Zombie Apocalypse First Teaser Trailer (Dir. Nick Lyon).

THE ASYLUM presents: The Exact Same Zombie Movie You've Seen Seventy-Five Times In Netflix Instant This Year Already, only this one's got Crab Man in it!

via SFSignal...

PRINT IS DEAD: Press Roundup

Since launching earlier this year, PRINT IS DEAD has generated some great buzz and garnered quite a bit of press. Here it all is, for your reading pleasure, in one bloody place:

FearNet spotlight on Creeping Hemlock Press and Print Is Dead. Blu Gilliand rocks.

Mediabistro/Galleycat press release, which is a condensed version of our press release, but still cool.

HorrorNews.Net runs the whole darned press release, and we goof up and add an "A." to Martin Mundt's name.

The Zombie Rights Campaign hates us.

Swedish Zombie reviews PRAY TO STAY DEAD. It's in Swedish, but there's an English translation at the bottom of the page.

"...PRAY TO STAY DEAD is a revelation," says Alex Riviello from Badass Digest.

He also likes WORLD IN RED and says that it's "the most relentlessly bleak book [he's] read since THE ROAD."

Blu likes PRAY TO STAY DEAD a lot and says that it "takes its place among [the zombie] genre's best..."

He likes SCAVENGERS, too...

And he says that WORLD IN RED is "almost unbearably bleak." (Am I sensing a trend here?)

Swedish Zombie loves SCAVENGERS and THIN THEM OUT.

PRAY TO STAY DEAD author Mason James Cole is interviewed in the October Country.

Nate Southard talks SCAVENGERS.

Did I miss something?

INTERVIEW: Producer Andrew Jones, NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD: RESURRECTION

As mentioned a few weeks back, NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD is once more being remade, this time by UK-based North Bank Entertainment. Producer Andrew Jones is aware that this news will not be warmly received in horror circles, and he was nice enough to address this and other topics in the following lengthy interview:

Since presumably lapsing into the public domain, NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD has been subjected to numerous indignities--sub-standard quality home video editions, multiple colorizations, an unwatchable mess of a 3D remake, and the infamous 30th Anniversary “SPECIAL EDITION.”

Because of this, news of NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD: RESURRECTION is already being met with suspicion among horror fans. What do you say to them?

As a horror fan myself I understand the cynicism that re-working a much loved classic is often met with. The reality that filmmakers face is that it is easier to get a film financed and distributed when it has a brand name title. That’s just how the industry is right now and as an independent company it is easier for us to raise finance for a film that has ‘Night of the Living Dead’ in the title. But that is no reason to make an unimaginative re-hashing or churn out a story with no thought or substance.

When a lot of remakes are produced in the modern era they often duplicate the superficial elements of the original film without any attempt to understand the social and emotional context which made the source material so compelling. The directors too often have no affiliation for the genre and rarely recapture the genuine suspense and tension the classics are known for. You can see those hacks coming a mile off, with their flashy editing and loud soundtrack over-compensating for the inability to build genuine tension. All the studio remakes often lack imagination in cinematography too, every horror film seems to be bathed in those awful green and brown filters.

It looks like shit, literally. Not to mention that the wonderful practical effects we saw in the 70s and 80s have now been replaced by an abundance of CGI. You end up with a film that looks more like a video game, and it takes an audience out of the movie because it doesn’t look real.

One of the biggest flaws is a lack of interesting characters that break beyond stereotype, no wonder an audience can’t feel true tension when the characters are so faceless we're rooting for the villains.

I feel the best horror films have always been gritty low budget affairs powered by hungry young filmmakers with something to prove, and that’s what NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD: RESURRECTION will be. We are independent of the studios so we have the creative freedom to make interesting choices. Instead of throwing a bunch of strangers together who spend the majority of the movie arguing, the principal characters in this Zombie movie are four generations of a family, which give the relationships added depth and emotion. We will be using all practical effects, no CGI. We have an innovative young director, James Plumb, who has a genuine love for the genre. Everyone involved loves the original film and we know that we aren’t going to better it. That’s why we are going in a new direction with the characters and the plot twists, rather than staging a pointless scene for scene remake. Events will happen in this story that will unsettle the audience and leave them wondering what the hell is going to happen next. We are also not a thoughtless cash-in, using this title means we are obligated to deliver a film with substance and I wouldn't put my name to it if I wasn't confident that we could do that. We hope NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD: RESURRECTION will sit alongside the original film as an entertaining modern companion piece.

