Zombie Slash

Update, 12/3/09, 12:50PM: Our suspicions that this report was a little shady are confirmed. Author Seth Grahame-Smith confirms that the rumor is false and the adaptation of P&P&Z is to be a feature film. Either way, we are still hoping for some parody of the BBC miniseries — possibly the infamous lake scene? [The original post follows.]

According to reports based on the Pride and Prejudice and Zombies Twitter feed, the zombie-romance-classic mashup will be adapted into a 6-part miniseries. As P&P&Z fans, we can’t wait to see this Regency-ninja-zombie thing done right!

The miniseries will evidently be produced by Deadline Productions, which seems relatively legit. We are, however, calling the report unconfirmed, since we’re unsure of the Twitter page’s authenticity. But IMDB and P&P&Z author Seth Grahame-Smith have mentioned a P&P&Z adaptation, and the Twitter page does have some pretty great concept art (as seen on the left of this post) — so, we’re going to go ahead and celebrate.

Anyone who is a fan of P+P-Z (i.e., the original Pride and Prejudice) knows that the most beloved adaptation is the 6-part 1995 Pride and Prejudice BBC miniseries starring Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle.

This begs the question of whether the miniseries will be produced as a parody of the much-loved BBC miniseries. We say, bring on the critical disdain!

Related: Check out our review of P&P&Z and our other P&P&Z-related posts.

The biggest problem with Breathers, a great new zombie book released last month, could be that no one knows what genre it belongs to. It’s about zombies, but it’s not exactly a horror book. It has romance, but it’s no love story. It’s a dark comedy, sure, but it’s more than that. Some reviews are calling Breathers a Rom-Zom-Com, short for a zombie romantic comedy, but even that seems like a stretch.

Breathers is contemporary, humorous and sophisticated. If it weren’t for the zombies, this book would be on the shelf next to Nick Hornby’s latest and Fight Club. Why? Because I’m going to go out on a limb and say that the genre it belongs to is the poorly understood male ennui: A bored man struggles through a depressing existence, eventually learning how to take back his own life. Except the main character is a zombie, so he’s actually taking back his undeath.

And there’s no mistaking it — Breathers is definitely a zombie book. The story is told in first-person by Andy, a rotting corpse that lives in his parents’ wine cellar after reanimating, wandering out of the mortuary and getting locked up with the other itinerant undead at the SPCA. Between dull days and nights of watching bad television while drinking expensive wine and shampoo, Andy commiserates with other zombies at Undead Anonymous. Hilarity and poignancy ensue.

Breathers is cool and fresh new fiction. It’s the kind of zombie book you could loan to your mother. As long as your mother is okay with a little violence, irreverence and necrophilia — assuming it’s necrophilia if both parties are dead. Or undead. Whatever.

I’m giving Breathers five brains, then subtracting a half brain because, like zombies, the book starts off a tad slow but will get you in the end.

Further reading: Breathers has a pretty cool web page, Undead Anonymous, which has some good literature on coping with undeath.

Dead Set, a “reality” TV show where zombies invade the set of Big Brother, debuted in the UK last October and was rebroadcast this January. There’s still no word on when this (or any UK zombie show) will hit primetime in the US, but the show has been licensed by four international TV stations in Sweden, Spain, Africa, and Australia.

Can’t wait to see some reality TV divas get their ribcages torn out by zombie hordes? Find some clips on E4’s website and YouTube, or get the DVD box set from Amazon.co.uk.

(Via Zombie Reporting Center)

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies has illustrations! Check out the first, where we’re guessing the Bennet sisters are slaying some zombies at the Meryton Assembly.

The book comes out this April 8, 2009! We have pre-ordered our copies and we’re all over this book like Caroline Bingley after some Darcy lovin’.

(Image is via Irreference, the book’s publisher.)

William Shakespeare’s Land of the Dead is “a true and accurate account of the Elizabethan zombie plague.” The play was the best attended performance at last year’s Minnesota Fringe Festival and is coming to Philadelphia this March 12-28 via the Plays and Players theater company.

The Plays and Players website features this chilling short documentary, which explains more about the background, impact, and scientific basis of the 1599 zombie plague:

Minnesota’s Walking Shadow Theatre Company promoted their performance with this more personal account of the zombie uprising from William Shakespeare himself:

If you’re in Philadelphia, also check out this Friday’s Zombies vs. Vampires Party. You’ll probably find members of the play’s cast and crew there — and maybe you can kick some vampire butt, too.

Zombie Jesus! (2007) is a short film that explores the Jesus zombie lore (as we explored in a previous post) in a typical Midwestern US B-movie setting. The main character returns to her tiny hometown and teams up with a local Jew named Isaac to save the town from the cold, dead hands of Zombie Jesus.

We haven’t seen the movie, which has yet to come out on DVD, but some reviewers are lauding the awesome terribleness it contributed to the 2007 Toronto Film Festival, so we’ll stay tuned.

Jesus Hates Zombies, an independent comic originally released in 2007, has a second edition out with an awesome new Spiderman-esque cover illustration of zombie-slaying Jesus.

These vividly drawn black-and-white comics feature multiple short stories about Jesus’ zombie slashing adventures. Later stories feature “Laz”, Jesus’ zombie sidekick. The second installment in Jesus Hates Zombies (2008) features even more sacrilicious gore with the bonus story, Lincoln Hates Warewolves.

Some people say that Jesus was the original zombie after he returned from the grave (not to mention the cannibalistic undertones of the Eucharist, which began at The Last Supper), but Jesus Hates Zombies clears that rumor up completely. (via GeeksOfDoom)

After Max Brooks‘ revelation of the first recorded zombie attack in ancient Hierakonpolis appeared in the Zombie Survival Guide, Archeology magazine published a piece detailing the Hierakonpolis zombie site and the menace of zombie infection to the archeological community.

The piece includes an interview with Max Brooks, plus a rundown of zombie fighting techniques likely to be useful to field archeologists, including maneuvers that incorporate common excavation tools like the trowel and shovel.

The article warns archeologists to heed the threat of zombies carefully when researching, concluding that precautions “may seem absurd, but you won’t think its funny when you are feasting on the corpses of your friends and fellow researchers, in fact, you won’t be thinking at all.” (Via Archeology)

The Day the Saucers Came is a zombie-slash-every-mythos online story by Neil Gaiman (illustrations by Jouni Koponen). If you’re into zombies and anything else that’s sci-fi, fantasy, conspiracy or cryptozoology — not to mention Neil Gaiman — then check out this short illustrated story.

The story is part of an online project called Infinite Canvas. They have several stories posted, most with pleasantly macabre themes.

Dead Noon is a remake of the classic Western, High Noon, where the good guys have automatic weapons and the bad guys are undead minions of Hell. You get a vague steampunk vibe watching the trailer, tacked onto the usual B-horror camp, T&A, and not-so-special effects.

Dead Noon was released straight to DVD earlier this month. If you want to hear more about how the film was made, check out this interview with Director Andrew Wiest, a guy who really knows his way around a bloodbath.