In the world of zombie stories, Resident Evil has more than established itself as the big winner. Box office billions aside, after this year’s better than expected, big-budget fun zombie flick Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City (reviewed here) and last year’s anime Resident Evil:Infinite Darkness, the most successful video game tie-in franchise ever only gets better. Netflix’s eight-part Resident Evillive-action television series isn’t perfect, but fans aren’t really looking for perfect. What you get is the ultimate genre-bending mash-up. Sure, you’d expect the sci-fi horror, but full-fledged kaiju monster action? Edgy-Terminator level cautionary themes? Orphan Black-inspired clones? Evil Dead-level action and fun? Skip the drama of The Walking Dead–this is the kind of action, acting, and storytelling game fans really want. And you don’t even need to care about the zombie genre to dig it.
We’re now only a month away from the eight-part Resident Evillive-action television series. And it’s coming to Netflix. Starring Ella Balinska (Charlie’s Angels), Lance Reddick (John Wick), Turlough Convery (Ready Player One), and an international slate of actors, the show catches up fans of the franchise with the infamous Umbrella Corporation three decades after discovery of the T virus.
Milla Jovovich’s badass superheroine Alice in the Resident Evil franchise, from 2002’s first film through five sequels–Resident Evil: Apocalypse (2004), Resident Evil: Extinction (2007), Resident Evil: Afterlife (2010), Resident Evil: Retribution (2012), and Resident Evil: The Final Chapter (2016)–gave sci-fi the 21st century version of Ellen Ripley and Sarah Conner. The tie-in to the Japanese survival/horror-themed video game Biohazard (renamed for the U.S. market) is a staple in the action movie genre–not only one of the world’s bestselling game series since arriving in 1996, it’s the world’s most successful video game tie-in movie franchise ever. With this year’s big-budget fun zombie flick Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City (reviewed here) and last year’s anime Resident Evil:Infinite Darkness, the game continues to makes its presence known on TV and at the movies.
The trailer for the Netflix series has a style similar to that dark horror humor of Evil Dead. Check out the monster zombie horror FX cranked up to 11 in the trailer for Resident Evil:
We’ve seen Netflix take this approach successfully with series like Chilling Adventures of Sabrina: Take a Netflix successful series and splice in a standalone episode to surprise and please the fanbase. This time it’s for a series we pegged as one of the Top 40 of the past decade, the South Korean brilliant horror mash-up, Kingdom. Two seasons of the series (the first reviewed here, the second reviewed here) have everything: a great historical drama, royal family betrayals, medieval action, pandemic politics, and zombie horror, all supported across a giant, beautiful Korean landscape. Kingdom isn’t what you’d think of as K-drama, at least not your typical romance heavy fantasy. This month Netflix is surprising its viewers with what it calls a “sidequel,” a feature-length movie about a fringe character that arrived in the second season. Check out a preview and images from Kingdom: Ashin of the North, below:
Timing of the debut of a horror genre series on Friday the 13th isn’t that much of a clever stretch, unless your series is about a plague and it’s launched on this particular Friday the 13th. It’s a shame that with most people staying home there won’t be a water cooler to circle around to discuss Netflix’s latest and greatest release. That’s the second season of Kingdom, the fantastic, epic tale of villagers in medieval 16th century South Korea dealing with a deadly plague. Check out my review of the first season here at borg. I am a bit envious of those who get to watch the first and second season together, because there are subtle hints in the first season that will have a greater impact if you remember them as the many twists and surprises are unveiled. “Ripped from the headlines,” about a zombie series? Who would have thought that was possible?
And yet it is. The first strange irony is that the production was South Korea’s first international release via Netflix, with its topic mirroring people from differing statuses coping with a sweeping virus, government incompetence and mismanagement, and the disparate treatment of economic classes. Unprepared for what lies ahead, a king is infected with a plague that renders him uncapable of leading. A group of thug-like mobsters takes the opportunity to position their candidate to take the throne–only he is not ready to lead. In fact, he doesn’t even exist–yet. The actual person best able to lead–the rightful heir to the throne, a prince played in classic Shakespearean stateliness by Ju Ji-hoon–has been pushed aside and exiled. He soon learns his people are threatened by a novel virus–a virus that restores the dead, but not as their former selves. That was in the first season. In the new season we learn that the truth behind the virus is even stranger than we could have expected. As a physician (played by the excellent Doona Bae) struggles to find a cure, the heir to the kingdom attempts to save his people and return to seize the throne from the young, ruthless queen (played by Kim Hye-jun), who is at least partly to blame for his plight.
