Escape from Zona: Review for Z Nation 402 By A. Zombie
One thing we know for sure, Murphy will need to find his daughter. Soon. As self-centered as he is after years spent playing top dog in Zona, the drive to be present for his daughter still determines his entire decision-making process. It’s kinda sweet. Lucy probably won’t see it that way, considering she spent those years scraping by in the wasteland while papa dearest took top prize in the weekly lawn bowling tournament. She’s been left behind at every turn, merely seeing her father in passing since he gave her up at the ranch. Duct tape can’t patch the gaping holes left after Murphy abandoned his child. But will Roberta’s vision-driven quest allow for a reunion?
These visions are seemingly tied to the deterioration of Zona and its people. As the new vaccine fails, the citizens Lose Their Ever-loving Minds, reverting to mindless, ravenous beasts which aren’t quite zombies, blends, or human. They’ve created a whole new cannibalistic problem while trying to solve another. To cap it off, one of these devolving people has access to a compound which burns flesh. Just like the rain in Roberta’s vision. If they’re supposed to stop this guy, they’re heading the wrong way, though. It’ll be a tad difficult to prevent something from spreading beyond Zona’s island if they’re back on the mainland with no coordinates for the doomed safe haven. Head scratching may be a Z Nation fan’s new pastime until we get far enough in the season for any of this vision stuff to make sense.
Back on the main land, things aren’t running smoothly for, well, anyone. Lucy and Addy aren’t just captured, but then shot at by a surprising foe, only to be separated before they can use the ambush to their advantage. They get within sneezing distance of freedom just to fall short. Now they may not only miss the group heading to the promised safe place up north, but also each other as they fight their way back together.
On the flip side, 10k and Doc volunteer to run up the road on a mission to locate a delayed supply caravan. Oddly enough, it’s not hard to find. The drivers left everything right there on the road. The drivers themselves? Gone. Not a trace of anyone in, on, or under the fully-loaded vehicles. They do find a house. There’s a firefight against unseen attackers. One of them is as good a shot as 10k. That’s . . . odd. We learn quite a bit about the new cast and how they function in tense situations. Which is good to know because things just got really, really weird while they were searching for the convoy.
At the northern-bound’s camp, Sun wakes by herself. Which isn’t that bizarre. But when she checks on her patient, they’re gone. As is everyone who stayed behind during the mission. Even Red is poof. Vanished into thin air. 10k doesn’t take the news well when the squad returns. Everyone else feels much like I do—what the heck happened to the others? Is it the langoliers? Wait. Wrong universe. But seriously, how can dozens of people disappear without a trace? Humankind is small enough without half the population going MIA.
Warren’s Dream Review for Z Nation 401 By R.C. Murphy
We left our intrepid heroes at a grim place. Roberta and Murphy were injured with the same bullet. Zona forcefully collected a bunch of scientists. Addy, Lucy, and 5k went for a flight off a cliff, but forgot their wings. 10k and came back. A Zona ship hovered over the rest of the gang and seemed to aim their weapons straight at them just as the episode faded to black.
Two years later, things aren’t much better for the crew. Except Murphy. Like always, he’s adapted to his situation and flourished in ways no one alive could ever manage. Yes, alive. As in cured. No more blue dude or the suave white-haired devil, Murphy’s embraced his natural hair color . . . and sweater vests. He’s also secured a pretty plush life as Zona’s savior, a life which spreads to Roberta the instant she wakes from a two-year coma. It wasn’t a nice nap. Oh no. She’s plagued by a nightmarish, smoldering landscape dominated by an ominous black arch. These visions are nutso, folks. Intense, come out of nowhere, and sometimes contain things which make no sense now, but will probably be some brilliant epiphany down the road. Because that’s just how the show works sometimes. The visions also trigger a ripple-effect of small disasters plaguing Roberta. We haven’t seen the last of those flames, that’s for sure.
