Tag: Zombies

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The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon (2023–)

The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon (2023–) tries to introduce a spark of faith, of religiosity, to The Walking Dead. When Daryl (Norman Reedus), arguably the best character in TWD universe, washes up on the gloomy shores of France, all he wants is to find a way home, back to the States, back to the people he cares about, but as is always the story for Daryl, he needs to realise his worth, not just to himself but to the people he meets in France.

Daryl can never escape the traumas of his childhood. Neglected and abused by those who should’ve cared for him, it wasn’t until society collapsed, and the world became overwhelmingly vicious, that Daryl was able to find his place. His tolerance for the pain and discomfort of this new world made him resilient when others crumbled, and allowed him to keep those he cares about alive for longer. But this past abuse has taken its toll on his self-worth. When Carol, mid-way through season three of TWD, tells Beth (Emily Kinney) “he has his code”, what she’s referring to is the unflinching loyalty he has to those he cares about, even when that loyalty is misplaced or hurts him. His brother Earl is the prime example. But under his rough demeanour and unrefined manners Daryl is a righteous man. It’s why, when he meets the nun Isabelle (Clemence Poesy) in France, he agrees to help her get her nephew Laurent (Louis Puech Scigliuzzi) first to Paris, then to the Nest and the Union of Hope. Isabelle is an interesting mirror of Daryl, more sophisticated, but equally damaged, not only by the apocalypse but by her life before the hungry ones. The spark between the two is palpable and ripe to teach Daryl his worth.

Another thing this iteration makes me very conscious of are the bad guys. Antagonists within TWD universe are always authoritarian dictators, each seeking to impose their uncompromising will on survivors. It’s the binary that Rick is always battling. There’s Woodbury’s Governor (David Morrissey), the Saviour’s’ Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), and the Civic Republic of Philadelphia’s Major Beale.

In Daryl Dixon this same authoritarian antagonist appears first as Codron (Romain Levi), a local militia leader determined to revenge the death of his brother by killing Daryl. Then, when the group reaches Paris, it’s the leader of the nationalists Pouvoir. I understand why their leader Genet (Anne Charrier) wants Daryl dead, he resisted and won, but I struggle to see why she wants to create a Sixth Republic. Her ambition to punish the elites she blames for the plague, to me at least, feels like class struggle from another time, the world before walkers.

Also, why are Pouvoir collecting walkers from the States and shipping them to France? It’s a plot device that gets Daryl to France, and pits him against Genet, but it’s also absurd, as in illogical. An equally strange development are the jacked-up zombies, shot up with stimulants, even more aggressive, and able to move fast. What external threat reasoned their creation? Finally, there’s also Daryl’s vision of the messianic Laurent in the tunnels below Paris, surrounded by walkers that just pass him by. Collectively it all feels like something from The Asylum’s Walking Dead rip-off Z Nation, and out of place in the actual Walking Dead.

My hope is the choices for season one will all become clearer in the coming episodes. Daryl deserves some real adventures.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt13062500/

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The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live (2024-)

There’s a lot to like about The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live (2024-). Visually it’s stunning but it does lack the grim extremes that made early seasons of the original so compelling.

On the plus side we finally find out what happened to Rick after the bridge explosion midway through Season 9, and Michonne’s unlikely decision to go looking for him a Season later.

Rick being kidnapped is one thing but Michonne abandoning her children never felt like a realistic choice to me. I’d understand her following Rick’s trail with RJ strapped to her back and Judith at her side, but never just leaving them.

The Ones Who Live opens with Rick fighting a hoard of burning walkers for the authoritarian Civic Republic Military. His three previous attempts to escape mean he now has a wire cuffed to his wrist. This mistake, not attaching this wire to a cuff around Rick’s neck, allows him to make a fourth attempt at escaping. He cuts off his own hand. I know I said this lacks grim, and this is pretty extreme, but it doesn’t have the build up that makes his actions profound.

This lack permeates the series, caused I think by a lack of set up. There isn’t enough plot to make the back and forth of the story feel earned. Rick has been here before. The battle to survive Negan, the one that raged throughout Season 7, saw him emotionally besieged but never broken.

