Dawn of the Lead

What we’ve all been waiting for – except those lucky people who actually were at the San Diego Comic Con – the trailer for the Walking Dead’s second season. See the trailer, then see my short comments below. Or read the comments and then see the trailer. Or..well, yeah.

What did I see? Major deviations from the comic books. This was to be expected, as it was already clear from season one that this is the way to go. Having read the comic books, I really enjoy this. While I’m a fan, I still don’t fancy seeing a shot-for-shot adaptation of the comic. Instead, I want to be surprised and it seems this is exactly what will happen. The trailer looks very interesting, and it looks to me as if the series is being taken back to the grassroots of zombie survival after the (for me) disappointing near sci-fi flirt at the end of season one.

I can safely say I’m waiting for October.

It’s time for another instalment of Upcoming zombie goodness. I’m starting to run out of titles for posts like this pretty soon, should’ve just numbered them. Anyhoo, onwards we go!

Incidente is an Argentinian zombie flick coming out in 2011. Borrowing heavily from the likes of Rec and The Blair Witch project, it is a tale of supernatural horror, sporting demons that “wear humans like clothes”. Here’s the synopsis, which I’m sure you’ll find quite familiar:

A Special Division police member finds videotape in the form of an unfinished documentary featuring material of a very dark and strange nature.

Years ago in the Nacan’s Factory, an employee killed 16 workers and finally himself. Investigating police could find no logical explanation for the events, and the case was filed as “Incident” (a designation that police use for cases with no solution, offering no reasonable explanation).

Today cameraman Christian and journalist Romina, along with a crime specialist and a priest, will enter the building to document what really happened that day.

This is the tape of what they discovered.

While it’s not winning any points for originality, the trailer still looks very nice, and Incidente might just be a nice little addition to the genre. As always, it’s great to see another country joining in the whole zombie movie thing.

Meteletsa – Winter of the Dead

Speaking of international zombie productions, Meteletsa is the first feature length Russian zombie film. Here’s the blurb from the movie’s Facebook page:

Russian Winter is a terrible thing…… especially if it arrives in mid-July.

“Along the street a snowstorm sweeps, behind the snowstorm … something ghastly creeps!”

Konstantin – a Moscow journalist, hides from the onslaught with the daughter of a local tycoon in a hardware store. Captain Igor Knyazev kranks up the only working tank, whilst his lover, Dasha is running away from her angry husband, who has learned of the pair’s betrayal, and wants revenge, regardless of the weather …
Faced with horrifyingly gripping news material, a dedicated cameraman, Vlad, captures the strange events on video as priest Father Michael gets out his trusty axe …

Out amidst the icy storm, something raises its hideous head – a Russian zombie – senseless and merciless!

The film shows decent production values albeit with a fairly hefty reliance on CGI. There’s a lot of promise here, I think. I’ve always been fond of hearing spoken Russian, so the film gets thumbs up from me.

Regular readers know how much I’ve lamented Finland’s poor track record when it comes to zombie films. Quite frankly there are none to speak of. There was one, called Stone’s War (or War of the Dead) which seemed promising. It featured a frontline Finnish cast with some talented young actors, as well as WW2 zombies, which may or may not be of the nazi variety. This was in 2009. Time went by, and the occasional piece of news drifted in. News of production difficulties, financers backing away from the project and so on. The film seemed forever lost in that dreadful, dreadful place – post-production hell.

It seems the movie might be coming out after all. This from 24Framespersecond.net:

After five long years of production and legal problems, the word is that Marko Mäkilaakso’s World War II action/zombie flick, now once again known as War of the Dead – formerly ‘Stone’s War,’ and formerly before that (stay with us here) know as ‘War of the Dead’ – has finished post production, and will be looking for a release this year. Better late than never eh.

Synopsis: Captain Martin Stone is leading a finely-trained, elite platoon of American and Finnish soldiers as they attack an enemy bunker. Underestimating their enemy’s strength, they are quickly beaten back into the forest. As they try to regroup, they are suddenly attacked by the same soldiers they had just killed a few minutes earlier. Forced to flee deeper into Russian territory, they discover one of war’s most terrifying secrets and realize they have woken up a far more deadly enemy.

Now, I dont’ care if the movie turns out to be rubbish and the plot is silly. For an actual zombie movie to be made here, in Europe’s trendiest backwater, is joy enough in itself. There’s a trailer below, although I suggest you turn off the sounds – someone’s been clever enough to add the music from Requiem for a dream, which you must’ve heard about six million times in trailers already. I know I’m pretty sick of it.

Here’s to hoping that the movie finally happens.

Update May 29th 2011 – DotL reader Tony reports the following:

The director Marko Mäkilaakso has confirmed in Facebook that the movie is now completed and ready to be delivered to all distributors. Release dates for each territory is yet still unconfirmed.

Thank for the heads up, Tony!

Every now and then, and all too rarely,  a movie comes along that looks at the zombie apocalypse scenario from a new point of view. In a genre that’s known for endlessly reproducing much of the same tropes and plotlines, a breath of fresh air is welcome. This tends to happen more often in short films, where the financial investment isn’t so big so as to force the film makers to avoid risks. A good example of this is I love Sarah Jane, which shows the whole thing from the point of view of children. And now along comes Play Dead.

