“Paranorman” [Our Review] is an amazing film that sneaked a smart, sophisticated, emotionally charged horror  story into a kids movie.  It deftly deals with the fear of the unknown, the cost of bullying and isolation and the ever-widening impact of prejudice and narrow-mindedness.  It’s a surprisingly complex story that matures seamlessly as it’s told.

The zombies of Blithe Hollow are the original townsfolk responsible for condemning the now fabled “Witch of Blithe Hollow” hundreds of year earlier.  They are absolutely dead and absolutely zombies but, other than that, not a bad bunch when you slow down and get to know them.  In fact, they spend most of their time trying to help out and being attacked in the process.

Zombies may not be the most obvious of allies but in this case an exception must be made.  Seeing this bunch of regret-filled groaners peacefully back to their graves is satisfying for all parties involved.  The climax of the movie – powerful, touching and unforgettable as it is – is accomplished in no small part to their assistance.  For this we salute the misunderstood zombies of Blithe Hollow!

The Walking Dead season four premier was relatively quiet, but it did have its moments as when the survivors make a supply run to a grocery store.  They set themselves up for hilarity (and, yes, horror) when they fail to notice that the roof was the both the site of a helicopter crash and home to a gaggle of  walkers.

Attracted to the noise of the scavenging the formerly dormant walkers converge on a weak point of the roof and our friend pictured does a little trapeze act with his entrails.  He swings, he groans, he spins and twirls… until the rotting tripe hold him aloft tears and he plummets the remaining distance with a “splat”.  Swinger Zombie never works with a net, folks!

For zombies there’s only one answer to “would you jump off the roof just because your friend did it?”  That answer is a strangled moan as they jump off the roof.  That’s exactly what we get as all of Swinger Zombie’s buddies follow his lead (at least the “splat” part of it).

We continue to expand our ever loosening definition of “Zombie” with this week’s entry.  Rob Zombie is the writer/director of the cult-classic, “House of a Thousand Corpses“,  a founding member of the legendary heavy-metal band, “White Zombie” and resident of Woodbury, CT!

(That last one may not, in fact, be as kick-ass-death-metal as it sounds.)

Zombie has been a melting pot of horror, stagemanship and insanity his entire career.  Oddly enough he has yet to take on an actual zombie project (although several come damn close).  His experience with horror movies mirrors my own (and is one of the reasons that, in my old age, I tend to watch them at home):

“For some reason, horror movies, they seem like good date movies. When you go to them it’s all high school kids, all over each other, running up and down the isles, no one is even looking at the screen anyways, they figure they don’t have to pay attention to the story anyways. We scream and yell… it’s like mayhem.”

So, Rob Zombie, for continuing to the blur lines of horror in film and music and, not so incidentally, having the last name “Zombie”: we salute you!

We’ve made no secret of the fact that “Shaun of the Dead” is a practically perfect movie.  Practically perfect in every way possible.  Mary Poppins can only wish to be this damn perfect is basically what we’re saying.

One of the defining moments is Shaun and Ed’s first encounter with zombies (before they even agreed to start using the zed-word, in fact).  The girl in the garden and her hulking friend.

Played by Mark Donovan and Nicola Cunningham the garden zombies provide us our first insight of the absurdity that define Shaun and Ed’s problem solving process.  What do you when faced with zombies?  Well, if you’re Shaun and Ed, you collect a laundry basket full of bits and bobs to fling at them gleefully.

This week’s for you, Garden Zombies!  You may be moaning, shambling death machines but you’re also a blast at parties and sure do make a cute couple.

Ghouls are one of the most interesting and complex group in the amazingly interesting and complex “Fallout” universe.  Like most of our choices lately there is a good argument that ghouls are not, in fact, zombies, but as always these are our rules to make.  It’s not really clear if they’re the risen dead (as is sometimes intimated) or just lucky individuals mutated by radiation.  The word “lucky”, of course, being questionable for somebody that’s given a vastly extended lifespan in exchange for their skin and much of their flesh.

In the game’s mythology most ghouls were created on the day of the great war in 2077 and many are still kicking as of 2281 when “Fallout: New Vegas” is set.  Many ghouls have gone feral, mindless and permanently aggressive, and roam the wastes attacking anything they come across.  A significant minority have retained their intellect and seek, often in vain, to coexist peacefully with normal humans.

Considering the delicate balance of decay and regeneration that maintains their existence it’s likely that all ghouls will ultimately turn feral.  It’s unclear exactly how long ghouls can live or how long they can possibly live without turning feral.  Ghouls are completely sterile and while isolated instances of new ghoulification exist it’s clear that ghouls are a dying breed.  As eloquently put by the ghoul Typhon in one of “Fallout 2’s” more famous lines:

There ain’t any ghouls but old ghouls. We’re all sterile, see, but we’re incredibly long-lived. We’re the first and last generation of ghouls.

Ghouls have provided many of the best moments in the series.  In “Fallout 3” some of the scariest moments are found investigating the feral ghoul-infested Dunwich Building while some of the most memorable characters and interactions are found in the ghoul “city” of “Underworld“.  In “Fallout: New Vegas” you can convince ghoul cowgirl Beatrix Russell to take up a life of prostitution to service customers with “special tastes”.  There are literally hundreds of other characters, situations and moments across the series and for that we dedicate this week to our misunderstood, and often decapitated, friends, the ghouls.