While I understand his capitulation within this story, mainly because it’s explained to us, I wish the writers had stuck to the three word adage, show don’t tell, and given us more of what got him here. While his actions now are desperate, he wasn’t when we last saw him.

For me, there should’ve been an entire series of Rick’s struggles to that point. Only after we know what broke him can we truly appreciate what makes him equivocate when he finally reunites with Michonne. Intellectually we know, we can work it out, but we don’t feel him get there.

I’ve been watching the TWD universe expand since the first episode. I watched all six episode of this in two days, so it’s watchable enough, but I wish the writing was a little stronger. Stronger is perhaps the wrong word. Confident is perhaps more accurate. The writing needs to relax and be more confident.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9859436/

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Don’t Grow Up (2015)

Don’t Grow Up (2015) is a coming of age story with an infected crazies twist. It’s an interesting idea let down by all kinds of inconsistencies that take you out of the story.

On an island supposedly off the coast of England, six teenagers in a youth centre wake up one morning and quickly realise they’re unsupervised. Right out of the gate there’s a lack of clarity. For example, which island are we on? Isle of Wight, Isle of Man, one of the many off the coast of Scotland? None of these places resemble the location on screen.

Then there’s the centre. The locked doors and supervision suggest a secure unit. In which case, why are (incredibly well spoken) “at risk” kids housed in mixed sex units? The film was actually shot on location in the Canary Islands, so why not set it there? How hard would it be to frame this as six “at risk” kids on one of those character building adventure courses?

Anyway, returning to the film, the initial response of the kids to their unsupervised freedom, they break into and ransack the supervisor’s office. The gob-shite banter gets more prosaic after they find and promptly empty a bottle of whiskey. Finishing the bottle provides the excuse the script needs to go on a booze-run to the local village, where one of the group conveniently has the keys to a supermarket.

While three of the boys rob the place, they each come face to bloody pipe, knife of glass, raging mother, with the true nature of the crisis; adults have become ultra-violent dead-eyed killers.

It’s during this explosion of ultra-violence the films already weakened credibility takes an almighty beating. One of the number finds a gun hidden under the supermarket counter. Guns are not a big part of British culture, they’re strictly controlled, and the overwhelming majority don’t have access to them. Finding a gun under the counter might play in the States, it might even make sense in Spain, but not in England.

The rest of the film brings murder and mayhem, love and loss, and the dawning realisation that growing up, becoming an adult, is about actions not a number, and no matter how hard you try your environment will forces adulthood on you.

Not a film I’d watch again.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3557406/

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The Beyond (1981)

The films of Lucio Fulci are an acquired taste. The Beyond (1981) is no exception. Full of non sequiturs, absurd leaps of logic, and patronising stereotypes, the constraints of plot and story acquiesce to the poetry of gory excess. A down on her luck New Yorker inherits a dilapidated hotel in Louisiana, that just happens to be sitting on one of seven gateways to hell. For me this film lacks the rawness you’ll find in Zombie Flesh Eaters (1979) but despite its failings it’s a must see for fans of the genre.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082307/

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Yummy (2019)

Comedy horror Yummy (2019) is delightfully gory, revelling in the bloody excesses of the genre. A dodgy Eastern European hospital, cashing in on the demand for cheap cosmetic surgery, supplements the usual boob-jobs, face-lifts, and liposuction, with an unethical sideline in experimental treatments that, you guessed it, turn patients into ultra-violent zombies. There’s not much to the story. Shortly after a young woman and her partner arrive at the dystopian looking hospital, infection escapes, and a small band of survivors do everything they must to escape. The fun of the film is surrendering to the gruesome violence and a suitably nihilistic end.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11054164/

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Virus-32 (2022)

If, like me, you have an unhealthy obsession with the zombie genre, you’ll recognise the influence of films like 28 Days Later (2002) and The Horde (2009) on writer and director Gustavo Hernandez. Filmed in an abandoned sports club in Montevideo, Hernandez makes the most of this single location, with some strong visuals, gory outbursts, and long takes that put you right there with troubled night guard Iris, as she tries to escape the teeth of ultra-violent infected and save her young daughter. There are no great innovations here but in a genre that attracts some of the worst film making possible, it’s well above average.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt12298140/

