Last month, I had the pleasure of receiving 4 samples of MPZ Cosmetics eyeshadow (as well as an amazing lip balm named “Madison”) from Andrea Evans (Etsy seller “mrsevils”).  So, I decided to try them out and review them for the site.  And I must say, I am in love.  The quality of the shadows is amazing, and the colors were gore-geous.  They are super shimmery (which I am a sucker for), and were very easy to apply and stayed in place throughout the day.  I was very impressed with them, and I will definitely be buying a set of shadows from her!

I decided to take the samples and do a couple of looks with them to show you, the readers, how they look.

Look # 1:

“Donna” Eyeshadow on lid (an emerald green with green glitter)
“Davanh” Eyeshadow accenting upper lid (a super dark eggplant with multicolored glitter)
“Bride” Eyeshadow accenting brow bone (a shimmery white with an iridescent green tinge)

Look # 2:

“Darksider” Eyeshadow on lid (a maroon with copper glitter–you can only obtain this eyeshadow color by being a member of the Etsy Dark Team)
“Bride” Eyeshadow accenting brow bone (a shimmery white with an iridescent green tinge)

Look #3:

“Bride” Eyeshadow on lid (a shimmery white with an iridescent green tinge)
“Davanh” Eyeshadow accenting upper lid (a super dark eggplant with multicolored glitter)
“Bride” Eyeshadow accenting brow bone

You can purchase MPZ Cosmetics Eyeshadows at the My Pretty Zombie Etsy Shop.  Be sure to check out her awesome Zombie Dioramas as well, and become a fan of My Pretty Zombie on Facebook.

Plants vs Zombies reviewed by a 1.5 yr old!

Here’s another example of someone putting the awwwww back into awesome. (Sorry it had to be said.) A loving father did something to warm even the coldest of undead hearts – he filmed their year and a half year old son playing a video game. Not just any video game but a zombie video game.

Who in their right mind would allow such a young child to play a game against the undead? Consider it training. That and it’s Plants vs Zombies and I’m sure you all know why we can agree to let that one slide. Hilarious ‘review’ from a kid of one of our favorite games.

[via: Kotaku.]

REVIEW: 400 Lonely Things – Tonight of the Living Dead

400 Lonely Things have taken one of the greatest horror films of all time, George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead and have sampled bits and pieces from the soundtrack of the film and have created an aural sensory overload of impending doom, fear, and psychosis all in one big fell swoop. Memories and images from the 1968 zombie film eerily crept in and out of my head while listening to the nine-song album.

At first listen, I did not even know what to make of it, as there are definite samples and portions taken from the film (of which Romero had crew and cast member Karl Hardman create under his supervision from pre-existing recordings in stock film music libraries that had already been used in other films and TV. shows) and 400 Lonely Things have used samples from the film itself and remixed them (many samples intact with their Foley work) and created Tonight of the Living Dead, a project a year in the making. Accompanying this surreal and unique project is a 12-page booklet of “treated imagery” taken from the film itself.

“It Begins” was the most noticeably sampled bits of music from Night of the Living Dead that I can remember and this reworking of the original score gave me the most chills. Highly atmospheric and utterly creepy, I liked this song the most. It created a feeling of impending doom and horror, sounds crawling in and out on different levels, the sampling of the original soundtrack sprinkled with sound-bytes of modern-day technology.

Just when the song fades out, the smoke dissipating, “Tonight” takes over, creating another feeling of uneasiness, keeping the listener on edge, probably in much the same way that Romero kept his audiences as they sat in the movie theaters watching Night of the Living Dead for the very first time in 1968. This track is more than twice as long as the opening song, running at just over eight minutes, and is broken up into segments with similar but completely different sounds and elements of eerie tones.

