Horror Science: Are Zombies Real?

Halloween is here, and as many cinephiles start watching as many horror films as they can in the month of October, you’ll start to see a trend. One of the most popular – and historically one of the most recent – monsters in horror movies are zombies. In fact, you’ll be hard-pressed to find a listing of October horror movies to watch without finding at least one or a dozen tales of the undead creeping (or rather, stumbling) in there.

Zombie popularity is at an all-time high, with mainstream television series like The Walking Dead and summer tent pole releases like World War Z bringing in serious cash to Hollywood. However, like other classic monsters that have their roots in fact (like lycanthropy being applied to people with mental illness or vampirism being attributed to an exhumed corpse whose gums had receded and fingernails had appeared to grow), one might question how much truth there is to this whole zombie thing. It was a flight of fancy, until a gruesome real-life attack happened in May 2012, which may have been caused by recreational drugs.

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Housecore Horror FilmFest Involves Scum, Zombies and Maniacs

The Housecore Horror Film Festival debuted in Austin this weekend. An offshoot of Housecore Records, the four-day long event was a combination of a series of concerts from many heavy-metal bands as well as a showcase of indie horror flicks that ranged from classic to little-seen, plus advance screenings.

“First year” was a term thrown around quite a few times over the weekend as a reminder that this was the festival’s inaugural year, and understandably so. A few screenings were delayed, while others were postponed or canceled — and occasionally zombies on the screen had to compete with goblins on the stage with only several feet of space separating the two.

Yet, despite unavoidable mishaps, for a festival in their “first year,” Housecore presented one of the most eclectic and impressive lineup of horror titles, leading this scare fiend to wonder what kind of blood splatter future years will hold.

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Why the Fear of Zombie Faces?

The horror-film appeal of zombies is rooted in an instinctive disquiet at faces that are almost human, says a psychologist.

A research project by the Open University’s Stephanie Lay found a particular fear of “near-human” faces.

It explains why blank eyes, automatons, masks and ventriloquists’ dolls are common cinema devices to instil fear.

The psychologist says a study of 3,000 people found widespread “repulsion” at near-human faces.

The finding is part of research into the so-called “uncanny valley” phenomenon in how people react to robots.

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31 Days of Zombies and Horror

Rob Zombie’s 2007 “Halloween” remake loosely applied the director’s quickly coalescing tics to the John Carpenter-directed original, recasting the blank, seemingly motivationless killer Michael Myers as a hollowed-out hick with family issues and eyes that looked as if they’d taken on a paint-huffing-induced glaze while still in utero. Yet the film, Zombie’s open concession to mainstream genre demands, while cementing his style, left cracks in it. Those minuscule fissures are blown open by “Halloween II” (2009), an ostensible cash-grab that proved, especially in its slightly but meaningfully altered director’s cut, the best horror film of the last five years.

The sequel continues the story along a path that seems logical until one realizes how few horror franchises do it, caring less for the further exploits of monsters and their victims than for the aftershocks of the original trauma. “Halloween II” presents a group of characters irrevocably poisoned by their brush with evil, among them Dr. Loomis (Malcolm McDowell), who is hawking a book to profit off his ghastly failure to cure—or even contain—Michael’s psychosis, and Michael’s sister, Laurie (Scout Taylor-Compton), who is in total emotional freefall.

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Zombies, Horror for Halloween

Halloween doesn’t arrive until Thursday, but this weekend looks like a big one for zombies and other creatures of the season. Here’s a roundup of highlights in the Mobile area.

The Magnolia Corn Maze in Magnolia Springs is open for business 5 p.m.-8 p.m. Friday, 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Saturday and noon-5 p.m. Sunday through Nov. 3. Attractions this year include Bazooka Ball, campfire sites, a range of children’s activities, a second playground and even some zombie action. General admission is $10 plus tax per person; Unlimited Activity Tickets are $15 and Ultimate Admission Tickets are $20.

Children 2 and younger admitted free. 15275 County Road 49, Summerdale; call 251-605-7216 or visit www.magnoliacornmaze.com.

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Guildford Zombie Night Brings in the Fun for Fans

This Halloween, something rather gruesome is happening in the middle of Guildford.

The Electric Theatre is hosting its first ever Zombie Night on Thursday October 31 which includes a screening of director George A. Romero’s cult classic Dawn of the Dead. Crack open the fake blood and join in the big Halloween party of the year, right here in Guildford.

