zombies – Page 22 – Looking to God

The Walking Dead

Posted on February 11, 2013February 10, 2013 by Jack Flacco

My Monday Mayhem series provides me with the opportunity to ramble on about zombies, the zombie apocalypse and the undead. Today’s no different. Because today, I want to ramble on about The Walking Dead.

I’ve wanted to write about The Walking Dead for a while now, but never really had any idea of how to approach it. I could talk about all the gnarly special effects with the guns blowing away the zombies or I can go into the incredible makeup each zombie actor in the show wears. However, I didn’t feel I’d provide anything new a reader couldn’t get anywhere else. And that’s what made me start this post, put it away and start it again. A few times in fact.

I decided to try something different instead.

For those who haven’t watched the show, AMC’s The Walking Dead is about a group of apocalypse survivors who search for a safe haven from evil. The evil being zombies. Although no one ever utters the word zombie in first season, labels such as Roamers, Walkers, Lamebrains, and Geeks make for good replacements.

Also to the credit of the show, the cast varies. Sheriff Rick Grimes, who’s smart, has moral integrity, a father, husband and a good friend, leads the group. He walks around flawed though, seeing things black and white causing him to make decisions that although ethically correct, causes more problems in the end. He is a protector and will do anything to keep the others safe.

Close to him is Deputy Shane Walsh, Rick’s best friend since high school. Living under Rick’s shadow, bitter resentment causes hatred, which ultimately results in Shane’s breakdown of conscience. This leads Shane to becoming a threat to the other survivors, including Rick’s son, Carl.

Lori Grimes is Rick’s wife and the center of the survivors’ emotional stability. She is loyal to Rick. This leads Shane to covet that which is Rick’s.

The Walking Dead is more than a typical zombie show. I wouldn’t consider it a zombie show at all if it weren’t for all the zombies popping up occasionally.

No, the show is about friendship. Every episode tries each friendship further and further in a refining fire. The audience watches this in awe, wondering how much can the characters take. No way can they survive this. Impossible! Yet, the friendships do survive. Through the yelling, screaming, betrayals and hatred, the survivors carry on, stronger, more determined to accomplish their goal of finding safety away from the Walkers.

The Walking Dead is a testament to what Hollywood can accomplish when the right people come together in an effort to create something exceptional. The show’s grounding comes from producers who know how the human condition works.

Have you seen The Walking Dead? What do you like about the show? Is there something in the show you’d like to see?

Women Who Wow Wednesday

Selene

Posted on February 6, 2013February 5, 2013 by Jack Flacco

What better way to kick off today’s Women Who Wow Wednesday post than with a kick ass, female Death Dealer.

Underworld's Selene — Underworld’s Selene

I like vampires. Well, I like vampire movies, not vampires per se. Otherwise that would make me weird. Then again, I do love zombies, so that makes me weird enough. But I like a good vampire movie. And I love werewolf movies too. Just not as much as zombie movies. So when Underworld came out a few years ago, I showered, shaved, and ran to the theater hoping to catch it opening night. How can a fan of both vampires and werewolves miss this gem?

That’s when I saw her for the first time. She stood perched on a building ledge, high above the torrential downpour, analyzing the street below. Looking. Wanting. Waiting. She leapt. Gliding a hundred feet to the bottom, she landed to a bounce. She struts her way through the crowd, hunting.

Played by the gorgeous Kate Beckinsale, Selene’s mission is to destroy Lycans, a species of werewolf that, unlike ordinary werewolves, can control their transformation. Selene is a vampire and can endure daylight. Old school vampires like the ones in Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire, burn in the daylight. Other vampires, dare I say it—sparkle. Shivers. Selene doesn’t have to worry about spontaneously combusting, leaving behind nothing except a big pile of ash. She has immunity to UV light. She can blend in like one of us. However, I’m not sure just how much she can blend in with all that leather she wears and her attractive features. It would be like a lion blending in with a flock of lambs.

