a shock.

7. Psycho. I finally got around to watching Psycho a few years ago after reading about it on so many "scariest film ever" lists, and despite its age and now-cliched elements, Psycho remains a scary movie. The shower scene still works, and Norman Bates' transformation at the end literally sent shivers down my spine.

8. The Exorcist. I don't know whether a studio could get away with making a film like The Exorcist today. The horrors inflicted on child actor Linda Blair are shocking, particularly what she does with the crucifix (that's all I'm going to say about that). In addition to the pea-soup gross out stuff, there's a whole lot of disturbing images and themes in The Exorcist that continue to haunt my dreams. That flashing pale-white demon face? Brrr.

9. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. This film is just flat-out vile from start to finish, so naturally I like it. From the decomposing corpses in the opening credits, to the psychotic hitchhiker who cuts himself with a razor blade, to the chainsaw killings and hammer bludgeonings, to the corpse and bone-strewn house inspired by the real-life home of mass-murderer Ed Gein, this film is unrelenting grue, horror, and terror.

10. Silence of the Lambs. Another film like Jacob's Ladder that's more suspense than horror, Silence of the Lambs nevertheless is downright disturbing. As great as Anthony Hopkins' portrayal of Hannibal Lector was and is, the dude who played Buffalo Bill ("It puts the lotion on its skin") gets major props for playing one of the sickest, most realistic murderers in movie history. Silence of the Lambs conveys horror without even showing it--just listening to Lector's horrors (biting out a nurse's tongue and noshing on her face without a change in his pulse?) is enough.