Zombies will descend on the Theatre anytime from 7pm onwards so come along dressed up – the more imaginative the better, there are prizes to be won.

“Undoubtedly the zombie movie to end ‘em all” according to Time Out, Dawn of the Dead is the epic sequel to Romero’s legendary Night of the Living Dead and is without doubt one of the greatest zombie films of all time.

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Top 25 Zombie Movies on the List

The zombies have taken over. As “World War Z” hits theaters as the most expensive zombie flick ever made, we take a look at the best zombie movies of all-time.By “zombie movies” we mean the films that deal with the dead returning to life, with a couple of exceptions. As such, we’re not counting movies about demonic possession (“Evil Dead” franchise), vampire-like creatures (“Omega Man”/”I Am Legend”), or doctor-aided resurrections (“Frankenstein”/ “Re-Animator”).

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Best Zombie Movies Yet to Date

Last Sunday night, 16 million people watched the season 4 premiere of AMC’s The Walking Dead. Meaning cable TV records were shattered by an hour of television in which zombies fell through a convenience store’s ceiling, smashed into gooey bits upon hitting the ground, and, in one particular walker’s case, dangled in mid-air by its intestines. “Must-see TV” has certainly come a long way from Rachel Green’s in-vogue hairstyle.

Because of AMC’s ratings behemoth, the living dead are the coolest kids on the horror block these days, superseding the usual suspects like vampires and werewolves, both of which are currently slumming it on HBO’s forever problematic True Blood. Unsurprisingly, zombies have slowly—since, you know, they’re dead and unable to rapidly haul ass—been infiltrating the movie world, with this year’s charming comedy Warm Bodies prefacing next year’s Aubrey Plaza-led Life After Beth and, gasp, latest remake of George A. Romero‘s badass 1985 flick Day of the Dead.

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Zombie Makeup Workshop for Zombie Films

If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em! Just in time for Halloween, you will learn from Dani Spinks, San Francisco’s resident zombie expert, to apply makeup that transforms you into a walking corpse. Dani will also share her secret recipe—developed through years of experimentation—to create blood that has the consistency and viscosity of the real thing.

Dedicated to authenticity and gore, Dani is a founding member of SF Zombie Bar, owner of aGOREable designs and makeup artist for films, photo shoots and live events.

 

Each participant gets a zombie makeup kit to take home.

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The Coming of Modern Day Zombies

Oct. 18–Birth of the Living Dead, documentary, not rated, The Screen, 3.5 chiles

In 1963, George A. Romero began his own production company called The Latent Image. Romero is the man responsible for reinventing the zombie picture and creating a legacy still running strong in cinemas and on television 45 years after his Night of the Living Dead, released in 1968, brought a bleak new vision to the horror genre.

The Latent Image was a small company that produced beer commercials as well as a handful of short films for educator and television host Fred Rogers’ program Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, including one about the TV show host’s tonsillectomy. In the documentary Birth of the Living Dead, which chronicles the efforts of a small group of filmmakers to get Pittsburgh’s “first feature film” financed and produced, Romero jokes that the tonsillectomy film is one of the scariest he ever made.

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Scream Movies for 31 Days

Though they’ve lost their fear factor for me, zombie films are my favorite junk food; I just can’t get enough of them and ‘Day of the Dead’ is the peanut-butter-filled Twinkie of the lot. Romero’s original Living Dead trilogy set the standard for American zombie movies and this is the walking dead equivalent to ‘Return of the Jedi’. Scream Factory has presented the film in its most vivid form to date.

In ‘Day of the Dead’, there’s the veneer of a story focusing on a group of government assigned scientists and military personnel posted in an isolated underground mine-come-research facility sometime after the zombie apocalypse. The film follows a collection of characters who are undeniably more interesting than the throw-away ‘meat’ posing as human beings in most modern horror movies. We could go on and on about the Romero(ian) social commentaries & satirical subtexts about government conspiracy and the breakdown of civility in contemporary America but, let’s face it, the bread-and-butter here is that ‘Day of the Dead’ is the film that finally makes a zombie the protagonist!

