Author Topic: when the end comes !  (Read 201418 times)

Zathras

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Reply #375 on: November 20, 2008, 07:31:11 PM
you read the hole thread!
in one siting?

bloody hell quite an acheavement :)

You down with OCD?  Yeah, you know me!

I'm always up for a good survival thread.

Alas, the biggest problem when the zombies arrive is that it is next to impossible to defend against zombies and the living.

A little ingenuity, a look out and a small security force goes a long way after the initial wave.  Chain link fence works great, as long as there isn't a horde.  The trick to dealing with zombies is to keep their numbers manageable.



Thaurismunths

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Reply #376 on: November 20, 2008, 10:29:16 PM
The biggest problem with selecting a location is that it really wouldn't be too hard to keep zombies out, until other humans want in.

I've always wondered why agility isn't used more often as a defense?
Why not use tree forts with rope bridges or steps caved on the face of a cliff like Masada?
As well as making it impregnable to zombies, human attackers would have trouble carrying on offensive actions while negotiating the obstacles.

Another thing about the hill top, is that you can spend spare time rigging up rockslides and other gravity-powered defenses.
Gravity powered defenses are a definite advantage of the high ground.

How do you fight a bully that can un-make history?


Russell Nash

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Reply #377 on: November 21, 2008, 08:05:49 AM
High ground has distinct disadvantages against human attackers.  You make a great target up there.  Ranged weapons become a real threat.  Tree forts just get set on fire (see the crappy Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves).



Zathras

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Reply #378 on: November 21, 2008, 03:14:13 PM
High ground has distinct disadvantages against human attackers. 

Sun Tzu is rolling over in his grave.


Wait...  I have to find out how well they preserved his body...  If the zombies have Sun Tzu for a strategist, we're humped!



Russell Nash

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Reply #379 on: November 21, 2008, 06:01:54 PM
High ground has distinct disadvantages against human attackers. 

Sun Tzu is rolling over in his grave.


Wait...  I have to find out how well they preserved his body...  If the zombies have Sun Tzu for a strategist, we're humped!

Sun Tzu never had to deal with missile launchers.  High ground loses it's value as soon as your opponent can get effective cover from your weaponry while still having you within his effective range.  It is why castles went out of fashion.



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Reply #380 on: November 21, 2008, 06:56:48 PM
Sun Tzu never had to deal with missile launchers.  High ground loses it's value as soon as your opponent can get effective cover from your weaponry while still having you within his effective range.  It is why castles went out of fashion.
It really had more to do with them being expensive to build, and the collapse of the feudal system that let landowners get free labour out of their tenants. Once there were decent roads and the peasantry could move around more easily, they tended to to stick around when they were asked to spend years building a castle for free.

The design of castles did change when cannons became common - they went from having tall, thin walls that were hard to climb over to having short, thick walls that were hard to shoot through - but they didn't go away. And they even kept on being built in small numbers right up into the late 19th century.

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Zathras

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Reply #381 on: December 07, 2008, 08:46:50 PM
I watched The Postman for the first time this week.  It brought up some valid points.  Might makes right and the return of a feudal system of government.



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Reply #382 on: December 07, 2008, 09:29:16 PM
I saw (skipped around, saw the end mostly) Dawn of the Dead, the 1960s movie.
I was surprised at the end how intense it got!  i didn't think that could happen in a 60's movie :P
I happened to be talkin on AIM while watchin it and I was narrating everything to my friend as it happened.

"ooh he hit the white dude!
oh no they be fighting!
AAAh he shot him!
the mom is walkin down the stairs...
ooh i think the little girl is dead
OH NO SHES RISING!  AAAH SHES STABBING HER MOM!
wow shes really stabbing there...
holy crap thats a lot of blood!
still doin it
ooh back to the black guy
ZOMBIES AT THE DOOR
they gettin in!
RUUUN!
ZOMBIES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
ooh hes runnin to the cellar!
OH NO THE WHITE GUY IS RISING!  oo black dude killed him"

etc. :P

I'd like to hear my options, so I could weigh them, what do you say?
Five pounds?  Six pounds? Seven pounds?


Zathras

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Reply #383 on: December 07, 2008, 09:53:05 PM
Is that the first time you've seen it?!?



Bdoomed

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Reply #384 on: December 07, 2008, 10:29:12 PM
yea, hadnt seen it before.
still havent really seen it cuz i didnt have time to watch a whole movie, so i skipped around.

I'd like to hear my options, so I could weigh them, what do you say?
Five pounds?  Six pounds? Seven pounds?


