The Zombie Diaries is shot in First-Person view from three different groups of people that cross paths in small ways. All three document a zombie outbreak set in rural England. The first group is a news team going to interview a farmer in a small rural village. Soon after hearing of an outbreak in the city, they lose contact via phone with anyone. When night falls, panic sets in as they begin seeing the dead walking about.  The second group is seen scavenging a small town for supplies and trying to find a place where they can hole up or possibly other people join up with. The third group is living on a farm and routinely defending it from zombies coming in through the fields and trying to search and destroy all zombies in the surrounding area. All three groups find that it’s not just the living dead that threaten their livelihood, but the ignorance, stupidity and insanity of the living too.

 

While the first-person view gimmick may be getting played out, The Zombie Diaries uses this simple tool as a plausible was to make a low budget movie look like a million bucks. In fact, The Zombie Diaries did such a good job with it that I didn’t even notice that this could even possibly be a low-budget endeavor until it was over.

 

There’s not a whole lot to the story in The Zombie Diaries, but there’s enough action, suspense and zombies to keep you riveted to the screen. The pacing is decent and the acting very good and natural. There weren’t any times when I stopped to question the reality of the movie.

 

The special effects make-up in The Zombie Diaries was great. The camera crew worked well with the special effects crew in that the camera didn’t linger on the special effects long enough for you to question there reality.  The zombies exhibited a wide range of decay and several different stages of infection. All of them looked really cool and definitely added to my enjoyment of the film.

 

What The Zombie Diaries lacked in story, it definitely made up for in action, suspense, special effects and zombies. I enjoyed watching it the first time, I enjoyed it even more watching it the second time. Any zombie fan should enjoy The Zombie Diaries as much as I did.

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It took a while to find a service to host a video this large, but finally, here it is! 45 minutes of the original cast and crew of Night of the Living Dead talking about their experience.

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We had a great time at Flashback Weekend and saw more cool things than you can shake a stick at! Seriously at times it felt like I was one of the bobble heads looking around at the neat stuff. So here is a little gallery of cool stuff we saw:

Teddy Scares! - They’re undead teddy bears. Erin bought two of them. We’ll have a full post about these things soon!

 

George Romero! - ‘Nuff said.

 

Our very own Jef - Hanging out with the stars of NOTLD. (Bill Hinzman shown)

 

Decomposing Heads - Perfect for your mantle.

 

Elvira and Svengoolie - Two Horror Show legends on stage together

 

Zombie Beauty Pageant - What’s not to like?

 

Nate - With Texas Chainsaw Massacre celebs Caroline Williams and Marilyn Burns

 

We had a great time and can’t wait until the next convention!

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In Night Of The Creeps, an alien experiment crash lands on earth in 1959. A couple head to the site of the crash. One of them is brutally murdered by an ax-wielding maniac, the other is attacked by a mysterious alien life-form. In 1986 a pair of nerdy college boys lament there lack of love and plot to join the Beta frat to impress a girl. They are charged with the task of stealing a corpse form a local lab and leaving it on a rival frat’s doorstep. During the course of carrying out their prank they unfreeze the cryogenically frozen man from the afore mentioned couple letting him loose, and the alien life form inside him, upon the town. Together with a curmudgeon of a detective they must stop figure out and stop the alien life-forms from infecting the whole town and turning them all into zombies.

 

Night Of The Creeps has everything you’d expect from an 80’s movie set on a college campus: white elitist jocks, their beautiful, virtuous dates that don’t yet know that they would be better off with nerds and charming nerds that lust after beautiful women that date elitist jocks. Aside from that, it’s also a suspenseful horror film.

 

The zombie is Night Of The Creeps look pretty cool. They have whitened eyes and prosthetic face pieces to give them that evil sunken eye look. Some of the special effects work leaves something to be desired, but it’s all pretty on par for 1986.

 

Night Of The Creeps is pretty enjoyable as an eighties college romp and as a zombie movie. It has a certain amount of comedy to it which balances out with the horror aspect and makes a fairly well rounded film. It’s no Gone With The Wind or even Night Of The Living Dead, but a good watch with a bucket of popcorn or a six-pack and friends.

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Where do we draw the line on what is and what is not a zombie movie? We just can’t decide on our own, so every Monday we’ll post a new movie to be debated by, you, our readers and ask the question: Zombie Movie Or Not? Every Sunday we’ll post our findings and possibly strike that movie off our Zombie Movie List. The week should give you enough time to rent the movie if need be or you desire.

What every reader must keep in mind is that there are two basic types of zombie that every zombie movie based off of - the Voodoo Zombie and the Romero Zombie. The Voodoo Zombie, while not always raised by Voodoo necessarily, is basically a person, either undead or entranced, that is controlled by a person or entity for the purpose of completing tasks, often killing. Romero Zombies are basically mindless, flesh-eating undead whose bite will turn victims into zombies. Now, not all movies adhere to all of these rules, but if the basics are there, you got a zombie movie.

 

This weeks debate is over Mesiah Of Evil (1973) Directed by William Huyck

IS: They’re a flesh hungry horde of white-faced zombies. This screams zombie movie.

IS NOT: They’re not necessarily dead, undead or zombies. Maybe in the sense of being a mob of drones, but there’s never anything said in the movie about them being zombies or undead or anything. They’re just a mob of white-faced jerks.

Now it’s up to you, reader. What do you think? Messiah Of Evil: Zombie Movie Or Not?

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The debate for Friday The 13th VI: Jason Lives, Zombie Movie Or Not?, received 11 comments and 11 non-repeating votes. With 0 votes for and 11 votes against being a Zombie Movie, as far as this site is concerned, Friday The 13th VI: Jason Lives is NOT a Zombie Movie.

Stay tuned for next week’s debate: Messiah Of Evil, Zombie Movie Or Not?

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We were all looking forward to getting our mitts on some of the new Night of the Living Dead Mego style toys at last weekend’s Flashback Weekend, but unfortunately they were not available. Scott from FearWerx wrote us to say:

Greetings!

Scott from FEARWERX dropping by with an update about the MEGO Night of the Living Dead figures.
A small setback with the manufacturers in China have pushed the release date for these toys back to October.
So the bad news is that eager fans will have to wait.
The good news is that they’ll be here in time for Halloween!
And thank you for the Zombie Reporting Center for giving these toys a write-up.
Keep up the good work!

I’m glad to hear they will still be available, though I am more than a little bummed I wasn’t able to get the “Graveyard Zombie” figure signed by Bill Hinzman!

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Poise, beauty, and BRAAAAAIIIIINS - these girls had it all. Flashback Weekend’s annual Zombie Pinup Contest was a fun event that showed that beauty really is only skin deep (rotting, stinking skin that is). You can view our photos of the event here.

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It was a parade of fear yesterday as Chicago horror legend Svengoolie hosted the Flashback Weekend Costume Contest. Our very own Jef Porkins did a stunning job with his own makeup but sadly it was a man in a monkey suit (Planet of the Apes, specifically) that won Best in Show. You check out all our pics from the contest here.

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