Tag: zombies

American Ghoul – Ten Best American Zombie Films

As July ends, so does our tribute to the red, white, and ghoul. Many of us wonder what we’d do in an apocalypse. How long would we survive? Would we lose our humanity or becomes the heroes we crave to be? Truth is, we’re already creating a nightmare dystopian society, casting aside freedoms and replacing them with fearmongering, discrimination, intolerance, and violence.

Back in 1968, George A. Romero foresaw this great nation descending into chaos as gun culture and extremist ideals gained more popularity because of easy access to guns and lack of education. He saw a nation at war with itself long before the monsters showed up. His movies often contained scathing critiques of class warfare, over-militarization, moral corruption, and empty consumerism, all of which Americans still suffer greatly today.

Dawn of the Dead, 1978

Romero may have been psychic, as he didn’t think adding zombies would really change the American landscape all that much and I tend to agree. If we continue down this treacherous path, we won’t have much further to fall. The day Americans unite may very well be the day they drop the bomb.

George A. Romero

There’s one thing for certain though, you can count on the fight in America. Even the quietest, most gunshy American has a sense of revolution instilled in their soul. Communists, terrorists, extremists, zombies, we’ll fight them all! We’ll never lose that pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness. It’s truly the American way.

Zombieland, 2009

With that in mind, here are my picks of the best ten American zombie films, showing the world our American fighting spirit!

  1. Night of the Living Dead, 1968
  2. Dawn of the Dead, 1978
  3. Day of the Dead, 1985
  4. Land of the Dead, 2005
  5. Dawn of the Dead, 2004
  6. Return of the Living Dead, 1985
  7. Zombieland, 2009
  8. Planet Terror, 2007
  9. Warm Bodies, 2013
  10. Maggie, 2015

Haiku of the Week

Part IV and the conclusion of the Red, White, and Ghoul series.

praise to Uncle Sam
dropping bombs on their own
Americana

Haiku of the Week

Part II of the Red, White, and Ghoul series.

guns, mayhem, and strife
zombies on every corner
American ghoul

Image made with Starry ai.

Monthly Haiku Corner – July

Happy July! Summer is in full swing and Halloween countdown is on. Code orange alerts (fan notifications of retailers displaying seasonal products) are already being reported. America will soon be celebrating its 247 birthday and there’s nothing more American than the zombie film.

Chicago born director, Victor Halperin introduced audiences to the Haitian mythos of zombies when White Zombie opened in 1932, and in 1968, New York filmmaker George A Romero changed the Hollywood landscape forever with his first horror film, Night of the Living Dead. Yes, indeed, the zombies as American as Apple pie, which is why the theme this month is Red, White, and Ghoul. All haiku in July will connect to tell the story of a good ole fashioned American zombie apocalypse.

toxic egg salad
small town picnic gone awry
red, white, and ghoul

Haiku of the Week

During this last week in April, Halloween lovers reanimate after a long hibernation. Walpurgisnacht marks the halfway point to Halloween and revelers are planning for a ghoulish good time.

Our theme this month has been Zombie Spring.

trampled gardens
flowers covered in blood
spring of the undead

Sinister Saturdays: Half-Zombie Cocktail

Sinister Saturdays have kinda become a hodge podge of recipes for Halloween cocktails and food, random thoughts, and angry mini-meltdowns that I mark ‘private’ the next day to spare myself any humiliation over my privileged tantrums. Lucky for you, tonight is a recipe in celebration of our theme: Zombie Spring.

I call it the Half-Zombie, cuz it’s missing like half the ingredients of a Zombie cocktail.

Half-Zombie cocktail in Tonga Hut 2017 commenrative glass

Ingredients:
2-3 oz dark rum
2 oz pineapple juice
1 oz cranberry juice
1/2 oz lemon juice
1/2 oz lime juice
1/2 oz pomegrante grenadine
Dash of ginger ale

Optional Garnish: Mint, fresh fruit slices, pineapple, strawberry, lime, etc.

Half-Zombie cocktail in Tonga Hut 2017 commenrative glass

If there was anything truly sinister about this Saturday, it’s that I’m too damn lazy to go to the store to buy ingredients to make a decent Zombie. I apparently haven’t recovered from 2020.

I’ll admit this ended up on the sweet side, but sinister and sweet are what us Halloween lovers live for! Cheers!

Haiku of the Week

Our theme this month is a zombie spring.

shattered honeycomb
beehive mentality
zombie swarm

Haiku of the Week

Our theme this month is a zombie spring.

like blooming flowers
the dead return to life
easter sunday

Monthly Haiku Corner – April

Happy Spring! You know what this time of year reminds me of? Reanimation! That’s right, zombies. Flowers are everywhere and flowers bring people with pesticides trying to rid the world of bees and pesky insects, unfortunately, to the peril of the rest of the world. So, our theme this month is zombie spring. We’re almost to the halfway point til Halloween. Look alive and watch your step in graveyards.

fresh cut flowers
unknown chemicals
zombie spring

Trick or Treat Tuesday: Night of the Living Dead (1968)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQ8ZKw7YIfQ
Full-length, remastered HD version of Night of the Living Dead,
directed by George A. Romero, brought to us by Public Domain Films

Ever wonder how the most popular zombie film of all time, Night of the Living Dead ended up in U.S. public domain? Well, it happened after the original theatrical distributor, Walter Reade Organization, failed to replace a necessary copyight notice on the title card of the print of the film, after changing the movie’s title from Night of the Flesh Eaters to Night of the Living Dead.(1) 

According to U.S. copyright laws, any work made or published before 1923 automatically enters the public domain. According to the 1909 Copyright Act, all creative works needed to have a sufficient copyright notice. That’s why most works are accompanied by the following symbol © and a year.(2) The act has since been updated, but at the time of its release, Night of the living Dead needed to follow this simple rule. 

As a result of the distribution company’s error, George A. Romero immediately lost the rights to his film, and subsequently, millions of dollars in lost revenue, advertising and merchandising. In fact, up until Night of the Living Dead, zombie movies were about mind-controlled humans through manipulation, sorcery or voodoo. Romero was actually the first to create an undead flesh-eating creature that preys on the living. So, we can pretty much speculate that if Romero had retained the rights to Night of the Living Dead, every zombie book, film, TV and video game would have been controlled by George A. Romero.

Romero often expressed that losing the rights to his first feature film was one of his biggest regrets. The famed horror director passed away in 2017, after watching his creation grow into a monsterous sub-genre of horror. Strangely enough, Night of the Living Dead falling into public domain helped make zombies more popular, inspired creativity across the globe, helped spawn several horror franchises, and even launched the careers of some of today’s best horror directors. The entire zombie industry owes a debt of gratitude for its existence to this man. Maybe the universe knew the power to control zombies was too big a task for one human being.

It all worked out for George A. Romero too. As zombie popularity grew, Romero earned more opportunities to make movies, created projects, wrote books and comics, and even capitalized on his own notoriety as the “king of the zombie films.” In 1999, Night of the Living Dead was added to the U.S. National Film Registry for its historical and cultural significance.

Source Material:
1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_of_the_Living_Dead
2) https://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ15a.pdf