Friday 31 October 2008

Zombie Review : Dead Set



From time to time I will be reviewing zombie related media, whether that be films, T.V shows, games ect. This is the first zombie review and what better place to start than the Charlie Brooker's Dead Set.

Dead Set
Dead Set has just finished its week long run, 5 episodes, the first of which was one hour and the rest 30 mins on E4. The plot revolved around a group of people trying to survive a major zombie outbreak, the twist was that it was based around the Big Brother house. Lets just stay here for a moment because I want to say what a brilliant idea this is, think about it, the contestants in BB have no contact with the outside world so when the outbreak starts they are left clueless and only find out when one of the girls (Kelly) from the studio escapes into the house and even then they don't believe her until one of the zombies charges in.
This leads me to the ultimate criticism of this show, the zombies run, there I have said it, I hate running zombies and I plan to come back to this subject at the later date.
This aside I thought Brooker missed a trick here because the contestants went from thinking Kelly was insane to believing her in the space of 5 mins, I thought this area could have been developed a bit further to allow the characters to develope without the threat of the zombies down their necks, even if it was just for another 10 mins or so.
Moving on to the characters themselves. The contestants were just what Big Brother contestants are, 2D sterotypes and Brooker never manages to break them out of this mold, all of them remain dull and uninteresting and you really don't care if they live or die. Maybe this was his point? but I really think he wanted them to brake typecast, evidence of this can be seen when the transexual turns out to be a paramedic or when they are discussing how to take care of a problem member of their group. In fact this charge of 2D characters can be made at all the cast with the exception of Kelly.
It says something about the character developement when the most memoriable characters are basically extras. The coppers and Lisa, a woman who teams up with Kelly's boyfriend (he is standared in the middle of nowhere and trying to make his way to her). The coppers opened up questions about authority in a world where there is no law but their time is tragically short and the issues are never really explored as we head back to the house for more time with the housemates.
Then there is Lisa, whose back story is more seems to be more interesting than all the other characters put together, maybe it's because her script allows her to act as she delivers a brilliant speech about surival and having to blow your best mate's head off. I wanted more screen time with her and learn more about her, if only Brooker had spent as much effort with the rest of the cast as he did with her then I might have found myself caring about them.
The violence in Dead Set was suitably awesome for a zombie film, from Kelly bashing in a zombie's head with a fire extishger to the ripping apart of a victim it was stuff to match any zombie film that has preceeded it. So in this aspect it was not a let down.
Then there was Brooker's none too subtle message, just like the racism in Night of the Living Dead or the consumerism in Dawn, Brooker used his zombie show to deliver that message that people who watch Big Brother are idoits. However it is delieved with all the subtlity of someone smashing you in the face with a brick what has the words "Big Brother is shit" stamped on it. From zombies watching the housemates on a tv to the final shots, the message is too overt for this zombie fan. The same message is delievered better in the short film Detained (a cracking little zombie film, you should all check it out, it's free as well!)
Having said all this though, it was entertaining and worth a watch for any zombie fan. It does trick the right boxes when it came down to the violence and the end game, after all character devoplement really doesn't come into it when hundereds of zombies are chasing the contestants all over the place, it just means you are cheering for the zombies instead of the humans.

Friday 24 October 2008

Zombies: Weapons

In this installment I will be discussing what the best weapons are for fighting the walking dead from the prospective of a British person.
However first I will cover the number one rule when facing zombies, don't engage them in combat unless it's 100% necessary. Remember rescuing pets is not 100% necessary and will only land you in trouble.
So time for a run down of the different types of weapons.