Elsewhere in the world, Doc’s become a seriously competent zombie slayer. With grace he’s never expressed before, Doc performs a hammer dance with a few undead’s skulls. His shining moment lasts about two minutes, then 10k whacks him upside the head in a case of mistaken identity. This new 10k, or Tommy as Red calls him, is a lot chiller than before. Almost too chill. He’s kind of an emotional zombie at times and it’s coming across awkwardly. The trio are heading to a pick-up spot for what’s promised to be a new start for humans up north where it’s too cold for zombies to survive. This could possibly be Citizen Z and Kaya’s new thing? There’s no confirmation of who’s in charge, only that there seems to be actual military involved at the camp. Oh and Sun Mei.
Z NATION — Season:4 — Pictured: (l-r) Tara Holt as Lucy, Anastasia Baranova as Addy — (Photo by: Daniel Sawyer Schaefer/Go2 Z 4/Syfy)
They’re not the only ones banking on the hope promised in this safe haven. Addy and Lucy are road-tripping to a better life. Along the way, Addy stops frequently to play hero. It also gives Lucy a way to work on her powers. The two don’t see eye to eye on some things. Especially if Lucy is on Addy’s right side, what with the missing eye and all. But their disagreements don’t stop Lucy from helping Addy help humanity even though the mission is long over. Which is how they’re caught by someone who may or may not be Zona goons.
Zona is . . . freaky. It’s obviously some man’s idea of heaven, all 1950’s middle-American city, complete with aimless afternoons playing leisure sports and women in skintight dresses. Murphy introduces Roberta to The Founder, an extreme survivalist who supposedly saw the zombie outbreak coming and set up a refuge for his wealthy pals where they could wait it out. No doubt the place will only get weirder as the season progresses.
Starring Wesley Snipes, Kevin Howarth, Riley Smith, Tanit Phoenix, and Sinona Roman
Oh, oh dear. Today I learned why my gut kept me away from this film for five years. If you want to see what happens when an idea completely misses the mark, here’s your study guide. On paper, if explained somewhat coherently, this is a decent concept. The reality of what they captured does not sell the idea at all, and it’s nearly incomprehensible to boot. Don’t even get me going on these names.
Aman is born to a woman who joins a convent tasked with safeguarding the passage between our world and the underworld where the damned dwell. At puberty, he’s given the boot because he’s a man, and eventually finds shelter with a butcher and her daughter, Sueno. Years pass. The youngsters fall in love. One afternoon he leaves to escort the butcher on a trip; his lover stays at home alone. Men break in and force themselves on Sueno. She hides the horrible truth until nature gives her no choice but to tell Aman. He Flips. His. Lid. Hunts down Kansa and his gang, cornering them in a jail and killing everyone inside—except Kansa’s guilt-ridden son who hung himself. Something goes wrong, Aman is killed. His grief-stricken mother literally talks the Devil into bringing Aman back, but the catch is everyone he murdered comes back a zombie. Oh and she’s gonna die. The rest of the film is Aman chasing the zombie gang around while Kansa frantically searches for a way to revive his son—not to mention constantly harvesting new skins because theirs rotted off. There’s even a plucky young sidekick for Aman, Fabulos. Did I mention this is all set in a vaguely wild west setting?
If only the plot were even that coherent in practice. The story comes out in disjointed flashes between several locations and time periods. About halfway through we finally figure out where the hell the zombie thing came from. The language used for some characters is unpleasant and sounds forced. The action suddenly flashes to the rape scene far too many times; because surely we need everyone’s POV. Not really. It’s hard to keep track of who is where and when. The zombie lore is even a bit sketchy because there doesn’t seem to be a uniform rule for how they’ll come back. Some return as revenants, just hungry and lunging at whatever they see. The rest pretty much maintain their wits, but it’s suggested they lose their humanity, and skin, each time Aman kills them but doesn’t decapitate them.
The makeup is pretty neat. I’m fascinated by the lizard zombie. Kudos to whoever came up with that idea. When it finally clicked in my mind what’s going on with the guy’s head, I had to pause and laugh. Visually, the film is pretty neat. None of the FX makeup is so lacking it pulls you from the movie, save one or two moments where they try something hard to do with practical effects, and you can tell. It happens. The costumes are covetable. Honestly, about half an hour in it really just feels like someone wants to play cowboy, so let’s doll up—and why not toss in some zombies? But the zombies have to talk because otherwise viewers really wouldn’t have a clue about the actual plot.
