Hello, geeks and nerdlings…
I am off to Toronto today to spend the Jewish holidays (Sukkot) with friends.
Just so you know, my “How Do I Prepare for a Zombie Apocalypse?” seminar last night went very well.
Thanks to fellow noted zombie expert Rebecca Larocque and also to Elaine Anderson for putting it all together.
A fun time was had by all, I think! 
See youse guys next week!
Well boys and girls, geeks and nerdlings…
It’s time for this vampyre-lover and zombie-slayer to pack up the old gear and head on up to Toronto for Rosh Hashana (the Jewish new year) and the beginning of the High Holidays, or as I like to call them, the HiHos. [1]
It’s a time for me to get together with dear friends and loved ones. It is also an opportunity for some soul-searching and introspection. Going to my tiny little hole-in-the-wall shtiebel [2], studying, praying, discussing, arguing… that’s how I get my spiritual batteries recharged.
(‘Yiyei Or!’ ~ Let There Be Light!)
The plan is for me to go offline for Total Jew Lock Down today (Wednesday September 28, 2011) and resurface some time Monday (October 3, 2011).
See you in a few days!
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[1] For more on me and the Hi-Hos, read my recent blog on the subject.
[2] A shtiebel (Yiddish: שטיבל, meaning “little house” or “little room”) is a little hole-in-the-wall place where Orthodox Jews, often comprised partially or entirely of hasidim, come to pray and study. Instead of a large imposing edifice, it is often a storefront (like Bais Dov Yosef Congregation or the Ger Shtiebel where I go when I am in Toronto) or a just a room somewhere (e.g. in a hotel basement, like the Chabad shtiebel in Niagara Falls where I go when I am at home).
George A. Romero’s Day of the Dead and Land of the Dead, are his third and fourth ‘Living Dead’ or ‘Of the Dead” zombie movies, respectively, after Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead.
(Day of the Dead)
OK, here’s the deal (as per the Gospel According to Wikipedia)…
Some time after the events of Dawn of the Dead, zombies have overrun the world. An underground army missile bunker near the Everglades is the base for a group which is part of a military-supported scientific team assigned by the remnants of the government to study the zombie phenomenon in the hopes of finding a way of stopping or reversing the zombification process. Dwindling supplies, loss of communication with other survivor enclaves, and an apparent lack of progress in the experiments have already caused tension and loss of cohesion among the scientists and soldiers. Dr. Logan, the lead scientist on the project, has been secretly using the recently deceased soldiers in his experiments, trying to prove his theory that the zombies can eventually be domesticated.
Mayhem ensues when the soldiers, commanded by Capt. Rhodes, and the scientists discover that Dr. Logan has gone crazy and his experiments have gone way over the top. What sets off the shit-storm at the end of the movie was when the soldiers and other scientists realize that Dr. Logan’s idea of ‘reward’ is feeding bits of the recently deceased soldiers to his test zombie, Bub. Rhodes threatens to kill the scientists if the helicopter pilot doesn’t fly him and his men out of the area and off to safety. Things really start to hit the fan when one of the infected soldiers opens the huge missile elevator and lets hundreds of zombies into the underground installation.
(Zombies reach out and touch someone!)My two cents… Day of the Dead is the most pessimistic of Romero’s zombie movies to this point. The zombies outnumber the humans 400,000 to one. There is no trace of any radio signal or indeed of any human activity within 100 miles in any direction of the base. Even if they wanted to escape, where would they go? It seems the characters spend most of the movie yelling and screaming at each other. What you have is a mini-society melting down in much the same way as the people on the surface must have melted down in the face of the zombie apocalypse. As Max Brooks, author of The Zombie Survival Guide, said last summer at ComicCon, “The zombies don’t win. We lose!” It is our own faults and foibles, our stupidity and inability to get along that results in our failure. We screw it up. Royally.
Much of the acting is pretty wooden. Not that I expected to see glittering performances in this movie but… a bit of effort on behalf of some of the actors would have been appreciated. I thought Lori Carille as Dr. Sarah Bowman was just plain old bad. What I found both amusing and oddly disconcerting, however, was John Liberty’s performance as Dr. ‘Frankenstein’ Logan. It reminded me so strongly of The Daily Show’s John Hodgman doing his recurring segment ‘You’re Welcome’ that I couldn’t keep grinning at every scene in which Liberty/Logan appeared. Really. (Watch this movie again with Hodgman in mind. You won’t be disappointed.)
