Finally zombie lovers and hunters can a place they can go to see all sorts of live specimen. http://www.zombierater.com/ Is a place for any survivor to post pictures of zombies to be rated by other survivors.
Crafty survivors may even use this site to post pictures of themselves as zombies to see if the disguise might be good enough to fool the undead. Or another survivor, so be warned that someone may pick the wrong target if they don't know you are out there.
Submitting a picture is easy. Just go to the site, hit submit and fire away. Or just look at the pictures, rate them how you see fit and put any really cool ones as your desktop.
Any questions can also be directed at zombierater@zombiesdrule.com
Stay vigilant, may the infection never reach you, and those close to you have the resolve to do what is needed should you be so unfortunate, Mike D.
Saturday, April 9, 2011
Zombies in film: Beyond Re-Animator
"They Thought Prison Would Be The Death Of Him. But For Dr. West, Death Is Only The Beginning."
Film: Beyond Re-Animator
Directed by Brian Yuzna
Written by H.P. Lovecraft and Migel Tejada-Flores
Produced by Castelao Producciones, Fantastic Factory and Filmax
Film: Beyond Re-Animator
Directed by Brian Yuzna
Written by H.P. Lovecraft and Migel Tejada-Flores
Produced by Castelao Producciones, Fantastic Factory and Filmax
Story: Herbert West is back! This time one of his experiments kills a young woman, only to get at the milk she was drinking? And he gets sent to jail for an undetermined period of time. But the young girls brother grows up to be the worst actor of all time, er... to be a doctor himself! Who volunteers to work at the jail where West is so he and West can continue his research. Of course while West is making some real progress, including a way to bring the "soul" back as well as life itself, all hell is bound to get loose as events unfold until West finally confronts a couple of dismembered zombie inmates and the warden with a rat's soul to finally exscape with no remorse for those who'se life's he ruined and continue his experiments else where.
Zombies: I'm not even sure these creatures can be called zombies. They are re-animated and therefore undead but not much else about them makes for zombies. They seem to just become crazed versions of themselves. As with the first movie there are many types of re-animated corpses in the film. One drug addict seems to avoid becoming a crazed killer by taking the serum while alive, he simply meets a grisly... end? Although this movie clearly states there is no true end when the re-animator serum is involved. The final type of zombie are those re-animated and then given back a soul. Which seems to just warp their personality, begging the question what if the person was given back their own soul?
Survival Lessons:
- Wear clothes that don't easily rip. You shouldn't have to be told twice ladies!
- Don't let a zombie do special favors for you.
- Don't take a re-animation agent while you are currently animated (alive.)
- Make sure your girlfriend isn't just trying to learn about your partner's experiments.
- Don't try to find out about your boyfriend's partner's strange experiments.
- Lesson from series: Doctors are evil or badass, or sometimes both.
Warnings: The R rated version is rated that for good reason. Children skip this next line. Just to give an example of some of the R rate material in this movie, a re-animated "thing" off a man fights a zombie rat. While hilarious, it is definately not for the youngins.
In the end if this film had stayed more consistant with how each "type" of zombie acted it would have been far more then just a fluff piece. As the case is there are too many inconsistantcies to make the film truely worth watching for the ideas it tries to get across and the questions it asks. Like what would happen if a zombie was given back a soul? The soul of an animal? The soul of another person? The soul of the person that zombie used to be? Very interesting questions but ones to which the answers must be found elsewhere.
Stay vigilant, may the infection never reach you, and those close to you have the resolve to do what is needed should you be so unfortunate, Mike D.
Friday, April 8, 2011
Field Guide to Monsters
Darren Zenko has put together a great resource for all monster hunters. This handy little book is called the "Field Guide to Monsters". Of course I am not of the mind monsters are real or need hunting but a book of this nature could not go without a section on our favorite undead. I've copied just this section here as a sample.
Field Guide to Monsters by Darren Zenko:
They advance slowly, in eerie silence punctuated only by the occasional moan and the sound of feet scraping the ground. From a distance, the horde may appear to be a shambling crowd of normal humans. The truth is revealed on closer inspection: ripped and bloody clothes, gaping wounds, rotting flesh and the nauseating stench of the grave. These are the walking corpses, the living dead... zombies.
Where do these mindless horrors come from? There's really no easy answer. First and fremost, though, the zombie was once human - and a human body, even (or perhaps especially) a dead one, is a strong and powerful object. Many methods, technological and magical, take advantage of this potential to bring about zombification. Even a quick sampling of recorded zombie outbreaks reveals zombies brought to life by evil spells; zombies created by meteorites from space; zombies as the result of secret biochemical experiments; zombies created by strange viruses; zombies as the result of ancient curses; and zombies apawned by radiation from atomic weapons tests. In most cases, zombieism is highly contagious and spread by bites or scratches.
Although zombies can be created in many ways, the method of destroying them is more-or-less universal: go for the head. To function, zombies require a certain portion of the brain tissue to remain intact, and catastrophic damage to the head will stop the creature cold. Single bullets or buried hatchets aren't usually enough, however -your attack must be wholly decapitating. High explosives, firebombs and industrial-strength acid also work well. Extremely low temperatures will not destroy zombies, but they can immobilize them.