Zathras

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Reply #385 on: December 07, 2008, 10:38:02 PM
 :o

The original Dawn of the Dead or Day of the Dead?  How about Soylent Green?  The Stuff?  C.H.U.D.?


I see another split happening soon.



jrderego

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Reply #386 on: December 08, 2008, 03:56:35 PM
I saw (skipped around, saw the end mostly) Dawn of the Dead, the 1960s movie.
I was surprised at the end how intense it got!  i didn't think that could happen in a 60's movie :P
I happened to be talkin on AIM while watchin it and I was narrating everything to my friend as it happened.

"ooh he hit the white dude!
oh no they be fighting!
AAAh he shot him!
the mom is walkin down the stairs...
ooh i think the little girl is dead
OH NO SHES RISING!  AAAH SHES STABBING HER MOM!
wow shes really stabbing there...
holy crap thats a lot of blood!
still doin it
ooh back to the black guy
ZOMBIES AT THE DOOR
they gettin in!
RUUUN!
ZOMBIES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
ooh hes runnin to the cellar!
OH NO THE WHITE GUY IS RISING!  oo black dude killed him"

etc. :P

That's Night of the Living Dead, not Dawn of the Dead... Most of Dawn of the Dead takes place in a mall.

If you do watch Dawn of the Dead try and see the original one first not because it's a vastly superior movie (it isn't in terms of technical excellence or direction) but because the remake cut out all of the social satire. The remake of Dawn isn't bad as far as remakes go, the first 20 minutes is scary as hell, but then it bogs down in PG13-ness and gets really boring. The original Dawn doesn't have this problem, and when it starts slowing down, there's a motorcycle gang and a pie fight to liven things up.

Day of the Dead is okay, it's an even lower budget film than Dawn and looks it. The remake of Day is supposed to be awful but I haven't seen it.

The remake of Night of the Living Dead is dreadful.

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Zathras

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Reply #387 on: December 08, 2008, 04:09:01 PM
The remake of Night of the Living Dead is dreadful.

Which one?  The one with Patricia Tallman was just a reshoot.

I didn't even notice he said Dawn instead of Night, I knew which movie he was talking about.

All of the Return of the Dead movies are campy.

Dawn and Day are way up there as far as social comentary goes.  Right, Bub?



jrderego

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Reply #388 on: December 08, 2008, 04:54:18 PM
The remake of Night of the Living Dead is dreadful.

Which one?  The one with Patricia Tallman was just a reshoot.

I didn't even notice he said Dawn instead of Night, I knew which movie he was talking about.

All of the Return of the Dead movies are campy.

Dawn and Day are way up there as far as social comentary goes.  Right, Bub?

The one with Patricia Tallman was awful, worse, there was absolutely no need for that film to even be made, like the Gus Van Sant reshoot of Psycho - Pointless, audience insulting films, both of them. Dawn and Dead have some social satire but I never felt they are hammering home a bunch of points at the expense of the story like other social commentary films.

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Zathras

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Reply #389 on: December 08, 2008, 05:08:51 PM

The one with Patricia Tallman was awful, worse, there was absolutely no need for that film to even be made, like the Gus Van Sant reshoot of Psycho - Pointless, audience insulting films, both of them. Dawn and Dead have some social satire but I never felt they are hammering home a bunch of points at the expense of the story like other social commentary films.

I don't think I saw all of any of the Night remakes.  I really don't remember.  I think the original Dawn is one of the best Zombie movies I've ever seen.  The special effects were horrible, but I think it did a really good job of handling the interaction of the survivors.  They made mistakes, yes, but those were character flaws, not movie flaws.

I'm not a huge fan of the super-fast, super-agile zombie movies like the remake of Dawn or 28 Days Later.

I haven't seen a remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers that I liked, either.



jrderego

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Reply #390 on: December 08, 2008, 05:20:31 PM

The one with Patricia Tallman was awful, worse, there was absolutely no need for that film to even be made, like the Gus Van Sant reshoot of Psycho - Pointless, audience insulting films, both of them. Dawn and Dead have some social satire but I never felt they are hammering home a bunch of points at the expense of the story like other social commentary films.

I don't think I saw all of any of the Night remakes.  I really don't remember.  I think the original Dawn is one of the best Zombie movies I've ever seen.  The special effects were horrible, but I think it did a really good job of handling the interaction of the survivors.  They made mistakes, yes, but those were character flaws, not movie flaws.

I'm not a huge fan of the super-fast, super-agile zombie movies like the remake of Dawn or 28 Days Later.

I haven't seen a remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers that I liked, either.