One thing listening to this album will do is have you yearning to pop in Night of the Living Dead on DVD again and seeing if the sounds heard on the CD can be found within the film. Maybe that is what 400 Lonely Things intentions were, not only paying homage to a great film but finding another medium and audience in a more modern era for fans of horror to look back upon and appreciate. In the day and age of sampling music from hip-hop and jungle to techno, ambient, and rave/hardcore, Tonight of the Living Dead has an almost regality to their style of music, one of classiness and austere reverence to the genre of horror.

Night of the Living Dead was as much a zombie film as it was a journey into psychological warfare on the mind. Dealing with the impossible, the unimaginable, and the truly unthinkable. Tonight of the Living Dead recaptures that nightmare in each and every song. “This Old House” continues with the whole mood of the album and builds upon the prior track, “Tonight”, but once “The Music Box” begins, I felt that the album takes a turn for the better. The song is over thirteen minutes long, building up until the five-minute mark and then easing back down from the climax, until the track just goes dead silent.

“No Answer” is some more of the same, probably the track I enjoyed the least, but “Crickets Window” won me over with the sampling of, you got it- crickets, but is accompanied by some of the darkest samples in the whole album. The song builds up, layer upon layer of new impending doom taking the listener farther and farther into a long winding tunnel of terror. There even seems to be sounds very reminiscent of our dear friend Jason Voorhees and the soundtrack that Harry Manfredini made famous in the Friday the 13th slasher flicks. This track totally blew me away. “Crickets Window” could easily be the soundtrack for every nightmare you have had and will ever have. As we started with crickets chirping, we end with crickets chirping.

With “Cellar Company” there are noticeable Foley sounds from the film, looped in and out, creating a break almost from the intensity of some of the prior songs. Again, not one of my favorites and after “Crickets Window”, it really lacked the intensity I was hoping for. But not to worry, “Another Fire Always Smiles” wraps up the whole gut-munching zombie mix, reminding listeners of a time when films did not have happy endings, in much the same way that life really is and can be, a tragedy in the making.

With most of the album blowing me away and thrusting my head with drab, gothic black and white imagery from Romero’s classic Night of the Living Dead, I had to go to the 400 Lonely Things website and take a peek at the imagery that is to accompany this album. Its truly awesome, as well as the music video that accompanies the track “Tonight”

Check out the website for 400 Lonely Things and get this album at Amazon. You won’t be sorry…well, come bedtime, you just might be!

REVIEW: Zombies and Cigarettes

So what is Zombies and Cigarettes about? Exactly what the title says; zombies and cigarettes but I think this movie was improperly named because the cigarettes had a very minor role compared to the perfume. I think it should have been called Zombies and Perfume, which sounds classier but that’s just me. Anyway, the story is simple:  zombies attack a mall in Spain and four survivors try to live through it.

Well, two things that I noticed right off the bat: first off, I really enjoyed the beginning when everybody was happy walking around in the mall, the nice happy music and it seemed like everything was a utopia until the zombies began gutting and trashing the place. Second, the production value of this movie was outstanding and even more so considering it was a short.

I enjoyed the characters and I even loved how the bites don’t turn you into zombies and speaking of zombies, I loved how the zombies were like ravenous, rabid, mutant looking monsters. Then, as quickly as the zombies attacked, they were defeated and from what I can gather, this movie takes place during the tail end of the zombie outbreak and it’s like just another story that happened during the zombie incident, which is what I love.

But, there are a couple things that took me out of the movie that could make this film seem a bit strange and out of place. First off, I find it very hard to believe that perfume would ignite a zombie to flames… it just seemed a bit off. The only other problem that I had about this movie is the cigarettes; I’m not sure what they were trying to say but I think it may have to do with the fact that even in danger, they still smoked sending the message the simple things in life or maybe they were satirizing cigarette smokers… I don’t know.

All in all, it’s not a bad film, there are a few kinks to work out but I think they really have a good zombie film going for them. The zombies looked pretty scary and it looked like a professionally done film.

REVIEW: Zombieland

[This is our second review of Zombieland. The first of which can be found here.]