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Zombie Films that Top the List

Zombies have always been a constant fascination in all demographics, and all kinds of formats. Whether it be in the books we read, the costumes we make, or the movies we watch, you can expect to see zombies around every corner — especially in October, the greatest month for horror monsters. Zombie films have been around since the mid ’60s when it was included in the ‘monster film’ genre. Now the zombie film has its own genre and its own separate audience that eat, breath and sleep zombies. Throughout the year there have been a lot of great, scary, hilarious zombie films and even more flops. I’m here to count down the ten best brain eating, intestine ripping, gore-filled zombie films of all time.

10) World War Z (2013)

Much more of an action flick than a horror one, World War Z still provides thrills and satisfies the zombie junkie’s needs, not to mention the zombies are faster than hell in this movie and that’s always terrifying.

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Awesome Online Zombie Movies

“The Walking Dead” returned for its fourth season Sunday night on AMC. On one hand, fans were treated to the usual dose of creeping, shuffling, bloody dead things. On the other hand, everybody has to wait a week for the next installment.

Fortunately, you don’t have to go zombie-free during that time. We’ve rounded up five of the greatest zombie short films to ever grace the Internet.

These shorts have it all, from pathos to intestines, from blood to deeply moving emotional moments. Just a warning: If you’re at work, there are extremely gross moments and strong language in some of these. Here they are, in no particular order.

“Cargo”: This short is the wordless story of a survivor and his baby daughter. It lunges at, and takes a bite out of, your heart with a well-crafted seven minutes of grasping zombies wrapped around a deep emotional core. If you thought you would never cry over a zombie movie, this might change your mind.

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Bollywood Akshay Kumar Loves Zombies and Vampires

According to Indian media reports ‘Desi Boyz’ actor Akshay Kumar is reportedly on the lookout for a ‘vampire script’.

In an interview the 46-year-old actor praised the zombie-comedy film ‘Go Goa Gone’ and said he had never imagined that somebody would ever shoot a film on the subject in Bollywood.

The ‘Khiladi’ further revealed that after watching the Saif Ali Khan production, he immediately called the producers Saif Ali Khan and Dinesh Vijan to voice his appreciation for the film.

Kumar said that he loves the concept of vampires sucking blood and is looking forward to playing a vampire on the big-screen sometime soon.

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Zombies as the Years Go By

The 1968 film that started it all. Romero’s original zombie flick featured Judith O’Dea and Duane Jones as unfortunate survivors of a zombie outbreak in rural Pennsylvania. Unlike the big budget zombie films of today, the cause of the outbreak is left by the wayside as the film depicts gory, violent scenes of zombies eating the living.

Not only did the film gross $18 million on a $100k budget, it also kick-started the entire pop-culture fascination with zombies.

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Why are Zombies Popular?

The Walking Dead returns for its fourth season Sunday night, meaning zombies will once again crawl from their graves for our weekly entertainment. However, it’s hard to say that the living dead are returning — from video games such as The Last of Us to Brad Pitt’s summer blockbuster World War Z, zombies have been a fixture in pop culture for years. Despite the numerous groans from those protesting “another zombie movie,” the zombie media invasion shows very few signs of stopping.

But where did this cultural obsession with these rotting flesh-eaters come from?

Unlike vampires — which entered popular consciousness primarily through literary works such as Bram Stoker’s Dracula — zombies lack one singular origin in our modern culture. The living dead have existed in many cultures throughout the world in a variety of forms. One of the oldest surviving works of literature, the Sumerian poem The Epic of Gilgamesh, includes a goddess cursing the dead to rise and eat the living. However, there are many differences among these concepts of the undead, and there was no real zombie genre until the 20th century.

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Canadian Zombie Film ‘Bunks’ Zombified Disney XD

TORONTO, Oct. 7, 2013 /CNW Telbec/ – Disney XD braces itself for an unforgettable supernatural ex-fear-ience with the world premiere of the first-ever Disney XD Canadian original movie, Bunks. Debuting Sunday, October 27 at 8 p.m. ET, the action-packed, zombie comedy – or zom-edy – follows Dylan and Dane O’Reilly, troublemaking brothers who accidentally unleash a curse on their camp that brings every campfire story to life. Filmed in Winnipeg, Manitoba and Kenora, Ontario, Bunks is a not-so-typical coming of age story about brotherhood, leadership and the great outdoors.