Amen brother! I'm a shambling-zombie man, myself.

As for the original Dawn, I think it's the second best zombie film ever made, Night supersedes it but only slightly. Night is still scarier, an effect of the black and white I think, than Dawn, which pushes it into number 1 position.

I like almost all the versions of Invasion of the Body Snatchers but none as much as Don Siegel's original with Kevin McCarthy. Of them all the worst is Invasion, the one with Daniel Craig and Nicole Kidman, which has as much uneasy suspense as a Fraggle Rock marathon.

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Reply #391 on: December 08, 2008, 05:45:23 PM

The one with Patricia Tallman was awful, worse, there was absolutely no need for that film to even be made, like the Gus Van Sant reshoot of Psycho - Pointless, audience insulting films, both of them. Dawn and Dead have some social satire but I never felt they are hammering home a bunch of points at the expense of the story like other social commentary films.

I don't think I saw all of any of the Night remakes.  I really don't remember.  I think the original Dawn is one of the best Zombie movies I've ever seen.  The special effects were horrible, but I think it did a really good job of handling the interaction of the survivors.  They made mistakes, yes, but those were character flaws, not movie flaws.

I'm not a huge fan of the super-fast, super-agile zombie movies like the remake of Dawn or 28 Days Later.

I haven't seen a remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers that I liked, either.

oh man, I LOVE 28 days later. Shambling zombies dont scare me. Ones that could easily catch me do. That movie was frightening! hehe.



Zathras

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Reply #392 on: December 08, 2008, 05:57:25 PM
While the fast zombie movies are technically in the same genre, I think they are not the same as shambling zombie movies. 

Zombie movie traits:

1.  Zombies, or something similar (28 Days)
2.  Survivors:

  a.  Lucky, found someone to help them
  b.  Average person turned onto an extaordinary person due to events
  c.  Bad ass
  d.  Leader

3.  Stronghold.  Not necessarily a good one, but it encloses the survivors for interpersonal relationships.

With fast zombies, a lot of the tension between survivors is taken away. 

To jrderego, I only remember the remake of Invasion when they tried to get away in a helicopter at the end.  I guess I just hold the original in such high regard that the rest can't compare.  The end of Invasion of the Body Snatchers is one of the all-time best!

As far as scary movies go, Phantasm did it for me.  Of course, I was 5 when I saw it the first time...



jrderego

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Reply #393 on: December 08, 2008, 06:25:50 PM
While the fast zombie movies are technically in the same genre, I think they are not the same as shambling zombie movies. 

Zombie movie traits:

1.  Zombies, or something similar (28 Days)
2.  Survivors:

  a.  Lucky, found someone to help them
  b.  Average person turned onto an extaordinary person due to events
  c.  Bad ass
  d.  Leader

3.  Stronghold.  Not necessarily a good one, but it encloses the survivors for interpersonal relationships.

With fast zombies, a lot of the tension between survivors is taken away. 

To jrderego, I only remember the remake of Invasion when they tried to get away in a helicopter at the end.  I guess I just hold the original in such high regard that the rest can't compare.  The end of Invasion of the Body Snatchers is one of the all-time best!

As far as scary movies go, Phantasm did it for me.  Of course, I was 5 when I saw it the first time...

Phantasm was awesome, I saw that for the first time on UHF TV when I was 9 or 10 and it scared me senseless.

There are so many invasion remakes it's hard to catalog them all.

There's the Don Siegel original
The 1978 version directed by Phil Kaufman, which lost the whole communist paranoia angle
The 1992 version directed by Abel Ferrara set on an army base and featuring teenage leads
The 2007 version with Daniel Craig and Nicole Kidman which is closer to the 1978 version than any of the others

A couple of other films that explored similar territory with varying degrees of success are:

It Conquered the World! (Roger Corman cheapo featuring a giant space celery as the monster).
Zontar: the thing from Venus (An ever more cheapo remake of It Conquered the World, shot for TV by Larry Buchanan).
The Puppet Masters, based on Heinlein's book of the same name.

As for the fast vs. shambling argument...

The point of Zombies, at least to me, isn't that they are faster or stronger than non-zombies, it's that there are an exponentially increasing number of them, and while you might be faster than they are, you'll have to stop and they won't. If you end up sheltered in a place the eventual sheer numbers of them outside will make it impossible to stay secure, or alive (once supplies run out).