The result is a second season that matches the success of the first–the best zombie show you’ve ever seen, while also seizing the opportunity to bring a certain gravity along by steeping the story in a historical context. And now that many have lived a few days with the threat of a deadly virus at bay, you may find the series takes on its own different, unexpected, heavy level of drama. You might agree the nature of the threat in the series makes for the least “fantasy” version of a zombie story you’ve yet seen on film or television. Kingdom is as much science fiction as fantasy, but it’s like that science fiction you’ve seen from Stan Lee superhero creations, and all his character origin stories resulting from misapplied science. You’ll also find plenty of heroes and villains.
The classic wartime strategy board game is back, but this time with the strangest update yet. It’s Axis & Allies & Zombies. Just released, the game is playable as a standalone game featuring a 1941 scenario, and if you’re a fan of the original and think you’ve exhausted all the scenarios under past editions, you’ll love the included new rule modifications for the 1942 Edition of Axis & Allies. It’s a great way to reinvigorate your game play (even if zombies aren’t your thing). Why? At its core, Axis & Allies is a heavily dice-driven game. The update really offers some random changes in circumstances thrown at you as you defend the Americans, the Soviets, the British, the Germans, or the Japanese, in an alternate universe battle to win World War II (we reviewed the new Axis & Allies 1942 Edition last year here at borg). If you love the zombie genre, even better, as no other game will give you this kind of real-world zombie battle, outside maybe your town’s annual zombie run.
Everything you need to play the game under the 1941 Zombie rules–the standalone game–are included in Axis & Allies & Zombies. Blood-spattered money (Industrial Production Credits), a stained deluxe game board, six new zombie game dice, ghostly zombie characters, new zombie control markers, a set of 60 zombies (plus an 86-card expansion deck for the 1942 Edition), and all the game pieces from the original game are included here. A big difference is this game can be played on a standard card table as opposed to the 1942 game board which requires far more space to play–this edition of the game includes a smaller game board than the original, but it still has plenty of room for play.
Zombies are created whenever a nation’s infantry unit is destroyed or via a directive from a zombie card drawn during each turn. Every zombie gets to attack in each round. Even neutral territories have gameplay–as a “Desperate Times” zombie card may indicate zombie infiltration via those locations, unlike their lack of utility in the classic game. Optional play of “Desperate Measures” rules can result in good or bad actions, like the ability to use newly conceived anti-zombie technology. And don’t expect an air attack by zombies. Why? Zombies can’t fly airplanes (of course!). You also can’t deny the cool factor of another new feature–Chainsaw Tanks.
Much of the best science fiction doesn’t leave us with memorable or lovable characters so much as incredible, imaginative ideas, and prescient or prophetic visions. When you look to science fiction’s past, examples can be found throughout the works of H.G. Wells, Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, Philip K. Dick, and Ray Bradbury. Great concepts abound, like Wells’ time travel, Mary Shelley stretching the bounds–and horrors–of medical science, Dick always wrestling with the perils and annoyances of technology, and Michael Crichton finding ways to use science to change the future. Robert J. Sawyer is a current science fiction author building on the ideas of the past, and like all of the above writers who researched the real science behind their characters, he delves deep into his subjects. In his novel Quantum Night, now available in paperback, he has with surgical precision stitched together a tale of modern truths and horrors, bundled in a story pressing the bounds of psychology and quantum theory to explain why the world may seem to be falling apart, and offering one way to try to repair it.
In a very educational way, Quantum Night is also a refresher in Psychology 101. Sawyer, one of only three science fiction writers ever to have won the trifecta of writing awards (the Hugo, the Nebula, and the Campbell), references every major theory and experiment from college days along with enough background in quantum theory to support a compelling thriller. By book’s end you may find yourself staring at strangers and questioning their level of consciousness, conscience, and psychopathy. You may be sitting next to a psychopathic individual right now, or someone with a mind that may be even more gut-wrenching to discover. Written in 2015 and taking place in the not-so-distant future, Russian President Vladimir Putin readies to fire nuclear weapons on the United States. A future U.S. President gets Roe v. Wade overturned, has gotten his country to turn on immigrants and then invades Canada, led by its first Muslim prime minister (here Sawyer predicts the future of the current real-life Calgary mayor Naheed Nenshi), purportedly so the U.S. can secure Canada’s cities when the country no longer is able to control the flow of terrorists.
