Author of sci-fi/fantasy, horror and adventure/thriller fiction

BLACK SUMMER, Season 2

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BLACK SUMMER (Netflix) is a terrific zombie series, brushing aside its low budget with constant tension, culling terror from even a single relentless zombie, interesting characters and set pieces, and a full range of genuine human reactions. Season 2 delivers the same winning formula as the first season, while amping up the conflict to be more human versus human and finding an almost Old West pathos to its grim story. At the same time, it sacrifices an important human element in its bleak depiction of survival, which was unfortunate.

Rose reunited with her daughter at the end of the first season, which saw the major characters either scattered, dead, or having made it to the stadium. Season 2 seemed to promise a story of how this tribe struggles and survives in a zombie-infested world similar to other shows like TWD and Z NATION, but this isn’t them. In this world, food becomes scarce, there’s a massive die off, our tribe is separated into virtually every man or woman for themselves, and various bands of people struggle in the northern wilderness, where the cold freezes many of the zombies.

An interesting antagonist is introduced, a cop who now leads a hardened band of survivalist-type warriors. He’s an intriguing character, a ruthless badass and a fitting antagonist for Rose, though the show doesn’t set up any real antagonism other than their paths cross searching for the same goal, which is unfortunate. If the show had them have a real run in, setting up personal stakes, their antagonism would have meant far more, and it would have been a better, less fragmented story. The camera often lingers on faces and landscapes, giving the whole thing an Old West feel not unlike THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY, though again wasting its chance at pathos by not tying the primary characters together more strongly.

Mostly, the story centers around various groups and individuals converging on a house that is a point of communication with a supply plane and supposed sanctuary, and then a race for the plane itself. In the midst of this, Rose will do anything to ensure her daughter survives, though her daughter, so accustomed to danger, may not be able to function in any place that seems safe. Unfortunately, Rose is often so ruthless, sometimes for no practical purpose, it makes you wonder who the villain is. It’s the same with most of the show–there’s so little trust, so natural an inclination to hurt and kill, that it seems to go beyond survival into a commentary about the natural brutality of humanity, brutality for its own sake. Which is unnecessarily bleak, as one of the things I liked about the first season was how people will form tribes and try to work together in the face of adversity.

Overall, despite its flaws and missed opportunities, I liked it a lot. Kinda loved it, actually. I hope it gets a third season.

AUTUMN: DAWN by David Moody

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David Moody’s AUTUMN: DAWN breathes new life into my favorite undead series. The book releases tomorrow (May 31).

In the grisly world of AUTUMN, a deadly germ strikes 99.9% of the population dead in their tracks. The dazed and shocked survivors struggle to make sense of it, some of them grouping together for comfort and survival and to try to keep hope alive. Then the dead rise from where they fell. Rotting and feral, they are attracted to the living, creating a new threat of total extinction.

I was totally impressed with Moody’s vision of an undead world back in the 2000s. He gave the undead a totally originally spin, not the least of which was by focusing heavily on character and realistically portraying the horrifying physical and emotional landscape of a world filled with zombies. His zombies are truly horrible, practically rotting off the page. His characters have a strained, stubborn agency, remarkable not for any heroic qualities but simply because they’re able to function and fight among so much horror and hopelessness.

Enter AUTUMN: DAWN, the start of a new trilogy to extend the series. This time, the setting is London, where there are plenty of survivors but the dead number in the millions. A community of people have gathered and find themselves under siege. A short distance away, another group has formed, though it might as well be on the Moon. And other survivors wait in the shadows. Can they unite and survive among an ocean of feral undead? Can they hold out and survive in London? Or will they strike out of the city to an alleged sanctuary up north?

The first book delivers everything you want in a Moody novel, and now I’m eagerly looking forward to the second.

ARMY OF THE DEAD (2021)

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Zack Snyder’s ARMY OF THE DEAD (2021, Netflix) delivers a fantastic setup with a strong cast of characters and lavish sets and action, only to suck every drop of fun out of it with dumb tropes.

