Hat tip to Icons of Fright for pointing out that Voltage Pictures have released a teaser/trailer for the new George A Romero zombie movie.

The film is still untitled and known as Blank of the Dead (my money’s on “Isle of the Dead”). Although it’s still in production you can now watch a trailer online at the official site (the link’s at the bottom right of that page). The trailer has now been removed.

I have to say it looks pretty good, hopefully a return to form after the disappointing Diary of the Dead. The plot appears to be summed up in one dialogue exchange from the trailer:

We set out trying to keep these deadheads alive and lately you’re just shooting them down like they’s mad dogs

We’ve got to get these things to learn to eat something other than us

I’ve added a review of Flight of the Living Dead (2007). I gave it two stars and concluded that it “provides neither tension nor much humour as it grinds tediously to its inevitable conclusion”.

What do you think?

The acclaimed zombie novel World War Z (WWZ) by Max Brooks has been on my “must read” list for a while now. It looks like the forthcoming film will also go onto my “must see” list.

Movie rights for the novel were bought by Paramount in 2006 and the project is set to be handled by Brad Pitt’s production company Plan B. The great J. Michael Straczynski is already on board for the script and now Variety reports that the World War Z will be directed by Marc Forster. Forster is currently enjoying success as director of hit James Bond film Quantum of Solace.

WWZ might turn out to be a very diferent zombie movie to the sort we’re used to seeing. The novel itself is set ten years after the actual outbreak and involves interviews for a UN Postwar Commission trying to investigate the disaster. According to Forster:

The genre always fascinated me, and when they pitched it to me, it reminded me of the paranoid conspiracy films of the ’70s like ‘All the President’s Men’

A little while back I mentioned the new campus game Humans vs Zombies. Well at the University of Maryland at least the humans seem to have won. The game has been shut down.

Diamondback Online reports that the University NERF Activity Society has cancelled the game after discussions with the University police. Police spokesman Paul Dillon said there was “a mutual agreement to cease and desist the game” because of safety fears: a professor had reported what he thought was an armed man on campus, only for it to turn out to be a zombies vs humans player.

Dillon also said that he was concerned “people may not feel safe when they see someone dressed in dark colors carrying a NERF blaster”.

When you put it like that I suppose he’s got a point…

UK based music duo Evil Nine have released a new album called They Live. Actually they released it a little while ago but I’ve only just heard of it and it sounds so much fun that I thought I’d give it a mention.

As you might have guessed from the title, They Live (released on Marine Parade) is inspired by the classic John Carpenter movie. According to the Evil Nine website:

“Don’t be surprised if They Live! does for zombies what Daft Punk did for robots. With stomping electro drums, ’80s Italian horror-movie synths, dirty punk basslines, and a wanton disregard for genre rules, the infamously subversive dance/electronic duo create an unstoppable soundtrack for the new zombie revolution, down to the gory horror-show cover imagery courtesy artist Dan Mumford, infamous for his sicko album art for Gallows and other punk/metal classics.”

Tracks include Feed on You (”somewhere between a zombie death march and miami vice incidental music”), How Do We Stop The Normals? (”techno wiggles and jan hammer moments twinned with a super triumphant breakdown”) and Twist the Knife with Emily Breeze (”it’s all lipstick, neon lights, fast cars and us pretending we’re in a rock band on this one”).