An important aspect of Day of the Dead is Romero begins to ‘humanize’ the zombie, giving it some thought and emotion. In this movie, the humanization character is the zombie Bub – the star pupil of Dr. Logan’s experiments. You see Bub go through the rudiments of memory, thought and emotion. (This humanization of the zombie is fleshed out a lot more in Land of the Dead, below) In some ways, Bub is a lot more ‘human’ that the soldiers under Capt. Rhodes’ command, who are portrayed as little more than gun-toting apes.
Bottom line… A step down in quality from Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead. Still worth watching but don’t go in expecting a fantastic movie. It’s not bad. It’s OK. It’s just not great. I was kinda hoping for great. Or at least really good. I was let down.
I give it three-quarters of a bitten bleeding thumb up.
(Land of the Dead)
“In a world where the dead are returning to life, the word ‘trouble’ loses much of its meaning.”
OK, here’s the deal (as per the Gospel According to Wikipedia)…
Years after the events of [Day of the Dead], there are very few living humans left. Many have fled to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where a feudal-like government has taken hold. Bordered on three sides by rivers and on the fourth by an electric fence, the city has become a sanctuary. Fiddler’s Green is where the rich and powerful live in luxury, while the rest of the population subsists. Paul Kaufman (Dennis Hopper) rules the city with overwhelming firepower. ‘Big Daddy’ (Eugene Clark), a zombie, is unusually aware and intelligent, directs his fellow zombies to use firearms and overcome the human defenses. The zombies learn, adapt, and even communicate with primitive moans and grunts. When Big Daddy realizes the river is no obstacle he leads the zombies in an assault on the human city. The electric fence that once kept the zombies out now keeps the humans trapped inside.
(Big Daddy at the gas pump)
Kauffman (Hopper): “Zombies, man. They creep me out!
Mayhem ensues when the lead zombie, ‘Big Daddy’ [1], appalled, angered and outraged at how the zombies are being killed practically for sport by humans, begins to communicate basic ideas to the other zombies, telling them what to do. As a mob, they attack one of the fences, knocking it down and overpowering the soldiers guarding the perimeter. The zombies then walk across (or rather under) the river and gain access to the city.
My two cents… I found Land of the Dead a lot less ‘low budget cheesy’ than Day of the Dead and therefore much more enjoyable. And the quality of the acting is much higher… which also made it more enjoyable. It was filmed in Toronto and Hamilton (a lot of horror movies are) so I recognized some of the actors and a few of the locations. That’s always fun for me.
In all of his zombie movies, Romero is interested in social commentary. What do zombies and the zombie apocalypse say about us? Unlike Day of the Dead where basically none of the humans is really likeable, there are a lot of good decent human characters in Land of the Dead. Still, many other humans don’t come across so well. Some of them are such douches that you want to cheer for the zombies when things hit the fan. It’s not so much like a ‘we deserved this’ kind of thing… but at times, you just kind of feel that zombies are the chlorine that has been added to our gene pool, if you know what I mean. Like the old Sylvester Stalone line in Cobra. “You’re the disease… and I’m the cure!”
Bottom line… I found Land of the Dead way better than Day of the Dead. I recommend that you see both of them just because I think any fan of horror should see all of the George A. Romero zombie movies. It gives you a sense of history. But while you might feel that sitting through Day of the Dead is a bit of a chore… something you HAVE to do… you’ll have a much better time watching Land of the Dead.
I give it one and a half rotting zombie thumbs up.
A side note…
I took a peek at the overall ratings on the RottenTomatoes site for the whole Romero Living Dead series and I noticed a steady decline in the approval ratings, as follows:
Night of the Living Dead – 96%
Dawn of the Dead – 94%
Day of the Dead – 79%
Land of the Dead – 74%
Diary of the Dead – 61%
Survival of the Dead – 29%
Not that I pay all that attention to what critics say. It’s just something I thought I’d mention as RottenTomatoes take a survey of a bunch of critics and averages out the final result. In other words, the score – the approval rating – is the percentage of critics who gave the film a favourable review.
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[1] He wears blue auto-mechanic overalls with the name ‘Big Daddy’ on them. He is also armed with what looks to me to be an M-16 he picks up from a dead soldier/mercenary. He can think to a limited degree extent, use tools and can communicate basic ideas, even teaching zombies how to use tools and guns. It appears to me that he operates almost on a intelligent chimpanzee or even a toddler level which is light years ahead of the mindless living dead of the first two Romero zombie movies.
As a ‘noted zombie expert’, I was interviewed the other day by a local newspaper concerning The Upcoming Zombie Apocalypse.
