Showing posts with label zombies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label zombies. Show all posts

Wednesday, December 24, 2014

Christmas Eve With Full Moon Entertainment 2014

Wednesday, September 11, 2013

Fulci's Zombie From A Torg Perspective

[There are some spoilers for Zombie here and Torg geek talk. You've been warned!]


When I was on vacation in late August there wasn't much on Digital TV in Winneconne, so I was watching some horror DVDs on a rainy day. I had also got some old Torg novels & short story collections for a dollar a piece at the Chimera Hobby Shop in Appleton. After watching Lucio Fulci's Zombie, it struck me that Zombie could be seen in a Torg light very easily, particularly the realm of Orrorsh.

Because I always thought this cover was cool...


Here are some brief thoughts:

The horror originates on the distant tropical island of Matool. Although Orrorsh in canon Torg in centered in Indonesia and the Philippines, the tropical setting is very apt.

The boat that floated to New York from Matool is a floating hardpoint for the Orrorsh reality. Because the reality of New York is so overwhelming, it would be considered a Mixed Zone. The obese zombie that falls into the could be Possibility Rated.

Many of the Gothic tropes prevalent in Orrorsh can be seen: mad science, the obsession with knowledge, brushes of colonialism, zombies, lonely houses in the middle of the jungle surrounded by the unknown.

It seems that at the beginning of the film, the recently dead are reanimating. As Zombie goes on the dead become more violent and hungry. The reanimation of the older dead comes later in the movie, namely the cemetery scene.

Peter (Ian McCulloch) seems to be more able to kill the zombies as Zombie goes on. He is definitely a Storm Knight. The rest of the cast are Ords except maybe for the good Doctor Menard (Richard Johnson), who probably has some Corruption points too.

The final scene can be viewed different ways. You could go the typical zombie apocalypse route, but there's no possibilities to be harvested when zombies kill everybody. A more Torg approach is the fear of a zombie epidemic as Bryan (Al Cliver) slowly becomes a zombie on the boat. If I remember right, the classic "zombies are taking over" voiceover at the end was part of the American version of Zombie.

The legendary Zombie/Shark battle can appreciated by fans of ANY RPG!

 
 






Monday, November 19, 2012

B-Movie Monday: Some Of My Favorite Turkeys

The hack reviewers the Medved Brothers define a Golden Turkey Award as (quoted from Wikipedia):

The book awards the fictional "Golden Turkey Awards" to films judged by the authors as poor in quality, and to directors and actors judged to have created a chronically inept body of work. The book features many low-budget obscurities and exploitation films such as Rat Pfink a Boo Boo, Attack of the 50 Foot Woman, and the apparently lost Him. Other categories include expensive, big studio failures like The Swarm and popular films such as Jesus Christ Superstar

B-Movie Monday is not about this narrow look at movies. We celebrate everything that is weird and cheesy in such films. With Thanksgiving rolling around I want to celebrate some of the movies other people think are, well, turkeys...

Zombi 3 (directed by Lucio Fulci and an uncredited Bruno Mattei) has ben described as a mess, the worst Italian zombie movie of the 80s, and other things. This movie (along with Umberto Lenzi's Nightmare City) has become one of my guilty favorite Italian zombie movies. Admittedly it makes no sense and you can tell that there were a lot of cooks in the kitchen. But when it's all said and done, there is a crazy energy in Zombi 3 that I have to respect. Watch the trailer and see.



 What else can be said about Plan 9 From Outer Space? Worst movie of all time? Hardly. As talentless as Ed Wood Jr may have been, the man had miles of heart and enthusiasm. From Criswell to Bela Lugosi and Tor Johnson, Plan 9 is bad but it's a fun kind of bad. And to quote Mike Nelson: "What kind of monster names their kid Dudley Manlove?"


According to the Golden Turkey Awards the Worst Vegetable Movie was Attack of the Mushroom People (aka Matango). Snarkiness aside, Matango is a bleak movie about people shipwrecked on a strange island. There are mushrooms involved. Search this one out.It's a strange little gem.


