Indie Spotlight

We're back with the latest installment of our Indie Spotlight. Today's feature includes zombie 5k's, a treasure chest of horrors, Scott Ian's new horror show, and the beginning of an interview Steph Howard conducted with Dr. Peter Cummings about his zombie medical novel.

Zombie Dawn Theater List: Interested in checking out Zombie Dawn? A list of upcoming theatrical screenings has been announced: "In 2006 a mysterious incident at a remote mining facility unleashes a zombie horde with an appetite for human flesh. It decimates large portions of the cities and countryside. The only course of action is to rapidly enclose the infected areas and seal them off from the rest of the remaining, living population. Now, 15 years later the tattered remains of the government and the mining corporation responsible where the initial event took place commit themselves to finding out what may have happened at the mining complex. The solution is to covertly send in a group of mercenaries led by a cynical but no-nonsense Colonel and investigative scientists into the quarantined zone to find answers."

To learn more, visit: http://www.zombiedawnmovie.com/

Monstermatt's Bad Monster Jokes Vol.2 Announced: "Monstermatt Patterson, Kyle Kaczmarczyk and West Neb Books are pleased to announce the upcoming Monstermatt's Bad Monster Jokes Vol.2, slated for a 2012 Halloween release.

This follows up the well-received first volume “bad” monster jokes. Monstermatt’s Vad Monster Jokes Vol.1 collected over 400 gags, puns, and rhymes. Vol.1 showcased monsters, horror films and all sorts of characters and creeps from across the horror genre. Vol.2 will have nearly 500 jokes, picking up where Vol.1 left off, to simultaneously lampoon and honor the obscure and profound elements of the weird world of monsters."

Sol: The sci-fi movie Sol is now available on VOD: "Sol" is a sci-fi motion picture event set in the distant future on a hostile alien planet. It follows a group of ambitious young adults as they embark upon the prestigious Sol Invictus competition in a quest to win fame and glory."

For more information and to watch the trailer, visit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYf4jdLpg5E

Headspace: Freestyle Digital Media has announced the upcoming release of a director's cut of Headspace:

"Freestyle Digital Media announces the release of HEADSPACE: THE DIRECTOR’S CUT on cable and internet video on demand in North America on April 24th. The film, originally released theatrically in February, 2006, has been updated by director Andrew van den Houten and will actually run five minutes shorter than the original theatrical version. Scripted by Steve Klausner and William M. Miller from a story by Troy McCombs, the film was produced by van den Houten and Miller, with Marius Kerdel executive producing.

Running 84 minutes, the streamlined Director’s Cut will also be available for the first time in high definition. This will also be the first time an R-rated cut of the film will be available for audiences as a previously edited version was shown on basic cable in 2009."

Nerdist Announces Blood and Guts with Scott Ian: "Scott Ian, best known as the rhythm guitarist for Anthrax, will be hosting the show which will provide viewers with a Hollywood insider view of special FX makeup. Ian will help reknowned masters of gore teach viewers how to create the horror FX makeup seen in their favorite films."

To visit the Nerdist YouTube channel, visit: http://www.youtube.com/user/Nerdist/videos

"Run For Your Lives" Will Pay For Your Funeral: The zombie 5k adventure race that is visiting cities around the country has announced a new contest:

"Nowadays, you can’t go to the restroom without being hit in the face with an advertisement. And, most recently, advertising space is now actually being sold on people’s faces. So with half of its target audience being zombies, or esteemed members of the undead, Reed Street Productions, creators of the zombie-infested 5K adventure race, Run for Your Lives, announced today through an ad in the Wall Street Journal that it’s launching a sweepstakes to provide three future members of the undead a *free funeral in exchange for placing the race’s URL on their tombstones.

Prize money to cover future *funeral costs total $5,000, and will be provided to winners up front. Interested individuals should visit www.runforyourlives.com/funeral and fill out the entry form, and three winners will be selected at random on June 1 – just in time for the next Run For Your Lives race in Millville, Minn.

*Not so discreet, but necessary disclaimer: Consent to tombstone inscription not necessary to enter or win. The $5,000 cash award may be put toward your funeral expenses. It may not cover the entire cost of your funeral."

For more information, visit: http://runforyourlives.com/funeral/

Delta Green: Strange Authorities: "John Scott Tynes merges Lovecraftian cosmic horror with techno-thriller espionage in “Delta Green: Strange Authorities,” now available from Arc Dream Publishing. 'Delta Green: Strange Authorities' is a 388-page collection of award-winning Cthulhu Mythos horror fiction. It includes the short stories “The Corn King,” “Final Report,” “My Father’s Son,” and “The Dark Above,” and the Origins Award-winning novel “The Rules of Engagement.”