Guns
Really not an issue for the average Brit because we don't have easy access to guns so it is unlikely you will have one at hand in the event of a zombie attack. Unless you have access to them through the army, police, local crime lords or you are just a farmer.
However if you happen to be one of the lucky few that does have access to firearms here then this will be your primary zombie killer because it can be used at range. With lots of ammo, a well trained person with a gun can kill alot of zombies.
This brings up another important point about guns, don't even bother trying to use one if you have no training because you won't be able to hit jack shit.
Now for a quick run down of the different types of guns and their uses against zombies.
  1. Machine guns - pretty much the worse sort of gun you can use against zombies because they are designed spray as many bullets as possible over a battlefield in the quickest amount of time. Thus they lose accuracy , making headshots next to impossible.
  2. Semi-automatic - The best zombie killer when coupled with a disciplined shooter. They kill lots of zombies in a short space of time, accurate over long range too.
  3. Shotguns - Short range stopping power only but they can save you in a tight spot but they do take up lots of room so consider this if you have to make a long journey.
  4. Pistols - If you do come across gun in Britain, it will most likely be a pistol. Unfortunately studies have shown that of all wasted ballistic damage done to zombies 73% are caused by handguns. (source - zombie survival guide) However they are useful if you are grabbed by a zombie, you cannot really miss from point blank and because they are light they are worth taking along.

Blunt objects

The goal when using a blunt object is to crush the brain and because the skull is one of the hardest parts of the human body, after all its job is to protect the brain, it is hard to do this. It has to be done with one blow as well because at close range you don't get a second chance.
With this in mind the best things to look out for are crow bars (as half-life has shown) as they are light, durable and have multi-propose. The cricket bat is also very useful (as Shaun of the Dead has shown) and is very common in Britain, just make sure it's a wooden one, as plastic quick cricket bat will do nothing.

Blades

There are not really many blade objects laying around your average house that will make much difference against a zombie (i.e. knives) however swords can be useful for chopping off bits. You don't even have to kill the zombie, chop off its legs and it can no longer walk, arms and it cannot bait you and chop off the head and it just becomes a head on the floor that is easy to avoid.
You have to keep them sharp.

Fire

Any form of fire is a bad idea against zombies because a zombie on fire is still alive. All you do when you use fire is a)create a zombie on fire b) unleash fire in your environment giving you none zombie related danger as fire spreads and will endanger you.

Power Tools

They may look cool in films (brain dead, Evil Dead 2 ect) however in real life they are pretty much useless as zombie killing machines. Not only are they big, they also need power so only have finite use. They are also very noisy, bringing every zombie within ear shot down on you. A weapon for the films only

Well that's a quick run down of weapons, if you have any questions concerning weapons feel free to leave a comment below. But always remember, it is better to no confront them at all, if you can run away do so.




Wednesday 22 October 2008

Atheism and bendy buses

I don't know how many of you have seen this but don't worry, I'm not about to go into an anti-religious rant, if you believe in a god or not that is your business as long as you're not hating on people because of it.
Instead I'm going to highlight this quote, from Stephen Green of Christian Voice
"Bendy-buses, like atheism, are a danger to the public at large."
How brilliant is that? Is he attacking the notion of atheism or the notion of bendy buses because I'm sure they were invented by an evil atheist with the following thought process "You know what will make people stop believing in God, Bendy Buses because they are so evil that they could only be invented in a godless world"
Now lets tackle the issues of this statement in a semi serious manner I said this was not going to be an anti-religious post to the bendy buses. Where it seems that there is more evidence of their danger, in fact a young lad was killed by one in London. As sad as this is, one death doesn't make a whole mode of transport dangerous, as a spokesman said for London transport "Fatalities are extremely rare - one fatality for every 100 million miles operated
However there was a greater concern when 3 buses caught fire in the space of 3 months in London but it the problem was found and then fixed in the fleet. We also have these buses in other parts of Britain, we have them in Leeds in fact and not once I have I read an angry letter about them in the Evening Post and the people who write to that paper will complain about anything.
In summary I think it's fair to say that bendy buses are not a danger to the public, well not more so than any other type of transport.
I will leave the atheism comment for another day but for now I will leave you with the Christian Voice website and let you decide whose side you will be, theirs or the bendy buses.