The story follows a professor of psychology who also serves as an expert witness to defend criminals who have proven to be psychopathic on both established and modern psychopathy tests. In the latest case he is reminded of his own past on cross-examination–a past he refuses to believe. As he re-traces his memories he learns his volunteering for psychology experiments in college resulted in six months of erased memories. And it gets worse–his mind was altered. Readers encounter a pair of scientists in the past, trying to hone in on those elements of the mind that shape how we think. The protagonist encounters a lover from his college days who is also in the field, and their relationship and her relationship with her daughter and her brother (now 20 years in a coma), could dictate the fate of everyone’s future with a high-tech tuning fork “sonic screwdriver”-inspired device and one of the 40 giant, real-world synchrotrons.
As professional baseball takes us into the playoffs this week, we could have a repeat of last year’s World Series, with the Chicago Cubs and Cleveland Indians again vying for the championship. Just in time, a new Harry Turtledove novel is now in bookstores that will take baseball fans backward in time with a bird’s-eye view of life as a farm team ball player during the Great Depression. The House of Daniel follows a down on his luck “Okie” as he plays a season of semipro baseball on a team based on the real church-sponsored team called The House of David, known for its religious flavor and long-haired players–an early take on the Harlem Globetrotters but without the theatrics. During the Great Depression the team barnstormed the country along with dozens of other teams that sprouted out in every corner of small town America, providing a source of income for players and providing the average American a few hours of respite from a bleak reality, all for a few cents per ticket. Hugo Award winner Turtledove’s account of player Jack Spivey is a fictionalized one, but his knowledge of farm teams and forgotten byways reflects a historic realism that will make you forget this is also a supernatural tale. Turtledove is known for his alternate histories, and this time he throws in a past with a Kim Newman style change-up, with vampires, wizards, werewolves, voodoo, UFOs, and zombies interspersed in what would otherwise be a typical work of historical fiction.
Baseball fanatics will be impressed, but fantasy readers may not find enough here to satisfy. In fact, about 100 pages into the novel only the slightest mention of a fantastical element will remind the reader this isn’t entirely straight fiction. The fantasy elements could easily be excised leaving behind the kind of account that will have you thinking you’ve picked up a lost John Steinbeck novel. Spivey is a semipro baseball player. Everyone everywhere is poor, except for the few with power and influence to control the rest. Spivey is asked to work over a guy by the man who controls him–the price for a bit of protection and relief money, but when Spivey arrives and finds the target of his thuggery is a woman, he tells her to get out of town and he looks for a way out. Fortunately for him, two ball players for the well-known barnstorming team called The House of Daniel literally collide while fielding a pop fly into the outfield, leaving an opening for Spivey to join up. Thus begins a long, really-small-town by really-small-town-travelogue, told first person by Spivey, as the team bus takes him and his team across every bump of every gravel highway, into every diner, into every small field, and bunked at every boarding room between Enid, Oklahoma, and Denver, between Salt Lake City and Idaho Falls, and between Seattle and San Diego. But first Spivey needs to wear a wig and glue on a fake beard until he can grow his own.
Long-haired baseball players from the real House of David team that inspired Turtledove’s House of Daniel team in his novel.
Spivey infrequently looks over his shoulder for the mobster’s hitman who could show up any day to claim his pound of flesh. Meanwhile we follow Spivey and get to know him and his Southern Oklahoman accent thanks to Turtledove’s believable dialect forged from the Tom Sawyer school of talkin’. After a few chapters the reader gets the hang of his colloquialisms and from then on it’s hard not to get sucked in. The road and player’s life on it becomes “old hat” for Spivey, and whenever the meandering, wandering from town to town (with the ultimate destination a tournament in Denver) becomes a bit stale, Turtledove inserts his fantasy bits. Like a couple of encounters with Depression era vampires trying to con their way into an invitation to the current boarding house. Or strange lights in the night sky over a small town in New Mexico. Or zombies, who have replaced slave laborers in some parts of the country.
What comic book series would you like see adapted to film that hasn’t yet been tried? The big superheroes–and many small ones–have now made their marks, along with the likes of stories from independent or creator-owned origins like From Hell, Watchmen, V for Vendetta, Cowboys and Aliens, Road to Perdition, A History of Violence, Hellboy, RED, R.I.P.D., Kick-Ass, Kingsman: The Secret Service, and even small screen shows like The Walking Dead, iZombie, and now Wynonna Earp. Ask me what comic book series I would like to see translated to film the most and I won’t flinch: It’s Portuguese writer/musician Felipe Melo and Argentinian artist/designer Juan Cavia’s The Incredible Adventures of Dog Mendonça and PizzaBoy. (I’d invest in that film right now). It’s the most humorous and satisfying series since Frank Cho’s Liberty Meadows. Rich in pop culture references like you’d find in Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Leverage, fanboys and fangirls of any franchise will find some all-out fun here. Now the creators are concluding their series with the final act of an epic trilogy, The Incredible Adventures of Dog Mendonça and PizzaBoy III –Requiem, available now from Dark Horse Comics.