Delta Green: Strange Authorities is available in trade paperback from Amazon.com, Ingram Book Company, and Arc Dream Publishing, and in ebook for Kindle, Nook, iBooks and other devices.

Treasure Chest of Horrors: "Join Percival Pirate on his quest to discover his Grandpappy's hidden treasure chest. What might have contained a wealth of gold, precious jewels, and doubloons ends up holding a much more valuable treasure: four never before seen horror films guaranteed to rattle your bones. The "booty" features vampires, killer mannequins, a gruesome high school killing spree and more. Featuring special appearances by horror legends Lloyd Kaufman and Shawn C. Phillips. Be prepared to laugh, scream, and clutch your balls in agony as you witness some of the greatest horrors of low-budget cinema. As a bonus, the collection includes director's commentary for each segment."

The movie will be out on DVD on June 19th. You can watch the teaser trailer at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRcnlWgKwC0

Are you the next Ultimate Zombie Warrior?: It looks like you'll have to start training for a new zombie race. Check out this teaser video that was sent to us for Ultimate Zombie Warrior:

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Interview: Dr. Peter Cummings talks The Neuropathology of Zombies

By Steph Howard

This is the first of a two-part feature with Peter Cummings about all things zombie. He recently released a revised edition of his novel, The Neuropathology of Zombies, and Steph Howard asked him a number of questions related to the book. In our next feature, he answers your zombie medical questions.

Thank you for taking the time to talk with Daily Dead. Can you tell our readers a bit about your work as a forensic pathologist and author?

Thank you all very much for taking the time to write all these amazing questions and for taking the few hours out of your lives to read the book. When you release anything that is creative you release a part of you and even though an individual's ego is strong enough to write and publish, there is still a degree of insecurity about the whole thing, which is why I don’t read reviews! I’ve enjoyed the emails and twitter comments I have received, they have been very positive with some great constructive comments, such as issues with the editing. I know! The book is getting a new edit to fix that stuff.

My work as a forensic pathologist is pretty cool, most of the time. I enjoy solving a puzzle. I don’t spend any time catching bad guys, but I do get to help the police do that and I also get to help families deal with a traumatic life event. Sometimes I even assist the family in getting tested for inherited diseases and that is a very positive thing. The work itself is very difficult. It’s a very physically demanding job. There are days when I have sweat running down my legs and I have injured my rotator cuff and have had other injuries. That’s the part I didn’t expect. You’ve got to be pretty strong to do autopsies all day! It’s also an emotionally challenging job, you need to be very aware of your feelings and know when it’s time to take a vacation.

It’s not entirely healthy to be exposed to the degree of violence that we are, so having good friends and supportive families is a must. One of my outlets is writing. Writing The Neuropathology of Zombies was very cathartic! However, you should have heard the conversations I had with pathology residents and medical students about neuroanatomy and neurophysiology as I was writing the book. My question and answer sessions (or ‘pimping’ as is known) in the morgue tended to relate to zombies, they must have thought I was crazy!

What inspired you to write a zombie novel?

I love horror. I grew up watching the original Universal horror films. I still love Dracula and Frankenstein. When I was five my parents divorced and my mom, sister and I moved in with my grandmother for a summer. My uncle lived there as well and he worked the night shift a the Great Northern Paper mill in Millinocket Maine. He would come home in the wee hours of the morning and drag me out of bed to watch horror movies on TV. He’d make me a hamburger or something and I’d fall asleep in a chair watching the moves. My mom would get up in the morning and find me passed out next to a half eaten burger. I guess that’s how I got started. I’ve always wanted to contribute in someway. I’ve been an avid reader of Famous Monsters my entire life and thought about going into special effects as a kid.

An idea for a book took a while to arrive. I never really had an idea. I’ve always wanted to create a new monster, but never felt inspired. A few years ago I began work on a book called The Magic City Murder based loosely on a murder in my hometown when I was a kid. But, the main character, Benjamin Hawk, felt too similar to they typical forensic pathologist found in the fiction literature. These characters tend to be nuts, have a lot of problems, and are self-loathing. Over done, I think. Some of us forensic folks are pretty well put together. I’ve always loved the Scully character from X-Files and wondered why no one ever took a character like than and ran with it, so I guess that’s the beginning of Hawk.