In the end, I’m judging this one purely on what it looks like. If one tries to think too hard about the story they tried to tell, it ends in a headache. Edited together differently, it might be salvageable. As-is, this is a pretty mess. I’m giving it one and a half punctured lungs out of five.
Mercy: Review for The Walking Dead 801 By R.C. Murphy
It’s a grandiose plan, that’s for sure. Armed to the teeth and prepared with steel-plated vehicles, a large militia formed from Hilltop, Alexandria, and Kingdom fighters begins the episode by running through the last gut checks and minutiae required to successfully survive the day ahead. The plan itself is pretty simple: Rick will convince the Savior sergeants to step aside and give them the head of the snake, or they’ll pin everyone in the building with gunfire and another teams will draw walkers to it to finish everyone off. Rick has an unreasonable moment when he once again fixates on personally murdering Negan himself instead of compromising on any method to contain this threat. Because that plan has worked so well any other time he’s tried it. The only difference is now Rick’s dragged two other communities into his vendetta in order to secure weapons since he got all his taken away.
Maggie and Ezekiel don’t seem all that put out with Rick and his whole scheme, which is weird because if I ran a community the last thing I’d do is let some guy drag me into a fight he keeps provoking. Yes, the Saviors are giant turds, but Rick is the one who set everything in motion by insisting he and he alone should lead the most ruthless group in a fifty mile radius. Honestly, this has gone on so long, I firmly believe they never should’ve stayed in Alexandria once the threats became too much. But this is someone else’s sand box and they want Rick to pull everyone into all-out war, so off they go after a hearty round of pep speeches from each leader. Before anyone points out that Maggie is not the official leader, she’s the only one other than Jesus looking out for those people at the moment and he doesn’t want the job, therefore Maggie is in charge. No one has a problem with it, either.
On that thought, it’s strange that Maggie’s pregnancy doesn’t progress in the least, but the show’s children all aged greatly during the hiatus. They’re insisting she participate in the war, or at least the first part of the plan at Sanctuary. That being said, the optics of sending an obviously pregnant woman into a fight is pretty sketchy and I can understand why they’d hold off a little longer on the great bumpining. As a Glenn fan, though, I just want proof he’s living on in some little way. The longer they put off actually acknowledging that their most successful woman is also a mother, the more frustrated I get. Maggie can be both at the same time, just let her be her whole self instead of treating her like Mrs. Potatohead, cherry-picking different traits to use each season/episode.
Seth Gilliam as Father Gabriel Stokes – The Walking Dead _ Season 8, Episode 1 – Photo Credit: Gene Page/AMC
For once, the battle plan goes more or less as intended. There’s no great triple-cross putting people in the middle of a trap. Rick amazingly keeps his calm until the end of the firefight when the bloodlust finally gets to him and he again fixates on being the soul responsible for wiping Negan off the map. The dialog is kinda laughable at points. It’s painfully obvious Rick is buying time so the secondary team can get the walkers in position and he fails to make a compelling argument against violence which just leads to a firefight. A firefight in which some of his best fighters are elsewhere. Remember, the real plan is to kill them with walkers and save the cavalry for cleaning up the rats who jumped ship before they closed in. The only snag in the plan comes at the end when they’re forced to flee or get trapped in the walker horde. Just about everyone makes it into a car. Then Gabriel goes back to grab Gregory—who threw in his hat with Negan, and then ran like a startled chicken when the fighting began, only to get pinned by gunfire in the walkers’ path. One of them makes it out of Sanctuary in an armored car. It isn’t the one we want to get away.
The stage is set to watch the fallout from this fight stretch across at least the first half of the season. They’ve got more Saviors to contend with, not to mention that snake still has its head and until Negan is out of the picture, Rick won’t rest.
