Posts Tagged ‘Phil Hornshaw’

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Zombies on Hollywood Boulevard

Thursday, April 29th, 2010
Zombies shuffle through Hollywood

Zombies shuffle through Hollywood

I’ve taken a bit of a break from zombie fiction for a few weeks in favor of participating in Script Frenzy, a month-long script-writing social event that encourages people to get out and write for a month. Having just finished, my thoughts have turned back to zombies.

Last weekend, my journalist girlfriend Caitlin M. Foyt and I decided to go check out the So.Cal Zombie Walk, a gathering for charity that had participants covered in makeup and stumbling down Hollywood Boulevard’s Walk of Fame. Caitlin was searching for a stranger to interview for her blog project, BeautifulStrangerLA.com, which documents her meetings with various interesting people throughout Los Angeles. (As it turned out, she found Chanel Jensen, who was dressed as a zombie Marilyn Monroe.)

Feel the Wrath. Read on.

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Why do zombies eat the living?

Monday, March 15th, 2010

Editor’s note: We know it’s been a really, really long time since we posted here. Sorry about that. Site master Phil Hornshaw recently made a cross-country move from the suburbs of Detroit, Mich., to Los Angeles. Things have been a little hectic. Our apologies.

Om nom nom. Recently, I was wandering the Internet trying to think of things to blog about here – my recent 2,500-mile move having left me without nearly any DVDs to speak of, including films of the undead variety – and I stumbled on a forum question in which someone was interested to learn exactly why it is that zombies seek out and devour the living.

Feel the Wrath. Read on.

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Good Old American Suburbs

Sunday, January 31st, 2010

10:29 a.m., Feb. 3 – Novi, Mich.

Sam Lear pressed a finger and thumb between the louvers, spreading them and letting in just a little of the morning sunlight.

Looking out, it seemed the street in front of the house was clear. He checked his watch – 10:30 a.m. No hostiles.

He pulled his hand free of the blinds and let out a satisfied sigh. Defensive efforts were successful going on three days now.

Feel the Wrath. Read on.

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Shut up, zombies, you’re ruining it

Monday, January 25th, 2010

A zombie police officer, still wearing the helmet, is iffy by any standard. Recently I watched for only the second time “Night of the Comet,” a mid-80s zombie movie making use of one of pop culture’s favorite zombie-making horrors, cosmic radiation.

The movie’s not great. A campy, tongue-in-cheek horror/comedy that includes maybe three total zombies in the whole film, “Comet” is fun but brings little to the fold as far as progressing the genre. In fact, it’s only barely a zombie film to begin with: radiation from the comet turns people into homicidal monsters, that’s true, but the process is so gradual that most characters spend the film stuck somewhere between human and monster.

Feel the Wrath. Read on.

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Hope for humanity: fast vs. slow zombies and you

Saturday, January 9th, 2010

Running zombies - more deadly on the whole, but also more likely to decimate victims. I find the concept of fast versus slow zombies to be almost inconsequential, because neither iteration is particularly better or worse than the other.

Of course, fast zombies on the whole are more deadly. They sprint up and attack you, making an individual much more dangerous than their slow-moving counterparts.

Slow zombies, of course, are much less difficult to deal with, and their strength isn’t in being especially dangerous, but in being surprising or attacking in heavy numbers. Whenever one considers a zombie outbreak, the sheer fact that it’ll take humanity a few minutes to realize what the hell is happening is what gives slow zombies time to multiply.

Feel the Wrath. Read on.

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Remember: Zombies are (former) people too

Saturday, December 5th, 2009

28_days_later There’s the technicality in the realm of zombie movies that some fans take to heart.

It’s born of films such as Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later, which die-hard zombiites are quick to point out is not, in fact, a zombie film. It’s a movie about murderous psychopathic humans, made evil by a virus they pass to the people they attack, provided those people don’t die from said attack.

But they’re not zombies – they’re not driven by any kind of paranormal or extra-special force. They’re just crazies.

Feel the Wrath. Read on.

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Digital zombies brought the apocalypse

Monday, November 23rd, 2009

Left_4_dead_2 “Left 4 Dead 2,” the sequel to phenomenal zombie-blasting title for the Xbox 360, was released last Tuesday (Nov. 17), to heavy fanfare. Whereas the predecessor enjoyed good sales, the hype surrounding “L4D2” was standard for blockbuster titles in the gaming world.

It’s another zombie game that’s received considerable attention, and to me, it’s indicative of the success the genre enjoys across several media.

But video games have done more for the modern zombie than anything or anyone since George A. Romero.

Feel the Wrath. Read on.

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Deserted, desert, digital Detroit – a “Desert” companion

Monday, November 16th, 2009

Editor’s Note: This post is a companion piece for “The Desert Stretched Before Him” by Phil Hornshaw.The blog, written by the author, is meant to explore the process of writing the story and the influences or inspiration that went with it. This post contains spoilers – read the stories involved first.

joe louis

“The Desert Stretched Before Him” was more or less directly inspired by my reading of “Dune Messiah,” the sequel to Frank Herbert’s sci-fi masterpiece “Dune,” way back in high school. “Messiah” is set on Dune, the desert planet that’s central to the entire space-faring society described in the novels, and concerns greatly the somewhat-nomadic desert tribes of people who live there.

Feel the Wrath. Read on.

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“Zombieland” struggles to find funny in apocalypse

Wednesday, November 11th, 2009

zombieland The trailers for “Zombieland” excited me, but I was wary because of the fact that more often than not, zombie movies are funny inadvertently. A purposely funny zombie movie is almost unheard of and I generally despise them because of their penchant for mocking the genre rather than commenting or expounding on it.

What we get in “Zombieland” isn’t a mockery, luckily, but the film isn’t exactly ground-breaking. I got the impression that the film would be a lot like “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy,” but with zombies, and I was pretty much dead on in that regard.

Feel the Wrath. Read on.

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The Desert Stretched Before Him

Monday, November 2nd, 2009

Editor’s note: Due to its length, this story was divided in half. Jump down to Part 2. Also, this story includes a Companion blog post, “Deserted, desert, digital Detroit,” written by the author.

11: 22 a.m., Jan. 4 – Detroit, Mich.

Part 1

Brad was pulling one of them off Caleb, who had been ten seconds dead at least. It was out of adrenaline more than anything that Brad grabbed the monster by the shoulders and hauled it off his friend. Then the monster just spun on Brad, gnashed its teeth, and bounced away as if it were a rubber ball.

Feel the Wrath. Read on.

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