Note that, although the word "zombie" is derived from the Haitian voodoo word zombi, the true Haitian zombi is not undead. It is a living human, turned into a mindless slave by means of powerful drugs - do not blow its head off! Suspected zombie encounters in the areas of known voodoo activity call for careful inspection for rotted flesh and other indicators of zombification. Remember the zombie hunter's rule of thumb: "Signs of decay? Fire away!"
This is not the complete section on zombies but you can get a good handle on what the author has to say on them. A couple things to mention as everyone knows already, the infection is always contagius. He also makes a good point about how often a single bullet or blade strike will not destroy enough of the brain. When choosing weapons go for the two extremes, high and low caliber. High can destroy enough of brain normally and low calibers, such as .22 are not powerful enough to exit the skull which will mean the bullet bounces around doing more damage.
The Field Guide to Monsters is full of basic tips for a wide range of monsters. In fact every monster I can think of (and many I've never heard of) can be found within the pages of this great little book. This field guide gives basic guidelines for an encounter with any sort of creature and well worth the time to buy and read, for just the entertainment value alone this book is worth while.
Stay vigilant, may the infection never reach you, and those close to you have the resolve to do what is needed should you be so unfortunate, Mike D.
Field Guide to Monsters by Darren Zenko:
They advance slowly, in eerie silence punctuated only by the occasional moan and the sound of feet scraping the ground. From a distance, the horde may appear to be a shambling crowd of normal humans. The truth is revealed on closer inspection: ripped and bloody clothes, gaping wounds, rotting flesh and the nauseating stench of the grave. These are the walking corpses, the living dead... zombies.
Where do these mindless horrors come from? There's really no easy answer. First and fremost, though, the zombie was once human - and a human body, even (or perhaps especially) a dead one, is a strong and powerful object. Many methods, technological and magical, take advantage of this potential to bring about zombification. Even a quick sampling of recorded zombie outbreaks reveals zombies brought to life by evil spells; zombies created by meteorites from space; zombies as the result of secret biochemical experiments; zombies created by strange viruses; zombies as the result of ancient curses; and zombies apawned by radiation from atomic weapons tests. In most cases, zombieism is highly contagious and spread by bites or scratches.
Although zombies can be created in many ways, the method of destroying them is more-or-less universal: go for the head. To function, zombies require a certain portion of the brain tissue to remain intact, and catastrophic damage to the head will stop the creature cold. Single bullets or buried hatchets aren't usually enough, however -your attack must be wholly decapitating. High explosives, firebombs and industrial-strength acid also work well. Extremely low temperatures will not destroy zombies, but they can immobilize them.
Note that, although the word "zombie" is derived from the Haitian voodoo word zombi, the true Haitian zombi is not undead. It is a living human, turned into a mindless slave by means of powerful drugs - do not blow its head off! Suspected zombie encounters in the areas of known voodoo activity call for careful inspection for rotted flesh and other indicators of zombification. Remember the zombie hunter's rule of thumb: "Signs of decay? Fire away!"
This is not the complete section on zombies but you can get a good handle on what the author has to say on them. A couple things to mention as everyone knows already, the infection is always contagius. He also makes a good point about how often a single bullet or blade strike will not destroy enough of the brain. When choosing weapons go for the two extremes, high and low caliber. High can destroy enough of brain normally and low calibers, such as .22 are not powerful enough to exit the skull which will mean the bullet bounces around doing more damage.
The Field Guide to Monsters is full of basic tips for a wide range of monsters. In fact every monster I can think of (and many I've never heard of) can be found within the pages of this great little book. This field guide gives basic guidelines for an encounter with any sort of creature and well worth the time to buy and read, for just the entertainment value alone this book is worth while.
Stay vigilant, may the infection never reach you, and those close to you have the resolve to do what is needed should you be so unfortunate, Mike D.
Thursday, April 7, 2011
Zombies in film: Re-animator
"Death is just the beginning..."
Film: Re-animator
Directed by Stuart Gordon
Film: Re-animator
Directed by Stuart Gordon
Written by H.P. Lovecraft and Dennis Paoli
Produced by Empire Pictures and Re-animator Productions
Produced by Empire Pictures and Re-animator Productions
Story: A collage student, Herbert West, tries to defeat death with a serum he creates to reanimate the brain. He moves to a new town where his experiments quickly gain him the trust of a fellow student and their search for a suitable test subject leads on a winding trail of death and chaos as events get more and more complicated until finally Herbert and his roommate and the dean's daughter must face off with a headless mastermind zombie in a morgue where all of the bodies have been infected.
