CW Bringing Zombies to Teen TV with 'The Awakening'

In TV, there's nothing better than exploiting a trend. As such, the original minds at CW are following AMC and developing  their own zombie TV series: The Awakening

Not to be confused with the early feminist novel or the horror-thriller of the same name starring Charlton Heston, The Awakening will be about "two sisters who face off against each other just as the zombie apocalypse kicks in," according to Entertainment Weekly.

The series will be written by William Laurin and Glenn Davis (The Listener) but is clearly following in the wake of AMC's The Walking Dead.

The CW is something of a teen-oriented network, so the way I see it this show can go one of two ways. One, it will turn out to be a melodramatic and highly glossy borefest like The Vampire Diaries. Two, it will crib both the supernatural and sibling-rivalry dynamic of Supernatural.


Who knows -- the show could turn out to be an amazing post-apocalyptic survival series. We'll have to wait and see, but knowing that the CW is developing this show to clearly cash-in on the popularity of The Walking Dead does not inspire confidence.

Speakeasy: Why David O. Russell dropped Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

Now that the Oscar nominees have been announced, it looks like David O. Russell is in the running for Best Director in recognition of his film The Fighter. But did you know he was once going to helm a film with an altogether different kind of fighting? Yes. Zombie fighting!

Followers of zombie movie news and literary mashups may remember that O. Russell was originally set to direct the film adaptation of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies but ultimately left the project. Speakeasy got to speak to O. Russell, and he explained why he couldn't make Pride and Prejudice and Zombies a reality:

I thought at $40 to $50 million was a bargain price to make a “Sherlock Holmes”-style period action romance that happened to have zombies in it. . . . The studio budgeted it as a genre zombie movie and gave me $25 to $28 million. I was like, that’s not cool. We have crazy big action sequences in it. It’s very commercial; we have a major romance. It’s a period film. And we’re doing it on the budget that we did “The Fighter?” It made no sense to me. That I found was frustrating. [SOURCE: SPEAKEASY]

So a tight budget takes down another film. A story as old as time. $28 million really doesn't seem like it would cover the scope of the film's special effects and period budget. Will Pride and Prejudice and Zombies ever make it to the big screen?

Trailer Tuesday: Aaah! Zombies!!

Trailer Tuesday: Deadheads

www.deadheadsthemovie.com

Wanting to see Juan of the Dead

Have you heard about Juan of the Dead? I've been interested in this film for some time.

Juan of the Dead is a Cuban zombie film about a Cuban entrepreneur named Juan (Alexis Diaz de Villegas) who finds Cuba overrun by zombies after the government is slow to react to the epidemic. Juan creates a business ala Ghostbusters that will exterminate the zombies for a fee.

Juan of the Dead is directed by Alejandro Brugues, an independent filmmaker hoping to create a commerical Cuban film that promises horror, comedy, and action in contrast to Cuba's history of arthouse cinema.

The BBC recently did a report on the film's production, giving us a glance at the film's props, behind-the-scenes shooting, and an intervie with Brugues.

VIDEOS

How Easy are Headshots? IMMERSION finds out. (video)

Is real life like Left 4 Dead?

In the season finale of the online show Immersion, in which video game concepts are tested in real life, hosts Burnie and Griffon try to determine how easy it would be for a person to kill zombies with headshots as in the video game series Left 4 Dead





MORE IMMERSION

Where are the zombies? Video of abandoned Six Flags in New Orleans

Is there anything creepier than an abandoned amusment park? Is there any more fitting place to find zombies?



Normally, amusement parks are a sea of human motion. People shout, laugh, and eat while machines, lights, and sounds constantly splash, whirl and churn vibrant waves of humanity through its rides and attractions. Life! However, abandoned amusement parks like this Six Flags that was closed before hurricane Katrina and never reopened are a grim reminder of how fleeting life can be. They resonate with an oppressively grim silence in contrast to the life they once knew. Like zombies, abandoned amusement parks are empty shells that once held tremendous life but now continue to exist in a decayed mockery of their former lives.

In this video, I am reminded at first of games like Left 4 Dead 2 and movies like Zombieland that feature amusement parks and zombies. As the video continues, its style and music remind me more of 28 Days Later with its post-apocalyptic stillness. Without people, amusement parks are haunted places one would expect zombies and other decrepit things to wander as lost and abandoned as the park itself.

America has its own little glimpse into a post-apocalyptic world here in this abandoned Six Flags. It's quiet but supremely chilling.

Return of the Living Dead: Necropolis (Review)

REVIEW

Return of the Living Dead:
Necropolis (2005)

Director: Ellory Elkayem

RATING:
2 / 5 zedheads
 

Sometimes filmmakers are given the opportunity to play in another film franchise's sandbox. In these cases, it is very important to follow one rule: do not shit in the sandbox.

Case in point: Director Elkayem had the opportunity to play in the franchise sandbox of The Return of the Living Dead after 12 years since the last film in the franchise. The franchise was established by Dan O'Bannon in 1985 and then carried by others in two other sequels, ending with Return of the Living Dead 3. Return of the Living Dead 2 and 3 had their problems, but they were more or less serviceable movies that adhered to the rules of the franchise. In 2004, Elkayem had the opportunity to revitalize the Return of the Living Dead franchise, but what did you do? He totally shit in the sandbox.