Friday 17 October 2008

Zombies : An Introduction

Zombies!!!!!!!
I promised them and here they are! This is an introduction to my favorite creature of horror, better than werewolves, vampires and witches.
The Oxford English Dictionary definition of a zombie is 1. a corpse supposedly brought back to life by witchcraft. 2. a lifeless or completely unresponsive person
We are dealing the first part of this, the whole corpse thing however I'm going to add something to this and that is that zombies can be brought back to life by science as well as witches. For evidence of this refer to Night of the Living Dead and Shaun of the Dead where it is implied a satellite crashing and releasing something into the atmosphere caused the recently dead come back to life.
In short a zombie is a walking dead person who wants to eat the living, not just humans once again Night of the Living Dead shows us that zombies will eat animals if need be.

The Detail
Now it's time to go into detail about what a zombie is and what it is capable of. In this section I will be referring heavily to the Zombie Survival Guide by Max Brooks (a book that I highly recommend if you want to survive) as well as anything I have learned from "films" about the living dead.
  • Sight - A zombie's eyes are the same as a humans'. They can spot prey from the same distances that a human can. However it is unknown if they use their sight to distinguish humans from other zombies, Shaun of the Dead demonstrates this theory when they successfully get past a horde by pretending to be zombies. However this course of action is NOT recommended.
  • Hearing - They have good hearing and can use sound to determine direction.
  • Smell - Many believe that smell is how the undead detect humans that are among them (hence why pretending to be a zombie is not a wise move). This could explain why even zombies with poor eyesight or no eyes at all can still move in on prey. With the exception of Shaun of the Dead films back up this assumption.
  • Feeling - They have no sense of pain, this is why the can carry on even after they have suffered injuries that would kill a human. This is one of the reasons they are so formidable because pain cannot stop them.
  • Decomposition - A zombie is able to "live" for around 3-5 years before decomposing so much that they are no longer a threat. They are dead so they have no way of fighting off the things that cause of decomposition.
  • Fluids - They don't have blood or other bodily fluids, well they do, it's just useless and will eventually congeal. This is an advantage to humans because it means there is no risk of infection from getting zombie blood on you. See many zombie films for evidence of this as the people get blood on them but rarely turn. It is only bites that can cause zombification.
  • Speed - Now this is an issue I'm going to come back to but in short zombies are slow due to rigor mortise and the like setting in. They CANNOT RUN. If you think they can then get the hell off my blog!
Now for the most important thing, you kill a zombie by destroying the brain! Got for the brain, these things aren't vampires, decapitation will not kill them but just make their heads into biting land mines.

And that's it for now. Although zombies will be returning in future posts.

Wednesday 15 October 2008

KNTV Show

Is the best educational show ever.
Ok now that I have got that bold statement out there I'm going to tell you what the hell it is, well no I'm not, why should when the internet can do it for me. To the wiki.
The reasons why it's brilliant is because of it's format, which mixes crazy Eastern European hosts, you've been framed and education.
Lets face it, who doesn't find Eastern Europe accents done by English actors funny. They also make songs up about the subject for the end of the show and then rock out to them. So not only does it promote learning through humour but also promotes the use of instruments to make music, shocking in the age of X-factor.
Then we move onto the you've been framed style videos. Now it's not the videos themselves that make it funny but the voice over that is telling you about the scientific or philosophy theory while these videos are going on. Like discussing Einstein's Theory of Relativity and talking about moving fast enough to time travel (relativity of course) while showing a clip of old Eastern European Women having a race. Genius.
Then there is education, well it teaches you all about the basic ideas of the subject of the show. The philosophy ones are my favorite and I really think I would have got a better grade in philosophy if these guys had taught me.
In short if you happen to have a week day off and get a chance to watch this, you own it to yourself to watch it, if only to learn about the last European Commie state, Slabovia!