How many lobes must a ghoul gulp down
Before he eats the whole brainpan?
How many skulls must a sniper nail
Before her rifle has jammed?
Yes, n’ how many bites must I take of this guy
Before I’ve digested his hand?
The zombies my friend, are rippin’ off your skin
The zombies are rippin’ off your skin

Yes, n’ how many folks must cease to exist
Before it’s called a “killing spree”?
Yes, n’ how many years in this mall can we subsist
‘Til we’re forced by bikers to flee?
Yes, n’ how many towns must shamblers infest
Before they all turn to debris?
The zombies my friend, are rippin’ off your skin
The zombies are rippin’ off your skin

Other songs that he’s rewritten include Kenny Rogers’ “The Gambler“, Prince’s “Nothing Compares 2 U“, “Jack & Diane” by John Mellencamp, and “Bohemian Rhapsody” by Queen.

Link via Boing Boing

Image by flickr user ingridjee used under creative commons license

An outbreak of zombies infecting humans is likely to be disastrous, unless extremely aggressive tactics are employed against the undead. While aggressive quarantine may eradicate the infection, this is unlikely to happen in practice. A cure would only result in some humans surviving the outbreak, although they will still coexist with zombies. Only sufficiently frequent attacks, with increasing force, will result in eradication, assuming the available resources can be mustered in time.

Well, that was fairly obvious. But now there’s hard science to back up common sense, and the academic community is starting to take the undead threat seriously.

Link via io9

Image by flickr user ingridjee used under creative commons license

When the Imperial prison barge Purge–temporary home to five hundred of the galaxy’s most ruthless killers, rebels, scoundrels, and thieves–breaks down in a distant, uninhabited part of space, its only hope appears to lie with a Star Destroyer found drifting, derelict, and seemingly abandoned. But when a boarding party from the Purge is sent to scavenge for parts, only half of them come back–bringing with them a horrific disease so lethal that within hours nearly all aboard the Purge die in ways too hideous to imagine.

And death is only the beginning.

The Purge’s half-dozen survivors–two teenage brothers, a sadistic captain of the guards, a couple of rogue smugglers, and the chief medical officer, the lone woman on board–will do whatever it takes to stay alive. But nothing can prepare them for what lies waiting aboard the Star Destroyer amid its vast creaking emptiness that isn’t really empty at all. For the dead are rising: soulless, unstoppable, and unspeakably hungry.

Schreiber has a blog, where you can find pictures of his zombified Storm Troopers staggering around ComicCon, promoting his book.

Link via Double Plus Undead

A promotional shirt for Resident Evil: Darkside Chronicles. Looks like an ordinary and rather plain t-shirt, right? But flip over the front and pull it over your head….

And you’re wearing a zombie mask! Strangely, they don’t make this shirt in a women’s style.

I’m thinking that Neatorama needs to create one of these. Neatorama logo on the front, flip it up, and you’re wearing an Alex mask.

Link via Topless Robot

Just in time for Mothers’ Day! It’s the Zombie Stomper Heel, which the seller describes as “Perfect for stompin’ on zombies..and men’s hearts.”

Link via Double Plus Undead

What do zombie chickens, Osama bin Laden and Paris Hilton have in common? They’re all in the best bad movies that have come out in the past 20 years.

Movies that were box office bombs, universally panned or just made as a bad movie from the ground up, here’s the 20 you hate to love as compiled by I Heart Chaos.

Link

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by cbz3000.

And that’s the crux of one of Schlozman’s arguments: The story changes as the situation grows grimmer. Here, the professor draws on “mirror neuron” theory, which holds that humans are hard-wired to reflect the psychological states of the people around them. (Show a test subject a short film of a face displaying disgust, or pleasure, and regions of the brain associated with those feelings activate in the subject.)

Unable to relate to the hordes of undead, the survivors in zombie films enter a spiral of despair, feeding off the panic and hopelessness of the uninfected people around them.

If you’re in Boston on Monday night, check it out.

Link — Thanks, Tom Jackson!

Yes, that’s right, just what you always wanted… apocalyptic horror in your Austen.

I know I’ll be ordering one for every middle school student I know.

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies features the original text of Jane Austen’s beloved novel with all-new scenes of bone-crunching zombie action. As our story opens, a mysterious plague has fallen upon the quiet English village of Meryton—and the dead are returning to life! Feisty heroine Elizabeth Bennet is determined to wipe out the zombie menace, but she’s soon distracted by the arrival of the haughty and arrogant Mr. Darcy. What ensues is a delightful comedy of manners with plenty of civilized sparring between the two young lovers—and even more violent sparring on the blood-soaked battlefield as Elizabeth wages war against hordes of flesh-eating undead. Complete with 20 illustrations in the style of C. E. Brock (the original illustrator of Pride and Prejudice), this insanely funny expanded edition will introduce Jane Austen’s classic novel to new legions of fans.

Link Updated Link

From the Upcoming Queue, submitted by knitmeapony.

Update 1/26/09 – Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is written by Seth Grahame-Smith (and of course, Jane Austen) and published by Quirk Books (not Chronicle Books). By Quirk Book’s request, here is the book’s Amazon page: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies – Thanks Melissa Monachello!

Shaun of the Dead

• Lots of the actors and crew originally worked on Spaced, a British comedy starring Simon Pegg (Shaun). The carryover includes director Edgar Wright, Pete Serafinowicz (Pete), Nick Frost (Ed) and Jessica Hynes (Yvonne). There are cameos by a lot of other Spaced regulars as well.