Casting reject from Resident Evil 2

In Return of the Living Dead: Necropolis, zombies are accidentally freed by a group of pathetic, stereotyped teenagers who decide to infiltrate the research offices of Hydra Tech, a mega-corporation that makes everything from cheese-in-a-can to napalm. They hope to rescue their friend from being a zombie experiment but end up releasing a horde of other test subjects reanimated by Trioxin 5 (apparently not the Trioxin 2-4-5 that was a staple of the first three films). In another bullshit move, these zombies can be killed with head shots....and torso shots. And fire. And grenade blasts. Clearly, these zombies do not follow the rules set out in the original ROTLD franchise in which nothing other than complete destruction by fire could destroy the zombies. Yes, they still crave brains, but the film disregards almost all of the original rules that made the franchise fun, much to the film's detriment. Perhaps a more faithful return to the franchise would have done more to cover up the stink left by its shoddy script and flat humour.

Even the zombies are bored by Necropolis.

After a cheesy promo video for Hydra Tech that explains how the company helped suppress the  last zombie outbreak 10 years ago, we are introduced to an American researcher visiting Chernobyl to pick up the remaining canisters of Trioxin 5, a zombie reanimating fluid/gas. This researcher turns out to be none other than stern old Uncle Charlie (Peter Coyote), employee of Hydra Tech and the guardian to brothers Julian (Joh Keefe) and Jake aka. Pyro (Alexandru Geoana). Julian and Jake's parents died in a car accident, and Julian is feeling mopey about it on the anniversary of their deaths while 'Pyro' sits around playing with blowtorches (the kid likes fire, if you didn't guess from the subtleties of the script). While Julian pouts, he mopes around with his other stereotypical teen friends: Mimi the slut (Diana Munteanu), Zeke the asshole best friend (Elvin Dandel), Katie the cute girl (Jana Kramer), Becky the adorable clumsy nerd (Aimee-Lynn Chadwick), Carlos the gun-toting token Latino (Toma Danila), Cody the hacker and token black (Cory Hardrict), and other bland zombie fodder. During a painfully desperate dirt bike stunt (EXTREME, right? Kids like bike jumps, right?), Zeke wipes out. Instead of being taken to hospital, he is kidnapped by Hydra Tech to be part of Uncle Charlie's zombie experiments.

Even the actors can see this cinematic train wreck coming

The script for ROTLD: Necropolis is really shoddy. Conveniently, Katie works security at Hydra Tech and is given unreasonable access for a part-time, high school employee. She sees Zeke at the facility and alerts her friends. Conveniently, Cody "hacks" (i.e. executes an .exe file) into Hydra Tech's public web page which is conveniently linked to their high-security login network that contains convenient clues to a zombie research program called NECROPOLIS. Meanwhile, a convenient gas leak turns some homeless dudes into zombies in a parking garage because there hasn't been any zombies on screen for some time. Meanwhile, the teens decide to break into Hydra Tech to rescue Zeke. They grab their fake IDs, forehead-mounted flashlights, and nunchaku. They proceed to bumble around Hydra Tech shooting bullets at control panels until they accidentally release from the holding cells all the zombies that Uncle Charles is studying and cloning (cloning?!) for no clear reason other than to let the script rely on the convenient zombie trope of world domination via zombie super soldiers. It's all very predictable, under-explained, and yawn-inducing. Not a hint of fun, wit, or energy that marked the first three Return of the Living Dead films.

Zombie Clones: All the frailty of a zombie with an inconvenient 18-year gestation period.

While the script is full of holes and a patchwork of tired tropes, at least the movie didn't scrimp on zombie effects. Much to my surprise, the zombies look really good and there's some accomplished gore effects to boot. We can thank Optic Nerve Studios for making a 1 zedhead movie into a 2 zedhead movie with a nice selection of choice zombie makeup, sculpting, severed limbs, and organ props that are, nevertheless, wasted on this project yet provide one of the only things worth watching. Even the ridiculous zombie fetus clones look cool despite their nonsensical inclusion in the story.

A common expression seen at the Necropolis test screening.

The script seems to be aware that it sucks, so it tries to cover up its shortcomings by passing off its dialogue as shoddy self-aware comedy. In a desperate attempt to capture the humour of the original Return of the Living Dead, the characters in Necropolis dabble in slapstick, purposely cheesy one-liners, and ironic dialogue, but everything seems way too forced. Even a reference to the original Return of the Living Dead when a zombie picks up the phone and asks for "more security guards" feels tired and derivative. Even though Necropolis doesn't follow any of the established ROTLD canon, these attempts to forge a connection between Necropolis and The Return of the Living Dead only go to show how weak Necropolis really is as a franchise installment and as its own zombie film.

Zombies always find the softest spot of the skull.

I think Ellory Elkayem tried to make a fun movie. The special zombie effects are surprisingly good and the script doesn't take itself too seriously, but the plot and the characters are way too flawed. Like a cat in the sandbox, Elkayem tries to bury his shit in the sand so it doesn't stink as bad. That doesn't change the most important fact: Elkayem still took a shit in the Return of the Living Dead sandbox.