The Undead Symphony

This episode we are joined by Arvind who suggested we all watch the first season of Fear the Walking Dead, the spin-off series that came our about 5 seasons into TWD and was like a breath of fresh air. We meet the dysfunctional Clark/Manawa family in LA as the zombie apocalypse hits, and hits hard. We are there at day zero, without really seeing the origins, but we see the fall of society to a degree as the characters experience it. This was something always missing in TWD as Rick slept through it.

We chat comparisons with TWD, Black Summer and Z Nation as well as our regular likes, dislikes, favourite (Tobias) and least favourite characters (Chris). 

7/10

Michael was over excited about the musical guest we are showcasing this week. It is the earworm that is Don't Get Bit! by The Zeroes. And we are very grateful to Dunc and the gang for sending it on.

Unfortunately this track isn't up on their Spotify however, here's a link to a video they made using the song - based around the famous Stony Stratford Zombie Pub Crawl - https://fb.watch/mM3InrYaFb/

Their Facebook page is https://www.facebook.com/TheZeroesMK

Linktree is https://linktr.ee/The_Zeroes?utm_source=linktree_profile_share which has the Spotify, Apple Music etc.

Finally, @duncthezero on youtube -  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOTT9tO46ux19G903umK0qA 

I'd love to hear from my dear listeners. Recommend a zombie movie or show I haven't covered, or some on and chat all things zeke. Or just like and share.

This week was a real treat. I hope I didn't gush too much, but we were joined by the wildly hairy New Zealand comedic actor and all around nice guy Harley Neville (not Harvey!) to talk about his movie I Survived a Zombie Holocaust (not Apocalypse) aka Cinema Never Dies. A film we scored with a solid 7/10.

We talk the choice not to remove the H word, movie inspiration, body hair and all things related to producing and starring in arguably one of the funniest films, let alone zombie films, we have seen in a long time.

You can find his work and follow his next big horror project take shape here on the YouTube channel he shares with his best bud and movie director Guy Pigden and we urge you to certainly check it out.

https://www.youtube.com/Pigville2

And follow his podcast on Apple, Spotify and wherever you get your podcasts.

The Guy and Harley Podcast

Finally, as a treat, and in our endeavours to showcase other talent in the space we are proud to include the Day of the Deadinspired original song by Jimmy Dread titled The Death of Captain Rhodes, check it out on bandcamp below.

https://xjimmydreadx.bandcamp.com/track/the-death-of-captain-rhodes

Stay safe out there guys, the zombie holocaust is coming.

I'd love to hear from my dear listeners. Recommend a zombie movie or show I haven't covered, or some on and chat all things zeke. Or just like and share.

In this episode Michael and I spar with the Listeners of the Dead's Stephanie, learning all about her zombie movie fixation, her podcast and her thoughts on the genre that we all love.

We then take a sideways look at her movie choice, the 2008 Nazi ghost/zombie story Outpost  starring the late, great Ray Stevenson and Richard Brake, and directed by Steve Barker who would go on to direct the sequel and Rezort starring Dougray Scott, one of our favourites.

We cover:

What song she sings with her brother?

Which is best? Dead Reckoning or the Dawn buses?

Who is the king of survival (and beans)?

And what is the deal with Nazi zombies?

To find out all this and more listen to The Undead Symphony.

I'd love to hear from my dear listeners. Recommend a zombie movie or show I haven't covered, or some on and chat all things zeke. Or just like and share.

Continuing with the South Korean reality-variety show the gang still need to escape the supermarket and then in the car park find transport by trying to match keys with the parked verhicles.

Hong Chul's true colours come out when he is willing to sacrifice anyone to save his skin, as well as lie, cheat and the bad mouth anyone behind their backs. He is a real piece of work and we here at the podcast can't stand him.

The sad thing is that he ends up causing two characters to get infected, and then jokes about it and bad mouths them some more.

But they escape and in Episode 4 things get even darker when then find themselves in a quiet backwater country village where the locals are acting weird, could they be drugging people and feeding them to their zombified relatives? If they are, then this show really has gone down a dark path. 

I'd love to hear from my dear listeners. Recommend a zombie movie or show I haven't covered, or some on and chat all things zeke. Or just like and share.

A quite ingenious combination of reality TV and unscripted adventure from South Korea sees reality TV stars, YouTubers, singers and celebrities attempt to survive the zombie apocalypse. 

With everyone else you see in the cast as zombies or survivors, the group must complete tasks to move from one location to the next. Starting in the green room of a dating show, the first 5 survivors must escape the TV studio, then get in a van. But it runs out of gas and so they reach a gas station full of zees. Here they now have to get the keys from the unfortunate driver, pump the gas and pay for it without getting bitten. When bitten they agree to become zombies.

They then end up in a firm zombie movie favourite of a supermarket, and need to make supply runs whilst avoiding self-promotion, belittling others or underhanded behaviour.

Do I like it? The concept is great, the production quality and tasks are perfect but their choice of reality stars is off. With Japanese singer Tsuki (Billie) squealing all the time, Hong Chul not taking it seriously, an injured Na-Rae, it draws away from the idea this could be good. I am thinking a second season with different survivors would score higher.

Still plenty to go, there are 8 episodes. And we only a quarter of the way in.

I'd love to hear from my dear listeners. Recommend a zombie movie or show I haven't covered, or some on and chat all things zeke. Or just like and share.