Brothers Dylan (Dylan Schmid) and Dane (Aidan Shipley) are always getting into trouble, so when their parents decide to send them to military camp for the summer, they devise a plan to sneak into Camp Bushwhack, an idyllic island camp. Posing as camp counsellors, the brothers fumble through quintessential camping activities, leading a rag-tag cabin of 11-year-olds through canoe trips, dodgeball disasters and more. But, the real trouble begins when the mischievous pair accidentally awaken a curse that brings campfire stories to life and sets a massive zombie outbreak into motion. Now, instead of just faking it, Dylan and Dane must learn what it really means to be leaders, and team up with their campers to save Camp Bushwhack.

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Palm Beach County Man’s Determination on Zombie Films

— Gary Davis is under no illusions. He knows his zombie movies are bad.

Well, it’s not that they’re bad per se, but Davis, one of Palm Beach County‘s most well-known filmmakers (you can count them on your hand), is a movie man with little more than a camera, a lot of friends and a wooded backyard that makes a nice film set.

Despite the sparse resources, his latest TV series, “2057 Return to Zombie Island,” will premier at 4 p.m. Sept. 28 as paid programming on the CW in West Palm Beach, and he has screened his films in local theaters with red carpets and fanfare.

“I want to be known as the king of Z movies,” said Davis, 59, at his home among dense pines and trashed vehicles consumed by foliage. “Not B movies. Z movies.”

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Zombie Movie Month Coming Through

Last night, I watched a zombie movie. Tonight, I’m watching a zombie movie. Tomorrow night, and for the next 28 nights, I will be watching a zombie movie. This is not normal. Not for me. Not for anybody. But it’s what I’ve done every year for the past five years, and what I will do every year for the foreseeable future. Why? Because zombie movie marathon month, that’s why.

Okay, I know that’s not really a reason. How does “Because zombie movies are awesome!” sound? About the same, right? The truth is, there’s no deep, meaningful reason that I do this to myself every year beyond the fact that I did it once, I really enjoyed it, and I decided to make it a tradition. For me, being the slightly obsessive weirdo that I am, once you call it “tradition,” you don’t really have any choice — it’s just what you do.

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Zombie Parade on Massachusetts Streets

Peppy cheerleaders, elaborate floats, eager college students and bloody zombies marched down Massachusetts Street Thursday night as the Kansas University homecoming parade and the seventh annual Lawrence Zombie Walk brought a unique mix of Jayhawk and Lawrence pride to downtown.

While the KU marching band was kicking off the parade with the Jayhawk fight song at 6 p.m., more than 1,000 zombies of all ages were dancing to eerie Halloween music in South Park, preparing for their own sidewalk parade at 7 p.m. The homecoming parade’s theme was “Jayhawks around the world,” but as the evening went on, the underworld came out, as well.

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Preview to ‘Walking Dead’ Webisodes

“The Walking Dead” returns in less than two weeks, and AMC is ramping up viewer appetite with webisodes and a new trailer.

The fourth season of the hit zombie survival series is to debut Oct. 13, but fans who can’t wait for the gory showdown to begin can check out this year’s three-webisode series, titled “The Oath” and directed by “Walking Dead” executive producer and makeup wizard Greg Nicotero. Nicotero also directed the webisodes preceding Seasons 2 and 3.

This year’s webisodes, set in other parts of “The Walking Dead” world, tell short stories about survivors Karina (Ashley Bell) and Paul (Wyatt Russell) as they desperately seek medical aid after a zombie attack. They eventually find a doctor (Ellen Greene), whose motives may be questionable.

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John Landis Discusses Zombie Popularity

It’s no secret that the biggest trend in horror movies over the last several years, even extending into TV and video games, is the zombie phenomenon. From “Shaun of the Dead” and “Zombieland” to “The Walking Dead” and even the “Left 4 Dead” game series, it’s hard to open your eyes without being catching a peek at something zombie-related. Director John Landis, the man behind the legendary horror movie “An American Werewolf in London,” has a theory about it.

While appearing at Universal Studios Orlando to debut his “An American Werewolf in London” maze as part of the annual Halloween Horror Nights, Landis shared his opinion on the rise of the the genre’s popularity. “All horror films are metaphors, so what is a zombie exactly?” he wonders. “They always talk about the zombie apocalypse, it’s a disease. Nobody talks about voodoo anymore, it’s all radiation or from the government.”

 

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