Finally. here is a trailer for a movie that has been mention on the Amazing Fun Pad several times. It's hard to find now, as it has never been released on US or UK DVD that I know of. But every once in a while I'll switch on the VHS to watch this under appreciated gem. Bask in the glory that is Yor The Hunter From The Future. He's the Man!


 
News Flash! I just saw that Amazon has Yor streaming for $3 or on DVD-R for under $20! Glee!

Monday, October 15, 2012

Monster Monday: Tomb Harvesters for WaRP

Here's my first entry for Monstrous Monday using the Wanton Role-Playing System for a monster inspired by some horror movies. I have some stats for the tomb harvesters in Space Princess, but I can't find them right now. But anyway enjoy...

Tomb Harvesters
You think that when you die, you go to Heaven? You come to us!  The Tall Man, Phantasm II


Tomb harvesters appear as 7 foot tall male or female humanoids dressed in the funerary attire of whatever place they are currently inhabiting. Their skin tone range from a sickly white to ashen gray or washed out colors. The tomb harvesters slowly infiltrate the less advanced planets for the purpose of harvesting the dead of any humanoid species.  First the dead are harvested from the cemeteries of small communities, and the bodies are sent to unknown dimensions via strange and unpredictable gates. As the harvester and their servitors become more entrenched the body theft become more brazen and the living are soon targeted. Living victims are transformed to various minion forms or drained of life force to fuel a variety of strange machinery. Unopposed by anyone a tomb harvester can wipe out a small planet in a few years, the entire world becoming an empty husk. Even if prevented from their task, the harvesters can cut a swath of death and destruction throughout an area.

Although they appear to by humanoid, tomb harvesters are theorized to be some kind of engineered being or revivified undead. They are superhumanly strong and very hard to kill, often shrugging off small arms and laser fire. Many harvesters have revealed the equivalent of psychic abilities such as telepathy, telekinesis, and illusion projection that are used to injure, kill, and confuse their victims . While all foes are seen as a danger, tomb harvesters will especially target opponents who demonstrate psychic abilities activated or latent. Psychics and espers have been known to sense tomb harvesters long before others, and untrained psychics seem to be either desired or feared by them.

The presence of a tomb harvester slowly starts to corrupt the reality around the areas were they lair. In some ways the harvesters are an extension of the gates that they use to transport their harvest. As their influence grows, the harvester can move in the shadows to confuse and capture their opponents. Time and space seem to bend around them, and many people who thought they have escaped for the tomb harvester have found that road winds back into the clutches of the fiend they were trying to escape.

Most Tomb Harvesters have abilities beyond the stats below. Each is in response to their environment and their personal interests.

Attack Dice: 4 dice (unnatural strength)
Defense Dice: 4 dice (Technomantic Body)
Hit Points: 35 (unnatural)

Engineered Technomantic Construct/ 5 dice

The tomb harvester appears as a creepy human but is actually a technomantic construct designed to withstand pressures and environment that would kill most humanoids. Their build makes them superhumanly strong and resilient, and able to regenerate most forms of damage. Hand to hand combat with a tomb harvester is not recommended. (Blood doesn't 'look right')

Funerary Rites/ 3 dice

Wherever the tomb harvester is, it immerses itself in the funerary rites of the culture they have chosen to infiltrate. In most cultures the harvester becomes a priest, a mortician, or an executioner. In more barbaric cultures the harvester acts more like a ghoul on the outskirts of society feeding on the refuse of the dead. Whichever the result, the reverence, respect, and sometime fear that those who work with the dead are given allows the harvester to work in the shadows.  (Wears funerary attire)

Warper of Reality/ 3 dice

The very nature of the tomb harvester warps the reality where their gates lie. The harvester is not omnipotent, but it can sense beings that invade it's complex easily. The harvester can cloak its nature from most people, appearing as a tall, albeit creepy humanoid   As their influence grows the harvester can torment its victims with a variety of psychic abilities. A tomb harvester can follow a victim through the shadows silently, always appearing when they least expect them. (Appears where you know there wasn't a door)