Bullied by his boss, Akira worked around the clock, he's nothing more than a corporate drone. All it takes is a zombie outbreak for him to finally feel alive! This is based on  the Manga by the Alice in Borderland creator (also on Netflix) and I have to say I didn't like it.

The long 2 hour and 9 minute movie had zero character progression, and the characters were not likeable. Akira, and the central characters ran around completely oblivious of the danger he was in, shouting in both his inside and outside voice, making stupid choices, as his Lothario friend Kencho is a coward and Shizuka is a lonely hard nosed girl who opens up after a splashy splashy time at a hot spring?

The musical montage of them having fun made me bring up bile. The music was awful. And, just when I thought it was going to get better when Akira's horrible boss appeared as leader of a community of survivors, it disappointed. 

The 8 legged zombie shark was one of very few highlights.

4/10

I am hoping Netflix's next effort Zombiverse is better 

I'd love to hear from my dear listeners. Recommend a zombie movie or show I haven't covered, or some on and chat all things zeke. Or just like and share.

Starting the new season we are doing things differently. Most, if not all, of the episodes will involve watching and discussing all things zeke with a member of the zombie movie online community, or industry professionals, before reviewing a zombie movie of their choice.

For this, the first episode we watched the 2006 Canadian comedy zombie movie FIDO starring Blly Connelly as Fido, Henry Czerny, Dylan Baker and Carrie-Ann Moss with Jennifer, aka HorrorFan42 on Instagram, and discussed wine pairings when eating flesh and brains, first zombie experience, and movies where the undead are not our enemy.

Why not give it a go and let us know your feedback.

FIDO 7.5/10 

I'd love to hear from my dear listeners. Recommend a zombie movie or show I haven't covered, or some on and chat all things zeke. Or just like and share.

There are good zombie movies, the top notch, high end, often mainstream, big studio efforts such as World War Z, Army of the Dead, the Zombielands, the Shaun's, the 28 Days and Weeks. Then you have the classics, modern and otherwise, the Romero's, the 70's and 80's Italian efforts. You have sleeper hits, the Blood Quantum and It Stains the Sands Red, the European hits like Rommbock, Yummy, The Night Eats the World. The Asian hits, the All of Us Are Dead, Train to Busan and Peninsula. And then you have this...

Pro Wrestlers vs Zombies. Michael's choice. #justsaying

If World War Z and the aforementioned hits are the cream of the crop this isn't the bottom of the barrel we are scraping, this is the barrel under it. The plot, what there is of it, is Shane Douglas kills a wrestler in the ring. who's brother sacrifices a nurse, and along with his dead brother's ghost raises an army of the dead extras and a few wresters to get revenge on Douglas and his wrestling buddies. 

If you are a fan of wrestling and more so Shane "the Franchise" Douglas or Matt Hardy or Rowdy Roddy Piper or Jim Hacksaw Duggen this may appeal to you, but outside of They Live and a brief interest in WWE in the late 90's I couldn't give a flying fuck about it.

Michael is a fan but this movie is so bad we scored it 2.5/10 an all time step ladder over the head, tin tray and pasting table choreographed low.

I'd love to hear from my dear listeners. Recommend a zombie movie or show I haven't covered, or some on and chat all things zeke. Or just like and share.

Here we have two movies we didn't hate. And that is hard with the flotsam floating in the cesspool of the genre.

Both were not on the radar and were found thanks to a dumpster dive into Amazon Prime.

We have State of Emergency starring Station 19s Jay Hayden from 2011. A nice and simple infection story with some good survival bits and Jim tries to find shelter from the running infected at a stable before moving to a factory space with three other survivors. I was genuinely surprised with this one, and Michael and I both thought it was watchable a second time and recommendable, so a solid 6/10 from both of us.

And then there is the Scandinavian Death Do Us Part with Zoe Tapper from Mr Selfridge and Ed Speleers from Downton Abbey. Two pretty good actors with a gorgeously filmed  apartment. Karen and John have had it hard since the death of their baby. Karen, a former police officer is now a drunk and wants to leave the cheery teacher John. But the zombie apocalypse happens forcing them to stay together in this brutal black comedy that isn't afraid to cover baby death, alcoholism, rape, murder, drug and drink addiction and suicide. Haunted me for days, but again a 6/10 from the pair of us. 

The endings of both were a surprise, one happily so and one depressingly so.

I'd love to hear from my dear listeners. Recommend a zombie movie or show I haven't covered, or some on and chat all things zeke. Or just like and share.

The battle of the overly long titled and very dated 1970s zombie films this week as we watch, review and discuss Let the Sleeping Corpses Lie In Manchester Morgue (1974) and Children Should Not Play With Dead Things (1972) from the makers of Porky's.

Where to start? These two very dated movies are on the Z List. One had a cult status, the other lesser known, and but (interestingly) post Night of the Living Dead, pre Dawn of the Dead. So they aren't riding on the coat tails of Dawn like many of the 1970s and 80s European movies we watched. These were ahead of the Dawn era and took two very different looks at the cause of a zombie outbreak. In Children it is a satanic ritual, in Manchester it was modern technology and radiation causing ecological disasters. Both big topics in the 1970s.

Did we like them? You will have to listen and find out. One could be remade. But which one?

I'd love to hear from my dear listeners. Recommend a zombie movie or show I haven't covered, or some on and chat all things zeke. Or just like and share.