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The Fence by C.G. Buswell

A Russian plane releases a toxic yellow smoke over Aberdeenshire, turning anyone who inhales the poisonous cloud into a mindless zombie. Former Royal Air Force gunner Jason Harper tries to escape the undead, and get to his pregnant wife. Along the way he teams up with the resourceful, unpredictable, slightly unhinged, former heroine addict, and natural zombie killer, Imogen Prichard. With their foundling dog Sabre they slash and shoot and chew their way trough the hoards only to find themselves contained by The Fence.

Book One
Book Two

The second book follows the trio as they’re forced back into the hot zone by the maniacal colonel, ostensibly to rescue survivors, but really it’s revenge on Harper for the botched assassination of a terrorist years before.

On the plus side, there’s a lot of action, and Bushwell’s style keep up the pace. The biggest problem for me was the trio’s efficiency. When killing zombies it’s all headshots and precision knife strikes. It ends up feeling little repetitive. You never really get the feeling there’s no escape. The stakes just aren’t there. Perhaps another book will add some depth to the action.

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This Plague of Days by Robert Chazz Chute

Told over three seasons, This Plague of Days comes at the apocalypse with a certain spiritualism, if the deity controlling existence were disembodied programmers, and we were the algorithms generated to play their games.

Season One
Season Two

Autistic teenager Jaimie Spencer rarely speaks, preferring the tactile certainty of text on the pages of a dictionary, or the poetry of a latin idiom, to the noisy chaos of the world.

That is until the Sutr-X flu pandemic kills millions, and the world gets quiet. Quiet enough for Jamie to start hearing the warnings of an omnipotent entity “The Way of Things” in his dreams.

As the first wave of the virus does its worst, societies fragile order slowly disintegrates. Jamie and his family are forced to escape Kansas, fleeing north to Massachusetts, and the relative safety of the Spencer family farm.

On the road north, Jamie is told of an imminent battle, a war for the soul of humanity, and urged by “The Way of Things” to reach into the dreams of pandemic survivors, and rally an army against a new variant of Sutr.

Sutr-X has mutated, helped along by the brilliant scientist, the self-proclaimed Shiva. On a mission of her own to correct the inequalities of the world, she deliberately infects herself with a new variant of Sutr-X, Sutr-Z, Sutr-Zombie, and releases it into the world.

As this second wave rips through the United Kingdom, Shiva sets in motion a plan to release the zombie hoards on the east coast of America.

If the first wave was plague, the second cannibals, the third is a mutated version Sutr-Z, Sutr-A. Sutr-Alpha harnesses the cannibal ferocity of Sutr-Z, combines it with intelligence and strength to create an ubermensch, and apex predator, an evolutionary next step for the species.

The question is, can humanity survive these new threats, or is our destruction just The Way of Things?

Season Three

More complex than your average apocalypse fiction, the trilogy owes more than a passing nod to Stephen King’s epic battle between good and evil, The Stand (1978). Chute manages to weave zombies and vampires, into the plague and dreams of his inspiration, while expanding zombie lore beyond an overflowing hell or mutating virus.

While Chute’s plot is engaging, with a story full of ideas, there were a few things I kept tripping over, mainly to do with names. For example, calling Jamie’s mother Jack was distracting. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t read Jack as feminine. Also, to my British ears Sinjin-Smythe as a surname grates. Smythe is okay. St John-Smythe maybe? Sinjin-Smythe isn’t a name. It’s a cliche for posh and British and distracting.

All that said, I still thought it was an engaging read, with a certain televisual style to the storytelling.

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Trailer: AMC/AMC+: The Walking Dead: Dead City (2023- )

I really hope this new mini-series is as good as the trailer promises. I like the noir bleakness of the staging that is, dare I say, a cinematic reflection of the brutal tensions between Maggie (Lauren Cohan) and Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan). Blood will be spilled I’m sure.