By making a NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD movie we know we are going to be a target for cynicism. But if genre fans give this movie a shot we‘ll take them on a horror ride they'll remember for all the right reasons.

The modern zombie genre is a uniquely American creation, but the best zombie films of the past decade have come from outside the US. Do you have any thoughts as to why this might be?

America is most definitely the leading light when it comes to producing classic horror. But in recent years perhaps too many American companies and filmmakers have become tied to convention. It doesn’t help when studios, financiers and producers make decisions that often result in the filmmakers’ new ideas being crushed in favor of the tried and trusted formula we’ve seen many times over. I know the “rules” of a genre are important, but sometimes it’s good to spread your wings and approach familiar genre territory from a different angle. Other countries and cultures can often bring a fresh voice to American material. But ultimately I feel the quality of a movie is down to the people making it, regardless of where they are from.

Some people have tried to do something different with the genre, but all that has resulted in is the current craze of zombies running like Olympic sprinters. What the hell is all that about? I know this started with 28 DAYS LATER but they weren’t zombies, they were people infected with the “Rage” virus. I think the creators of subsequent zombie movies must have felt that a fast moving zombie would be scarier and to some extent that might be true. But we won’t be including any sprinting zombies in NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD: RESURRECTION. Asking people to believe corpses can return to life is enough, asking them to believe that a corpse can kick ass in the 100 meter sprint is a step too far.

As a viewer, I find the most effective zombies to be the ones without tons of stuff glued to their faces. My favorite cinematic zombies are, appropriately enough, Optic Nerve's excellent creations in Tom Savini's much-maligned and highly underrated NIGHT remake. They came closest to evoking the look of actual corpses, which no doubt comes from Savini's direction--he was a photographer in 'Nam and knows dead when he sees it.

Can you describe the look you'll be going for with your walking corpses? Who's doing the FX?

I agree that Tom Savini’s NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD is very under rated. There’s some terrific set pieces in that film, particularly the opening graveyard scene which I thought was a superb riff on the original. If that film didn’t have the burden of being a remake it would be far better regarded.

For our project we have a new talent in charge of the effects, Rachael Southcott. People may not know her name now but after this film she is going to get a lot of work in the genre. We are going for the more realistic grounded zombie look with anatomically correct wounds. We want to ground everything in reality in this film, the characters, the setting and the look of the zombies.

Midway through the second episode of THE WALKING DEAD, when the zombies were trying to claw their way into the department store, I came to the realization that zombies were in danger of being played out... that no matter how well-made a new zombie production, that work would suffer from the fact that we've basically seen all of this before. We're reaching the saturation point.

What are you doing to avoid this?

James Plumb and I had a similar discussion when we were mapping out the script. I think a good reference point is if you look outside the zombie genre and to horror in general. Look at the famous icons of horror. In the original HALLOWEEN Michael Myers is a constant threat but he’s in the shadows a lot of the time. Same thing with Freddy Krueger in the first A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET. Then if you look at the subsequent sequels and remakes of those films they put the villains to the fore, you see them a lot and their impact lessens. So in that case I think it’s important to use the villain sparingly, and pick the right moments for maximum impact. In this genre, if you see someone blowing a zombie’s head off every five minutes, you become desensitized after a while. So what we will try to do is give the audience characters and relationships they can invest in. We focus on how four generations of a family, with all of the history and emotion involved, cope with facing their own mortality. In our film the characters aren’t informed by a history of zombie movie “rules”, we have them reacting to situations as we would in the real world. The threat level to the family also extends beyond the zombies. I don’t want to give away any spoilers, but they won’t just have the undead to deal with.

What are your favorite zombie films?

