Bushwhacked

When young lovers Nick and Maggie decide to escape the city to spend a romantic weekend camping deep in the idyllic countryside, the excursion begins well. However, it soon degenerates into a maelstrom of terror when one of them comes face-to-face with a centuries-old civil war soldier. The couple are forced to flee into the wilderness, where they become engaged in a mortal battle for survival against a group of long-dead Confederate bushwhackers.

DEAD OF NIGHT by C.M. Saunders starts out slowly, with the couple discussing Prince and reflecting on how they met, none of which is necessary. The story doesn't really kick off until Nick has to take a late night piss, which would have made a better starting point.

I didn't necessarily care about the survival of the couple, but I didn't want the bushwhackers to win, so I found myself rooting for the campers, after all. Picture Wrong Turn, but with undead soldiers, instead of inbred hillbillies, and you'll have a pretty good idea of what to expect.

The ending is a bit of a surprise, and I'm kind of hoping Saunders will turn this into a mini-series. I'd love to know why the bushwhackers won't stay dead.

As always,
AstraDaemon

March Movie Review

Most of us are used to zombie movies where the survivors have some decent firepower…but imagine trying to fight off an undead horde with a musket, and you’ll have the gist of Exit Humanity. Taking place in 1870’s Tennessee, and centered on a Confederate soldier named Edward Young, the movie begins with a brief scene with Edward facing off with an undead Yankee. Moving forward six years, Edward has lost his wife to the outbreak of “dead-alives,” and his son is missing. In his search for his son, Edward reluctantly agrees to help another man, Isaac, rescue his sister from the nutjob known as General Williams. The General is gathering people to intentionally infect, so his snake-oil doctor can test his “cures.” Further into the movie, Edward and Isaac cross paths with a woman who has a supernatural explanation for the undead.

There’s more emphasis on the despair from the post-Civil War era than the actual fighting against the zombies, and there isn’t as much gore as some horror fans might prefer…basically it’s a historical fiction movie with zombies…but it’s a zombie movie that isn’t about the usual humans vs. undead battle, and I think viewers are going to pleased with the effort put into the script. The cast includes Bill Moseley from Devil’s Rejects and House of 1000 Corpses, as well as some other actors that you might recognize.

As always,
AstraDaemon

Civil War Undead

Uncivil Dead by Jeremiah Coe is a Civil War story about Union and Confederate soldiers forced to make a last stand together against a zombie outbreak. Some Southerners living in a little town called Walnut Woods were sympathetic to the cause of the North, and gave information about nearby Confederate troops. Concerned that the residents of Walnut Woods would face retaliation, one-hundred Union soldiers were left behind to protect them, and to help escaped slaves make their way to the North. The garrison was actually located outside of the town, so the outbreak spread throughout Walnut Woods before anyone realized what had happened.

At first, both Union and Confederate soldiers think they are dealing with rabid cannibals, but it doesn’t take them very long to figure out they are dealing with the walking dead; it does, however, take the Union soldiers nearly halfway through the book before they realize it takes a head shot to kill the zombies…the Confederate soldiers weren’t nearly as fortunate. There is a Union doctor who tries to study the infected by tying them to trees, but he can’t find the cause or a cure.

Eventually the two opposing forces come to the conclusion that they need each other to survive the outbreak, but it’s too little, too late. Coe kept me guessing about who might make it to the end of the book, which was refreshing — I don’t care for predictable storylines. The virus was just as mysterious; it spread to both humans and animals, but the source was never mentioned or even hinted at. Coe writes in such stunning historical detail that I did some research to see if there was a real Walnut Woods where troops from both the North and South went missing without explanation, but, apparently, Coe just has a very vivid imagination. SPOILER ALERT: While Coe took some major liberties with the timeline of known American History, the North still wins.

Uncivil Dead did not have a lot of gore and not many confrontations with the undead until the last few chapters. As a matter of fact, the build-up was quite slow in the beginning, but once the two sides joined forces, the story really took off. I think Uncivil Dead is going to appeal more to the zombiephiles that have a genuine interest in the real Civil War.

As always,
AstraDaemon