The 31 Days of Halloween: Day 2

Halloween is the best time of the year. It's a wonderfully indulgent time, where your inner ghoul is given societal license to be put on display. To celebrate it to it's wicked fullest, the Midnight Cheese will be posting every day in October with excellent ways to enjoy the season. Whether it's horror films, video games, books or activities, check back every day for some new Halloween fun.

Book: The Zombie Survival Guide

By Max Brooks

This book lives right next to my official U.S. Army Survival Manual in my library. It's that important. There's an interesting and quite telling story about the placement of this book at retailers, which I'd heard years ago: Max Brooks (son of Mel) heard the booksellers placed his work in the comedy sections of their stores. He immediately contacted his publisher and demanded it be moved to the self help/non-fiction section, as surviving the zombie apocalypse is no laughing matter. I love this guy.

True to his stance in this story, Brooks considers everything from a realistic point of view. What weapons are best due to ease of use, availability and durability, what mode of transportation should you use (noise attracts the undead and cars require fuel), even where you should flee to depending on what size classification of outbreak you are stuck in. It's all here, all of those nerd-case-scenarios that you and your friends discuss ad nauseam, here and scientifically dissected for reliability and survivability.

Brooks came to the idea of writing this guide after touring colleges as a public speaker, with real weapons as examples. And his book even follows the expected guide formula. There is an outbreak journal in the back, where you can record all the historically important details for posterity, in case you don't make it (you probably won't). There's also a fantastic appendix which details all suspected recorded outbreaks throughout history. As you might have expected, a Roman Legion had the most success in putting down a larger scale outbreak, due to their extreme regimental training and tactics. You'll see this again if you read his followup book World War Z. In it, the most effective tactic for armies is to form into outward facing squares, with replacements behind for breaks.

With Halloween being the most likely time for the dead to walk the earth, I figured you deserved a chance to live. Pick this up, zombie hunters, and live to fight another day.

Rammbock: A Fresh Take on a Rotting Subgenre

Here at the Midnight Cheese, few things tug at our heartstrings quite the way that zombie films do. Actually it's more a vice-gripped, grasping tear at our heartstrings, followed by some breathless moans of delight and a hearty chomp down of dead teeth. So when we were given the chance to take an early look at the new DVD release of Rammbock: Berlin Undead, we pulled our shotguns off the mantle to repel those shambling monstrosities with good old American firepower!

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Hold on a minute there John Wayne, this is not that sort of zombie movie. And you know what? That's exactly why it’s successful. Rammbock centers around the misadventures of broken hearted Michael, who hitches a ride into Berlin to try and win back his exgirlfriend Gabi, under the guise of returning her keys (Smooth). This is where our ride kicks off, as we waste almost no time immersing ourselves in the undead masses. Michael links up with Harper, a youthful handyman's apprentice, and the two manage to secure Gabi's apartment for the time being.

"But what about Gabi?" I know, shouldn't she be there? Turns out she just stepped out minutes before Michael arrived and could be anywhere. To make matters worse, our hero dropped his cell phone in the mad struggle to shore up their barricade in the first place. It's a very compelling hook, one which sinks in thanks largely to the performance of Michael Fuith. As our hero, he's very vulnerable but he's also very likable and determined. He and Harper, played by Theo Trebs, play off of each other very well and clearly have good on screen chemistry; which is absolutely essential in the narrow confines of Gabi's Berlin apartment complex.

The location scouts deserve a cookie here. The narrow apartment complex really pushes the claustrophobia up several notches, very much like the Spanish film [REC] (which I also highly recommend). Interestingly, the survivors can interact with each other via windows overlooking a small courtyard shared by the apartments-turned prison cells. But they can’t help one another, however much they might wish to.

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Where Rammbock really sets itself apart, though, is with its clever spin on the zombie infection concept. Of the hundreds of films to come out during the last decade’s zombie boom, the vast majority of them are completely content to imitate exactly what has come before with very little variation. Perhaps they try to ratchet up the gore quotient or make the zombies run faster (or make them strippers, yikes), but all in all it’s fast become a stale, rotting subgenre. The zombies in Rammbock aren’t trying to tear you limb from limb or eat you. They’re rabid humans. They’re attacking to maim and they’re trying to bite survivors. The bite imparts an infection; pretty standard fare so far, right?

Ok check this out: the infection doesn’t turn you into a zombie unless your body produces adrenaline which moves the infection to your brain and causes an irreversible transformation. This sets up some pretty interesting scenarios. How do you keep yourself from triggering your fight or flight during the height of a zombie apocalypse? The film showcases several fascinating attempts to survive a bite infection, which is all the more important since the body can fight it off given enough time. However once you have to fight for your life or even just get over excited, it’s permanent zombification time. I won’t spoil the most effective technique for combating the undead, but it’s not guns. In fact, there aren’t any fire arms or head smashing in Rammbock. There is a lot of smart thinking going on and a handful on ingenuity.

At sixty-three minutes in length, Rammbock does not disappoint, packing more of a ride than most of its contemporaries do in ninety minutes. The new DVD release includes the standard behind the scenes feature we’ve come to expect and then delights with a very funny zombification public service announcement bonus. The newly minted DVD was released this week. Check out Rammbock: Berlin Undead, the most original take on the zombie concept since 28 Days Later.

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