Unknown Fan Films – Marvel Zombies

It is Halloween again and what better way to celebrate than talking about zombies. We all love zombies (articles on the shuffling undead flesh bags include a look at George Romero zombies and how zombies prepare us for terrorist attacks) but what makes a zombie that little bit better? Fighting a shark? Wielding a scythe? Eating their mother’s boob? These are all valid and fun zombie activities to watch but how about if we take some of our favorite heroes from the Marvel Universe and turn them into zombies? The result was the great Marvel Zombies comic. Today, we have come across a fan trailer based on this comic concept and included is the description below to best illustrate how much of a buzz it created amongst the YouTube community and even TV.

[quote]Film movie trailer based on Marvel Zombies popular comic book series. This video was taken down for quite a while after causing quite a stir when it first premiered garnering over 650,000 hits in less than 2 weeks! Shown as #1 greatest video online by G4’s Attack of the Show![/quote]

Below is the fan film (written, produced and directed by Scott Fields and Jim Ojala) but be warned it is quite gruesome and may not be suitable for children or people under the age of 17. Like that has stopped people before.

For an obviously low budget fan film, the effects are fantastic. Both the Hulk zombie and Spider-Man zombie look exactly as they do in the comic book series and even with the slightly plastic look of the Hulk’s face, it still makes for quite a horrific scene stealer when these two meet up. It would be interesting to see if the filmmakers would be able to expand the idea because effects-wise, they have this spot on. They also have a good grasp on the characters, specifically with Peter’s sudden guilt trip while eating Mary Jane. That was a huge part of his story arc in the comic and it was great to see it play a factor here too.

This Marvel Zombies fan flick, if expanded, could have been similar to the Romero cut munchers of the 90s. However, this short trailer in my eyes looked more like the cannibal and zombie films coming out from Italy in the 80s such as Zombie Flesh Eaters. The use of quite explicit entrails eating and the emphasis on the blood and gore was a staple of those movies and they were blooming good fun all around. All in all, the film is short, somewhat slap dash in places (definitely needed to be slightly longer) but its well shot and it has that gross out appeal that some of the PG-13 (15 certificate in the UK) rated horror flicks of today don’t seem to have anymore. It’s Marvel Zombies man! Who does not want to see Spider-Man knee deep in entrails while a miffed Hulk looks on? This reviewer sure does and he is glad for seeing this short which has helped to fulfill the dream of seeing Marvel Zombies on our screens. On a scale of one to 5 we are looking at a 3 and a half which is pretty good going for a short that lasts only about 2 minutes. This is a perfect little appetizer on Halloween night before you move onto your main course of scary movies. Maybe you will find some through our other Grizzly Bomb Halloween articles, so don’t forget to check them out!

#21b – Countdown to Halloween: NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD

We already saw Doc Kronner’s take on this classic, so here is another opinion from TheBustedBoxes…

This is simply the classic Halloween horror flick in my mind. It has influenced everything from video games to music videos – ala Thriller….

#21 – Countdown to Halloween: NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD

Shot by a group of college friends who made commercials, Night of the Living Dead has endured for over 40 years as the gold standard of zombie films. Released in 1968, on a shoe-string budget, and with little to no experience for most of the cast and crew, this film continues to influence pop culture still today.

#30 – Countdown to Halloween: DAWN OF THE DEAD (1978)

I love Halloween. Everything about it. The costumes, the candy, the parties. But most importantly? It’s the one time of the year where you get to watch as many horror movies as you want without people judging or thinking you’re a closet serial killer who’s studying the fine art of murder. But not all horror is about slow-walking, mask-wearing, virgin-hunting unkillable killers. Sometimes we get a look at the less structured side of horror.

Call of Duty: Black Ops – Nazi Zombies on the Moon? Nazi Zombies on the Moon.

