10 Questions for Your Zombie Screenplay

Are you a zombie screenwriter? 

(That is, are you a screenwriter working on a zombie movie?)

Then here are some basic questions for you: 

1. RUNNING OR STAGGERING? 
Do your zombies run? Or do they stagger? 
Choose a side, mofo. 

NAME THAT ZOMBIE MOVIE: a cinema quiz

Here's a photo quiz to get you ready for KEVIN & MATT GEEK OUT ABOUT ZOMBIES. 

(Saturday April 4th at the Alamo Drafthouse in Yonkers) 

Can you name the movies these zombies appear in? 

(Answers will appear in the comments next week.) 

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Get caught up on your zombie cinema with KEVIN & MATT GEEK OUT ABOUT ZOMBIES. 

A two-hour feast of zombie film footage and pop culture commentary.

featuring special guests: 

• Brian Solomon (The Vault of Horror) 
• Captain Cruella (Village Invasion Zombie Crawl)

Kevin & Matt Geek Out About Zombies - Show Trailer from Matthew Glasson on Vimeo.

KEVIN & MATT GEEK OUT ABOUT ZOMBIES

at the Alamo Drafthouse 
2548 Central Park Ave. in Yonkers

Saturday April 4th @ 7:55pm
Get tickets HERE 

**RELATED LINK:
GRAFFITI IN MOVIES quiz

Troublemaker at the Comedy Institute

Recently I was hired as a comedy consultant to help some brand creatives think outside the box.

Normally I despise hearing people talk seriously about comedy.  But the money was good.

Turns out the only thing worse than witnessing a panel on comedy is being part of a panel on comedy. People made sweeping generalizations and self-important observations. It was a difficult 75 minutes.

I did two things to simultaneously take my role seriously and (kind of) subvert it.

First, I arrived dressed as Dr. Millard Rausch, the jerk who appears on the panel show in George A. Romero's DAWN OF THE DEAD. (Fans will remember I wore this costume when I hosted  Kevin Geeks Out About Dummy Deaths -- honestly, it works better with the beard.)

Second, I tried to answer vague questions with a painstaking amount of detail.

For example, the bizarro question packet wanted to know "What are the genres of comedy?"

I suppose they want simple answers like "parody" and "slapstick."

Instead I wrote up 125 different genres of comedy.

I figured it would be fun audience participation, they could shout out a number and I'd reveal the specific sub-genre I listed.  And it pointed out how dumb the question is in the first place.

After the panel I never heard back from the agency -- dashing my hopes of a lucrative consulting position.  But here's my official comedy research listing the 125 genres of comedy.  (I could've listed more, but I think I made my obnoxious point, don't you?)

125 Comedy Genres

1.   Christian ventriloquism

2.   Greek plays by Aristophanes with lots of phalluses.

3.   Pre-Civil War Minstrel Show

4.   Internet Cat-based humor

5.   Porn parodies of popular culture

6.   Political cartoons with too many metaphors

7.   Nostalgia-based coming-of-age storytelling

8.   Post-PORKY’S teen sex comedies screened late at night on basic cable with all the dirty parts edited out

9.   Humorous fortune cookie

Who owns "They Live"? : a half-assed essay

Author Jonathan Lethem has a boner for the movie They Live (1988).  So much so that he's just written a book about it.  And this week he's hosting a screening of the film, followed by a conversation with John Hodgman. 

It's curious that over 20 years after its release, this B-movie movie has gotten the attention of academic-types.  They Live is an excellent combination of form and content: if you want to make a message-movie for blue-collar audiences (about how they're being systematically screwed) make a sci-fi action movie starring a professional wrestler.  But if you attend Lethem's screening at the  Greenwich Village IFC theater, do you expect the audience to be made up of "haves" or "have-nots"?

John Carpenter's They Live has something in common with George Romero's Dawn of the Dead (1978): both feature bit characters that reflect the bearded Lefty intellectuals (they're not wearing leather-elbow patches, but they might as well be.)  In both cases, these talky apparitions appear mostly in TV screens (as if they exist inside the television and not in the same world as the characters, the same way some would criticize academics who live inside the Ivory Tower.) Their ideological ramblings are fragmented throughout each film.  In They Live, a character listed as "bearded man" hacks into network television signals and gives a direct-address about how "They" have created a repressive society that's turning "us" into livestock  (watch a clip here, from 2:01 - 3:55)  Dawn of the Dead's nameless, bearded "TV Commentator" insists on the need for logical behavior, and then calls the studio audience "dummies!" (watch a clip here)

Kevin Geeks Out About Dummy Deaths: show recap

November's installment of Kevin Geeks Out was a one-of-a-kind show, thanks to the driving force of our co-hosts’ obsession and enthusiasum. Howard S. Berger and Kevin Marr brought their A-game -- and over 50 clips from movies in every genre, covering 100 years of cinema from the first filmed Dummy Death (1903’s The Great Train Robbery) to a modern death scene with the most expensive dummies ever killed (2007’s Death Proof) Howard and Kevin run an excellent website solely devoted to this topic. (It’s much more fascinating than you might expect. Reading their essays is like hearing JFK conspiracy theories, after a while you get caught up in it.) NOTE: I hosted the show dressed as the TV Commentator from Dawn of the Dead. There’s a great scene where he calls everyone “dummies”. (I didn’t expect people to know, so I showed the clip.)