Rated: Not Rated (contains intense gore, adult language, and violence)
Language: Danish
Starring: Benjamin Engell, Troels Lyby, Mille Dinesen, Ella Solgaard, and Marie Hammer Boda
Dino and Pernille Johansson live with their small family in an idyllic town, Sorgenfri, where it’s so peaceful, the teens are bored to death by the end of summer vacation. That doesn’t last long. Shortly after the new girl, Sonja, moves in across the street, things start to get weird in Denmark. The news features public service announcements on proper hygiene in hopes of staving off a virus sweeping the countryside. It doesn’t work. Sorgenfri is quarantined. The Johansson family are trapped inside, stealing glimpses through the black tarps covering their home as the military takes over once-quiet streets. One by one, the townsfolk are removed from their homes and carted off in semi-trucks. Others are forcibly stopped by the military. Gustav, the Johansson’s son, gets curious and breaks out of the house to snoop on the armed men, and perhaps check in with Sonja as well. Of course, he makes matters worse.
Let’s be frank, this film isn’t anything we haven’t seen on-screen before. I’ve seen versions of similar trapped-house horror plots for decades. What We Become takes the zombie genre back to its simplistic roots in an era where we’ve been given blockbuster after blockbuster, and even the TV shows are approached like they’re feature films cut into chunks to air each week. What you see is what you get with this film. There’s one main location. A tiny cast. Most of the action is through stolen glimpses outside, the news, or during one of the few seriously ill-thought outings to confront what’s really going on in Sorgenfri. It’s NotLD in Danish. And that’s not a bad thing. It’s simply a predictable thing, which will be what keeps genre fans from calling this film one of their top-whatever. Simple films can be well done, though. This is a perfect example.
Because most of the tension is based on how the family interacts and reacts to an unknown threat, the zombies are saved for the final act in the film. We’re given a quick look at the undead chaos at one point, but the full-frontal shambling dead came in the last fifteen minutes or so. From that point on, it’s all snarls and gnashing teeth. The makeup takes a soft approach to the newly turned zombies. Some hero zombies are pretty gruesome; one of the first we see clearly is pretty torn up. To go from the restrained first acts in the film where the zombie action was off-screen to the undead taking over the town in minutes is jarring, tampered by the makeup on the newly turned, especially those who turn inside the house. They almost look like vampires up until the feeding begins.
The final zombie action is undercut perfectly with one last bout of family drama. What happens when one of their own is ready to turn? It’s a wonderful final moment for the actors. This cast is pretty solid and did what they could with the script. Unfortunately, that script leads most characters down a path which ends with several attempts to fix their circumstances by attempting to leave the quarantine area or interact with the military on their turf. It goes about as well as you’re thinking.
What We Become is a pretty solid toe-dip into zombie storytelling. Yes, it has predictable parts. However, the cast saves the film from being tiresome. Come for the high-tension acting, stay for the comfortable feeling of watching just another zombie movie. Sometimes we all need to unwind and watch cannibalistic monsters terrorize a family, along with a few select neighbors. I’m giving this film three and a half severed arms out of five.
There’s endless possibilities in Las Vegas, Nevada. Heck, the place was pretty much built to satisfy whatever outlandish urge pops into one’s mind. Want to spend an entire paycheck in an hour? Vegas. Itching to watch stellar acrobats? Vegas. Have a hankering to try literally every kind of food imaginable crammed into one large room? Yup, Vegas has you covered. It’s not all gambling and eating. The playful side of Vegas has expanded exponentially over the last couple decades. The grandiose hotels found that diversity in attractions drew in more customers. (Duh?) Now we’ve got things like rooftop roller coasters, live shows to rival some Broadway productions, not to mention countless museums and indoor malls.
The MGM Grand is adding yet another attraction to draw in customers who aren’t into games of chance.
On September 8th, MGM Grand opened a 2,000 square foot Virtual Reality playground. Located inside their adults-only, high-tech gaming lounge, Level Up, visitors will have the opportunity to play through one of three virtual scenarios—including one set in the zombie apocalypse. The game lasts thirty minutes, costs $50, and teams may be comprised of up to eight members. Each team member will wear a wireless VR headset. The VR weapons are likewise wireless to give players a truly immersive, teatherless experience. Players are encouraged to really explore the vast gaming arena while working through the intense co-op VR games.
