Public Servant Lifestyle

Can’t get enough of the ghoulish undead in your motion picture viewing? This may be just the thing.

Zombiemania: 80 Movies To Die For by Dr Arnold T Blumberg & Andrew Hershberger

From White Zombie to Land of the Dead...this volume is a study of eighty zombie movies – films that shaped a horror subgenre and left us all with a mortal fear of flesh-eating ghouls clawing their way out of the cold, dark earth.

Zombiemania is the latest release from British small press publisher Telos and takes an in-depth look at one of the most popular horror film categories of all time. What is it that makes us so scared of and yet so attracted to the living dead? Why is it that shambling corpses with a taste for brains, or mindless automatons controlled by a voodoo master still retain such relentless power years after the first times such creatures shambled onto our cinema screens? Intrepid authors Andrew Hershberger and Dr Arnold T. Blumberg grapple with eldritch powers in search of the answers...

Illustrated with many photographs, some published here for the first time, this is one film guide that will leave you with a restless urge to walk the night in search of living flesh. The book also features an afterword by Mark (Shaun of the Dead) Donovan as well as a zombie movie index of over 550 films...

Lifestyle's Zombie Movie Faves

Had your appetite whetted by all this zombie film book talk? Why not take a shamble through a few of Lifestyle's personal favourites - in no particular order, preference or gore levels. NB: not all of these will necessarily feature in the Telos Zombiemania book:

Plan 9 From Outer Space – dir. Edward ‘Ed’ Wood (1958).

Bela Lugosi and Vampirella struggle through a hotchpotch of horror clichés bolted onto a drama that seems to be assembled out of several films of wildly different sub genres. So space creatures, flying saucers and police procedures jostle with stagey horror set pieces: misty graveyards, famous vampire actors and an incomprehensible ‘plot’. Oddly compelling viewing – and ripped off by too many musical promo makers to name. Made even more notorious than its terrible production values had already made it by the Ed Wood biopic starring Sarah Jessica Parker (TV’s Sex & The City, The Sunshine Boys), Johnny Depp (Dead Man, Lost In La Mancha) and Walter Keonig (Gerry Anderson’s TV show Space: 1999, Crimes and Misdemeanours).

Dawn of the Dead – dir. George A Romero (1978)

Romero's cult classic follows a handful of survivors as they wage a desperate last stand to stay alive - and stay human - as a mysterious virus turns people into voracious zombies who develop a strong pack mentality – and a rather nasty habit of feeding on the living. An unexplained plague has decimated the world’s population and yet...the dead aren’t dying. They’ve become zombies stalking endlessly in a constant quest to feed on the flesh and blood of the few remaining living.

A ragtag group of desperate survivors seek refuge in a large indoor mall, where they must learn not only to protect themselves from the ever-increasing zombie horde…Lampooned in The Simpsons, Dawn of the Dead was re-envisioned a couple of years ago in a new feature directed by Zack Snyder and starring Mekhi Phifer (8 Mile, Honey), Ving Rhames (Mission: Impossible, Pulp Fiction) and Jake Weber (The Cell).

The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies (AKA Teenage Psycho Meets Bloody Mary) – dir. Ray Dennis Steckler (1963).

An evil 'freak-show' psychic ‘artiste’ turns some of the carnival folk she travels with into her undead slaves. Much fairly 'trippy' hilarity ensues… Well worth checking out just for the insane title alone. This is the sort of film Mark E. Smith's band The Fall would make, if they were film makers...

Re-Animator - dir. Stuart Gordon (1987).

Violent re-animation of the recently deceased to turn them into blood crazed fiends by super serum is the name of the game in this pretty low budget feature film version of the HP Lovecraft 1922 novella Herbert West: Reanimator. Set on a contemporary US college campus the film uses lots of the standard monster/zombie movie standbys - shambling morgue folk, dismembered limb attack, lashings of blood, and a crazy scientist in blood-splattered lab coat.

The film stars Jeffrey Combs as the titular West – more famous now for a series of long-running roles in the Star Trek TV shows – principally Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Very little of Lovecraft's writing survives the transition to screen or to the 'modern' era - losing lots of great dialogue and all the atmosphere of the original. Also spawned an even more disappointing sequel. Best avoided by Lovecraft fans, but a passable flesh-fest. for those willing to leave their brains at the door.

Shaun of the Dead (2004)

Housemate, girlfriend and career problems – even a trip to the pub - take on new dimensions as the undead walk about the place eating up the population of a British town like they’re walking 'Happy Meals'. Zombie flavoured romantic comedy from the warped mind of Simon Pegg. Recently seen as a villain in the new series of Doctor Who, here Pegg appears alongside most of his colleagues from Channel 4’s Spaced: Kate Ashfield, Nick Frost, Dylan Moran, Lucy Davis, Penelope Wilton, Bill Nighy and Jessica Stevenson.

The Skeleton Key (2005)

Voodoo-based contemporary supernatural thriller set in New Orleans, directed by Iain Softley (K-Pax, Hackers, Backbeat) and co-starring Kate Hudson (Almost Famous, How To Loose A Guy In 10 Days), Gena Rowlands, Peter Sarsgaard and John Hurt (Aliens, Scandal).

The Evil Dead & Evil Dead II – dir. Sam Raimi (1981 & 1987)

US teenagers become possessed of evil spirits, and proceed to run amok in a possessed-from-beyond-the-grave manner. As you do. Spawned an entire sub genre of movies –arguably leading to the creation of part-homage, part antithesis pop culture such as TV’s Buffy The Vampire Slayer – and Shaun of the Dead.

Resident Evil (2003)

Milla Jovovich (The Fifth Element, The Messenger) stars as Alice, a feisty heroine trapped in the nightmarish Umbrella corporation base after an accident, with female zombie killer Rain - (Michelle Rodriguez). Together they must lead a team working to isolate a virus that has turned Umbrella’s entire research staff into ravenous undead – now prowling the base. One bite or scratch from a member of these undead causes infection and worse - instant transformation into their kind! Based on the hugely popular PC game of the same name – also spawned another all-action zombie sequel (Resident Evil: Apocalypse) a little more akin to the original PC game and featuring an equally slinky Milla Jovovich this action-fest featured even more virus zombies running amok. Great stuff!

The Living Dead At The Manchester Morgue dir. Jorge Grau (1974)

Cheap as they come ghoul-fest. set in an unrecognisable Manchester (in England's north-west) starring Aldo Massasso, Cristina Galbo, Ray Lovelock and Arthur Kennedy. This Spanish-Italian undead co-production directed by Jorge Grau involves ultrasonic radiation, a couple of Ministry of Agriculture employees who seem to have made a major mistake in pest control and a host of flesh eating freaks accosting travellers. Utterly bonkers and gory as they come.

Have we missed your favourite undead feature film? If so, let us know by filling in the 'Your Comment' box below and posting your own!

About Telos Publishing Ltd

Zombiemania: 80 Movies To Die For is out now as a 400 page (A5) paperback, priced £12.99. Telos Publishing Ltd also releases an ongoing series of ‘Time Hunter’ novellas, following the adventures of Honoré Lechasseur as well as the 'classic crime' thrillers of Hank Janson and guides to cult TV collectables and programmes ranging from Blake’s 7 to recent BBC3 smash-hit ‘adult’ Doctor Who spin-off Torchwood, 24 and Stargate: SG1. Telos was a 'World Fantasy Award Winner' in 2006.

All images © Telos Publishing Ltd 2006, used with permission.

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