The reporter and I met at my favourite café… well, my favourite café since my previous real favourite café closed a few months ago. Long story. I’d rather not talk about it right now. It’s still so upsetting.
But first, a bit of background…
I am a member of the Zombie Research Society [1]. We are a group of academics, artists, professionals, scientists and enthusiasts who are interested in studying zombies as if they were a scientific reality. We’re not out saying that zombies are real or that there’s been a zombie outbreak somewhere. What we do ask, however, are the fun questions like… If you ran into a zombie on the street, what would it look like? What would it sound like? How would its brain work? How would it hunt us? How would we deal with such a phenomenon? How would we best defend ourselves against zombies? How would we survive? In short, how would we prepare for and live through The Upcoming Zombie Apocalypse? We extrapolate survival strategies. We also study zombie culture and try to promote better cultural representations of zombies (e.g. TV shows like The Walking Dead [2]), better movies, better books, etc.
My goals walking into this interview, therefore, were a) to answer to the best of my ability questions regarding zombies, zombie history, zombies in literature, film and television, zombie culture, and preparation for The Upcoming Zombie Apocalypse; b) to provide intelligent information and promote better cultural representations of zombies in the arts, sciences and media; and c) not to make myself look like an idiot in the process. A daunting challenge, no doubt!
The reporter was very nice, thank goodness. I was nervous about the interview because unlike other times when I have been interviewed by the press, this was on a subject other than criminal law… which is what I do in my ‘real life.’ This woman was going to talk to me and ask me questions about the subject matter of my other life… my non-criminal-defence-lawyer life… in other words, my life as a ‘noted zombie expert’ and all that entails.
She didn’t seem to know much about zombies except for the basics, which was great for me because I was more than happy to explain things as best I could as she led me through the issues.
At one point, she asked me if I had a Zombie Preparedness Kit and my gut reaction was to say “no.” But returning to my apartment that afternoon, I realized that, coming as I do from an Italian background, I’ve ALWAYS had at least a seven-day supply of food on hand as well as about three of everything else, including medicine, batteries, candles, flashlights, first aid kits, etc. That’s just the way I was raised. My 85-year-old mother, for example, has been preparing for an Ice Age for the last fifty years! I’m not kidding. If The Upcoming Zombie Apocalypse happened today, she’d have enough food and supplies on hand to last the winter! I do need to stock up on water, though, so I will take a trip over to The Zombie Serengeti (aka The Walmarts) this afternoon.
I thought the interview went well. We covered a wide range of topics from zombie history, voodoo zombies, Romero zombies, modern viral zombies, zombies in modern culture, zombie vs vampyre comparisons and contrasts and how our society views both, effective (and non-effective) anti-zombie weaponry, how to prepare for the Upcoming Zombie Apocalypse and even a bit about the Zombie Research Society. The article comes out some time next week. I hope I did well.
And I really hope I don’t look like an idiot.
I will keep you all posted!
[1] Founded in 2007, the Zombie Research Society (ZRS) is dedicated to raising the level of zombie scholarship in the Arts and Sciences. ZRS Members represent diverse backgrounds, interests, and theories, but are unified in their support of the Society’s three foundational principles:
1) A zombie is a biologically definable, animated being occupying a human corpse.
2) The zombie pandemic is coming. It’s not a matter of if, but a matter of when.
3) Enthusiastic debate about zombies is essential to the survival of the human race.
N.B.: The entire contents of footnote [1] above is the copyright property of the Zombie Research Society. © 2010 – All Rights Reserved. It cannot be reprinted or reproduced in any form, in whole or in part, without their express written permission.
[2] Season Two of AMC’s The Walking Dead premieres Sunday October 16, 2011!
I hate almost everyone. Seriously. I really do.
Almost everyone I know is, to one degree or another, annoying, irritating, mind-numbingly boring or… the subject of today’s rant… dumb as a bag of hammers.
(You say ‘cute’. I say ‘dumbass’)
Take this one man I know at my local synagogue. He is distractingly stupid. And I don’t mean just stunned and clued-out in your average old guy kinda way. I mean virtually everything he says is either wrong or complete and utter nonsense. How he makes it from wherever the heck he lives to shul and back day to day is a total mystery to me. How he can survive without wandering out into traffic or driving off a cliff or accidentally eating toxic sludge thinking it was Jell-O has me flummoxed. I can think of no better argument against natural selection than this guy. And he’s not OLD old, like some poor nonagenarian who thinks he’s still in WW2. He’s just pain-in-the-ass old. The kind of ‘I know everything because somehow I haven’t died yet’ old that drives you nuts.
