Tag Archives: Zombie Hunters

08/31/11

Dead on the Beat

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Since I’m no longer under the legal drinking age limit, I don’t watch MTV anymore. Because of such, I had no idea that the network developed its own take on the “cops v. spooky” fad that’s hitting us soon. I knew about that ‘Teen Wolf’ remake but this ‘Death Valley’ show was under my radar.  io9.com has a clip of a funny moment of this mockumentary-style show.

Meredith Woerner (which, I might add, is a great last name. She might be a supervillian or a mad scientist with that name. Dr. Meredith Woerner’s creature. Has a nice ring to it? Anway.) wrote “…[w]hile we might tune in to see the scene from the trailers where one of the cops punches a zombie through the skull (because that’s excellent) we may just watch reruns of Reno 911 instead.”

But, from the clip in her write-up, it seems that his is more serious than Reno 911. MTV is trying to blend sex, action and comedy in a moderately-budgeted production.  It’s currently a “wait and see” situation but what I see ‘Death Valley’ facing some stiff (no pun intended) competition from the other cops v. corpses media coming. On top of the RiPD movie, there’s Zombie Hunters and ZEROs coming out. ’Death Valley’ has the advantage of being on MTV (and having Viacom’s promotional juggernaut) but depends on what the audience wants (and what MTV wants.) 

I think they want to make a quick buck before the spooky bubble bursts. I, and plenty others, have waited for the bottom to fall out of the supernatural market. Still. More undead cop shows. It’s like it’s taking the two more overused genres and mashing them together.  Law and Order: SZU (Special Zombies Unit)

Good luck to everyone involved. It’ll make good Hulu/Netflix viewing in a few years.

 

 

08/10/11

Zombie Hunters & ZEROs

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If you hung around The Monster Channel on Sundays, you probably caught an episode of “Zombie Hunters: City of the Dead.” The independent horror series depicts the process of culling the growing zombie plague affecting a major metropolitan area. The effects are really great and the acting is pretty good. All the episodes are available online for your watching. 

The tone of the series is very dramatic, sort of The Shield with zombies. There’s a lot of drama dealing with politics and personal agendas. When writing about The Return Man, I remembered ’Zombie Hunters: City of the Dead.’ Most zombie scenarios are built around the idea that the protagonists aren’t survivalists and are at a severe disadvantage when it comes to warding off the horde of undead. Considering that even the Center for Disease Control seems in on the fun, the idea that we’d be unprepared for this outbreak is becoming less and less of a plausibility. Something like the ’Zombie Hunters’ is going to be the new norm for the genre if the story is going to happen over any other time than the initial hours of the outbreak.  

Seems that non-indie outlets are jumping on the trend.  At the end of July, SyFy announced the production of the ZEROs. If I read the release and the follow-up talk over at FearNet, either the pilot got green-lit or the whole series is in production. Probably the former. Zeros (short for the Zombie Exermination and Removial Operations) is described by castmember Brian Peck as “Reno 911! meets The Walking Dead,” ZEROs is going to be a satrical view where Zombie Hunters is serious.

I kind of look forward to this show. I hope it gets picked up for a full season (if it hasn’t already) because it would be a welcomed addition to the genre. Hopefully, the writing’s good behind it. Though there are plenty of ways to make a zombie outbreak funny, it’ll be interesting to see which way this show goes.

A lot of changes in the Zombie genre. World War Z got a release date of December 12th, 2012 (hawhaw, 122112. very clever, guys!) and with The Return Man, Zombie Hunters and ZEROs coming out, seems there’s still some life in zombies after all.