Have a birthday or other event coming up? Kasey Smith recently staged an elaborate surprise birthday party with an awesome theme. “A yacht party to Angel Island that was infested with brain hungry zombies!”

I don’t know about you guys, but if I were the lucky victim of the surprise Yacht Club Yuppie Zombie Party I’d immediately elevate everyone involved to BFF status. That’s definitely the most elaborate and creative Halloween-related party theme I’ve ever heard of.

Do you think there were any survivors?

We’re starting out this special Zombie (Good) Friday with an announcement that directly affects how awesome Halloween will be for the next couple of years. Unlike 2007, Halloween in 08′ and 09′ will be falling on perfect party days: Friday and Saturday! Since school and work won’t get in the way for many of us, that will result in more of everything we love about the holiday. More events and parties, entertainment on TV and in theaters, and even more crazy costumes and various stuff from Halloween retailers. It’s going to be one hell of a Halloween, folks. If you’ve ever thought to yourself “one of these years I’ll go all out for Halloween”, then you’ll be in great company in 2008.

And now, onto the undead!

Our 2nd favorite pop culture site in existence, RetroCrush, interviews George Romero and (positively) reviews Diary of the Dead. Robert, the brains behind the site, can also be seen in Zombie Walk, which is in the running to be a special feature on the Diary of the Dead DVD. If you want to see Zombie Walk or any of the other contestants immortalized in DVD format, be sure to give them a thumbs up vote.

Are you hazy on the connections between the Living Dead movies? Not sure if the Italian “sequels” really came from Romero’s original films, or how the Return series fits into the big picture? And what’s with all the remakes? The Genealogy of the Living Dead movies diagram will explain everything. How did I discover this? Oh, I was just browsing reviews of every zombie movie ever made in the ENCYCLOPEDIA ZOMBICA at Analog Medium. There’s actually a lot of zombie related reviews and info there, so it’s well worth a visit.

Delving even deeper into zombie movie reviews is the aptly named 365 Days of the Dead blog. It’s an experiment where the author one watches and reviews 1 zombie film a day for a whole year. Wow. Razor sharp reviews and and lots of embedded YouTube videos make it a lively read. Keep and eye out for DotD contest entries, which provide lots of unique fodder in a sub-genre that’s dying for some fresh blood. ZING!

So enjoy the rest of your Friday, and remember that it’s never too early to start thinking about Halloween. Now that you know it will fall on a Friday this year, will that change your plans? Are you likely to put more effort into your costume, party, haunt, etc?

Thanks to Shawn Wall for use of his ghastly photo above.

It’s been a while since the last Zombie Friday, but I’ve got a handful of news that will satiate your hunger for the undead. Spanning film, design, zombie walks and more, it’s been a good week for zombie fans…


First up is an incredibly useful roundup of Photoshop tutorials for those of us with a darker artistic sense. 70 Horror, Blood and Gore Photoshop Effects and Brushes covers everything you’ll need to know to transform even the prettiest of photos into a decaying mess… but in a good way.

If you’ve been following the progress of George A. Romero’s latest zombie movie, you know that a release date for Diary of the Dead was uncertain until January. For a while it looked like it would be a direct to DVD release, but thankfully it will have a wide release on February 15, 2008. W00t! (As if that weren’t enough, Zombie Honeymoon will also be playing on Showtime around the same time. Talk about a bloody Valentine’s Day.)

There’s a new entry into the world of niche social networking websites, and this one’s actually useful. Crawl of the Dead has a section that lists Zombie Walks, allowing the undead hordes to better plan their attack. If you know of a local Walk/Crawl going on, please list it here. If you’ve never attended one, now you know where to look!

And because zombies and bad jokes were made for each other, I have a bit of cheesy humor for you, in Photoshop form: What do vegan zombies eat? LAWLS!!1

Know of a website that zombie fans would devour? Tell us about your online zombie finds in the comments below.

Hey guys, it’s Sean, remember me? I haven’t been posting very often, but rest assured I’ve been working behind the scenes. I’ve risen shortly to tell you about some Halloween flavored t-shirts newly available from Threadless.
The one that caught my eye the most is the Derby of the Damned, which portrays some girls you don’t want to go up against in your next roller derby match. Or would you? Either way it’s definitely a 365 Halloween favorite due to the great artwork, color, and zombie/of-the-damned theme. I’m sure the pink chainsaw had something to do with it as well. Be sure to snatch this one up quick as I’m betting it will sell out quickly.
For those that need more orange in your wardrobe there is the nicely designed When I Was Pumpkin shirt. It opens our eyes to what our skillfully carved jack-o-lanterns might see on Halloween night. Another shirt, that looks to be a hit with the kids, is the Imposter. With it’s simple skeleton theme and glow in the dark print it’s a great t-shirt to sport when you know you’ll be in some black lights, or just plain darkness.

For those that don’t know how Threadless works, t-shirts are printed when users vote for them highly. So in an effort to get some more Halloween type shirts printed we’d like to encourage everyone to vote for the design entitled Pumpkin Eaters. Check it out, rate it yourself and feel free to vote for some other designs you’d like to see printed on a shirt.

In honor of Resident Evil: Extinction hitting theatres, I declare today Zombie Friday. Since truly cool zombie news doesn’t happen every week this will probably be a bi-weekly feature, but we’ll see. If you have any zombie goodies to recommend for the next Zombie Friday, shoot me an e-mail (And do aim for the head… Zing!)