The show’s guest speakers were full of great stories. Actor Matt Mitler(who previously delighted the crowd at KGO: Werewolves with footage of his Werewolf transformation in Deadtime Stories) showed some dummy death footage from The Mutilator.
(Matt presented me with a poster from the film, see photo)

Actor Kevin Scullin (who’d previously delighted the crowd playing opposite Vincent Price in a scene from The Imporance of Being Ernest, using the LP "Co-Star with Vincent Price) talked about being replaced by a dummy during his death scene in Dead Mate.
Then Howard and Kevin continued the parade of Dummy Deaths, showing some dazzling clips from On The Waterfront, Warriors of the Wasteland, Rollercoaster, Catch-22, Death Wish 4 and a hilarious industrial training film titled Will You Be here Tomorrow? While the film’s intended message is “practice safety on the factory floor” the real message is “stay in school, kids!”
Later, KGO producer Jay Stern looked at Religious symbolism in 1928’s Joan of Arc, comparing the religious statues of the Catholic Church to the dummy immolation at the stake. We also looked at how the use of Dummy Deaths in the Monkees’ HEAD works as a critique of the false, manufactured band. And then we saw a robot blow-up a chick’s head in Chopping Malll. Always a crowd pleaser.

Soon it was time for a cupcake break. Lisa Beebe’s dummy death cupcakes were a big hit. Each cupcake featured a dead body, which could be a person, an animal, or sometimes just a decapitated head. (This cool food blog reviewed the show - and raved about the cupcakes.) What I loved about this dessert is that it’s interactive, each person could make-up the backstory of how the dummy died – whether they were thrown from the roof of a cut in half by an airplane propellor.

During our break, we called our super-special guest, a living legend in the world of dummy deaths – TOM SAVINI! Little did Tom know that I was dressed as a character from Dawn of the Dead. I should’ve mentioned that.

** In this clip, I started to mention Savini's ringtone, but then I got distracted and never revealed what it is. Now, for the first time anywhere, it can be told: bullfrogs croaking. True story.

Next up, Director Matthew Glasson talked about the secrets of crafting a dummy death scene. He showed one of the most creative dummy deaths of the night by showing a clip from his short The Family Tie. After we watched he broke down the special effects process, talking about the set-backs and success of low-budget dummy-making.

When asked about his influences in dummy deaths, Matthew showed a clip from Fulci’s Don’t Torture a Duckling, which led to another discussion of the religious implications of dummy deaths. I can’t paraphrase it properly, but it explored Gnosticism and the spark of life, and other smart-talk.

Then it was back to the slaughter, as we watched even more explosive dummy deaths from Raiders of the Lost Ark, Scanners, The Fury, Deadly Friend, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Bad Taste (Peter Jackson’s first film) and Maniac.
Of course before the audience could leave, we showed a teaser for the December edition of KEVIN GEEKS OUT, it’s going to be our HOLIDAY GRAB BAG featuring 8 guest speakers, surprise clips, mystery cupcakes, holiday gifts and a tribute to Santa. Click HERE to buy tickets for the December 18th show.

Bonus material:

Deleted Scene from KGO: Dummy Deaths

Show review by Tenebrous Kate

Dummy scene in the E.T. ripoff, Mac & Me.

KONGA: the tiniest dummy death ever filmed (skip ahead to 2:10 if you’re in a hurry)

Lastly: KGO super-producer Jay Stern is starting his new feature film! Click here to find out what you can do to make it happen!

Save the date: November 20th is DUMMY DEATH Night

KEVIN GEEKS OUT about Dummy Deaths!

Friday, November 20th @ 8pm

at the 92Y Tribeca, 200 Hudson Street, NY, NY

For more details and advance tickets (no service charge), go HERE

Kevin Geeks Out! is a monthly video variety show, which brings together vintage film clips, rare TV footage, guest speakers, experts, games and curiosities. To geek out with Kevin, you don't need to be a geek, you just need to love cool stuff.

Since 2008 we've geeked out with 16 different installments, topics included Bigfoot! – Robots! – Video Games! – Frankenstein! – Batman! – KISS! – Hulk! – and in last month’s show, Vincent Price!

November's show is hosted by two dudes who have out-geeked me when it comes to Dummy Deaths. They call themselves the Flying Maciste Brothers, and they have devoted their adult lives to examining those quick instances where a stuntman is replaced with a disposable doppelganger; the moment when the baton of existence is passed from human actor to inert fascimile.

Join us as we celebrate Prosthetic Demise in everything from low-budget b-movies to Hollywood Blockbusters, including silent films, classic westerns, Kung-Fu cinema, 1970’s crime dramas, Italian Horror, futuristic science-fiction—even industrial training films. Plus special guests:

• Actor Matt Mitler shows his scenes from 1985’s The Mutilator.

• Director Matthew Glasson shares the secrets about using blood-filled rubber heads in his film The Family Tie.

• Blogger Rumsey Taylor shares his favorite 80's VHS dummy deaths.

• Actor Kevin Scullin shows how he was replaced with a dummy in DEADMATE.

All this, and dummy-death themed Cupcakes! (You'll have to come to the show to see for yourself)

The End of The Road

The final episode of THE SCI FI DEPARTMENT.

We had a great run -- 72 episodes! Thanks to anyone who watched the show.

George Romero talks Zombies

In my star-filled career I've worked with Mike Myers, Lindsay Lohan and Mark Summers, but none of them could have prepared me for meeting this legendary filmmaker. George Romero is a great guy. He says "man" a lot (though none of those made it into the edited interview.) He's a class act!