Here is what I thought of Zombieland.

I finally saw Zombieland despite not going to an advanced screening, but rather seeing it during the Red Carpet premiere in Chicago. I could go on about how the premiere was but instead I have to talk about Zombieland because it is one of the best zombie parody movies sense Shaun of the Dead. In fact, I am willing to say that this isn’t really a horror movie at all… even though there are some scares. The movie is about a kid who survives because he has a list of zombie survival tips. He meets this southern zombie killer extraordinaire and they pair up… even after being taken hostage by a 12-year-old and here older sister. The movie then just goes in all directions after that.

Let me start off with the few things that really worked with this movie; first, the camerawork was very well done. In the beginning during the montage over the credits they showed zombies attacking people in slow motion… something that I always wanted to see and they used it very well. There were several low angle shots of people that gave this movie that extra epic feel to it and I don’t know what to classify this movie as other than a comedy but maybe an epic comedy. When the end came at the carnival that were great P.O.V. shots of Harrilson gunning down zombies on a roller coaster, which was just pure amazement, and the director really wasn’t afraid to put the camera right in the action.

I am not going to talk too much about the acting because there isn’t anything to say about it… the only thing that bugs me a little is that Eisenberg acts a lot like Cera and it’s really annoying at times. Although, if Cera was in this movie it would be way more laughable than it was and it would have distracted from the main plot. The one thing that I really enjoyed was to see Abigail Breslin in a zombie flick… of course she did Signs but to see her lift a gun and shoot the hell out of zombies was fun to see on the big screen.

I had no real complains about the zombies because by this point I am already used to seeing running zombies… I will, however, talk about the humor in this movie. The humor was extremely fresh in this movie and it proves to others that there are still some original zombie gags out that that have not been touched. I cannot say that the humor overwhelmed me from the actual story because that’s what it’s supposed to do… it was supposed to overshadow the movie but I kind of wish that it didn’t. There were some jump-out scares but the humor came from the brilliant dialogue… the little things in zombie movies and the overall plot of the movie.

I really enjoyed this movie and I can’t really find anything that I did not like from it… maybe the fact that the humor was a bit excessive but that I could have been a lot worse. The characters were likable, the movie had a lot of good post-apocalyptic scenery, the makeup was crisp and the way things played out was easy to keep track of. This movie looks at zombie flicks and pretty much parodies everything about the genre… it’s as if Shoot ‘em Up teamed up with Dawn of the Dead for an all out explosion of guts and silliness. It truly is one of the best zombie comedies since Shaun of the Dead. 

REVIEW: Zombieland

My cuzin Molly is awesome and works for G-Mart Comic Books (Logan Square), a job which occasionally gets her free promotional items, including movie tickets. And though she is intensely squeamish when it comes to horror – specifically, zombie – related things, she knows I’m a huge fan, so I was able to luck out with an invite from her on an “admit two” advance screening ticket to a sneak preview of “Zombieland” in Chicago earlier tonight – in fact, I just got home from seeing it! (And grocery shopping for meat! Zombies movies make me hungry.)

I’m going to go out of my way to make this as spoiler free as possible with glossing over key details. WARNING: I make no promises that I’m not going to geek out over any scenes to the point where a few slip past, and I do apologize for that.

To start with, while this is clearly a zombie movie, it can also be thought of as an action-comedy that just happens to include zombies. While the entire setting of the movie would be impossible without the undead, the characters themselves are what truly brought the movie to life. The 4 main characters all work together perfectly, in both dialogue and action, in a way that makes you just enjoy how well everyone meshes together.

The plot, while not giving all of the details, actually gives a reason on how the zombie outbreak occurrs in the film’s world: A strange mutant strand of the ‘mad cow’ disease broke out, and a ‘patient zero’ ingested it at a burger joint, which leads to the zombie outbreak. (The fact that they are using the term Patient Zero – either based off of the book or just in general as the source of the outbreak – felt so amazingly fitting.) The population decimated, only a few sole survivors are still running around; most of who don’t stick together, and all are chasing a safe haven instead of attempting to build one.