Servitor/ Flaw

While very powerful, the tomb harvester is ultimately a servitor to the alien powers that created it. They have a tendency to follow their instinct to harvest the dead, and little else can get in the way of that goal. This can be used to overwhelm the harvester with unusual tactics it does not expect. (Listens to something that isn't there)

Warper of Reality/ Flaw

The tomb harvester's warping of reality can be noticed, especially by those with psychic or mystic ability. Things begin to change as the harvester works, and those who have dealt with tomb harvesters can trace the signs, and possibly stop them before it happens again to another town. In addition, latent mystics and psychic abilities seem to affect the warped reality of the tomb harvesters. The latents begin to dream of the harvester and the gates, and they are noticed back in kind. These people are either destroyed or used as templates for new tomb harvesters. (Flashes of the harvester's true form)

Inspired by the Phantasm movies and City of the Living Dead by Lucio Fulci.


BOYYYYYY!



Monday, February 13, 2012

B-Movie Monday: Dawn of the Mummy (1981)

It was the 80s. If you had an US/Italian/Egyptian movie, you had to have mummies and zombies in it.

Makes perfect sense to me.

Enjoy the cheese that is Dawn of the Mummy in its entirety.


Friday, January 13, 2012

Since I missed B-Movie Monday...

I was sick but I'm getting back to normal. Cause I missed Monday, here come the Blind Dead rising from their tombs!



See you folks soon!

Monday, August 22, 2011

Quick Thought I Had At Work: Mind Flayers and Zombies

Here's a quick thought I had at work:



The mind flayer is a classic AD&D monster that has terrorized campaigns around the world for decades. Different origins, variants and alternate versions of the mind flayer have been designed for various RPGs, especial since the illithids have been deemed as product identity by WotC. But I've never seen this one.

Mind flayers are an advanced form of undead that wield strange powers due to the brains they eat. 

The mind flayers once existed as any other race until they were infected by an ancient contagion. The contagion increased their psionic abilities but gave them an insatiable craving for the brains of other intelligent beings--including their own race. Mind flayers can no longer procreate normally. They reproduce by infecting a promising victim with some of their own flesh. The contagion takes over and the new mind flayer is brought underground to his or her new people.

This idea has some other possibilities:

  1. There were mind flayers that were not infected by the contagion that corrupted the rest of their race. They may be hiding anywhere in the campaign world. They may be a hidden force of good, or a bitter enclave just as evil as their brethren. The other races will confuse them for their brain-eating brethren. Plus, other mind flayers have not tasted fresh mind flayer brain in sooooo long...
  2. Some of the undead in the campaign may be created by the mind flayers as vehicles to get more bodies and brains. The zombies eat their victims, the viruses animates the bodies, and the mind flayers render the zombies to get the tender brains and flesh. Mind flayer zombies probably wouldn't be turned by a priest, and would be very creatively designed.
  3. The relationship between mind flayers and necromancers can go in some interesting ways. They could be wary allies, traders in various resources, or bitter enemies. Powerful necromancers may know formulas that allow them to control mind flayers, or the contagion that changed them.
  4. Mind flayers and the undead they create would probably be parallel to the undead created by other means, There may be wars with liches and vampires over their shared food source.
If anybody uses some of these ideas, let me know!

Monday, January 31, 2011

Inspiration: Horror of the Zombies (aka The Ghost Galleon)


Here is one of the inspirations for The Lich Templars of Ossorio, my death knights for the Encounter Critical game. It's Horror of the Zombies (aka Ghost Galleon),the third Blind Dead film by the legendary Spanish director Amando de Ossorio. This is great verson of this movie. Take an hour and a half, and check it out.

Monday, June 21, 2010

B-Movie Monday: Nazi Zombies!