The VR experience is sponsored by Zero Latency, a company with several VR arenas globally. The Vegas location is the first in the western United States. Below are the game descriptions from Zero Latency’s website.
Zombie Survival
Compete against your friends and protect your fort from hordes of killer zombies!
Caught in the middle of a zombie outbreak, your team is bunkered in a fort. A rescue team is on its way and you must stay alive until they make contact. Work together to build barriers and fight off the undead hordes until help arrives!
Singularity
How will you fair against killer robots and drones?
You and your team are sent to investigate a secret military space station that has gone dark. Fight your way through killer robots, rogue drones and merciless gun turrets to reclaim the high-tech military black-site. How will you fair against AI?
Engineerium
Be prepared to have your reality turned upside down in Engineerium!
You are transformed into an ethereal, ancient alien, who must work with your clan to ascend through a mind-bending, mystical world to be reunited with your tribe. Be prepared to have your reality turned upside down!
The Walking Dead franchise draws big business for everyone involved. It only makes sense that game developers would scramble to snatch a piece of that pie. There’s a few TWD games already out in the world, namely the tension-ridden series from Telltale Games and it’s spin-offs, A New Frontier and Michonne. Telltale teamed up with Zen Studios to produce The Walking Dead Pinball, which allows players to play pinball on location maps from Telltale’s main TWD game, including the addition of player choice to determine the ongoing story. Scopely released its addition to the franchise in 2015 with The Walking Dead: Road to Survival—a game recently plagued with glitches which inspired spending freezes from dedicated players and several intense press releases from the developer promising to do better for the game’s devoted fan base.
Two more developers have stepped in to bring more undead fun to the masses this year. First up is Disruptor Beam’s The Walking Dead: March to War. While not set in the television universe and taking most of its cues from the comics, it still has events inspired by the show. In this strategy game, players develop alliances with each other in order to not only survive the walkers wandering through Washington D.C., but also the humans they encounter while building a secure home base. Players have a twenty mile map to work in, encompassing all the iconic buildings and monuments in the nation’s capital. If they’re having a hard time figuring out what to do, players have the opportunity to bring Rick and Negan onto their advisory council. Help is always needed, according to the developers. Getting by on one’s own in the game is apparently pretty difficult. March to War is free for iOS and Android devices. But you get what you pay for, and this is a new game. Expect some glitches while the developers roll out updates. The graphics aren’t stellar. There’s also been several complaints about monetary purchases failing.
The newest addition to the TWD franchise will be The Walking Dead: Our World from developer Next Games. Whereas all the other TWD-based games focus on player vs player fighting or dive deep into what’s basically a pick-your-own-adventure game format, Our World is vastly different. The game is, essentially, Pokémon Go but with walkers instead of brightly colored creatures. Augmented reality games were all the rage last year and Our World feels like it may have missed the boat by, oh, six months or so—that’s being generous since there’s no actual release date yet. That delay may be in their favor though, giving developers more time to work out the quirks which made other AR games difficult to play, or downright ridiculous due to the programs inability to read the distance to the ground accurately. Game play for Our World shows grounded characters, so there will be little chance of watching Michonne or any of the other television characters floating four feet in the air as they slay the undead. When it does finally release, the game will be available for iOS and Android systems.
Rated: Not Rated (Contains extreme violence, strong adult language) Language: English
Starring: Lori Cardille, Terry Alexander, Joseph Pilato, Richard Liberty, Jarlath Conroy, and Sherman Howard
In tribute to the man who brought us all to this weird zombie life, I snagged Day of the Dead for a re-watch . . . and realized I’d never covered the film for this website. Well, that’s just wrong. We’re going to remedy the problem right now.
Sarah and her band of scientists are perhaps the last to continue research work during the zombie apocalypse. They’re aided by thuggish army personnel who’ve just about had their limit of hunkering down in an abandoned missile silo while the man they call Frankenstein carries out gruesome experiments. The team’s goal is to find any way to lessen the zombie impact in an earth overrun by the undead. Sarah wants a cure. Her blood-coated coworker, Dr. Logan, thinks he can tame zombies using positive reinforcement and their own latent human traits. It works. Somewhat. There’s one zombie who’s not like the others: Bub. But their progress with Bub isn’t enough for Rhodes, the military man in charge. He snaps and all their hard work hits the fan.