This is pretty self-explanatory. One of the biggest pastimes for us writers is to get online during the late hours of the night and embarrass ourselves with horrible teamwork and spite for each other (shooting George Romero in Call of the Dead just to piss each other off). We’ve been doing this for almost 3 years now, and looks like we are strapping in for one more time. According to Gamespot, and the Call of Duty website, it has been announced that the latest and last map pack for Call of Duty: Black Ops is ‘Rezurrection’ and it will be 5 zombie-infested maps. And yes, we’re going to the moon for this one.

Call of Duty: Escalation (Starring Trejo, Rooker, George A. Romero, Freddy Kruger, & Buffy the Vampire Slayer)

Call of Duty – Three words almost universally despised by wives and girlfriends everywhere. Well ladies, things are about to get worse. If it seems your man has been picking the controller up less frequently as of late, I hope you enjoy it while it lasts. Coming May 3rd is the newest expansion for the latest Call of Duty game, Black Ops. This is the second such expansion released for the game, as First Strike is almost 3 months old already. I know a few people I play online with still haven’t bought the First Strike expansion, but personally I’m happy I did, as ‘Discovery’ has become my favorite map in the game. The new add-on is called Escalation.

Here is a quick synopsis:

As indicated by the retailer leak, the DLC will include four multiplayer maps: Hotel, set “on the roof of a Cuban luxury hotel and casino against the vivid backdrop of old Havana”; Convoy, which offers up “intense, close-quarters combat at the scene of an ambushed US military convoy”; Zoo, set in a derelict Soviet-era animal park; and Stockpile, which is set in a small Russian town that contains secret facilities housing weapons of mass destruction.

Also included in the Escalation pack is a new level for Black Ops’ zombie mode. Today’s announcement gave no details on the mode, other than that it will provide a “unique Zombies experience.” However, the previous retailer leak referred to the level as “Call of the Dead.”

Ok, so new maps are always nice, but what’s really grabbing me here is the “Call of the Dead” aspect of the game. Long has the Zombie section of the game been a favorite of mine, and it is in fact the reason I bought both Call of Duty: World at War and Call of Duty: Black Ops. And while it was fun, it was obviously never a real focus for the designers. That’s about to change. Here is the trailer for the ‘Call of the Dead’ section of the expansion…

As our esteemed Technical Editor likes to say: Holy crap.

Not bad at all. Here are 4 luminaries in the Horror/Sci-Fi genre, brought together to voice characters not for a full game, but just a downloadable expansion to the game. That is throwing your budget around. Just look at this cast:

– Michael Rooker made his name with a lot of geeks in Mallrats, however was already established in the horror community for a decade prior with the title role in Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer. And for the Zombie connection – he was in the first season of AMC’s The Walking Dead.

– Danny Trejo is one Mexican you don’t want to f–k with, or so he told us in Machete. Machete was of course a spin-off of Grindhouse, and Trejo has been in such classics as Maniac Cop 2, the From Dusk Till Dawn trilogy, and Rob Zombie remake of Halloween.

– Sarah Michelle Gellar is of course best known as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but has also appeared in horror movies like I Know What You Did Last Summer, The Grudge and Scream 2.

– Robert Englund has played Freddy Kruger over 50 times between the Nightmare on Elm Street movies and the TV show they inspired. Plus he has been in other movies like Wishmaster, Urban Legend, 2001 Maniacs, and Zombie Strippers! He is a horror icon.

And all of them helmed by the man most synonymous with Zombies – George A. Romero. If you somehow don’t know who Romero is…well, you’re just not a zombie fan. He is responsible for Night of the Living Dead and all of it’s seemingly thousands of sequels.

I’ll admit, on the last map pack download, I didn’t spend a ton of time on the Zombie stage, but this time around…I plan to.

Random-Ass Movie Reviews: Creepshow

So for the first installment of Grizzly Bomb’s “Random-Ass Movie Reviews” we look to the early 1980’s. Stephen King, George A. Romero, and old school comic books bring us the camp classic Creepshow. Creepshow was a camp filled horror movie compiled of 5 short segments written mostly by Stephen King, and directed by Night of the Living Dead creator George A Romero.