The entire cast consists of 4 people. To start, with we have the younger guy, Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg), who is a loner and has developed rules on how to survive. These rules are in place prior to the Zombieland world, as he was a loner to begin with and not knowing how to fit in with society. These rules come back throughout the entire movie in one of the most entertaining ways possible (If you are a fan of the show “Fringe”, you’ll quickly get why I felt the rule demonstrations were entertaining. If you aren’t? You’ll get a kick out of how they are demonstrated!) While on the run, he meets up with Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson) who is the modern day equivalent of a cowboy. He really gets to play the ‘total badass’ who has the most fun and creative ways on killing the swarms of undead. The two man team eventually come upon two sisters, Wichita (Emma Stone) and Little Rock (Abigail Breslin), who end up ruining their entire plan. On a side note, the entire movie could have been considered a giant Twinkie commercial – you’ll get it when you see it.

Visually, the entire film shows where the budget went to: The introduction had some amazing slow motion effects that just blow you away followed up by the introduction of the rules. As I mentioned, Columbus’ “rules” on survival end up popping up throughout the entire film, in both fun and visually amusing ways that you’ll get a laugh out of each time they are on screen. For the gore fans out there? Worried how a big budget zombie movie is going to treat you? This has an “R”-rating for a reason! While the gore isn’t prevalent throughout the entire movie, when it’s on screen oh is it noticeable and in many cases unique! (They also do a great job at the over-the-top but not-unbelievably-so blood spray from any heavy impacts.) The zombies? Honestly it’s quite surprising that the zombies aren’t in the film for the majority of the middle portion of the movie, with how amazing they are when on screen. Running through smaller towns, the 4-pack of survivors also don’t run across a lot of the undead gathered in groups until near the very end. And, yes – the main call for a large group of zombies is brought forth by doing something stupid. You know what’s going to happen before it does, and can’t decide whether to cringe at what’s about to happen or enjoy the moment. You WILL enjoy the moment.

I promised I would try to not geek out and give you details. So my favorite part of the movie is the celebrity guest appearance. WARNING! DANGER! SPOILER HERE! who just happens to be Bill Fucking Murray. I don’t think the audience could stop laughing for the entirety of the scene with how well he did at playing himself. His entire scene lasts 10-15 minutes, or at least it seems to because of how exquisitely done it is. And by “entirety”, I mean every single second: upon entering his house, to the “Ghostbusters” nods, to – let’s face it – EVERYTHING.

REVIEW: Undead or Alive

It’s so hard to find a good zombie movie these days… and even some of the more independently produced zombie flicks have their downfall but I came across a pretty decent zombie flick called Undead or Alive. I enjoyed this movie, and I had a blast watching because it was one of the only western/zombie crossovers that actually was worth watching… which is saying a lot. The plot follows a stage performer, an outlaw, and a female gunslinger that fight tooth and nail to survive a zombie outbreak after an old Indian chief cursed the land. There were a number of things I enjoyed about this movie but it had one major flaw in it.

Let’s briefly look at the acting; again, Chris Kattan has a great performance and we all know he can do horror movies with his surprisingly good performance in House on Haunted Hill. James Denton as the outlaw Elmer did  a fantastic job as well as Lew Alexander as the Geronimo did pretty good as well. I would expect a movie this goofy would have had laughable acting but the actors and actresses took it seriously.

The zombie effects were pretty good and the makeup was top notch as well as the blood and the gore. You cannot go wrong when a bunch of zombie strippers tear apart a priest and eat his spine out; good gory fun. This was something that was bugging a bit about this movie: the people slowly turn into zombies and when they become zombies they talk and act like normal people, at least with Return of the Living Dead the zombies still kept their characteristics. Maybe I am just picky but it was something that bothered me a bit.