Now, admittedly, Day of the Dead isn’t many people’s favorite Dead film. The language is beyond foul. The racism makes any sane person’s blood boil. The way the men treat the only woman is abhorrent, and while there’s no sexual violence, it sure is threatened a lot. We’re meant to be disgusted by these men. The best shortcut was to make them outrageously racist, misogynistic, and flat out a-holes of the highest caliber. They’ve existed in an echo chamber of hatred while stuck underground. Basically, this is Romero saying that if you put a bunch of awful white men in a jar, they’ll become even more hateful before turning on each other just to have someone to fight other than their own thoughts. Unfortunately, they weren’t alone and those caught in the crossfire are people who don’t deserve to be treated so badly. Almost everyone pays with their lives because Rhodes is, deep down, a frightened little boy who requires a death grip on everything he can possibly control since the world above is absolutely insane.
The ethical questions raised by Dr. Logan’s experiments lead to some of the best conversations Romero’s ever brought to the table, on-screen and off. At what point do the undead stop being human? For Logan, it is never, ever clear. He has no qualms about using the military men as fresh zombies to operate on while he searches for what makes them tick. On the other hand, he treats Bub as an adoptive son, is painfully patient with him, and goes to great lengths to ensure the zombie’s well-being. This is night and day compared to the way Logan talks to the scientific team and the military men. With humans he speaks from a place of deep entitlement, never bothering to hide that he believes himself to be far superior to them because he’s so dang smart. He gets away with it, for the most part. However when Sarah snaps and puts Rhodes or his men in their place, she’s nearly shot. Logan made himself important, far more important than his peer, and forced Rhodes to see her as disposable. Frankenstein was never in the silo to help humanity. He was there to help himself by gathering knowledge about the one thing no one else had access to, and did it in a way he knew Sarah wouldn’t replicate so she could never be on the pedestal he built for himself.
There’s so much going on with the dead in this film. This is where Romero drove home the notion that they’re not much different from us, only they have something primal driving them instead of the complex rules humans live by every day. They’ve got more freedom than the humans. Even Bub and the others imprisoned in the silo for experimentation are at liberty to do what they want because there’s no social rules for the undead. Their only restriction is placed on them by another species. They just are whoever they are and nothing can change that. Bub already possessed the reasoning capabilities Logan exploits in the film. How do we know that? Land of the Dead. In that film, the dead communicate, have returned to a human-less life where they repeat the tasks ingrained in their minds from their living days, and eventually band together to seek something which is missing from their lives. If Bub were taught how to reason, future generations of zombies wouldn’t have been able to accomplish their great trek to Fiddler’s Green. We owe a lot to Bub.
The makeup FX are some of the best . . . for 1985. Except for a few background actors in full masks who accidentally shuffled too close to camera, the zombies are a collection of what everyone considers a stereotypical zombie. Go look at your local zombie pub crawl. Most of what’s there can also be found in the final act of Day of the Dead. There’s even a clown, for heaven’s sake. Romero did it all back in a decade when zombies weren’t the cool thing to produce. That influence echoes throughout anything dealing with the undead to this day.
Day of the Dead signaled a change in the way the undead would be presented for decades. For that reason, and so many more, I’m giving it four oozing eyeballs out of five.
Rated: TV-MA (extreme violence, strong language) Language: Korean
Starring: Gong Yoo, Yu-mi Jung, Dong-seok Ma, Soo-an Kim, Woo-shik Choi, So-hee Ahn, and Eui-sung Kim
Occasionally Netflix doesn’t fail the genre completely. Recently they added Train to Busan to their streaming service, which is probably the best thing they’ve done in the last year. It’s hard to believe this film didn’t catch my attention before now, seeing as it was a huge hit across the Pacific. Let’s be honest, the American film media is horrible about giving props to genre flicks not set on their home turf. Pair that with the fact that it’s best watched in the original Korean and film media push it aside for yet another poorly produced American movie which is just a clone of fifty similar films and television shows. This film is a breath of fresh air. It’ll also keep you so far on the edge of your seat, you may fall off by the time the final scene plays out.
