The Meat

You. Yes, you. Stop what you are doing right now and go find a copy of Fido. I mean it. Don’t even bother reading the rest of this review, we will all wait for you. Do not miss out.

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Many years ago, a cloud of radiation engulfed our planet. These space particles caused the reanimation of dead bodies - Zombies! Creatures with but one destructive need, to devour the flesh of the living and so, we were forced to defend our homeland. The Zombie Wars!. Mankind pitted against legions of the unstoppable undead. But, in our darkest hour - a savior - Zomcom! Zomcom disovered that if the brain was destroyed, the zombie was destroyed, never to reanimate. And so the Zombie wars - were won!

Zomcon built security systems like the perimeter fence that surrounds our towns in a wall of protective steel. But even within the fence, danger lurked. Lingering raditation ensured that anybody who died became a zombie! And then - a breakthrough! the domestication collar. With the collar in place, the zombies desire for human flesh has been contained. Making the zombie as gentle as a household pet.

Thanks to Zomcon we can all become productive members of society. Even after we die. Zomcon a better life though containment.

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Fido is set in a post apocalyptic society, 5 years after the Zombie wars in the 1950’s. Its a beautiful fenced community, nobody locks their door and everyone has a flower bed, a white picket fence and a domesticated Zombie slave. In this community young Timmy’s mother (played by Carrie-Anne-Moss) has just rented a new Zombie (played by Billy Connolly) from Zomcon. This zombie comes into a family with a distant father, a mother trying to hold the family together and Timmy, who is bullied at school and holds opinions of zombies which differ from the norm and changes all their lives.

The Bones

The cinematography in this movie is fantastic and the performance by Billy Connolly, who can only communicate through facial expressions, grunts and roars really brings this movie to life.

The Zombies are portrayed as your standard lurching type and although the makeup used makes the zombies look like people with skin conditions, little touches like torn mouths make a big difference.

If you are into dark comedy see this movie while you can, i highly recommend it.

So over the weekend I was enjoying a few beers down at my local pub when I overheard somebody say that they were going to start a zombie band. Now, I was intrigued, but unfortunately when I looked around had no idea who it was who had said it.

But as fates would have it, later in the evening I met the guy who’s comment I  overheard and he told me a little about his next project. I gave him my contact details and will hopefully be arranging a mini interview as the project gets underway because I’m sure I’m not the only one who wants to know exactly what a zombie band is.

I guess it just goes to show that there are zombies everywhere.

The Meat

The Walking Dead is an American ongoing survival horror comic in which a small group of mismatched civilians and police officers try to survive in a world recently beset by a zombie outbreak.

Their story starts in Book 1 with Rick Grimes. Rick is a police officer, father and husband and is caught in a gunfight with an escaped convict. Rick is hit with a bullet and blacks out. He wakes up in hospital after an undetermined amount of time and finds that the hospital is infested with the living dead. Terrified and confused, his first priority is to escape the hospital and then to find his family. Rick Grimes eventually meets up with a number of survivors and with them they start a search for safety.

The Walking Dead story was written by Robert Kirkman who also wrote the wonderful Marvel Zombies comic series and is currently being drawn by Charlie Adlard.

Pick the Bones

Through this story Robert Kirkman explores the hardships and emotional distress that long-term survivors deal with, something which many other Zombie media gloss over. This exploration really brings this comic alive and its character portrayal has been done fantastically. Every character in the story reacts to the stressful situations (such as a surprise zombie attack, or running out of food) they encounter very believably and their personalities evolve and grow over time, characters overcome their fear, get complexes, fall in love, grieve, fight and generally act like people. Because of this human angle when they are not fighting zombies, or looking for somewhere safe to sleep, the survivors often end up fighting each other. This interaction and progression makes for extremely gripping story telling.

The Zombies are your classic zombie menace. slow, stupid and clumsy, but a real danger in great numbers. Its really refreshing to see a zombie menace which has not been re-imagined as being super fast or with superpowers by popular media.

The Walking Dead is a black and white comic and its this style that suits the story completely. The Zombies are grisly, bloody, decaying shadows of living creatures and beautifully portrayed. I have heard that many of the zombies are based on real people in the artists life, but even if this is untrue great care has been taken to make each zombie look unique.

Do not miss out on this fantastically crafted ongoing story of survival and Zombies!

Perhaps you were like me and didn’t receive one zombie related gift this past festive season? Fear not, you can always buy your own! Like this Crawling Zombie Animated Toy.