Obviously the original NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD and DAWN OF THE DEAD are masterpieces and revolutionized not just zombie movies but film in general. But I always had a soft spot for Romero‘s original DAY OF THE DEAD. It has a slower pace than the other movies but I felt the characters were really interesting, ‘Logan’, ‘Rhodes’, ‘Bub’, and I always thought it had the best FX of any Romero movie. Joe Pilato is an absolute legend, I love his performance and never tire of seeing him shouting down Frankenstein and the scientists!

The remake of that film was a total disgrace, a zombie walks up the wall onto the ceiling at one point!

Another zombie movie I particularly love is Lucio Fulci’s ZOMBIE FLESH EATERS (AKA ZOMBI 2 and ZOMBIE). I’m a big fan of Italian horror and exploitation in general, and that is one of my favorites. The zombies look fantastic in that one, plus that eyeball scene still impresses me even though I’ve seen it more than a hundred times!

Does your film contain analogues to characters from the original film? Essentially, what I'm asking is: does anyone come to get Barbara, and will we see Ben and an exploration of racial/social strife? Or have you allowed those elements to be a part of the original and opted instead for a new cast of characters?

There is one character from the original who plays a very prominent role throughout, but other than that it's essentially a new cast of characters. We won't be exploring the same themes as the original, with this story being set in modern times we'll be exploring modern issues.

In 1968 they didn't have the internet, social networking and mobile phones so we've had to acknowledge those advances in technology, which is an interesting challenge when you're trying to create an environment where the characters are truly isolated and cut off from the world. But technology isn't a prominent theme. The most interesting element for me was looking at the contrast in the way the younger and older generation view violence and having to face their own mortality. Trapping four generations of a family in one location allows us to really explore that. Ultimately this is a story about human beings rather than zombies, underneath the intestine munching and throat ripping we hope to touch on some universal truths about the human condition.

Intestine munching and throat ripping? Is there going to be a lot of that in NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD: RESURRECTION? Are you going for old-school gorefest or suggestive restraint?

The film will have a lot of suspense and tension, but it wouldn't feel right if the undead didn't get a meal time at some point!

What format are you shooting in, and how would describe director James Plumb's directorial style?

We are shooting in High Definition. James has directed a number of shorts in a variety of genres and has brought a unique style to each one. James is a very visual filmmaker, he has paid his dues in low budget filmmaking and I feel it has definitely helped his development as a director. Despite having limited resources, every short film I've seen from him has been progressively more ambitious and impressive. This is the perfect time for James' feature debut. Far be it for me to put any pressure on him but I feel that in years to come he will develop into one of the UK's best directors.

You start shooting in September. How long will principal photography last, and when can we expect the film's release?

Principal photography will last a total of four weeks. We'll have post production completed by Christmas with a release in the UK and US planned for early 2012.

It's taken a little over forty years for the sub-genre created by George Romero and John Russo to completely saturate pop culture. Video games, movies, books, and television --zombies have taken over and are more popular than ever. To what do you attribute this, and how long do you think it will last?

I think there's something about Zombies that really resonates with people. Zombies deal with the deep seated fear of death we all have, and the eternal question we all ponder about what could happen to us when we pass away. Ultimately, most people enjoy the thrill of being scared for entertainment and what's scarier than death itself trying to eat you alive? A lot of the recent incarnations of zombies have been more humorous though and personally I don't want to see too much of that. I think Zombies will always be popular if the quality of the movies, TV shows, books etc is maintained. The creators of the modern concepts need to keep the zombies frightening. That's what we hope to accomplish with NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD: RESURRECTION. We intend to take the audience out of the comfort zone of what they are used to seeing in zombie movies.

When the Walter Read film distribution company re-titled NIGHT OF THE FLESH EATERS as NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, they left out the Copyright mark, leading to the belief that the film was in the public domain.

Legally speaking, it isn’t. Image Ten fought for fifteen years to wrest distribution rights from deadbeat distributor, Walter Reade. In 1978, Reade went bankrupt and the distribution rights reverted to Image Ten. In 1983, Image Ten won back their copyright in federal court. By then, unauthorized copies of the film were so prevalent that to track them down and fight them in court would have been financially impossible. Today, the matter is worse. So, technically, if Image Ten had the money to take anyone exploiting the NIGHT name to court, they’d quite possibly win. Does this give you pause, either ethically or professionally?