The film follows Scott Ward (Dave Bautista), a Las Vegas local who became a legendary hero during the zombie war and who afterwards sank into obscurity. Fast forward: the war’s over, Las Vegas is quarantined, his daughter lives in a nearby quarantine camp, and Ward is a bit broken after everything he suffered to survive and save others. A casino boss hires him to break into Vegas to rob the casino he abandoned, offering $50 million for him and whatever team he assembles. After collecting his old zombie-killing comrades and recruiting other specialists, they venture into a zombie-infected Las Vegas to find the zombies have evolved. The trick is the president has authored Vegas to be nuked, and the clock is ticking.

Wow, right? They had me at Bautista, who makes a terrific understated action hero, but that’s one hell of a great setup. Like something like Adam Baker (TERMINUS, IMPACT, etc.) would cook up. The first half is actually fantastic. The problem is once the team is assembled, it all falls apart.

It’s like the filmmakers didn’t trust themselves (or their audience) to make any of it pay off, so they kitchen-sank every dumb heist and zombie movie trope they could scratch together in the hopes something would stick. You’ve got the Annoying Rebellious Daughter with Principle, Skeevy Security Guard, Tough and Mysterious Scout, Traitorous Scumbag Corporate Guy, Overplayed Unfunny Comic Relief, and so on. As well as hibernating zombies, zombie love right out of I AM LEGEND, alpha parkour zombies, king zombie, animal zombies, and from what some people are saying also robot zombies. The action in the second half is decent, there’s some fun, but mostly I was bored as the predictability of it, found the alpha zombies more annoying than menacing, and didn’t care if anybody died.

Okay, maybe I’m just a party pooper who expected too much from a zombie movie. That’s probably true. I’m just bummed because there was so much goddamn potential in this movie’s setup that I felt the way I felt watching the last season of GAME OF THRONES. They should have torn a page from Baker’s books and simply told a simple story: The team has a legendary past, the band gets back together for a heist, they go in, it goes bad, they barely get out with the clock ticking on a nuke. That’s it. No annoying daughter, no scumbag corporate guy, no skeevy security guard.

Oh, well. It’s certainly not the worst zombie movie, and it has a lot of fun elements to it to make it likeable and a passable watch. It really should have just stuck with its simple premise and core characters and made them pay off. THE DIRTY DOZEN with zombies. It could have been one of the best zombie movies ever.

LIFE (2017)

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I’d put off watching LIFE (2017, streaming on Netflix) as I hadn’t heard much good about it and it seemed an updated Hollywood spin on ALIEN. Despite both being true, I enjoyed it quite a bit and recommend it for sci-fi and horror fans looking for something engaging and punchy in familiar territory.

The film opens with a probe returning from Mars with soil samples, which is caught by the International Space Station with its six-person crew played by solid actors like Jake Gyllenhaal (of course playing a somewhat melancholy earnest guy) and Ryan Reynolds (of course playing a wisecracking astronaut). They find an organism in the soil, which they nurture and experiment with, fascinated by its ability to adapt, grow, and learn. Predictably, it breaks out of the lab, threatens everybody on the station, and poses a threat to Earth.

As far as horror and action go, it’s all pretty solid and follows a familiar path if you’ve ever seen ALIEN. It doesn’t make you jump in your seat, but it’s fun. The ending is an easy guess but nicely done as it took some courage to go there. Where the film shined for me is in its world building.

The space station is very well crafted. It lacks the lived-in grunge of ALIEN’S NOSTROMO but makes you feel like they really shot it in the space station. But that’s not the best part. I love sci-fi films where a space station, planet, spaceship, whatever offers a sandbox for the characters to face challenges and then solve their problems using the available tools. While I may not be surprised that little critter will escape and kill people, I can be surprised with the little problems and solutions the characters face and come up with due to their unique environment.

Besides that, I liked how the writers didn’t try to snare me with international rivalries or contrived conflicts between the characters. They’re all happy to be up there, they work together well, and they’re bonded by their joint mission to explore. They all behave somewhat realistically under stress, and nobody does anything stupid purely to advance the plot. The storytelling is sparse but also very tight and focused.

As for the monster, it’s pretty cool, though not as cool as other, far more creepier and menacing space monsters in other films. Still, it comes across as somewhat believable.