Seok-woo is a work-obsessed absentee father dealing with the fallout from a tense divorce. On the eve of his daughter Soo-an’s birthday, he screws up royally. To make it up to her, he relents to her demands to see her mother in Busan. Leaving town isn’t ideal. There’s something going on with one of the funds he manages and his coworker Kim is increasingly concerned about the reports he’s receiving. But a promise is a promise, so off they go. Seconds before the train departs for Busan, an injured woman jumps aboard. She’s infected with something none of them have seen before. When a train worker comes to her aid, the infected woman attacks and chaos erupts. By the time the initial attack is done, there’s only one train car worth of people left. The rest turn zombie and are locked in the middle train cars. News coming in via overhead televisions isn’t any better. Entire cities are overrun with the undead. Several are quarantined. When the train stops at last, it’s only to discover that the military couldn’t hold the quarantine and the dead have taken over. They opt to move on, pushed by an unhinged COO, Yon-suk. Throughout the last half of the movie it’s hard to tell who the real enemy is, the zombies or the paranoid humans trapped on the train.
This isn’t just another action movie with zombies. There’s a message or forty in the way the living interact with each other. We have an intense father/daughter plot which will drive anyone with a heart to tears by the third act. The film’s writer leaned heavily on the notion of ingrained human selfishness and the heinous damage it does to the masses during a crisis. Many of those who perish in the final act only die due to selfishness and their willingness to turn a blind eye to hatred if it means they’ll live to see another day. Panic becomes a new cast member at the end, unseen yet pushing one survivor group against the other with no sound reason. We’ve seen tension like that before, TWD uses it near-weekly, but here it’s so in-your-face wrong that I couldn’t help but yell at the television. That’s the kind of writing I miss, the scripts which make one forget they’re not one of the characters for a couple hours. It’s hard to watch the human cruelty, but even harder to look away.
Those zombies, guys. I haven’t seen character movement like that in ages unless it was in one of countless demonic possession films. These zombies are twitchy, bendy, snappish, and flat out cool. They’re scary solo, and pants-pissing terrifying in a mob. Kudos to the extras who worked on this film. They left everything on the set every day of production. The pay-off created probably some of my favorite mass zombie scenes to date—the train station attack on the stairs and the sequence where Seok-woo, Sang-hwa, and Yong-guk fight from car nine to car thirteen to rescue a group separated from the other survivors. Because there are so many undead, the makeup for them is simplistic. And you know what? I don’t care. They could have slapped white grease paint on them and let them loose and it wouldn’t have done a thing to lessen the performances from the extras and hero zombies.
Train to Busan is the action-packed zombie film we’ve been waiting for since World War Z tried and just didn’t quite hit the mark. There’s some issues, yes, but the writing and action are so solid, the issues get a free pass. I wouldn’t hesitate to watch it again, something I never do with zombie films outside Romero’s contributions to the genre. Train to Busan gets five severed heads out of five. Now what are you waiting for? Go watch it!
Being a fan whose interests aren’t necessarily the norm isn’t easy. We’re a small group. The shows we love don’t pull in the same kind of money or numbers as Game of Thrones or The Big Bang Theory, except TWD, of course. But it’s those smaller-budget zombie shows which really have fan’s hearts in mind. Or so I thought. There’s been some odd things happening in the background this year as far as production news goes. Yes, most shows we follow were represented at SDCC, but the information they gave us was as substantial as wet Kleenex. Now we’re a couple weeks out from the beginning of the Fall TV schedule, and two heavy-hitters for Team Undead have yet to announce an actual release date.
I’m looking at you Z Nation and Ash vs Evil Dead.