"Everyone likes to kill Nazis, even God--check out the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark, if you don't believe us."
--Steve Johnson and Leighton Connor, QAGS Second Edition







The Zombie Lake trailer is Not Safe For Work. It's a Franco film, and that means some full frontal nudity.





Have a great Monday!

Monday, May 3, 2010

B-Movie Monday: Puppet Masters & Chopper Chicks

Welcome to a short B-Movie Monday at the Amazing RPG Fun Pad!

Art for the Puppet Master vs Demonic Toys that was never made.

First off, Full Moon Direct have put up all of the Puppet Master movies and three of the Demonic Toys movies on YouTube. Waste the afternoon watching puppets duke it out with man, monsters, and more!

Check out the Full Moon's Finest, the Full Moon Direct Channel on YouTube.

Oh, and some mad genius put this gem on youtube:



Check out the entire movie on YouTube starting here

Join us every Monday for B-Movie Monday!

Monday, April 5, 2010

B-Movie Monday: Tarantino and Rodriguez's Grindhouse Turns 3

Tomorrow is April 6, three years since Grindhouse was released in theaters. After Easter dinner on April 8 I want to the cinema to enjoy this 3+ hour epic. It was made up of two movies Planet Terror and Death Proof, and four fake grindhouse trailers. It was a riot.

Enjoy some Grindhouse





Out of the two movies, I love Planet Terror. For the horror fan of today, there's plenty of blood, babes, and belly laughs. For fans of zombie movies from the 70s and 80s like me, Planet Terror has plenty of references for us. Many scenes and concepts are homages to movies like Hell of the Living Dead, Zombie, and Nightmare City. Rodriguez has done the tributes in such a way that doesn't overwhelm the movie.





Join me next Monday for another installment of B-Movie Monday!

Friday, April 2, 2010

Fiction: Later, In Ultronic City

This is a piece of fiction I intended to submit for a netbook, but real life had intruded. I never submitted it. So here it is, a little superhero fiction for ya'll.

Later, In Ultronic City

Thrasher had never seen anything like this before. Some magic-using quack calling himself Mr. Crowley had got a hold of The Dark Passages of Allerac and had ripped a hole in reality. The mystic mojo stuff was way over Thrasher’s head. Well, let Doc Miracle and Penumbra and the Weird Squad deal with patching up time and space. Thrasher was an old school brawler like his old man, and Mr. Crowley had given him plenty of things to hit.

The Justice Brigade had its hands full. The zombie things had begun to pop up all over Ultronic City. Any touch or grab would drain the life force of victim and leave them in a coma –like state. It was almost as if they were gathering the energy to do something dangerous with it. Even the Justice Brigade Reserves were called to help evacuate the City.



Now, here in Silverton Heights, Thrasher joined Lasher and Brickhouse to try to contain the zombie things until the mystic guys had done their work.

“Got this area covered, kid,” rumbled Brickhouse in his gravelly voice.

Suddenly, the zombie things broke through the technomantic barriers developed by Redfist and the Blacksmyth. They swarmed the massive mutant and tried to take him to the ground. As Brickhouse fought these zombie things, Thrasher could see his friend’s red brick skin begin to fade to gray. Then the fight was over, and the good guy didn’t win.

The zombie things turned as one and started for Thrasher and Lasher. For the first time, Thrasher noticed that all of the zombie things looked the same. They had yellow eyes, wearing nothing but brown rags. Bald head, skinny with skin the color of clay. They murmured or moaned something continuously that you couldn’t quite make out.

Thrasher glanced over at Lasher. Everybody teased the pair about how their names sounded alike. It was coincidence, he always said. They had become junior members of the Justice Brigade at the same, and, Thrasher admitted, there was an attraction. Maybe if they survived this, he would...

“If I’m going down, I’m going down fighting,” Lasher interrupted his thoughts as she extended her Cyberlashes. A familiar hum filled the air as they charged to full power.

“You got that right, sister!” Thrasher yelled as the zombies advanced.

He really hoped that the Weird Squad got this settled soon.

-fin-

Monday, March 29, 2010

B-Movie Monday!