Selene is also proficient in all manner of weaponry and possesses other abilities such as speed, strength and endurance. In one instance, a group of police officers had her cornered in a hallway with no escape, wearing their full compliment of armor. No problem. Equipped with only a scalpel, she blasted past the officers spilling their blood and leaving their corpses to rot. In another instance, she plows her hand right through a Lycan as if it were some sort of fruit.

In all this, what makes Selene special, though, is her gentle side. It’s the side only Michael, a human, sees.

As terrifying and vicious as she can be, Selene’s love for Michael makes her vulnerable to getting hurt. She trusts him. She gives of herself fully to him in order to allow their love to grow.

It’s that beautiful, delicate balance between good and evil, light and darkness, love and hate that makes Selene addictive. She represents the unattainable, defending her species at all cost.

Have you seen Underworld? Did you like it? What did you find the most interesting aspect of the film?

Monday Mayhem

Saying No to Zombies

Posted on February 4, 2013February 4, 2013 by Jack Flacco

It’s Monday Mayhem and you know what that means—yep, zombies running amok making life miserable for all humanity.

If you’ve read my Zombie Apocalypse: Ground Zero post last week, I wrote how I believed if a zombie apocalypse were take place it would happen in a large urban area. Some have commented that it would be more difficult to detect the event in a rural area instead, thus a challenge to contain.

Regardless of where it happens, we’d still have to find ways to defend ourselves. In my post Zombie Kill of the Week, I wrote a detailed list of how I’d like to see zombies killed. As amusing as it was writing that post, some truth remains: If a zombie were to enter our house, what would we do? It’s fun saying we’d love to jam an ice pick in the soft part of its temple but if we didn’t have an ice pick, it ain’t goin’ die by lookin’ at the thing and screamin’. That’s a fact.

So, what are we to do? What would you do?

Here are a few tips you can use in the event the world collapses and the zombies begin knocking on your door.

Typical Front Door

Do not open the door. Simple, right? Wrong. Those resilient maggot bags will stop at nothing if they hear life creaking inside your house. Don’t assume they’ll show up in the middle of the day either. Expect the unexpected. They can appear anytime. If you have a snorer in the house, lock ‘em in a windowless room in the basement. You don’t need those miserable gut suckers chomping on anyone in your household at three in the morning. Bar all the doors with deadbolts and chairs. Board up your windows and make only one door your access point. Dictate which door they can use.

Keep weapons handy. If zombies make it into the house, let their first greeting be a bullet to the head. Nothing says hello like a .357 Magnum. Be careful though, a gunshot will alert the others and instead of fending off one, you’ll have to deal with a whole neighborhood full of scab festerers. That’s why it would be a good idea to keep an assortment of garden tools interspersed throughout the house. A shovel can perform the duel role of cracking skulls and burying the remains. A hoe can function in a similar manner. Again, always think of the multiple uses for these tools. Now let’s say one of these brain eaters chases you around the house. What are you going to do? Sporting equipment works good too. Wouldn’t it be a relief to know at the end of a hall you can grab a baseball bat and beat the living tar out of these zombies? There’s nothing like hearing the crack of a Louisville Slugger upside the head of an undead.

Plan an escape route. If worse comes to worse and the whole house gets overrun with those walking fly heaps, the next and best course of action is to—RUN! Don’t stick around. Don’t even look back. You cannot afford to stay in the house any longer. Take what you can carry and head for the hills. Your life depends on it. If you’d planned ahead, you would have left a loose bottom board to one of the ground floor windows to make it easy for you to kick in and crawl through. Better still, you could have rigged the whole house to explode with you and your family safely halfway to the woods. This would ensure the zombies would remain in the house and you wouldn’t have to worry about stragglers chasing you.

Prepare a secondary home. As with any plan there should always be a Plan B. If something should happen to your primary residence, it would be beneficial to have a secondary residence in mind to act as your temporary home. This could be anything from a barn, a tent in the woods to a shed. Anything that will function as a place where you can lay your head without worrying if you’ll still have a head by morning.

