The Undead Symphony

In this low level teen high school zombie horror from Blumhouse (Halloween, Insidious, Get Out, Black Phone) we follow the jocks and nerds trying to get extra curricular credit but going on a field trip. One small issue, the bus crashes, they are attacked by a metal head zombie, and their teacher killed, and the US is under a chemical attack, so find shelter!!!

And it is the nerds that step up, finding shelter and calling the shots. But nothing is as it seems. Well, that isn't true, they really telegraphed the plot. Ah well, still, give it a go. This is Unhuman.

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 remake of Dead Set (covered in Ep 24) this is twice the episodes, twice the carnage, twice the characters, and well, as it is Brazilian, it is a sexified version of the UK show. In Rio the reality TV Show Olympus is a hit. The contestants are stars and Brandau is the all-powerful producer/director. Nina is a peon, a runner, a gofer, and then zombie apocalypse happens.

With the first 5 episodes are almost a scene by scene remake of Dead Set, just without the Riz Ahmed plot line, and with a corrupt politician plotline. And the characters from that take over when it all goes horribly wrong.

It is a lesson in the humans being worse than the undead, with their drives and decisions ultimately bringing about their end.

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.

Set on the set of Big Brother UK Dead Set follows the contestants, production crew and they extended loved ones as they come to terms with the ongoing zombie apocalypse outside those gates. Starring Jaime Winstone and Riz Ahmed this infinitely watchable 2008 5 episode taster from Black Mirror's Charlie Brooker is post 28 Days Later fun and worth a watch.

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 podcast we watch two of the lesser known George A Romero zombie movies, the 2007 Diary of the Dead, in which George uses gimmicks including found footage, voice over narration, and CCTV, before the terrible 2009 Survival of the Dead, which could be summed up as being two backward Irish clans wipe each other out because they are dumb. The zombies were actually smarter.

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 I finally watch the first zombie I became aware of, the 1981 Zombie Lake. It has petrified me from 1982 and the moment I saw the poster in a video store window in Whitstable in Kent. I started watching horror movies in my teens, as we all do, but Zombie Lake was never watched. After Night of the Comet and the Romero's I forgot all about it, until now.... and boy, do I wish I hadn't.

And to counter the dreadful French/Spanish softcore porn with birdsong soundtrack, I am also watching the highly rated French-Canadian comedy Brain Freeze, described as being Shaun of the Dead meets The Bay. Not sure about that, but it looks good, and stars La Femme Nikita's Roy Dupris.

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.

Two very similar movies this week with the theme of infection and locked down offices. In the first, Office Uprising, Titan's Brendan Thwaites is Desmond, a slacker keeping  as low a profile as possible at Ammotech, a weapons manufacturer. When his co-workers are given a bad batch of Zolt, the new Army drink designed to up aggression they turn into homicidal maniacs and Desmond must fight to save his girl and this 3rd best friend in the office (Deadpool's Dopinder) from the Office Uprising.

And then we have the Walking Dead's Stephen Yeun (Derek) and Ready or Not's Samara Weaving in a law office building locked down by SWAT and the CDC infected with the ID7 or Red Eye virus that has a temporary effect on people of making them lose their ID, their inhibitions and lose their morals. They need to get all their revenge, save Samara's house and Derek's job whilst taking out as many of their workmates as possible.

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 I decided to dive head first into the cesspit of mediocrity. You see these movies and you avoided them. But we are not shy of making those decisions here at the Undead Symphony. We just watch them with gritted teeth and a stress ball.

And so to episode 20 where we watched the Austrian Attack of the Ledershosen Zombies, a movie wholly without any lederhosen wearing zombies, and a crappy snowboarding plot line, and Zombie Hunter, a Danny Trejo movie that will leave you wanting to shower afterwards it is so bad.

Still, we watched it so you didn't have to.

You're welcome.

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 real yin yang of a week with the underrated It Stains the Sands Red and Zombie Night.

It Stains the Sands Red tells the story of a drunkard, drug user trailer trash Molly, racing out of a zombiefied Las Vegas with her cohort Nick. With the car stuck in the sand and a zombie slowly moving up he road Nick gets bitten and the zombie chases after the drunk and high Molly.

An anti-heroine Molly has put up with so much in her life she is not taking shit from the zombie, who she dubs Smalls. She has been abused, her drug use meant her kid was taken off her and was given to her sister to look after and one bad relationship after another has beaten her. She is not taking anymore shit though, not from anyone, and not from the zombie Smalls who follows her, chasing her into the desert. And it becomes a long slow chase.

With an unknown cast and a clever premise ISTSR is totally watchable. Zombie Night however is one of the worst films I have ever seen. Despite starring Anthony Michael Hall (Weird Science, Breakfast Club, 16 Candles, The Dead Zone), Alan Ruck (Succession, Spin City, Ferris Bueller's Day Off), and Daryl Hannah (Splash!, Roxanne, Kill Bill) and being written and directed by Z Nation's Keith Allen this is terrible. Some of the most stilted acting, and the worst hackneyed dialogue ever experienced. When the ad breaks are the main source of your entertainment during the movie, you know there is something wrong. I cannot illustrate just how much I hated this 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.

In episode 18 we travel further afield to  Venezuela for Infection, where a micro biologist father has to weigh up saving mankind and saving his son, whilst in Rammbock aka Rammbock: Berlin Undead aka Siege of the Dead, we revisit one of the original movies in the zombie sub-genre of being holed up in an apartment as the apocalypse happens around you.

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 we closed our eyes and stuck a pin in the menu and came out with two very different dishes.

We have the French football themed zombie movie Goal of the Dead, as the Olympique de Paris team and their captain Lorit head back to the pissant town of Caplongue for a cup clash. A clash that will bring Lorit face to face with fatherhood, his own father, and a zombie apocalypse caused by the town's doctor and his son, Lorit's former teammate and best friend and captain of Caplongue.

And the Korean Zombie for Sale. The sheister family of conmen and women, the Guls, live in a sleepy nowhere town, conning anyone driving through their district. They are all scammers looking to make a quick buck easily. But when a zombie escapes the local bio lab, and it's bite has rejuvenating powers the Guls see this as their way out of poverty and debt, and to bring the family gas station back to it's best.

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.