Melo and Cavia (and colorist Santiago R. Villa) are the real deal. Each of their three volumes has a foreword by a legendary film director fan: John Landis, George A. Romero, and now Tobe Hooper. Dog Mendonça (pronounced men-dōn’-sah) and PizzaBoy originally appeared in serial form in the pages of Dark Horse Presents. João Vicente “Dog” Mendonça is an overweight, Portuguese werewolf operating out of a noir era private investigator’s office. Mendonça has a lanky unpaid pizza delivery boy who becomes a client he calls PizzaBoy. And he has an assistant–a 6,000 year old demon named Pazuul, who appears as a chain-smoking blonde girl who never speaks out loud. They’ve saved the world more times than anyone can count, and are pretty blasé about it.
We reviewed the first volume in the series, The Incredible Adventures of Dog Mendonça and Pizza Boy, here at borg.com back in November 2012. In the first book the reader becomes a character walking along with the duo as Melo breaks the “third and fourth walls” in a funny and beautifully drawn story. Mendonça told the reader his own comic book creation story. In flashback we saw Mendonça’s tumultuous past. We learned that Mendonça’s father and six sisters were killed during World War II so that bad guys led by a Nazi could capture Mendonça and use his beastly werewolf powers for his owns ends– a tale full of bad circumstances, an epic journey in a small package, and revenge.
Raise your hand if you wish you could watch more adventures of Buffy Summers, Veronica Mars, Claire Bennet, or Tru Davies. Fortunately you can get your fix here and there–you can find Buffy in comic books in Dark Horse Comics’ Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 10, Veronica continues in a series of novels by Rob Thomas, Heroes is coming back to NBC, and, well, it doesn’t look like we’ll ever see Tru again. But thanks to Veronica Mars’ creators Rob Thomas and Diane Ruggiero, a new strong woman-led series might make you think they are all back.
iZombie premiered Tuesday night adding another winner to the pantheon of solid hit shows the CW Network has been churning out of late, alongside Arrow, The Flash, Reign, Supernatural, and the Vampire Diaries. iZombie follows Olivia “Liv” Moore, a cardiac medical student resident who ends up at a party on a boat where all the guests break out into an infection and become zombies. Liv thinks fast and jumps off the boat, but not fast enough. She’s scratched and dies, only to return as the undead. Her so-called life crumbles from there and she ends up working for the medical examiner’s office where she can get easy access to unwanted brains, which she needs to eat to avoid getting mean and stupid.
And the execution of that off-the-wall premise is simply brilliant. There’s no hiding the fact that the voice of Rob Thomas’s Veronica Mars is echoed in Liv–many scenes aren’t just banter between characters, but chock full of Liv’s inner-thought narration. It was that storytelling device that was a big part of what made Veronica so accessible and endearing. And it even works for a zombie.
Matt Miner, writer of the ground-breaking series Liberator from Black Mask Studios, which we reviewed previously here and here at borg.com, is back again. This time he’s launched a Kickstarter project that is now in its final week. Miner’s latest idea is both cool and crazy. It’s over-the-top, yet gritty and real. It’s got zombies taking on real-life villains like no one has done before. It’s Toe Tag Riot–and it’s crunch time–time to get this project funded so this unique voice can get his book into comic book stores everywhere.
Miner has teamed up with fellow Occupy Comics artist Sean Von Gorman (Pawn Shop, FUBAR, Houdini) and colorist John Rauch (Invincible, Star Trek, Venom), with cover artist Tristan Jones (Hoax Hunters, Ghostbusters, TMNT, Silent Hill) and cover colors by Doug Garbark (In the Dark, Liberator, Prophet) to tell the tale of a punk rock band that turns into zombies and takes on bigots, racists, and misogynists.
Enter Toe Tag Riot: a struggling streetpunk band of the early 2000s who’re cursed with temporary, recurring zombification that transforms them whenever they perform their music! Meant to destroy their career, the woman who cursed them clearly understands nothing because Toe Tag Riot’s new monster-punk look only propels the band into punk rock stardom. Ethical sometimes-zombies that they are, our brave decomposing undead musicians resist their urges to snack on NORMAL human flesh and only make meals of the scummiest, grossest, and vilest scum that litters this Earth! Finding that the transformation back into regular, filthy, punk rockers is taking longer and longer each time, the band goes on one last cross-country tour, chasing the cure to what ails ’em and hilariously/brutally slaughtering the worst of humanity along the way to an explosive showdown with The Westboro Baptist Church.