This movie has one of the best opening scenes and some of the screwball comedy is pretty funny. I even enjoyed the fact that the townsfolk think that the zombies are just deranged lunatics. It was a clever way of introducing a modern concept into old world history and I couldn’t help but be reminded of the original War of the Worlds when giant mechanical tripods attack a town in the 1800’s. It’s initially the same thing. Also, this movie had around 3 different ending and it was getting annoying; just when you thought everything was over it would cut to another scene and you’d think that would be the ending but it’s not! I wanted it to end already.

But, the one thing that bothered me and led to this movie’s somewhat downfall was that this could have been a good, serious zombie movie but it was layered and layered with comedy, bad puns, overacting and slapstick jokes. I am all for zombie parodies but to parody a crossover of westerns and zombies, an idea that is relatively new, isn’t a smart idea. I think this movie could have had so much more potential of being a good zombie flick, with real characters as well as a characters study… but it fell on its knees. The actors had more potential and all I wished for was that they could have made this a serious film and not a joke.

Overall, this movie was gory, it was good in parts, I loved the photography as well as the makeup and plot but this movie could have been so much more and could have been compared to the Romero flicks. If you are a zombie lover, you can’t miss this film because despite its slapstick… it’s not all that bad. You just have to look past that but if you are a hardcore Romero or Fucli fan than you might want to avoid this movie. I had a blast watching it from start to finish but there is always room for improvement. 

Available at Amazon

REVIEW: Flight of the Living Dead: Outbreak on a Plane

First there was Snakes on a Plane, the next logical step would be to throw a bunch of rabid zombies on a plane and you get Flight of the Living Dead: Outbreak on a Plane a pun on Night of the Living Dead. This movie was surprisingly good and very well put together for a sleeper straight to DVD. The plot centers on a group of conniving scientists who have brought a container containing a dangerous virus that turns people into zombies aboard a two-story commercial airplane. Much like Snakes the people aboard the plane all have different stories and there is even a cop transporting a criminal. The movie was very claustrophobic at times, the actors did a wonderful job and there were a lot of good, gory zombie effects. It was one of the best zombie movies I have seen in a long time.

Before we get into the gory bits of this movie let me talk about the claustrophobia of this film. Now many of you may question what claustrophobia, well there was a lot of it and it really made me uncomfortable at times. There where several scenes where the main characters were crawling through the inner tubes and air ducts of the plane when all of a sudden a zombie pops out or they end up getting chased by a zombie; a wonderful use of the plane setting. In fact, the whole movie, like Snakes, uses the plane setting very nicely.

The acting was decent and it wasn’t bad but there was room for improvement. The supporting cast seemed better than the main cast when it came to acting but it still was pretty good. I think that the best acting credit should go to Kevin J. O’Conner who plays the petty criminal Frank. His sarcastic, asshole, antihero archetype fits with his long career of roles and I think he was the perfect comedy relief for this film. Derek Webster did a great job with his role to and it just proves that golfers have a special place in the world when it comes to zombie killing.

Now, lets look at the gore of this movie. No zombie movie is complete with out the gore and the guts, which this movie does not disappoint. There are mass amounts of gore, legless nuns, loose skin and just an overall mess of a movie. It is really gritty and you can tell that the director/writer really has no remorse for his characters. Even the headshots are wonderfully bloody and a delight to see.

There were only a few minor complains that I had about this movie. First off, I am all for the zombies in this movie but it was a little awkward seeing them screech like a Raptor. It fits, but it’s something that I have to get used… it could be a lot worse I suppose. The other complaint that I have is something that baffled my mind throughout the entire film and I guess it’s just me being picky; after all the shooting that was going on why wasn’t the cabin depressurized? It was just something that was bothering me all the way through but it’s a movie so I guess I shouldn’t be too picky.