Zombies: The zombies in this film evolve through out the film. That is to say the science used to create them evolves. The first zombie simply has his eyes explode. After that zombies simply show enhanced strength and toughness. Although they can be killed by extreme means, surgical drills through the chest, etc. The zombie mastermind is a scientist who's head was cut off but he was instantly given the serum which revived him and he still retained control over his body. He then combined the zombie serum with his technique of destroying the part of a person's brain where the willpower is, and then he could create the final version of zombies in the film. The mindless killing machines who obeyed his orders, and also felt pain whenever he did... Mastermind zombies can also explode their chests on command and their intestines can be used as lassos and drag people to their doom. Mentioned before is the zombie serum, a strange re-animator which causes any creature who hasn't had their brain destroyed to come back to life although if they are reanimated six minutes after death they will come back with only the most base instincts, the instinct to kill and feed.
Survival Lessons:
- Wear clothes that don't easily rip. Especially pants.
- Destroy the head, don't just cut it off.
- Head isn't always fun.
- Mocking zombies doesn't kill them.
- Don't leave your strange roommate alone with your dead cat.
- Pencils snap really easily and disrupt scientists.
- The personality dies roughly 6 minutes after the brain.
Warnings: The R rated version is rated that for good reason. Not all people look good naked. Just saying.
In the end this movie is very raunchy and as a film maker there are too many things wrong with it to even list. That aside, not a bad mood. Entertaining and definitely shows how anyone who keeps their wits about them has a good chance to survive. Also shows the dangers of playing with things best left in the hands of God.
Stay vigilant, may the infection never reach you, and those close to you have the resolve to do what is needed should you be so unfortunate, Mike D.
Saturday, April 2, 2011
A is for Awesome
Fellow survivors, long have I searched for the proper way to teach my children the alphabet. I have found it.
The book is called, "Z is for Zombie: An Illustrated Guide to the End of the World" by Adam-Troy Castro and illustrated by Johnny Atomic. This book is filled with the simple facts like, "...everywhere we were, they are." And "Either you hit the ground running or you hit the ground in pieces." It does not go into details on how it happened or why, but simply that it has in fact occurred, the zombie apocalypse.
Every page is chalk full of simple yet sound advice that every survivor must have ingrained in his head to continue that survival. As I reread the book at this very moment I am simply blown away by the simple statements that are so true. This alphabet is like a rulebook, the very basics of survival that no person should be without. Every survivor can be reminded of the principles set forth in this book, one particular reminder for myself is the eyes. Adam-Troy describes the eyes of a zombie as "T for Terrifying" because the eyes are the window to the soul and how much people rely on looking into each others eyes: to discern lies, to engage lovers, to welcome, to communicate. But to look into a zombie's eyes is to see absolute nothing, a void that is as the author describes it "enough to shatter all will to live."
The book takes the reader step-by-step through the apocalypse giving some reassurance that the trials and tribulations are ones that must be faced by every true survivor. It also ends off with a stern warning and a truly chilling idea of what can be expected should you turn. The idea that undeath is a worse fate then simply dying and your body becoming something else. The idea that being a zombie means having to not only watch but actually do the horrible acts entailed; with no choice, no will, no mind, simply an awareness. Still knowing who you were and what you've done and what you are currently doing. Feeling the never ending, ever growing hunger, and all the pain that goes with it but not having a choice or a way to stop any of it. Ideas like this, the unknown aspects of turning, there are reason enough to always make sure you have one extra round.
Don't miss out. Educate yourself and your family, buy this book.
Stay vigilant, may the infection never reach you, and those close to you have the resolve to do what is needed should you be so unfortunate, Mike D.
The book is called, "Z is for Zombie: An Illustrated Guide to the End of the World" by Adam-Troy Castro and illustrated by Johnny Atomic. This book is filled with the simple facts like, "...everywhere we were, they are." And "Either you hit the ground running or you hit the ground in pieces." It does not go into details on how it happened or why, but simply that it has in fact occurred, the zombie apocalypse.
Every page is chalk full of simple yet sound advice that every survivor must have ingrained in his head to continue that survival. As I reread the book at this very moment I am simply blown away by the simple statements that are so true. This alphabet is like a rulebook, the very basics of survival that no person should be without. Every survivor can be reminded of the principles set forth in this book, one particular reminder for myself is the eyes. Adam-Troy describes the eyes of a zombie as "T for Terrifying" because the eyes are the window to the soul and how much people rely on looking into each others eyes: to discern lies, to engage lovers, to welcome, to communicate. But to look into a zombie's eyes is to see absolute nothing, a void that is as the author describes it "enough to shatter all will to live."
The book takes the reader step-by-step through the apocalypse giving some reassurance that the trials and tribulations are ones that must be faced by every true survivor. It also ends off with a stern warning and a truly chilling idea of what can be expected should you turn. The idea that undeath is a worse fate then simply dying and your body becoming something else. The idea that being a zombie means having to not only watch but actually do the horrible acts entailed; with no choice, no will, no mind, simply an awareness. Still knowing who you were and what you've done and what you are currently doing. Feeling the never ending, ever growing hunger, and all the pain that goes with it but not having a choice or a way to stop any of it. Ideas like this, the unknown aspects of turning, there are reason enough to always make sure you have one extra round.
Don't miss out. Educate yourself and your family, buy this book.
Stay vigilant, may the infection never reach you, and those close to you have the resolve to do what is needed should you be so unfortunate, Mike D.
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