Starz has somehow delayed AvED’s announcements, despite filming being on schedule the last time we checked in with them. They’re trying to pacify fans by shoving Bruce Campbell out in the world to give interviews, all punctuated by the phrase, “In the third season, which has no release date yet.” None dare ask the man himself for a release date anymore. He deflects that question straight to his Starz overlords . . . who’re remaining mum through not only fan’s frustrated rants, but some tension from their star as his own frustrations rise thanks to this seemingly unprovoked delay from the network—this is an old struggle for them, as Campbell is notoriously short with fan questions he can’t answer due to network politics. Will we have the usual Halloween-time premiere? Will the show even make it to the small screen in 2017 at this rate? I’m trying not to be Debby Downer, here, but when a network broadcasts crickets instead of news, things don’t look good for the future of the show. That being said, AvED season 2 just hit Blu-ray/DVD, so if you’re jonesing for more gore-drenched laughs, at least you’re covered for a little while.
Syfy has been equally as quiet about Z Nation‘s return this Fall, though they’re slightly ahead of Starz by giving fans the vague promise of a September release, but that’s pretty much it. We know the gang is still filming up in Oregon. The museum which serves as their studio still allows fans to peek at the process, and the ZN Twitter page occasionally posts a filming update to advertise the experience. As for Syfy’s main accounts? Nada. Nothing. I scrolled for a bit while doing research and discovered the network is horrible about advertising their own shows, but has plenty of love for Game of Thrones and anything pop culture that they don’t create. It’s a serious disservice to their fans, actors, and production teams. What’s the point of using social media if you advertise someone else’s work ahead of your own daily? Yes, Syfy rebranded to (finally) accept geek culture as part of the network, but at what cost? Their focus remains outward, with most of their factoids and news coming from non-network sources. Meanwhile shows like Z Nation—not to mention their other women-lead shows Wynonna Earp, Dark Matter, Killjoys, and Van Helsing—are mired in uncertainty in regards to future seasons because it looks like a mere handful are interested online. But only because there’s nothing from the network to get excited about and share with the world in order to bring in new fans.
For an industry where numbers matter, Syfy and Starz seem utterly unwilling to do even a little footwork to bring in enough fans to justify a future for their horror-centric shows. The fans are here, guys. We’ve always been here, holding our breaths, waiting for shows to fill the gaps between halfway decent genre films. Don’t ignore people who want something to watch when you’ve got exactly what they need . . . except you can’t be bothered to spend the time/money to promote it. Z Nation and Ash vs Evil Dead are exactly what we’ve been begging for since TWD became bogged in their own success. It’s mind boggling that these networks still cannot tap into a built-in genre audience. Maybe peek out of your caves once in a while, dudes. Connect with the real world, perhaps? And for heaven’s sake, announce premiere dates more than 3-4 weeks in advance. Some of us have parties to plan.
Update: Murphy’s Law is real, folks. After this article was scheduled, Syfy finally announced that Z Nation will begin on September 29th at 9 PM. Of course, they didn’t come up with their own nifty graphic or anything. Instead the ZN Twitter account made the announcement by retweeting a post from the show’s co-creator, Craig Engler.
One thing we know for sure, Murphy will need to find his daughter. Soon. As self-centered as he is after years spent playing top dog in Zona, the drive to be present for his daughter still determines his entire decision-making process. It’s kinda sweet. Lucy probably won’t see it that way, considering she spent those years scraping by in the wasteland while papa dearest took top prize in the weekly lawn bowling tournament. She’s been left behind at every turn, merely seeing her father in passing since he gave her up at the ranch. Duct tape can’t patch the gaping holes left after Murphy abandoned his child. But will Roberta’s vision-driven quest allow for a reunion?
Back on the main land, things aren’t running smoothly for, well, anyone. Lucy and Addy aren’t just captured, but then shot at by a surprising foe, only to be separated before they can use the ambush to their advantage. They get within sneezing distance of freedom just to fall short. Now they may not only miss the group heading to the promised safe place up north, but also each other as they fight their way back together.
At the northern-bound’s camp, Sun wakes by herself. Which isn’t that bizarre. But when she checks on her patient, they’re gone. As is everyone who stayed behind during the mission. Even Red is poof. Vanished into thin air. 10k doesn’t take the news well when the squad returns. Everyone else feels much like I do—what the heck happened to the others? Is it the langoliers? Wait. Wrong universe. But seriously, how can dozens of people disappear without a trace? Humankind is small enough without half the population going MIA.