Over Halloween 2010 I was watching Night of the Living Dead and noticed some of the interesting behaviors and body movements of the zombies and found myself trying to diagnose them. There was my plot. A few days after this I was mentioning my idea to a friend who essentially dared me to write the book by telling me that November was ‘write your own novel month’. So that’s how it all came together. As an interesting side note, I created Hawk’s name after seeing it on a gravestone while playing hide and seek with my son in a cemetery.

Dr. Hawk extracts blood and a skin tissue biopsy from Igor, and finds that his blood and skin are similar to what they would find on a decomposing body. Does this mean that all the body tissues will be decomposed? If so, how long would a zombie be able to function without completely dissolving?

Yes, all the various organs and tissues are decomposing to varying degrees. The regions of the brain infected by the virus (in my model) are still functioning and thus are not decomposing, this is a unique effect of the virus. Continued electrical stimulation by the brain to the muscles of the limbs allows the muscles to continue to function and thereby slow down any decomposition. The other organs, such as the lungs and heart are no longer necessary and they decompose. How long will the zombie last? Hard to say. They must reach some sort of equilibrium where the amount of decomp (as we call it in ‘the biz’) doesn’t exceed overcome the system.

Dr. Hawk is brought in on this zombie mission because of a famous lecture he gives on zombies where he finds that the zombie is a viral affliction that targets the temporal lobes, specifically the amygdala leading to a version of Kluver-Bucy syndrome.

One of the experimental treatments for Kluver-Bucy syndrome is carbamazepine. If this virus is an advanced mutation of Kluver-Bucy, would there be a way to counteract the disease, or a way to help a patient function with the disease?

In my model a vaccine would be the best bet. I don’t think you could reverse the process, but if you had an effective vaccination against the virus, you could stop new cases. You bring up an interesting point, maybe of you could administer carbamazepine to the zombie you could control their behavior making the process of disposal easier!

Dr. Hawk discusses other regions of the brain that may contain legions, and thus are inept towards ordinary functions. For example, the cerebellum would contain legions that echo what happens to a normal person’s balance and mobility after too many drinks.

When he brings up the brainstem, he finds that functions of the heart and lungs will be stopped, answering the age old question of why zombies aren’t stopped when shot in the chest. Do you think this would be a uniform phenomenon, or would some zombies have legions in other parts of their brains causing them to be either more stunted or more agile? Do you think there could be a mutation that gives us hyperactive zombies?

Great questions! The behavior of the zombie could be unique to the virus or agent that caused the disease. It is possible that the ‘fast zombie’ is the result of a unique lesion in the brain,  maybe in the regions where hyperactive disorders might reside. A mutation in a zombie virus could have many consequences. It is possible that a mutation could result in the virus affecting a different part of the brain and make the zombies move faster.

What I’ve gathered from Dr. Hawk’s hypothesis is that there is potential for the afflicted to still be alive in some sense, and thus curable. Do you believe that if/when a zombie outbreak happens, there will be any hope for a cure?

I think you’re referring to the final scene with Igor where he seems to have some idea of what’s going on. When I read that part I wonder if maybe Hawk is over interpreting what he’s observing. Maybe Hawk is trying to make the situation easier for himself, it’s his story through his perspective and that is always a situation that is one-sided. Maybe it’s easier for Hawk to pull the trigger if he thinks he is releasing Igor from the zombie state. I think the only hope in a zombie outbreak is a vaccine to prevent new cases. I doubt that you’ll be able to bring people back. One of the major barriers for returning zombies to humans is the decomp of the heart, lungs, brain, these areas won’t re-grow. Perhaps a vaccine would slow the virus in the zombie and somehow make it easier to control the hordes!

What's next for you in terms of writing projects?

Thanks for asking! I am putting the final touches on the next Hawk adventure titled The Seven Stars. It’s the middle book of the trilogy. I have also been working on a book of short stories called Stumps that I hope to finish after The Seven Stars is wrapped up. Sadly, Stumps, which is about 1/2 done, was lost when my hard drive crashed. I thought I had backed it up, but can’t find it.  I really like some of the stories, so after Stars I’m going to have someone try and salvage the drive. I’ve lost three hard drives on three different books. Not sure why that keeps happening. I lost my first hard drive on my textbook Atlas of Forensic Histopathology (Cambridge University Press), but thankfully recovered the entire thing.

I am also plodding along on another textbook with the working title Pathology for the Pathologically Hopeless. It’s for medical students getting ready for their big licensing exam and for pathology residents getting ready for their boards.

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To learn more about The Neuropathology of Zombies, visit: http://www.zombiepathology.com/