These are only a few tips to keep those vermin beasts at bay while you plan your escape for the coast and hop on a boat for the nearest island away from it all.

What are your plans for the zombie apocalypse? Have you figured out an escape route? Will you be heading to an island somewhere in the Caribbean?

Monday Mayhem

Zombie Apocalypse: Ground Zero

Posted on January 28, 2013January 28, 2013 by Jack Flacco

I’ve always wondered if a zombie apocalypse were to take place now, where would it hit first? It’s Monday Mayhem and this has been on my mind all weekend.

You know, I’ve thought about this question. It’s not one of those precious topics floating around lunchrooms across America. Like, how many Twitter followers does Lady Gaga have? Does Justin Bieber like chocolate chip ice cream? What will Katy Perry choose as her next hair color? Or some other mind-numbing question like that. No, since I began my study into zombie propagation methods, I’ve pondered on possible contagion locations.

According to zombie folklore, zombies become zombies when a virus infects and kills a victim. The victim rises from the dead as a zombie and carries on the cycle of infection by biting other victims. That is, if there’s anything left of the victims after the zombie attacks. Zombies are known to have a voracious appetite for human flesh and will do anything to consume as much of it as possible.

Which begs the question I asked earlier: Where in the world would a zombie apocalypse have a greater chance of beginning?

Let’s use some logic and think about this for a moment. It would be fair to assume a typical zombie virus falls under the category of designer viruses engineered to deliver its payload to as many victims as possible. Obviously, no one in their right mind would volunteer to release such a virus into the population, therefore, should it happen, it would happen by accident.

Okay, how about location? For a virus of this magnitude to cause such devastation, the lab would have to be located near a huge population. Like a city. I did a quick search on Google for labs located near large populations and found one just outside a metropolis in a quaint suburb. Located across the street is a hotel.

Forgive me if I’m naïve, because sometimes I don’t get things right away. But if this lab should ever have a breach, isn’t it reasonable to say the hotel across the street would fall victim to the contagion first? Don’t hotels contain travelers? Travelers need airports. Aren’t airports in cities? If a whole city gets infected by these busy travelers, wouldn’t the likelihood of the contagion spreading to surrounding communities increase? And let’s not forget the infected flying out of the city. Where are they heading? Europe? Africa? China?

Now, let’s say, for the sake of argument, I’m wrong. Let’s pretend a zombie apocalypse starts in a rural community first. What are the chances of it stretching its legs beyond the borders of a small town? Do you think the military would allow it? I don’t know. Seems unlikely. The military’s response is quick when it comes to these types of situations. They’d have the location secured once they see zombies running around town trying to make meals of its residents. They’d then execute a containment protocol to prevent the spread from affecting outlining regions.

No, a zombie apocalypse wouldn’t survive in those conditions. The military would make sure of that. If it does happen, it’ll happen in a large urban area. As for my research, I’m not silly enough to reveal what I found online, although if you’re smart, you probably already figured out my Google search. You also know to which lab I’m referring.

What do you think? Big city or small town? Do you have any other locations where a zombie apocalypse could start?

Women Who Wow Wednesday

We’re Off to See the Wizard

Posted on January 23, 2013January 23, 2013 by Jack Flacco

She doesn’t curse. She doesn’t swear. She doesn’t even own a gun. She’s the cutest redhead anyone’s ever seen. She’s also the epitome of American moral values. Who is she? She’s The Wizard of Oz’s Dorothy Gale, of course. And I’m proud to feature her as part of this week’s Women Who Wow Wednesday.

If you’re a regular reader of my blog, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that I’ve dedicated a number of posts to some pretty violent female characters in movies. Other than Wonder Woman, most, if not all, have thrown a knife or fired a gun, beaten the crap out of their enemy, or jettisoned them into space. In a zombie apocalypse, those are the women who I’d love to have fight alongside me.

But Dorothy Gale? Sweet little Dorothy? How could she ever take on the undead?