If Image Ten wanted to sue then no doubt they'd have to track down dozens of other filmmakers and distributors who have used the title for decades now, which just seems a big waste of time and money. Personally, I think it's George Romero who should be suing someone for tainting his original classic with that abomination of a sequel CHILDREN OF THE LIVING DEAD.

I have every sympathy for the original NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD team that a distributor's mistake led to them losing a lot of money from the original release. George Romero in particular has had to sign away the rights to a lot of his subsequent DEAD films as well, just to get them made. It's a tough old business and I can empathize with not getting the amount of money from a film you had hoped to. But I'm sure they have all done pretty well financially down the years, all of them have launched successful careers and made a comfortable living. They are certainly worth alot more money than any hardcore fan who forks over his or her hard earned cash to see the films they have made.

I know some of the original team have criticized people who use the title and I of course understand their point of view. But while it's not their fault the film is public domain, I think complaining about other filmmakers taking the opportunity to use the title isn't fully justified because they have sought to capitalize on the original film's fanbase themselves. Look at the additional footage some of the original team inserted into the 30th Anniversary edition. That disappointed a lot of fans. Particularly because the producers themselves publicized the DVD by claiming the footage equaled the original film, when anyone who saw it knows that it didn't. They have a right to try and make money from the original any way they can, but they didn't need to pretend the new footage lived up to the original. That's a surefire way of alienating dedicated fans.

Personally, I hope that the makers of the original film remember the position they were in when they made it. Talented people just looking for a chance to break out and start a career doing what they love. The original film gave them that opportunity and despite the public domain issue they have still done very well out of it. So it would be great if they were happy for other up and comers to take the opportunity to make a NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD movie and launch their careers too. But judging by past comments I get the impression they won't be! All we can do is try and honor the title by making a quality movie and who knows, maybe the original film's producers will begrudgingly appreciate the effort. Stranger things have happened!

NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD: RESURRECTION starts shooting on September 24th.

WALKING DEAD NEWS: Things Get Ugly

AMC fired Frank Darabont.

He didn't step down graciously after getting the WALKING DEAD machine up an running, as those optimists among us assumed may have been the case. Nope--he was canned.

So what happened? The Hollywood Reporter sheds some light on the situation right here, but I came away from that article not wholly satisfied. Maybe he was fired because he tried to fix an episode that wasn't up to the show's standards, and maybe that incident was merely an excuse to fire Darabont, who wasn't too keen on proposed budget cuts.

Right now, it's all speculation and leaked anonymous insider news kernels. When asked, my contacts at AMC offered no comment.

Darabont has issued no response, but I suspect we'll get one eventually. This is the guy who told George Lucas he was insane after his Indiana Jones script was rejected by the Bearded One--Frank Darabont is not one to hold his tongue.

Why AMC would intentionally sabotage their biggest show remains a mystery.

For more on this puzzling series of events, check out Devin Faraci's take on the matter over at Badass Digest.

WALKING DEAD NEWS: Mazzara Succeeds Darabont

Though it's not clear at this point whether or not Frank Darabont will remain attached in some capacity to AMC's THE WALKING DEAD, he has officially been replaced by Glen Mazzara. The Shield veteran was brought aboard as Darabon't No. 2 at the beginning of Season 2. "We consider him our head writer," Darabont told Deadline last month, "and he’s just a fantastic asset."

In addition to his work on The Shield, Mazzara was showrunner on the STARZ L.A. drama, Crash. He was replaced for the second season. I have no idea what this says about his showrunning abilities, but I'll defer to Darabont, who knows what he's doing (expect for that ridiculous hospital bed POV from the first episode of THE WALKING DEAD).

Online fanboy negative response notwithstanding, there's absolutely no reason to declare this the end of THE WALKING DEAD. Darabont is a filmmaker, not a showrunner, and now that he's gotten THE WALKING DEAD off the ground, after five years of trying to bring zombies to prime time, it makes sense that he'd move on to other things. (Like maybe a film version of Stephen King's THE LONG WALK.)