And it’s not just stupid old people I hate. Stupid young people I hate even more!
(Our jails are not filled with geniuses)
I work with stupid young people (i.e. teenagers) on a daily basis. I spend a good chunk of my day going from “WTF?” to “You just cain’t make this shit up!” to “Seriously… This person cannot be this stupid!” to “I can’t see our world surviving this new generation” to “The Upcoming Zombie Apocalypse cannot happen too soon!” Young stupidity is the kind that causes that vein in my forehead to throb, the kind that makes me throw up my hands (and my lunch) and just want to walk away in despair and disgust. Their brainlessness is a tangible entity… a life-sapping energy-draining force you can almost feel. You look into their vacant faces and their eyes show no evidence of intelligence. You know those emails you get about stupid criminals and the Darwin Awards?. THOSE are the guys I’m talking about. These are the kinds of guys who bungee jump off a 50 foot railway overpass… with 50 feet of bungee cord. The kind who steals a huge tray of shrimp and runs out of the store only to be caught 20 yards away. How fast do you think you can run carrying an enormous platter of shrimp, Einstein? Or the kind who go to a bank to open an account, then while the teller is processing their info, rob the bank and run out… leaving the drivers licence with the teller. That takes a special kind of stupid.
(A real public service announcement)
I’ve often wondered what would happen if I placed “stupid young offender guy” in the same room with “stupid old shul guy” and just watched. Would they cancel each other out? Would they, like two negative forces, repel one another? Or, heaven forbid, would the two imbeciles meld together into one big super-dense black hole of stupidity, consuming everything around them?
(You say bagel. I say ‘baggle’)
Then there are hick trailer girls who are both stupid and stubborn. Now there’s a dangerous pair of qualities to mix in the same person… arrogance and ignorance. This is the kind of cretin who refuses to admit she is wrong and insists that what she is doing or thinking or believing is somehow equally valid or true because ‘that’s just the way she does it.’ The ones who pronounce bagel ‘baggle’ despite the fact that everyone… and I mean EVERYONE… tells them they are saying it wrong. “That’s how we say it where I come from!” is the stock reply. Well, honey, then you come from the village of Wrongburgh which is a suburb of the City of Incorrectady, in the Regional Municipality of Dumbass. You can’t pronounce lasagna ‘La-ZAG-na’ or gnocchi ‘Guh-NOTCH-ee’ and then try to pull the ‘that’s how we pronounce it out in Possum Butt Falls’ schtick! ‘Stickin’ by yer guns’ is not an admirable quality in this situation. Learn to speak the damn language, you hillbilly!
I’m not an unpleasant person, I’m really not. I’m not ill-tempered. I try to be nice and friendly and patient and understanding and polite and all the things that help me make it through the day without sticking a letter opener in someone’s neck.
(I think I’m turning into Red Foreman)
It’s just that stupid people make it difficult for me to hang on to the tattered shreds of my composure. I can’t seem to shrug it off. Irritation and annoyance turn to effen hatred.
Like the guy who is in his car getting angier and angier that the vehicle ahead of him isn’t moving… and he leans on the horn, screaming. You know… the guy you pull up beside and say, “Excuse me, but… that car’s parked!” Thank goodness Canada has strict handgun laws. Road rage alone would produce more carnage than anything else.
I can deal with plain old ignorance. An ignorant person just doesn’t know. Information and education cures ignorance. That can be taken care of, no problem. That can be fixed.
Maybe that’s one of the reasons why I hate almost everyone.
You can’t fix stupid.
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I was approached the other day by a dear friend, Presbyterian minister and local assistant librarian (all the same person, by the way) who asked if I could do a presentation at one of our local libraries on How To Survive The Upcoming Zombie Apocalypse.
Naturally, I was very flattered by her request.
In a nod to “Zombieland”, I’ll insist that there be plenty of Twinkies on hand for those who have the good sense to attend.
As a ‘Noted Zombie Expert’ (that’s how she says she’s going to advertise me), I would be expected to cover some zombie basics. I am going to propose ‘Introduction to Zombies: WTF Are They?’, ‘Zombie Dos and Don’ts’, ‘Survival Training’, ‘Basic Weaponry: Home & Garden Implements’, ‘Intermediate Weaponry: Crossbows & Swords’, and ‘Advanced Weaponry: Kick-Ass Firearms and Explosives.’ Hopefully, these topics will meet with my dear friend’s approval. I suspect she is keeping this lecture more or less under the radar of her superiors at the library.