I’ve loved The Walking Dead (2010-2022) since it started. It might be the only show I’ve watched as it was broadcast, week after week. That said, I found the final season a little uneven. Actually, for me, the show started getting patchy following the disappearance of Rick Grimes. The Walking Dead was always Rick’s story. He was the baseline, the moral centre, through which all the other characters flowed. Seen through that prism, and the coming attractions from TWD universe, it could’ve been a case of too many chiefs.

First thing that struck me when I saw the trailer, and the accompanying poster, for Dead City was the obvious references to the seminal Escape from New York (1981). It’s hard to miss. Apparently it’s deliberate. Showrunner Eli Jomé told Slash Films “these are more, I would say, contemporary horror references, but a little further down the line”. As well John Carpenter, Jomé also invokes Walter Hill’s equally iconic The Warriors (1979). For me both of these films are foundational, and made a massive impression on me as a youth. It’ll be interesting to see how deep Dead City’s homage goes.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt18546730/

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Dead World by Joe McKinney

Joe McKinney’s Dead World series hits the ground running and doesn’t let up. His style is visceral and full to the brim with the gory detail you want from zombie fiction. The stories are archetypal journeys of survival. Each iteration expands the world a little, but is different enough to keep it interesting, and keep you reading.

“Dead City” is a world builder for the series. One hurricane after another has decimated the Gulf Coast, flattening cities, overwhelming the infrastructure, and leaving the dead and dying to rot in the flood waters. Those evacuated from this primordial soup of filth and pollution, bring with them a virus that’s bringing the dead back to life.

Told over one brutal night, San Antonio police officer Eddie Hudson battles across a city overrun with cannibals, in a desperate search for his wife and infant son. Eddie’s journey has the focus of recently flipped pinball, but the unrelenting pace and gory action keep the plot moving towards a suitably heroic end.

Book One
Book Two

Book two is set in this same universe, a couple of years after the San Antonio outbreak.

When the walls went up around Huston, the government contained the virus, but abandoned thousands in the quarantine zone with the infected. So when a boatload of desperate “refugees” escape this watery hell, they inevitably bring with them the necrosis filovirus.

As the virus escalates from epidemic to pandemic, groups of survivors, including one lead by retired U.S. Marshal Ed Moore, head inland seeking safety. They converge on the North Dakota Grasslands, where a nihilistic preacher is offering anyone who can get there, the chance of a new life.

If the fist book revelled in the musk of heroic individualism, “Apocalypse of the Dead” is about the dark iteration of that same individualism. I’m sure it’s not, but the charismatic cult leader with a hatred of all things governmental, feels like a very American phenomenon. Whatever the truth of that tangent, there’s a clever irony in pitting the two nihilistic end-of-days mythologies against each other.

The third book “Flesh Eater” can best be described as a series prequel.

Set in the midst of the multiple hurricanes that decimate the Gulf Coast and Huston, Emergency Operations sergeant Eleanor Norton battles to keep her husband and young daughter safe, not only from the hoards rising from the tempest waters, but a family of corrupt colleagues, taking advantage of the mayhem to rob a bank.

If books one and two are about the individualism, book three grinds into the mix that other American obsession, the ties that bind, family, duty, and honour.

Book Three
Book Four

The fourth and final book “Mutated” is a sequel, of sorts, to “Apocalypse of the Dead”. If books one and two poke at individualism, this and book three prod at themes around family.

Seven or so years after the events of the North Dakota Grasslands, we find onetime reporter Ben Richardson, barely surviving among the ruins of civilisation, when he crosses paths with Niki, Sylvia, and Avery, fleeing the strictures of compound life, to find a cure for the necrosis filovirus. As Ben, and an expanding group, race to find bite survivor Dr. Don Fisher, uber-zombie and king of the undead, the maniacal Red Man, is intent on stopping them, and bringing the world to heel.

With the future of humanity hanging in the balance, the plot is a foot to the floor, gory action, race to escape, evade, and rescue the world from the undead.