So, overall, this is a fun movie with some dark humor, a great atmosphere and some pretty damn good gory effects and acting. I had a lot of fun watching this movie and it truly is one of the best zombies movies out there… better than some of the stuff they release. Don’t go into thinking there’s going to be character development, the characters are fun and the movie is zombie fueled. I had a blast watching it and if you love zombies than I strongly suggest watching it. You won’t be disappointed.

Available at Amazon.

REVIEW: Planet Terror

Knowing how wacky and loony Robert Rodriguez can get, I’m not surprised that he wrote and directed this lovely piece of zombie mayhem. In fact, I’ll go further and say that this is probably one the best zombie homage that I have ever seen, with the exception of the classics. The tale is quit simple; accidental biogas is accidentally released and the people who are exposed to it turn into “sickos,” and its up to a group of strangers and enemies to band together and fight their way through it.

To get started, there is a lot of randomness in this movie, however, I think that the best random scene in this movie is the point were they are all in the bar and tension rises between two enemies and the film cuts out and the real is lost, then the real is found and put back together and everybody is friendly and the whole bar is burning. What the hell? I love that they added in that extra grindhouse feel to it. But the randomness is also accompanied with silliness. The humor in this film is greatly exaggerated and well done, and for the most part, this aspect lightens up the scariness this movie may have.

As I said before, it isn’t really scary as much as it can be gross, and that works pretty well in this film, especially given the genre.. In this film there are zombies but they are more than just zombies, they are horribly mutated zombies. The reason why this film seems so original to the zombie genre is because the dead in this film have large welts, tumors, cysts and puss pockets that gradually grow in size over time. I also enjoyed the excessive gore that was used in this film; people being torn apart, zombies eating brains, the most disgusting tongue horror that I have ever seen.

I do want to add my 2 cents in about the action. To start off, I think that this movie is the most ridiculous opera of action ever imaginable. Examples from the trailer are using a helicopter to chop the heads off of zombies (Dawn of the Dead?), using the rocket-launcher-leg to propel oneself into the air, using a pocket rocket to shoot zombies, it’s all great action-packed fun and it mixes well with the explosive comedy. I personally think that it ranks up with the Looney Toons style of action like Hot Fuzz and Shoot’em Up.

Overall, I think this movie is a good natured, old fashion zombie flick with a few Rodriguez twists and turns to it. It has pretty good acting, great gory action and ridiculous amount of unpredictability and zombie carnage. Hopefully this zombie flick will go down in history as one of the best zombie homage to the genre. This movie is just plain great! It even has a touch of Troma to it. I would also recommend this movie to those who enjoy zombie flicks as well as Romero flicks, I would go as far to recommend this one to black comedy fans and of course, Rodriguez fans. It’s just a great action packed comedy-horror film that really ignites any television or theater screen.

Available on Amazon

Rick’s Take On The Zombie Edition Of Mad Magazine

About a few years ago I received my daily Mad Magazine in the mail in October, since it was Halloween time they did a all zombie issue. I really enjoyed it and just when you thought you couldn’t parody zombie any more then what most movies have done then you haven’t seen this magazine. This magazine has several one panel comics in the beginning of the magazine including this hilarious zombie nutritional guide, since all zombies need to eat healthy brains. 

See kids, even zombies have to eat their veggies… of course, brains are essential to their diet. Pardon the fact that the image is bad quality, I was unable to scan the magazine properly.

Aside from numerous comic strips in the middle of the magazine, Mad takes a mad look at zombies in this section. There ares some pretty funny skits that I can’t even begin to describe… but I laughed all the way through. 

Caldwell also takes a look at some of the pet peeves that zombies have which is probably the funniest part of the whole magazine. Just to give you an idea, here are two things that zombies hate:

1. Flip-flopping government studies saying one day that eating brains lowers cholesterol, then the next day, declaring just the opposite
2. When, just before a big date, his face breaks out in nightcrawlers. 

Among the numerous magazines that Mad dishes out, this is one of my favorites and I continue to to love and respect their humor… this magazine edition just seals the deal.