I predict that the one topic that might encounter a bit of resistance is ‘Decapitation: It’s Harder Than It Looks!’
I envision a delightfully informative and entertaining segment where I call for a volunteer from the audience, preferably a 10 or 11-year-old girl (a certain other dear friend’s granddaughter leaps to mind). I, naturally, will unsheath my trusty razor-sharp katana (full length samurai sword).
The purpose of the segment is pretty self-explanatory.
You see, on television and in the movies beheadings happen with a devil-may-care ease. Reality is, to no one’s surprise, a bit more complicated and difficult. Using my friend’s granddaughter, a charming girl, I will remind the audience of exactly what is going on under that delicate young throat. Muscles, bones (i.e. vertebrae), veins, arteries, windpipe… a lot of stuff to hack through.
And while the girl’s mom, a lovely if somewhat overprotective young woman, may express a bit of concern, the carpet-cleaning expenses alone would make an actual beheading cost-prohibitive.
I would probably end the lecture with a shameless plug that people prepare for The Upcoming Zombie Apocalypse by enrolling in the St Johns Ambulance courses on CPR and First Aid and have their young ones begin their Zombie Survival Training by signing up with The Boy Scouts, The Girl Scouts and the various army, navy and air cadets programs available in the area.
As I am wont to say, “It’s all fun and games… ’til someone eats your brains!”
Be Safe. Be Prepared. And above all… Nut Up or Shut Up!
If Hollywood has prepared us for anything, it is The Upcoming Zombie Apocalypse (TUZA).
Think about it. Virtually everyone in Canada, the US and the rest of the English-speaking world has more than a working knowledge of zombies and how to kill them. [1]
Whether they are the old-fashioned slow-moving George Romero kind of zombies (a la Night of the Living Dead), new-style medium-speed zombies (a la The Walking Dead) or the modern fast-moving zombies (a la 28 Days Later or 28 Weeks Later) [2], most people are pretty much aware of the basic zombie rules and how to conduct themselves when they come face to face with the Living Dead.
Unlike vampyre movies where at least some people know what vampyres are, the people in zombie movies are completely ignorant of the nature of zombies or how to deal with them. The entire phenomenon catches them off-guard. In this, we have an advantage in that we know in advance exactly what they are and just how to combat them. What we need to do is go from that cursory knowledge of zombie lore to a ‘hooah” level of preparedness. We can’t wait for the dreck to hit the fan, folks. We need to start readying ourselves now.
At the very least, I suggest watching the movie Zombieland. This enjoyable and informative flick not only is tons o’ fun (and has a superb cameo by Bill Murray), it is also chock full of handy zombie facts. See it. Learn it. Live it. Also, tune in to the AMC television series The Walking Dead. As far as Zombie Basic Training is concerned, this is Must See TV.
For those serious about surviving TUZA, it’s tough to beat the New York Times bestseller The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection from the Living Dead. You might also want to get your hands on any kind of ‘survivalist’ materials. [3] Those nutty wackjobs out in Montana and North Dakota are onto something, you know.
Mind you, one of the main differences (and hence one of the big disadvantages) of TUZA is that, unlike most cinema vampyre attacks where you usually only have to deal with a relatively small number of the undead at any given time, there is going to be shitload of zombies. Think of the zombie-surrounded buses in the 20o4 remake of Dawn of the Dead, and you get the idea. Luckily, zombies are unorganized so, depending on how we hunker down and set ourselves up, we should be OK.
And yet, in light of the disturbing recent admission of the Leister City Council, just how prepared are we?
For those wanting some pre-TUZA experience with the living dead, I suggest participating in your local Annual Zombie Walk. The 9th annual Toronto Zombie Walk takes place October 22, 2011. In Niagara Region of Southern Ontario, the St Catharines Zombie Walk takes place on Saturday July 16, 2011.
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[1] Although, if they are the living dead, do we technically ’kill’ them? Kill them again? Re-kill them?
[2] Some zombie purists say that the new-style fast-moving zombies are not ‘true’ zombies in that they are ‘crazies’ (as in the 2010 movie The Crazies). In other words, living people who have been infected and don’t die before turning into monsters.
[3] The Wilderness Survival Guide: The Practical Skills You Need for the Great Outdoors; also the Ultimate SAS Survival Gift Edition or the Collins Gem – SAS Survival Guide, both by John “Lofty” Wiseman. The SAS stands for Special Air Service. I also recommend a good firearms catalogue.
