Hollywood Is Dead and Still Gives Us Such Wonderful Art!

How many of you have seen those posters where they take classic Hollywood movies and turn them into zombie films? How many people know who or where you can find the artist that them? Look no further. If you are fan of his zombiefied Star Wars and Indiana Jones posters, then check out Matt Busch’s website Hollywood Is Dead for all his posters, news and stores. We’ve all seen them; we all know about them but now is your chance to look further into the real of an undead Hollywood.

“This collection of re-imagined movie posters is brainchild of notorious artist Matt Busch.  Each HOLLYWOOD IS DEAD poster parody is faithfully recreated by Busch’s ability to adapt any painting style thrown his way.  As opposed to just taking the original posters and altering them digitally in PhotoShop, Busch has painstakingly hand-painted every detail with traditional mixed media, before slaughtering them with a zombified treatment.”

Visit Hollywood Is Dead today!

REVIEW: Dead Alive

It’s been about a good 5 or so years since I seen Dead Alive. I had recently seen Jackson’s Bad Taste about a year ago but I decided to watch his more infamous zombie movie instead. Let’s just say this: I forgot how over-the-top this movie was and I drastically underestimated the gore… surprisingly. The movie is about an animal known as the Rat Monkey who bites our protagonist’s (Lionel) mother at the zoo. Well, she dies and then gets brought back to life only to infect others that come near her. What happens after this is indescribable because it’s just so goofy and out there that I wouldn’t know how to put this into words. Even as I type this out it’s hard to say exactly what I thought of this movie.

I maintain the fact that this movie is sort of like a satire or a parody of the zombie subgenre. It seems like Jackson wanted to make a ridiculous movie that was more comedy than horror and he knew this was just for fun but I think that he indirectly made a movie that would slap the whole zombie culture in the face. We all know that zombie movies are extremely gory (evidenced by Romero’s Dawn of the Dead) but here the gore is taken to the extreme. There is ooze, pus, blood and yellow goopy slime spurting out from these zombies that it becomes nauseating to look at and this was all done intentional. The excessive gore in Dead Alive is parodying the use of blood and guts in serious zombie movies… it’s rather genius. If I am not mistaken, the famous lawnmower scene has gone on record as being the goriest scene in movie history or at least one of the goriest scenes in movie history.

Speaking of gore that has to be one of the movie’s strong points. I was taken aback when I saw this for the first time and again when I revisited the movie. For an independent movie, the effects and the zombie makeup is pretty cool. There are limbs falling off, heads exploding, skin peeling off, giant swollen-breasted zombie mothers and great artwork… all if it has been handled with care and it’s worth gawking at. Don’t go in thinking that the acting is good or the story is going to blow you away, this is a movie where you just have to watch how the zombies get killed and marvel at the effects.

One thing that I noticed about Jackson’s horror movies is his camerawork or should I say his cameraman’s camerawork. His technique is pretty creative because he uses a lot of close ups and canted angles and you can tell after he branched away from his cheesy movies of the 80s and early 90s, he incorporated some of these angles in The Frighteners. This was also something that I really enjoyed about Dead Alive; the close ups really grasp the grotesque nature of the film. You see, in detail, the bubbly blood and the rotting flesh of the mother’s ear in the custard. In the scene when the guy eats the custard with the severed ear in it… Jackson zooms in on him swallowing the ear and it’s just so disgusting that you get the shivers. It’s a great use of cameras and it really puts the audience right there in the moment. The canted and crooked camera angles add to the cartoony surreal atmosphere of the film, so I think that there is a lot more meaning behind the camera angles that people care to see.

Even after all those years this movie still holds up and I am still mesmerized by the gore and the violence in this movie. I can’t really explain how the violence and the human mutilation play out because it is so over-the-top that words cannot express it. Even in this age of computers and CGI and vastly superior zombie movies, Dead Alive still can hold the test of time and it’s still enjoyable to watch over and over again. I might be one of the handfuls of people that see this a zombie parody but there is a method to the madness. The only way to find is to give this movie a try. I strongly urge it if you haven’t already seen it.

Available at Amazon!

Examples from Bled White:

1. Throughout the entire film they used a filter on their camera (or maybe they used it in post production, who knows) that really captured the desolate and apocalyptic setting that this film takes place in. It makes everything washed out white and black, it gives the picture a very gloomy mood to it and it made things seem dead and hopeless. How perfect for that setting?

2. There are also some shots that have a yellow/orange tint to it… and these shots are normally used when the sun is out or in the daytime. Here, the orange tint starts at the top of the screen and slowly fades away as it reaches the bottom and I love these kinds of filters. In the movie it makes the setting seem even more apocalyptic because it gives the sky this atomic look to it. Almost as though the sky itself is poisoned by whatever killed half of the world.

Now, I don’t want it to sound like I am putting every other indie movie down by using this film as an example nor am I saying that Bled White has the best use of it, but it is a film that had a small budget and created a good atmosphere. This is more of a suggestion to filmmakers to help them with their films. I enjoy zombie movies that have atmosphere and I think by experimenting with filters, a filmmaker can really accomplish that look to it. As you can see by my examples, a filter can go a long way.

REVIEW: Pop Punk Zombies

What more can somebody want but to listen to rock and roll and watch a zombie movie, well in the film Pop Punk Zombies this is half true. The film is about a big shot music producer who raises the dead in hopes to start the first zombie rock band. However, this causes controversy and an anti-zombie work group decides to unchain the zombies and let them be free. Now, with the building closed off, a group of survivors must save themselves from certain death but these are not your typical survivors and they must learn to survive themselves. I liked this movie but at the same time I found it stripped of logic and I found the script very flawed.