This changing of the guard has not affected the production of season two of THE WALKING DEAD, which is set to premiere on October 16th.

Not Again of the Living Dead

They're remaking NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD again.

Here's the press release:

North Bank Entertainment, the UK production company behind Ruggero Deodato’s forthcoming ‘The House on the Edge of the Park Part II’, has teamed up with Independent Moving Pictures and Mad Science Films to produce NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD: RESURRECTION, a British version of the 1968 horror classic.

The film will be produced by Andrew Jones and is the debut feature of director James Plumb, who has previously helmed a number of award winning short films. The script has been co-written by James Plumb and Andrew Jones. Rob Graham of Independent Moving Pictures is the Executive Producer.

Producer Andrew Jones: “NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD: RESURRECTION is aiming to serve as an entertaining companion piece to the original film rather than attempting to do the impossible and improve on it. This project is being produced by a group of filmmakers who are genuine fans of the horror genre. We have fresh ideas for how to revitalise the Zombie sub-genre and have created a story that combines modern elements with the classic premise. We are sure genre fans will be happy to see a modern horror film which focuses on genuine suspense and tension, utilises practical FX rather than CGI and provides characters that the audience will actually care about.”

Director James Plumb: "In 1968 George Romero revolutionised both the horror genre and low budget, independent filmmaking with his film “Night of the Living Dead”. It is only fitting that “Night of the Living Dead: Resurrection” is to be made in a truly independent, low budget fashion, rather than become yet another glossy, sanitised Hollywood remake."

Principal photography begins on September 24th, 2011. The film will be shot on location in Carmarthenshire, Swansea and Cardiff in South Wales, UK.

Synopsis:

In 2012 the deceased have risen from their graves with only one instinct: to feed on the living. As academics speculate on the scientific cause of the phenomena, theologians point to the Armageddon foretold in the Book of Revelation. As the cities are overrun and civilization crumbles, a family take refuge from the undead army in an isolated farmhouse in West Wales. But the greatest threat is already among them.

You're rolling your eyes, and I'm tempted to join you, but how can it possibly be worse than the last few times someone dragged the name NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD writhing through the dirt? All the bad 3D, crude animation, puppets, and sliced bread in the world can't top what was done to NIGHT in 1998, so who cares anymore? Eventually, someone is going to get it right.*

Maybe these folks...


*Tom Savini got it right in 1990, by the way.

Frank Darabont Walks From the DEAD?

I think that last trailer I posted was a fake. I haven't looked into it, but it felt... wrong. Whatever the case, there's a new trailer, and it's very real, but it's not even news anymore--it's been eclipsed:

Frank Darabont has stepped down as showrunner on AMC's wildly successful series, THE WALKING DEAD.

As no official statement has been made (we're trying to get one), we're left only with speculation: was the strain of overseeing thirteen episodes too much for Darabont? I have no idea. Some have suggested as much, but what of the talk that AMC was threatening to cut the show's budget?

Two months ago, Darabont told The Hollywood Reporter that he feared budget cuts would hurt the show:

“Creatively I have no complaints thus far, but I believe if they do move ahead with what they’re talking about, it will affect the show creatively ... in a negative way. Which just strikes me as odd. If you have an asset, why would you punish it?”

Darabont's departure comes as a surprise. Just last week, he appeared at the San Diego Comic-Con and gave no indication that things were amiss. Recently, when asked if he'd be directing any episodes of the second season of THE WALKING DEAD, he said:

"I'm hoping to. You know, being the boss is kinda like being the kid who has to stay in and do homework. Everyone gets to play outside. Yeah, it's hot and miserable, but my God it's fantastic. And I'm just going, 'Aww, I've got to go home to L.A. I'm cramming for finals, I guess. While you guys get to play zombies, I'm doing homework.'"

Hindsight prompts me to read between the lines here. Was Darabont already distancing himself from the production? Is this a natural and expected thing--Darabont getting the machine rolling along and then passing the wheel to another, perhaps one with more showrunning experience? I don't know. Someone does, and I expect we'll get a real answer soon enough.

Meantime, how about that trailer?