The zombie has long been the poor relation of the monstering world: vampires are sexy, werewolves are furry but zombies are just a shambles of undead morons in bad make-up. But of late vampires and werewolves have become an object of lust for frustrated teens, while zombies have quietly taken over the world one brain at a time…
rad Pitt...
Hollywood superstar Brad Pitt is the biggest name to get involved in zombie pictures to date: he’s currently jetting from Scotland to Hungary filming World War Z – a multi-million dollar zombie epic. Even at an undead shuffle, zombies have come a long way from the low budget, indie black and white beginnings of George A Romero’s Night of the Living Dead at the end of the 60s. These days, they provide rich pickings for film-makers with hits such as 28 Days Later, Land Of The Dead, Dawn Of The Dead, Shaun Of The Dead, Zombieland and Resident Evil, which is filming its fifth installment in Toronto, Canada.
esident Evil...
Most monsters are slow to adapt to new technology but the undead have made taken to video gaming like no other. After early outings in seminal games Wolfenstein and Monkey Island, a quick glance at the ‘D’ shelf in any game store reveals: Dead Island, Dead Nation, Dead Space, Dead Rising, Left For Dead, Rock of the Dead and, erm, Minecraft, while Call of Duty, Red Dead Redemption and even the Yakuza games afford prominent roles to walking corpses. Facebook and Google + have also added Zombie Lane in which you fix up your neighborhood after a zombie attack.
pocalypse...
Now is probably the time to barricade the windows, although chances are your city authority might come and do it for you. 2011 has seen cities around the world actually put strategies in place to deal with zombie invasion – and by ‘cities’ yes, we do mean ‘bored civil servants’. Bristol City in the UK has identified four levels of zombie invasion and have trained key staff in zombie-killing procedure: “Fully disconnect the brain-stem from the body through either blunt force or full head removal”. And the Centre for Disease Control in Atlanta, Georgia, has prepared this comprehensive briefing.
nvasion...
But it may already be too late. In 2001, the first Zombie Walk took place in Sacramento, California, but this student-led excuse for a party has spread all over the world. This month alone thousands of zombies have been sighted in the streets of Brisbane (where they raised money for the Brain Foundation of Australia), Pittsburgh and Denver, USA, Toronto, Canada, while in the UK, there’s a Zombie Pub Crawl in London and a trip to the seaside for Brighton’s Beach of the Dead.
iagara Falls...
When not working in gaming, cinema or staging festivals, the typical zombie finds gainful employment in the entertainment industry. 100,000 terrified visitors have already bailed out of the Nightmare Fear Factory in Niagara Falls, Canada. Dubbed the ‘world’s most frightening experience’, visitors can voluntarily chicken out – judging by the faces of those foolish enough to stay, 100,000 people can’t be wrong. The London Bridge Tombs features darkened rooms packed full with the city’s finest ghouls and Fuji-Q Highlands theme park in Japan combines some of the best roller coaster rides in the world with Coffin Theatre – a live show devised by horror director Junji Inagawa.
quid...
Staying in Japan, why not reanimate a corpse on your lunch hour? All you need is soy sauce (or salt) and a raw squid. Part culinary gimmick and part internet meme, this name of this dish, Ika Odori Don, roughly translates as ‘sushi chef likes to scare tourists’.
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