The movie takes a whole new perspective on the undead catastrophe: that of pet dogs. Initially this sounds silly and cheesy, but give it a second thought. Dog (and other pet) movies tend to touch people on a different level than those dealing with only humans. Pets in movies often elicit much stronger emotional responses in movies than human characters. Remember Jones the cat in Alien? Who cares about the crew, when there’s the chance of the cat getting killed? What about the poor sled dogs in The Thing? The dog in the Dawn of the Dead remake? The horse in The Walking Dead? Tell me you haven’t watched those movies and felt more sorry for the animals than the human actors. What about movies like Homeward bound, Turner and Hooch, or other similar tear jerkers? Pets in movies are a much overlooked aspect, often replaced by children who are much more annoying.

The responses to the concept of Play Dead have reflected this. “Who would make such a movie?” “If there are dogs killed, I’m never going to see this.” “This kind of stuff is why I hated I Am Legend!” and so forth. To me it’s a whole another story. While I’ve become something of a dog person lately, I’m always looking for a zombie movie that would really touch me. Far too often you can’t relate to the protagonists, as they’re either too heroic or simply tiresome. Animals? Much easier to relate to, since there’s no dialogue nor bad acting. Play Dead might just be the first zombie flick ever to possibly make me squeeze out a few tears.

The producers are looking for funding for their project. They’re still a few hundred USD short, so I call upon the readers of DotL to lend them a hand. I pitched in $10, which entitles me to a pre-screening copy and additional goodies. You can donate to the project via Kickstarter, where you can also get more information on the film. Do donate, if only for the sake of supporting film makers brave enough to try something new with the genre. Oh, incidentally the movie looks excellent too. Don’t take my word for it, see the trailer below.

Two completely different kinds of movie presented in this post.

Dark Souls is a Norwegian horror film. While not perhaps a traditional take on the zombie film, there are nevertheless familiar elements there for it to find its way here. Here’s the synopsis:

A young girl, Johanna, is attacked and seemingly murdered. Her father receives a phone call from the police pronouncing her dead as he sees her walk in the front door of their house. Strange things begin to happen to Johanna, she is disorientated and becomes pale and unresponsive. Similar attacks begin to happen and Johanna’s father takes it on himself to find out the truth. He embarks on a dark thrill ride of lost memories, conspiracy and zombie-like symptoms. Finding the mysterious darkness within is the source of the bizarre world he has uncovered.

Being Finnish, I like Scandinavian movies a whole lot. The familiar-looking locations bring that feeling of “this could happen to me” which makes horror movies twice as effective. Dark Souls looks impressive, and I’ll definitely need to check it out.

See the movie’s official site for more information.

The next movie is a whole another story. Bong of the Dead apparently carries the torch passed on by Braindead (or Dead Alive, as it’s known to some). Silly humour, blood and guts, low budget are the key concepts here. I’m not usually much of a fan of films like this, but somehow the trailer managed to win me over. It’s also a testament to the tools available to budding film makers these days, as it looks pretty nice considering its $5000 budget. The synopsis is just..yeah.

Edwin and Tommy are two stoner buddies who are lone survivors of a mass zombie outbreak caused by meteorites. One day they discover a great zombie fertilizer that helps grow super potent pot. The problem is since the government has cleared out many of the major cities, there are no longer any zombies where they live. In order for them to get more zombies for fertilizer, they must go on a road trip to the “Danger Zone” where they hope to find and gather as many zombies as possible for their brains. Along the way they get captured by an evil flamboyantly gay Zombie named Alex who has a plot to organize an army of the undead in order to take over the world. Once they escape his clutches, they team up with Leah Kroaker, another lone survivor who has spent the past year of her life since the outbreak tinkering and building things on her farm. She joins the boys and builds the ultimate zombie killing machine in order to help them on their quest.

And here’s the trailer, pretty much matching the synopsis:

Find out more at www.bongofthedead.com.

Time for another look at what’s cooking in the world of zombie cinema!

I’m going to kick it off with a trailer for Quarantine 2. I admit that I haven’t seen the first one. I didn’t really have an urge to, having seen [REC] so many times. [REC] 2 was a bit of a disappointment, and I’m happy to see Quarantine 2 not following the re-make path. All in all the setup looks pretty interesting, although why oh why do they have to recycle a lot of the stuff from the first film? Even the trailer gave me a strong déjà vu vibe.

Next up is Humans vs Zombies (which they for good knows what reason insist on writing HUMANSVSZOMBIES, whereas I have my dignity). Apparently Humans vs Zombies is a moderated game of tag played at universities, and it seems to be gaining popularity – read more here. The game seems to have spawned a live action movie as well, which looks surprisingly promising judging from the first teaser. Some more information can be found at the movie’s official site.

Good zombie comedies are few and far between. As are Israeli zombie movies. What fun it was, then, to discover Poisoned, an Israeli zombie comedy. The movie seems to be the story of a lovestruck young man in the IDF during a zombie catastrophe. This movie seems great, plain and simple. And yes, I repeat: ISRAELI ZOMBIE COMEDY. That’s reason alone to see it. Not to mention the male lead character, who seems like an excellent anti-hero type.

That’s a pretty nice trio of films to wait for, don’t you think?