Let’s take a look at what we got. She grew up on a farm. Not a small feat for a young girl, you know. She’s probably seen things done to animals that’d make a billy goat puke. Like rabbits skinned, chickens defeathered, turkeys beheaded, and the family pig, which I don’t think its name was Wilbur, fattened up for months until it reached implosion weight. Then with tears flooding her face, seen it slaughtered in the cool of the day.

So yeah, Dorothy grew up on a farm. She’s seen things.

Okay, so she’s got a tough stomach, but is she strong? I would say so. How else could one explain the absolute fear that gripped the Tin Man and Scarecrow when The Lion showed up? Dorothy stood her ground, though. She didn’t run away. She didn’t cry. Nooo, no. She walked right up to the snarling beast and smacked it across the mouth. “You should be ashamed of yourself!” She snapped, and she stared him down, she did.

Yes, but I can still hear the doubters. She couldn’t hurt an ant, I hear. She’s as gentle as a rose. She’d help a butterfly caught in a web.

Oh, yeah?

She dropped a house. On a witch. Not any ordinary witch, mind you. On THE Wicked Witch of the East. The most fearsome witch of the eastern hemisphere. And then she lied about it. When confronted by The Wicked Witch of the West, Dorothy looked her straight in the eye and lied.

“Who killed my sister?” the Wicked Witch of the West asked. “Who killed the Witch of the East? Was it you?”

“No, no.” Dorothy said. “It was an accident. I didn’t mean to kill anybody.”

“Well, my little pretty, I can cause accidents, too!”

Oh, really. Was that a threat?

Dorothy didn’t take too kindly to those words. No one threatens Dorothy Gale and gets away with it. Especially some cheap floozy who picks her clothes from the leftover Halloween bins at Wal-Mart. No way. From that moment on, the Wicked Witch of the West was on Dorothy’s hit list.

Once the Tin Man, Scarecrow, Lion and her sidekick Toto had the castle surrounded, Dorothy moved in for the kill. She executed her vindictive plan against the witch by drawing in the winged monkeys to the center of the tower. This would ensure she had witnesses, causing no one to doubt her supremacy. Then, in front of all the captains of the monkey army, she melted the witch. And like the coldhearted killer she was, she stood by watching the witch writhe in agony.

She even went so far as to get rid of the Wizard, cutting him loose in a balloon heading for Kansas.

Oh, yeah. I want Dorothy on my team. If anyone can vanquish the undead in a zombie apocalypse it would be Dorothy.

There’s no place like home. There’s no place like home. There’s no place like home.

Have you seen The Wizard of Oz? If not, have you ever wondered what the movie or the books are about?

Monday Mayhem

Return to Castle Wolfenstein

Posted on January 21, 2013January 21, 2013 by Jack Flacco

I’ve played a lot of video games in my day. I still do. Just not as much. The game I keep coming back to, no matter how amped up my system gets, is Return to Castle Wolfenstein. As part of my Monday Mayhem series, I’d like to share my experience I had with the game and how it changed my attitude toward zombies.

Released on November 19, 2001, Return to Castle Wolfenstein became an instant Platinum hit. Billed as a first-person shooter, the game features a single player component and various multiplayer modes. For this post, however, my focus will be on the single player mode.

The story of the game is simple. You are B.J. Blazkowicz, an American agent investigating paranormal activities in World War II Germany. You have escaped from Castle Wolfenstein’s dungeon and you proceed to eliminate anyone who gets in your way.

That pretty much sums up the game in its most basic form.

Part of the gameplay involves enemies who shoot, electrocute and/or bomb the player with their assortment of weapons. In one tough level, the player comes across a Panzer tank and some Gatling gun taunting soldiers protecting a building. The player has to eliminate the tank and soldiers before penetrating the building. One evening I’d completed the level straight through without dying. I’ll never forget the sense of achievement I felt. That night I could have taken over the world.

But the brilliance of the game comes when the player becomes trapped in a dark, brick-laden room, void of life and filled to the knees with a thick fog. The player has to cross the room to a door on the other side.

