horror

Boneshaker

Boneshaker

Boneshaker:
A Gearpunk Alternative History,with Zombies

Book (Series) / Long After the Outbreak / Underrated


Zombies aren’t limited to a single timeline...and terrific authors like Cherie Priest can make them horribly real in any reality.

Take Boneshaker’s world, for instance. In this universe, in the early days of the Civil War, an inventor named Leviticus Blue (Priest always comes up with the coolest character names) creates a huge machine that can drill right through the Alaska permafrost and bring gold up to the surface of the Klondike… except the Incredible Bone-Shaking Drill hits a cavern filled with very bad gas that blasts a crater into the middle of Seattle and transforms much of the populace into “rotters” (yet another cool name for zombies. We have to make a list someday). The government, in its wisdom, solves the problem by building a wall around the devastated city and abandoning it. But that doesn’t mean it disappears.

Cut to sixteen years later, as Priest relates the adventures of the heroes, villains, and monsters who scrape out a living in the remains of Seattle – outside the wall and occasionally inside the wall. The story is filled with great speculative history, action, awesome devices, and some of the smartest and most admirable female characters in zomfic. It may be the first, and one of the best, examples of steampunk fiction – and maybe the only zombie steampunk fiction around.

Best of all, Boneshaker is only the first of Priest’s five-book series, The Clockwork Century, and every one of them is better than the last. And this first book – all of them, actually – also has one of the coolest covers around.

Come on. Zombies and dirigibles. What more could you want?


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28dayslater, 28 days later, zombie movies, horror movies, rage virus

28 Days Later (2002)

28 Days Later:
Where Fast and Viral Zombies Began

Movie (series) / Outbreak & Aftermath / Fast Zombies

It’s hard to believe it’s been twenty years since Danny Boyle and Alex Garland (the often-overlooked screenwriter who’s gone on to write amazing movies like Never Let Me Go and Ex Machina and most recently Devs. But yeah: Prior to 2002, all zombies were slow. Relentless, evil, able to sneak up on you without making a sound, but slow. And though the idea of a virus behind the zombification had been tossed around before, it was 28 Days Later, and the creation of Rage, along with the super-swift conversion of the populace that basically changed the whole genre going forward. It was also the first time that most of us ever heard of Cillian Murphy or Christopher Eccleston, and… well, look at what they’ve done since. Awesome.

Anyone who calls themselves a zombie fan pretty much has to have seen 28 Days Later and its sequel, 28 Months Later, as well as cursed God for not giving us 28 Years Later, or at least not yet. But it’s also one of the Essentials that should be on the shelf, digital or analog, for any fan. And we’ve given you a link to the Amazon page that offers this classic in all its multiple variations – blue ray, original, packaged with the sequel, on and on.

Let’s not get all gummed up in the argument that these aren’t real zombies because they’re not dead people, just infected people. Hey: they’re raging humans bent on stalking, chasing, tracking down and ultimately eating other humans. That’s good enough for us, and for about 7 billion other people, so deal with it. So if you’re looking to revisit one of the best zombie movies ever made, this is the one to choose first. Or if you’re trying to convince the newbie, the uninitiated, or the just-plain stubborn that there really is some great movie-making in the genre… here you go.


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Anna and the Apocalypse (2017)

Anna and the Apocalypse (2017)

Anna and The Apocalypse: A Zombie Musical That's Actually Not Awful

Movie / Musical / Outbreak / Slow Zombies

Musicals and horror movies just go together, don’t they? You’ve got Little Shop of Horrors and Rocky Horror Picture Show, and…

… and…

Okay, Anna and the Apocalypse. And that’s about it.

Of that distinguished trio, Anna is certainly the newest and least known. It’s also the most charming in its own quirky way. You’ve got this typical musical comedy small town, these cute high school kids with a tendency to burst into song… and then you’ve got flesh-eating corpses that won’t stay dead. The plot is achingly familiar: You’ve seen zoms like this plenty of times before; the kids have to get back to their high school to see if their friends and family have survived The Rising (spoiler alert: most haven’t or won’t) … but this time they’re happy to stop along the way for the occasional, increasingly bizarre song-and-dance number. Like this one, with more than a touch of Shawn of the Dead from early on:

It shouldn’t work. At all. And yet… it does, at least for those among us who have a nearly equal love for the shamblers as we do the chorus line. It can be rented or purchased on Amazon, and if you go into it with no expectations, you just might find yourself unexpectedly delighted. (And the lead, the surprisingly British Ella Hunt, has gone on to do interesting work in the Dickinson TV series, the recent racism/horror movie called Master, the newest version of Lady Chatterley’s Lover, and even some truly remarkable music videos of her own on YouTube. Meanwhile, the director is working on a Lady Macbeth musical (!).

Try it. You just might like it. (Or if you have a musical/horror fan in range – sling it at them.)


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