There's a new blog celebrating the works of B-Movie auteur Albert Pyun. Their not always movies that make a lot of sense, but the B_movie flair shines through. Check out The Pyuniverse Blog for more fun.

Bruno Mattei (best known in American under the name Vincent Dawn) is another guy who makes those movies that makeyou say "What the F...". Some might call him a Hack, but he's a hack I like. The following clip is an 8 and a half minute interview with Mattei. Subtitled, but with spoilers and some NSFW language:



And let's watch Bruno "borrow" from Aliens and Predator:



Fun fact: The above movie, also known as Shocking Dark, is titled Terminator 2 in many countries!


It's Reb Brown and his posse!

Finally, it's time to add some Luche Libre to your day:


Sunday, January 17, 2010

This is Strange: Revenge from Planet Ape

I stumbled on this on a random morning of surfing on the net. A review of Tombs of the Blind Dead mentioned an alternate opening/recut version that tied it to the Planet of the Apes movies. The alternate opening sequence was on the 2005 DVD release of Tombs of the Blind Dead. I don't know if it's real or a clever fake, but imagine the RPG possibilities...



Is that not awesome?

Friday, December 4, 2009

RIP Paul Naschy

To the uninformed, horror actor Paul Naschy (real name Jacinto Molina) died on December 1. (I found about this on the Groove Age of Horror blog (link in my blogroll). This is a shame because he was a familiar face I always like in my horror movie journeys. My exposure to Mr. Naschy were mainly the dubbed versions of his Waldemar Daninsky werewolf movies (a great list is here). I saw plenty of these in the day, and I enjoyed them for the fun grindhouse they were. You think that Terminator continuity is confusing? Try figuring out the Waldemar Daninsky timeline. Great b-movie fun.

The other films of his I really liked were Horror Rises from the Tomb, Vengeance of the Zombies, and Return of the Zombies, all watched during my misguided youth.

Here are some Paul Naschy trailers:











Here is a two fights from the movie Assignment Terror (aka Los montruos del terror):



For some good reading (and viewing) I recommend:

Paul Naschy wikipedia entry
The Mark of Naschy: a website about the actor
Paul Naschy movies on YouTube

Friday, October 23, 2009

[HF2009] Random Halloween YouTube Trailers and More

Here are some spooky, strange, and funny YouTube trailers for you:

The Inhumanoids intro--the best kiddie Lovecraft on Television!



The 13 Ghosts of Scooby Doo intro--Vincent Price on Saturday morning. I loved that show, even with Scrappy and the annoying con artist kid.



The Masque of the Red Death--the trailer to my favorite Poe/Corman/Price film



A short horror film from the guys and gals at FEWDIO called Viral. As the descrption on YouTube says: "There were supposed to be no photos of Albert "The Carnivore" Carneghy, and for good reason."



These FEWDIO guys have put out some really good horror short films. Check out their YouTube page or their website.

Finally, I got to end with some Italian Zombie films! Here are the trailers for Lucio Fulci's Zombie (Zombie 2 in Europe) and Dr. Butcher, MD (the cut-up American version of Marino Girolami's Zombie Holocaust).





Enjoy!

Thursday, September 10, 2009

Labor Day Eve Zombie Marathon

A tradition in the David household is the customary viewing of cheesy B-Movies the Sunday before Labor Day instead of the Jerry Lewis Telethon.

Okay, it's just a Mike David Jr tradition, but it's still a great one.

The movies for this year were determined by a great find at Half Price Books' 20% Off Sale. It was the Zombie Pack (Zombie 3/Zombie 4 - After Death/Zombie 5 - Killing Birds) by Shriek Show for about $10! Add to that Lucio Fulci's Zombie (aka Zombie 2 in Europe), and you have a Zombie festival you can bite into.

Presented for you now are the trailers to the movies I watched. Some of these may not be safe for work. You know zombie films.









That was some cheesy fun. Makes me want to play some All Flesh Must Be Eaten.