So you’ve just watched Extinction and you’re hungering for more zombie viewing? Visit Zombie Cinema and you can watch 70+ zombie movies and shorts. They’re all free and in the public domain so you don’t have to worry about the MPAA knocking on your door. Talk about flesh hungry ghouls…

If you’ve never listened to Pseudopod, an amazing horror fiction podcast, be sure to poke through their archives. Their topics span all corners of the horror genre, but there are a couple great zombie stories. I can’t stress how much you need to listen to Stockholm Syndrome; it’s creepy zombie fiction at its finest. Big Boy is also a good listen.

For more undead aural pleasure, Darker Projects has 2 great offerings. For a quick dose of horror there’s 5 Minute Fears, a collection of horror flash fiction. Several of the uber short stories are pretty unique and will suck you in, with topics ranging from evil clowns to the demon within. There is also an excellent audio version of the first book in David Moody’s zombie series called Autumn. The story itself is a lot of great setup but without much delivery at the end, however the reading at Darker Projects just about makes up for it. If you’d like to spend the weekend with your arm hairs standing at attention, Autumn makes a good companion.

Know of a website that zombie fans would devour? Tell us about your online zombie viewing or listening finds in the comments below.

For the zombie enthusiast, it doesn’t take long to scrape the bottom of the zombie-themed entertainment barrel. There just aren’t that many really good movies, stories, blogs, and other web content out there. Before you know it you’re watching Day of the Dead 2: Contagium and wishing the real Zompocalypse would start. So what does a zombie fan worth his machete do when craving some fresh, heart-pounding, survivalist action? Assemble a core team and hunker down for a game of Zombies!!!

You’ve probably asked yourself at least once: what would I do if the world was being overrun with flesh hungry corpses? Here’s your chance to find out, as you and your opponents try to escape the multiplying horde of the undead, get to the whirlybird, and fly off into the sunset.

Zombies!!! is a hybrid CCG and board game that requires strategy, a strong stomach, and a strong survival instinct. Using a modual set of board game “map tiles” the layout of your town is different every time, creating endless variations. You and your fellow humans start out in Town Square, adding tiles and expanding your playing field at the beginning of each turn. Some of these tiles contain uneventful buildings, while others are fodder for the gorgeously illustrated “event cards”. For instance, at the Sporting Goods Store you can use the Lots of Ammo card to pick up a good amount of weaponry. That’s been a lifesaver more than a few times for us, and the image is probably the most gory in the pack. In the Gas Station you chuck a Molotov Cocktail and get better fighting skills for a short time. Other highly useful cards include; finding a car and discovering that The Keys Are Still In It, wielding a Chainsaw for an entire turn, and maybe the funnest discovery of all: Hey Look… A Shotgun!. The artwork on these cards, done by Dave Aikins, is amazing, and is worth the $25 price all by itself. Our first couple games were particularly long since all the players were distracted with examining the artwork.

The ever-changing board layout also sets the stage for a variant ending. Sometimes it’s impossible to lay down all the tiles and so rather than heading to the chopper, the winner is declared after killing 25 zombies. With 100 of the little grey guys included (which some people have custom painted), it’s a fun yet formidable goal. You can also opt for variant sets of rules and/or a customized card decks to create an entirely new scenario. The customization options are really endless and so many good ideas have all ready been submitted by players. For us, that’s one of the strongest features, as it means our Zompocalypse won’t veer into predictable territory and could feasibly go on forever.

After our first couple games we also noticed some downsides, but nothing too terrible. Functionally speaking, the tiles are flimsy and lightweight, so they get shuffled around a bit and frequently need adjusting to put them back into their designated spaces. For this reason, having a young kid or pet in the same room isn’t advised. Due to the flexibility of the tile placement, a large table space is frequently needed, too. Sometimes a card table will do, but often a pretty large surface is needed. (We’re thinking about making a mod where we apply magnets to the back of all pieces and then place them along wall-mounted magnet strips. Does that make us crazy?)

We tested the first edition of the game (there are many expansion packs which include new cards and tiles) and another annoying factor is the amount of devious cards: too many of them can negatively affect everyone on the board. Each player’s turn adds new zombies to the town, but many event cards “allow” you to add 5, 10, or a whole bunch of extra zombies into the mix. Not that being devious isn’t a necessary evil for this game, it’s just that too many cards are used for this purpose. When you’re running low on life and bullets (which can be a very frequent occurrence), the last thing you want is to draw card after card that would further infest your city with zombies, even if that might also slow down your opponents. As cited in another review, “The strategy of the game is hidden when you first try to play. Basically, you want to hinder all of the other players from doing well, while you hold onto as many bullets and life points at the same time”. These cards are indeed useful in thwarting the other players: there are just too many of them.

Another nitpick is obvious to us because 2 of our players are female. As we went to select our game pieces we noticed only a “shotgun guy“. No big surprise, especially since horror gamers are generally male, but the action cards are decidedly male-dominated, too. Of the 50 event cards, women only appear in 6 of them and none of them include any battle. In fact, they are either cowering, experiencing Claustrophobia or a Bad Sense of Direction. It smacks of wimpy 1968 Barbara instead of adaptive, shotgun-wielding 1990 Barbara from Night of the Living Dead. Hopefully future editions will have a wider range of characters featured in the artwork and playing pieces.

Players on Board Game Geek are pretty divided on Zombies!!!, but we give it 4 out of 5 brains. The variety makes it a new experience every time, and besides the game mechanics, the theme is spot on; the action cards explore so many ideas that movies have yet to depict. For zombie fans, it just doesn’t get any better. Grab yourself some snacks, pop in some Romero, and try your hand at surviving the Zompocalypse.

Buy Online At: Twilight Creations or find a killer deal at eBay.