So overall, for me, LIFE only suffers in its comparison to its horror ancestry. Taken by itself, it’s a solid survival horror flick and sci-fi thriller.

THE INFECTION and THE KILLING FLOOR Re-Released

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Written back in the heyday of Permuted Press and now considered classics in zombie fiction, THE INFECTION and THE KILLING FLOOR have been re-released with a new edit, new covers, and a new low price. I recently acquired the rights back from Permuted, which led to these new editions and, later in 2021, a third book to finally make it a trilogy.

THE INFECTION
A mysterious virus suddenly strikes down millions. Three days later, its victims awake with a single purpose: spread the Infection. As the world lurches toward the apocalypse, some of the infected continue to change, transforming into horrific monsters.

In one American city, a small group struggles to survive. Sarge, a tank commander hardened by years of fighting in Afghanistan. Wendy, a cop still fighting for law and order in a lawless land. Ethan, a teacher searching for his lost family. Todd, a high school student who sees second chances in the end of the world. Paul, a minister who wonders why God has forsaken his children. And Anne, their mysterious leader, who holds an almost fanatical hatred for the infected.

Together, they fight their way to a massive refugee camp where thousands have made a stand. There, what’s left of the government will ask them to accept a mission that will determine the survival of them all—a dangerous journey back onto the open road and into the very heart of Infection.

Get it here.

THE KILLING FLOOR
The mystery virus struck down millions. Three days later, its victims awoke with a single violent purpose: spread the Infection. As the world lurches toward apocalypse, America’s far-flung military returns home to wage a horrific war against its own country.

Far from the front lines, Ray Young, survivor of a fight to save a refugee camp from hordes of infected fleeing the burning ruins of Pittsburgh, awakes from a coma to learn he has also survived Infection. But this is no miracle. Ray is not immune. Instead, he has been transformed into a super-weapon that could end the world … or save it.

In THE KILLING FLOOR, Craig DiLouie’s chilling apocalyptic vision portrayed in THE INFECTION continues, presenting a nightmarish struggle for survival like no other.

Get it here.

THE FINAL CUT
Months after Infection turned the world into a slaughterhouse and laboratory for new horrific forms of life, humanity counts its losses and loses hope. The apocalypse continues to build one day at a time, though the world isn’t ending. It is becoming something new.

In a small town in West Virginia, a tiny but significant battle ends with humanity finally gaining a pure sample of Infection. Licking their wounds, the survivors set out for Fort Detrick, home of USAMRIID, where the Army studies germ warfare.

There, Infection will offer them the ultimate choice: kill, die, or adapt.

Stay tuned for a release date!

UNTHINKABLE (2018)

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In UNTHINKABLE (2018, Netflix), a Swedish thriller disaster film, a dysfunctional family splits apart and rediscovers each other during an invasion by a mysterious power. The action is surprising, realistic, and packs a ton of punch, though the film is dragged down a bit by the main protagonist, who is sympathetic but kinda unlikable.

In 2005, a teenager named Alex lives with his mother and Björn, a retired soldier prone to conspiracy theories about the Russians. Björn suffers from deep anger and paranoia, which he lacks the control to prevent from spilling onto his family. Alex’s best friend Anna, whom he’s in love with, is about to move away from the village. At Christmas, Björn goes too far, driving his wife away, and then Alex leaves too, showing signs he too now has a deep anger that threatens his ability to show or receive love.

Fast forward some years, and an adult Alex is on his way back to his village to buy something valuable to him. Along the way, a series of disasters builds, threatening Sweden’s government and much of its population. Clearly, this is a massive terrorist operation, but who is doing it, and why? The disaster forces Alex to reconnect with the people he left behind, and each of them will find resolution if not ultimate happiness in the horror.

The film is gritty in its realism, with plenty of wow moments in the violent bursts of action. Once things really get going, there is an overwhelming sense of doom, stripping the characters to the moral and psychological bone. The war itself is fascinating, depicting a large-scale sabotage operation to defeat a foreign power without actually invading it. The film is dark right to the end, though each of its characters finds a small bit of redemption for their mistakes.

Overall, I really liked this one and recommend it for those looking for something engaging and off-kilter in an apocalyptic or disaster/war film.