• The idea for the movie actually came from Spaced. In one episode, Simon Pegg’s character plays Resident Evil for 24 hours straight, then starts hallucinating that zombies have taken over the world.

• Look closely at all of the extras in the opening credits scene and the scene that shows Shaun walking to work. Nearly all of them will show up later in zombie-form.

• When Shaun is at the convenience store, pay attention to the guy wearing a suit that stands in line behind him. He’ll show up a little bit later as a zombie missing an arm. In real life, the actor is an amputee and had to wear a prosthetic arm for the convenience store scene.

• The smart-aleck kid that mouths off to Shaun at the appliance store is Rafe Spall, Timothy Spall’s son. You know Timothy from his roles as Peter Pettigrew in Harry Potter and the Beadle in Sweeney Todd (among other things). Rafe also shows up in Hot Fuzz, another Edgar Wright/Simon Pegg collaboration.

• Simon Pegg likes to sneak his family members into his movies, and Shaun is no exception. You’ll find his mom in the background of the appliance store and his sister outside of the Winchester pub. She’s in the window when Shaun goes down to check the fuse box and realizes that he was followed by the zombies.

• Obviously George Romero movies were a huge influence, but Edgar Wright cites Invasion of the Body Snatchers as another inspiration.

• Throughout the movie are clever references to horror movie veterans. When Shaun is trying to make a last-minute dinner reservation at Fulci’s, that’s reference to Italian director Lucio Fulci. At the appliance store, Shaun says that the manager and Ash have called in, referencing Ash from The Evil Dead. And the appliance store itself, Foree Appliances, is a reference to Ken Foree, the lead actor in the original Dawn of the Dead. Mary, the supermarket checkout girl zombie, works at Landis Supermarket – a reference to John Landis, director of Thriller and An American Werewolf in London.

• I remember being delighted when I heard Ed tell Shaun’s mom, “We’re coming to get you Barbara!” It’s an homage to Night of the Living Dead. Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg talked to George Romero after the premiere and he loved the movie, so they excitedly asked if he liked the Night reference. Turned out he hadn’t gotten it, but was delighted when they told him about it. He later repaid the favor by letting Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg be zombie extras in the remake of Land of the Dead.

• The character of David is played by Dylan Moran; you might also know him as Gordon from Run Fatboy Run. Shaun was the first thing I had ever seen him in, so to see him as the scraggly, strange, seemingly-on-something Gordon was completely bizarre to me. Turns out, it’s really the other way around. Moran is known for playing characters like Gordon; David was completely out of the norm for him.

• The Winchester scenes were shot at the Duke of Albany pub in New Cross. The pub is now being demolished to make room for flats.

• When Shaun and Ed come home trashed from the Winchester and wake up a very angry Pete, the record they’re listening to is Street Sounds Electro. According to Edgar Wright, this is an essential record for anyone who knows their electro – and Shaun would. Check out the posters in the background of that scene: there’s a poster that refers to Shaun “Smiley” Riley, which tells us Shaun’s last name and also his background: he used to be a DJ, which explains his obsession with techno. This was all explained in a scene that got cut from the movie.

• The guy who plays Pete, Pete Serafinowicz, is the voice of Darth Maul in The Phantom Menace.

• Edgar Wright has used a few personal elements from his own life in the film. His mom calls him Pickle, which is why Shaun’s mom calls him Pickle. And Shaun eats Cornetto as a hangover cure, because that’s what Edgar Wright eats after imbibing a few too many the night before. In fact, Shaun is considered part one of what fans call “The Blood and Ice Cream Trilogy.” In Shaun, red Cornettos are consumed for blood. In the second part, Hot Fuzz, blue Cornettos are consumed to represent the boys in blue. The third is called The World’s End and is so far scheduled to be out in 2010. Wright and Pegg has confirmed that the third one is green (mint), but as to what that means… who knows.

There’s a ton of trivia for this movie – you can listen to film commentary from pretty much all of the main characters, but they didn’t all record it at the same time, so you have to watch the movie a million times to catch them all. And I’m totally fine with that; I just haven’t quite gotten around to it yet. So if you know some trivia I don’t, feel free to share it in the comments. And let me know what movie you’d like to read about! I did Alex’s favorite for the first post and my favorite for the second, I think next time it’s time to move on to your picks.

Ever wonder how a Barbie could have less brains? Zombie Barbie is a sexy, creepy and totaly modern woman. The link has photos to help you figure out how to make your own.

Link Via BoingBoing

I’m rethinking the Max Brooks-endorsed M1 carbine as my anti-zombie weapon of choice. .30 carbine ammo is rather unusual, and in the event of a Stage 4 zombie apocalypse, I wouldn’t want to be scrounging around for it in vain.

Neatorama readers, what is your preferred anti-zombie weapon?

Via Confederate Yankee

When questioned about his tattoos, his response is quick and to the point. “They’re about the human body as a decomposing corpse – the art of a rotting cadaver. It’s also a tribute to horror movies, which I love.”

Bizarre Magazine conducted an in depth interview with the young man regarding his appearance, his motivation and how he’s dealing with criticism and his Internet fame.

Via Bizarre Magazine.
Photo by Neville Elder.

It’s certainly not to be missed.

Link

Image: ‘Farrah Fawcett’

A hilarious song about a man encountering his now undead co-workers after a zombie uprising. By Jonathan Coultron.

Hat tip to Matthew Johnson.