I am actually struggling with the novel based around the Pleasant Hollow stories at the moment so it's easy for me to get sidetracked with Zombie stuff - that said, in my book and the stories, the zombies shamble. The idea being that even though decomposition is slowed in the undead, it's still occurring and that their muscle tissue dissolves just like the rest of them does. So while they might be almost walking normally when first coming out of rigor mortis and starting to move, within a couple of days they are are dragging a leg, or crawling on just arms, all bloated and nasty, until they pop and finish rotting. The stories are fun because I've set them to be at ambient temperature, so the winter isn't all that bad for the survivors as the zombies are frozen solid out in the wastelands. But in the spring and summer it gets increasingly hard to avoid them, while the zombies themselves get a much shorted undead life span due to the heat.
« Last Edit: December 08, 2008, 06:29:29 PM by jrderego »

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Zathras

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Reply #394 on: December 08, 2008, 07:14:32 PM
Mr. Derego, you are quickly becoming one of my favorite writers!  I am already hooked on Union Dues, but if you're going to give me quality zombie stories...

Ok, fanboy mode over.

You expressed my feelings about zombie movies better than I ever could.

To continue the sidetrack, I liked the first 2 Saw movies.  They had more than just gore.  Now there are movies coming out that think the camera work is what made Saw great.  Thirteen Ghosts is an example of how horror can be done well.  Ok, I'm rambling.



jrderego

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Reply #395 on: December 08, 2008, 07:26:27 PM
Mr. Derego, you are quickly becoming one of my favorite writers!  I am already hooked on Union Dues, but if you're going to give me quality zombie stories...

Ok, fanboy mode over.

You expressed my feelings about zombie movies better than I ever could.

To continue the sidetrack, I liked the first 2 Saw movies.  They had more than just gore.  Now there are movies coming out that think the camera work is what made Saw great.  Thirteen Ghosts is an example of how horror can be done well.  Ok, I'm rambling.

I am so in the mood to procrastinate...

Let me link you to the Pleasant Hollow stories if you haven't read them -
Start with Lilies for Donald.

http://talesofworldwarz.com/stories/tag/jeffrey-derego/

I don't know if I agree with you about the Saw movies... I read a review over at Sci Fi Dig a couple of weeks back, for Saw 5, that broke down all the other films in the series. I liked the first one as a curiosity, but 2-4 and -5 were hilariously awful. 3 was kind of okay.

My review, in text form, is here-

http://www.horrorview.com/Reviews/S/Saw_5.htm

As for 13 ghosts, I like the William Castle version with the ghost viewer glasses. My mom took me to a special halloween showing of that when I was a kid.

I didn't manage to sit through the remake, much like the remake of House on Haunted Hill, and When a Stranger Calls, everything I liked about the original was gone from the remake. This review pretty much sums up my feeling on all remakes -

http://www.horrorview.com/When%20a%20Stranger%20Calls%202006.htm

There are a few very minor exceptions of remakes that exceed the quality or approach of their predecessors, but they are very, very few.
« Last Edit: December 08, 2008, 08:09:24 PM by jrderego »

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Bdoomed

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Reply #396 on: December 08, 2008, 11:04:36 PM
oh ha, i got the names mixed up.  anyway ive seen the new Dawn of the Dead too, saw the full one shortly after seeing Night of the Living Dead.
havnt seen the original.

I'd like to hear my options, so I could weigh them, what do you say?
Five pounds?  Six pounds? Seven pounds?


Zathras

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Reply #397 on: December 08, 2008, 11:43:16 PM
I quit watching Saw after the 3rd one.  I liked the second one, as I felt revealing his assistant wrapped up some of my questions from the first.  In any event, I watched the first one twice, the second and third once and haven't seen 4,5,6 or whatever they're up to.

Hostel was Saw with softcore porn and even worse.
« Last Edit: December 09, 2008, 03:50:05 AM by Zathras »



oddpod

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Reply #398 on: December 11, 2008, 08:25:41 PM
oh ha, i got the names mixed up.  anyway ive seen the new Dawn of the Dead too, saw the full one shortly after seeing Night of the Living Dead.
havnt seen the original.

dont watch diary of the dead! you will never get thows preshus howers back!!

card carying dislexic and  gramatical revolushonery


Zathras

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Reply #399 on: December 11, 2008, 08:30:08 PM
dont watch diary of the dead! you will never get thows preshus howers back!!

Whew!  I was thinking about renting that this weekend.

Watched Hancock the other night, it was a good movie.  It was predictable, but still a lot of fun.

I'm going to try to find a copy of The Stuff and C.H.U.D. to watch with my wife.

Are any of the horror movies that came out this year worth watching?  I watched 28 Weeks and wanted to go kick the studio's collective asses for taking that time out of my life.