Before I start, I welcome the idea of civilizing zombies and it can be done. Films like Fido and Day of the Dead did great jobs doing so and if you make a movie that has them playing electric guitars, more power to you. However, the one problem that I foresee is the transition from being a mindless zombie to a rock star. Before the show they are slouching over, growling and howling and then out of nowhere they straighten up and develop amazing singing voices. I really wish they made the transition a little more fluid and gradual.

The one biggest problem that I had with this film was the logic and the somewhat flawed script. We all know how zombies act when they are not controlled and when they are let free, so why does the anti-zombie work group think that by freeing them would benefit everybody? If they really wanted to stop the zombie takeover and if they really want to let the zombies free, wouldn’t they kill them? It’s something that really boggled my mind and me double think that logic. With that said, there are several flawed reasons behind why a zombie rock band would work and why a zombie rock band would open the door to a zombie work force. It doesn’t really make any sense.

I found that this movie has some strikingly similar ideas and actions that mirror Day of the Dead. You can argue that the music producer is like an eviler version of Dr. Logan and that the zombie band is like Bub, only you don’t really feel sorry for them. The group is trapped in a building while zombies are let loose and they must try to find their way out but also, they must deal with one another since most of them have different moral values than the others. It’s just like Day of the Dead or Quarantine. I’m not saying they copied them, I think its more or less an inspiration.

You’re probably wondering if I actually liked this movie, and I have to say that I did. I enjoyed the idea behind a zombie rock band and think it’s a cool concept to play around with. I really enjoyed the gore since those were the best parts. The characters were somewhat lovable, although at times they seemed a bit stale. I really enjoyed the makeup, even though it’s not your typical zombie makeup it still worked. I do recommend this movie to zombie fans however, I think you should just go into thinking that it’s going to be a fun popcorn movies. Enjoy the action, and enjoy the gore but try not to pay attention to the logic. In the end, all the zombies wanted to do is rock all night and party every day.

REVIEW: Pathogen

What do you get when you give a 12-year-old girl a camera and a boom microphone? You get a great spirited, old school zombie movie! Yes, 12-year-old Emily Hagins, decided to make a zombie movie called Pathogen, which is about a group of kids who try to survive when the town’s water supply was poised with a virus that turns people into zombies. There are so many things that I liked about this movie and being a fan of independent zombie movies… this film was no exception.

The film is so simple and it brings the phrase “it’s something in the water” to a whole new level and I think it really captures that phrase. I couldn’t help but think that this movie was somewhat inspired by Cabin Fever although this movie really made you paranoid of the water. After the prologue, when there is a montage of people drinking water and playing in the sprinkler… it overwhelms you with that “oh no!” kind of moment. I love it. I also like how the story progresses and how it wasn’t just about one singular character but rather 2 or 3 different stories that intertwine into one.

What I really enjoyed about this movie were the zombies… because they were old school. Their faces were white, with dark circles around their eyes, blood coming from their mouths, and noses and they walked slowly! They were a throwback to the old school Romero zombies that I loved so much and it was great seeing this in such a young girl’s movie. It let know that there are people out there that still enjoyed and paid homage to the originals.

I did see a lot of things wrong with this movie, mostly technical and had I not known the situation it would have taken me out of the film but once I found out about the director and the hardships I quickly forgave all that. Surprisingly, this movie was edited on iMovie and the editing was very smooth and fluid… again, surprisingly.

Pathogen was amazingly done for such a youthful writer and director and I was pleased to see that this was a throwback to the original zombie movies and not those fast-running, steroid-induced zombies that you see nowadays. This movie stayed to the basics. I kind of felt that Pathogen was like a “Goosebumps” book only a lot darker but it still kept the childhood audience. There were some really bloody scenes and some scenes that I didn’t expect. It was on overall joy to watch this movie and I really think that Hagins is a rising director.

Available at Cheesy Nuggets Production

CoD: WAW Map Pack 3 Trailer

Call of Duty junkie? Love that zombie mode where you get to kill undead nazi’s? Here’s some gameplay from the latest map pack that will soon be hitting your downloadable content! As the previous map packs have done there will be new maps but only 1 new multiplayer zombie map.

[via: Zombie Command.]

Zombie Tweet is a new game that tells you- You have a zombie horde approaching. What are you going to do? It’s extremely simple and doesn’t give many options but does reward you for answering with a badge to show off if you survived or died with a small tale of your adventure. Once you win or lose you can also have it show if you have defeated or died to the zombie outbreak! Ideally this will be expanded on at a later date but it will give you a couple minutes of distraction while reading through all of the options.

Now I honestly can’t decide from the trailer for Damned By Dawn if the undead within this movie are spirits, animated skeletons, or actual zombies. So I decided that I would let YOU, the viewers, decide by yourself what you thought. Regardless it does look like a fun little horror movie that should have some over the top late 80’s early 90’s horror feel with modern special effects so I plan on giving it a watch when its out. [via: Horror Hideout]

Dead Snow, the Norewegian zombie film about Nazi Zombies has apparently been given a release date in North America! According to Horror Movies we will see a release date of June 12th of this 2009. While killing Nazi Zombies may be fun in Call of Duty: World at War, we’ll have to see how this import does and watching them die. Of course this will probably be a limited run and not a huge opening but we’ll see in a few months.

The new Call of Duty- World At War map pack will offer 3 new maps and most importantly adding “Verrückt” as a zombie mode map taking place in an asylum FULL of our fun filled undead.

[via: Kotaku]