I remember it was two in the morning. I had my headphones on and the lights were dim. I was playing this part of the level for the very first time. Fear hit my stomach, clenching, rattling it like a steel trap. A step at a time, I kept turning my head not wanting anything to sneak up on me. All my senses tingled as I moved forward. When I reached halfway, I felt some relief. I’m still alive, I whispered to myself. I’m still alive. Shh. One more step. Keep going, one more step.

And then, the moan.

I jumped from my desk throwing the headphones on the keyboard. I almost screamed, waking everyone in the house. I backed away from the monitor with a dead stare. My heart wouldn’t stop pounding. It wanted to rip from my chest. The cold sweat drenched my shirt. All I remembered was the moan to the right behind me that wouldn’t stop. Regaining my courage, I edged closer to the monitor and peered into the fog. I could barely make them out. Hands? Hands. They appeared from the fog. Then I saw the arms and finally their heads. Their gruesome heads lifting from their graves.

Zombies.

In that moment. In that instant. I’d gained a respect for zombies I never had, which has remained with me to this day.

True story.

Are you part of the old school gaming league? Have you played Return to Castle Wolfenstein? What did you think of the zombies in the game?

Monday Mayhem

The Crazies

Posted on January 14, 2013January 14, 2013 by Jack Flacco

The Crazies is one of those movies that stick with you. Having written a short summary in a previous post, I decided to expand on that summary and give you the real deal. And, since it is Monday Mayhem, what better way to continue the series than with this great movie?

I’ll leave the reviewers to review the movie. I’d rather spend time talking about the film’s fascinating nuances.

Not your typical brain-bashing, gut-chomping zombie movie, The Crazies is an interesting study for a number of reasons. The first thing the audience realizes is the contagion does not come from a virus. The classic zombie infection is the usual virus that gets spread by a bite. Then, humans become their own worst enemies and tear at each other in a cannibalistic frenzy. Not in this story. Remember that saying, when traveling don’t drink the water? If any time that applied, it applies here. The water made the people all crazy. There’s a reason for that, but I won’t get into it.

This is a mind-blowing concept. If anything is true about humanity, it’s that we need food and water for sustenance. If anyone or anything messes with our fuel, we become different people. Anyone can prove this by giving kids sugar. What do they do? They bounce off the walls. Add those same sugars to the foods they eat and what happens? Yeah, they bounce off the walls. The film highlights the fine balance humanity possesses with their life source. Any tinkering with it will jumpstart a catastrophic chain of events that will render society at the mercy of the toxin.

Another point the movie makes, which some may construe as a sensitive topic, is the government’s involvement with mind control. I say a sensitive topic because in some respect, some may feel we’re already under that control (the foods we eat, the entertainment we consume—but that’s another post for another day). In the movie, as the townsfolk ingest the water supply, an all-seeing eye high above the clouds appraises the situation. The audience gets the government’s perspective on the matter, as it escalates to worse and worse levels by the hour.

You see, what the government wanted to know is just how far and how fast would the contagion spread if released in a controlled environment—a town. I won’t reveal anymore of the movie’s plot because I don’t want to spoil it for anyone wanting to watch it. But I will say this: How far along are we in replicating the movie’s plot when last year, the papers reported of those zombie attacks in Miami and the authorities blamed them on bath salts? Sounds far-fetched, right? The film made it clear: control’s an illusion that soon would destroy those who think they can tame it.

The final point the movie made in a less than overt way, is appearances can be deceiving. The zombies in this movie are different. Make no mistake, they are zombies. And therein lies the rub. What the audience expects as the traditional zombie appearance, the movie turns on its head. They do not have rotting flesh. They are not dead. They talk.

However, they have no control over their actions. They have a dead stare. And they have evil in their hearts, which spills into the horror they administer to those who have not changed.

Have you seen The Crazies? If so, what did you think of it? Have you heard of the Miami zombies? Do you know of any other movies that portray townsfolk as zombies? Go ahead and throw in your comment—I don’t bite.

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: