Top Five Off-beat Zombies!

Halloween, and the shambling undead are getting into the damndest places.  Yes, from AMC’s The Walking Dead to the big budget adaptation of World War Z, zombies are everywhere.  But are all zombies created equal?  Nope!  Oh, sure, some get the big-time press, but what of those condemned to languish in the shallow grave of obscurity?

As we recall the dead this season, I thought it’d be good to commemorate a few of the lesser-known animated corpses that, over the years, have wormed their way into our hearts, ripped them beating from our chests, and chowed down upon them as we watched.  Vive les morts!

5.  Garth Simon (Tales of the Zombie)

They work as a horde, but even Stan (the Man) Lee, creator of Spider-man, The Hulk, etc. etc, had a hard time making a single zombie an interesting character.  He gave it his best shot in the form of Simon Garth, star of this short-lived B&W seventies horror magazine.  Technically, Garth first appeared 20 years earlier in a story by Stan & Bill Everett, called, well, “Zombie” – and the writing chores in this revival were done by others, but you get the idea.

Anyway, work-obsessed Garth fires his gardener, little realizing the disgruntled former employee will kidnap him to use as a human sacrifice.  That’d be that, if it weren’t for the fact that the cult leader, Layla (got me on my knees) also worked for Garth and secretly loved him.  Botching her effort to help him escape, she naturally turns him into a zombie, complete with a mystic pendant that anyone can use to control him – (kinda like a remote).  If the amulet gets lost, say, under the couch cushions, the usually dull-witted Garth gets downright pissed and extracts a horrible vengeance.  Eventually, Layla restores him to life just so he can attend his daughter’s wedding, then puts him to his final rest – until, of course, like any of the dead in the Marvel Universe, he’s revived over and over and over.

4. Zombie Shark Fight (Zombie 2)

Horror fans know the drill — George Romero’s 1978 Dawn of the Dead, sequel to Night, was called Zombie for its European release. In an effort to ride those coat-tails, this 1979 Lucio Fulci film was named Zombie 2, though it bears no relation.  With me so far?

Aside from reviving Fulci’s flagging career, it’s since earned its own spot in zombie history, partly for two particularly gory sequences, but also because of this totally bizarre clash between an underwater corpse and a tiger shark.

It sounds a lot more exciting than it is.  The shark sort of swims toward the zombie (played by the shark’s trainer and confidante, Ramon Bravo), shark and zombie flail around, zombie pretends to tear a piece off the shark and eat it, fake blood swirls in the water, end scene.  (I assume it was fake blood, since real blood would have attracted every real shark for fifty miles.)  But really, extra points for strangeness.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4g8fCxyAVHs]

3.  The Trailer for Dead Island

One of the best freaking zombie films ever not only comes from an unexpected source, it’s also just three minutes long.  This amazing promo produced for the Techland video game has it all:  sweet-yet-creepy piano music, an idyllic setting marred by the rising dead, just the right amount of gore, an endangered child and the terrified parents who try to save her.  On top of that, it plays backwards in time, in slow-motion!

Yeah, the people are computer generated, but I actually got quite choked up the first time I saw this.  Reports are that the game itself is good, but how could it possibly match this trailer?  And, of course, Lionsgate has optioned the rights for the film.  If you’re not one of the seven million plus who’ve seen it, what are you waiting for?  Enjoy!

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZqrG1bdGtg]

2. Zombies Destroy Collinwood (Dark Shadows)

Anyone who knows me knows I love, love, love Dark Shadows, that wacky low-budget, trend-setting 1960s supernatural soap opera currently being made into a film by Burton & Depp. Please, don’t let them ruin it!  Ahem.   While most recall the vampires, witches, warlocks and werewolves, there’s also this sequence where a  bunch of pirates have been summoned en masse from their graves by the ghost of Gerard Stiles (a lesser Quentin, if you ask me).

When I first saw it at age ten, I thought it was the most amazing, action-packed episode of DS ever!  Now, not so much.  The six zombie-extras stumble up the road and into the family’s ancestral home, Collinwood, where they seem bored and pretty confused about what to do next.  From the looks of the z’s, the crew dragged in whoever they could, slapped some black greasepaint under their eyes and said, Go!  You’re a TV star!

While the trek to Collinwood has some meh creeps, once inside, the damage done seems more like the work of lazy contractors than the vengeful dead.  Rather than brains, they’re more intent on a lame sort of vandalism, breaking things and tearing curtains.  The zombie action in this longish clip actually begins around 6:38, feel free to skip the rest!

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X83EvgHkwzg]

1. Stubbs the Zombie in Rebel Without a Pulse

In 2005, long before Dead Island, or the Left4Dead series, the talented gang at Wideload Games used the famed Halo engine to put together one hoot of a first person shooter.  You play Eddie Stubbs, a salesman killed by his girl’s politically powerful father.  Years later, Eddie comes back to find his gal and lead a zombie rebellion in the 1950s-ish town of Punchbowl.  Eddie can, of course, eat brains and turn other characters into zombies.  As his undead legions grow, he can even whistle for them and herd them in the right direction for maximum carnage.  More fun, though, as he advances in level, he develops some totally cool powers, including passing noxious gas, using his head as an exploding bowling ball, and my favorite, ripping his arm off and using it to control another character.  Funny, fun and endearing, the game actually earned some controversy when Senator Joe Lieberman criticized it for being cannibalistic, saying “It’s just the worst kind of message to kids, and furthermore it can harm the entirety of America’s youth.”.  And of course, the huge outbreak of cannibalism among our youth following the game’s release proved the wise senator right.  Doesn’t that alone make you want to buy it?

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0mxCLzKIXYg]

And them’s my faves!  Got any similar offbeat zombies to share?  Love to hear about them.  Also, if you’re looking for a different sort of zombie treat this Halloween, check out my new novel, Dead Mann Walking, critically acclaimed and so easily available, it’s watching over your shoulder as we speak.