During the Feedback Discussion of Episode 83, we heard from Zombie Farmer and Timmy.  In their message, Timmy mentioned swinging by MOZ Central, and we have a picture of what he looked like when he got here!

It all comes down to this - the final week in the Summer Knights event!  In Episode 83 of Mail Order Zombie, Brother D reviews the fourth Blind Dead film, Night of the Seagulls.  In Episode 104 of Dread Media, Desmond Reddick also reviewed the film, and together, Brother D and Des discuss the franchise as a whole.  Part 1 of this discussion takes place in MOZ #83, and Part 2 will take place in Dread Media #105 (you are listening to Dread Media at http://www.dreadmedia.net/, aren't you?).  Also this week, Mark E. Poole's Dead Moon Rising gets the Headshot Review treatment when Brother D reviews a movie that was donated to the show by a generous member of the Mail Order Zombie Family (you can donate movies to the show, too, by visiting http://tinyurl.com/mozwish/!).  Answers for the current Zombie Aptitude Test are still being collected (and remember - there is a contest attached to the ZAT this week, and you could win a Mail Order Zombie prize pack!).  Emails and voicemails from the MOZ Family bring Miss Bren to the table for the Feedback Discussion (and one voicemail left by long-time-listener-first-time-caller Zombart made its way into this week's select zombie news in the Zombie Beat!).

Mail Order Zombie forums - http://www.popsyndicate.com/forums/viewforum/86/

Email us at MailOrderZombie@gmail.com or call us at 206-202-2505!

Vote for us at Podcast Alley at http://tinyurl.com/mozvote/

Support the show at http://www.tinyurl.com/mozsupport/

Fan Kids: The Podcast - http://www.fankidspodcast.com/

Deadwalkers - http://www.deadwalkersmovie.com/

The Law Offices of Hardov, Fletch, Heders & Cooper - http://zombielawcenter.com/
Zombie Will - http://zombiewill.com/

Thriller @ Dragon*Con - http://www.dragonconthriller.com/
Spooky Empire - http://www.spookyempire.com/
Shreveport Zombie Walk - http://www.myspace.com/shreveportzombiewalk/
Night of the Living Dead in 3D at 5th Annual Johnny Ramone Tribute - http://www.johnnyramone.com/
Zombie Prom on the stage October 29-31, Newnan, GA - http://newnantheatre.org/auditions.html/
Annee Pocalypse! - http://www.hubrisproductions.com/annee.htm/
Zombie Outbreak Film Festival - http://www.horrorsociety.com/festivals/
Zombie Tycoon - http://tinyurl.com/zombietycoon/
"I Hate This" by Chickenhawk - http://tinyurl.com/chawkhate/
Day of the Dead: Epidemic - http://tinyurl.com/dayepidemic/
Bad news for Carriers release - http://tinyurl.com/carriersclose/
The 4th Reich - http://tinyurl.com/4thnazi/
Zombies in St. Florian - http://tinyurl.com/zombiechurch/
Zombie Boot Camp - http://tinyurl.com/zombiebootcamp/

MOZ Family Member Richard from Witchita sent this graphic to MOZ Central not too long ago.

No matter your political view, it's always nice to see zombies mentioned in the mainstream, and when Max Brooks is brought to the table, it's even better.

Big Man Japan, also known as Dai-Nipponjin, is an overly long near-mockumentary following Daisatô, a lonely superhero who's fallen out of favor with the general public.  Directed by Hitoshi Matsumoto, who also stars in the film as Daisatô, the superhero with a low publicity rating, Big Man Japan presents its story in a fashion similar to the television show "The Office."  A shoulder-mounted camera follows Daisatô through his routine-filled life, and occasionally, monsters show up to threaten the country.  When this happens, Daisatô nonchalantly reports to one of a handful of facilities scattered throughout Japan, has electricity pumped into his body through some clips attached to his chest, and grows to Godzilla-like stature to battle the offending and similarly-sized monster.

And afterward?  He spends some time cooling down/moping until he shrinks back down to normal size and continues with his mundane existence until the next monster comes along.

Matsumoto co-wrote the movie with Mitsuyoshi Takasu, and while some of the storytelling style has an improved “that-just-happened” feel, the story is quite tight and at times, poignant.  Daisatô comes from a line of heroes who have, throughout history, called themselves “Big Man Japan” and done battle against various kaiju threats over the years.  At one point, the hero was worshipped, but these days, the people of Japan don’t look upon their national hero with any sense of hero worship.  The budget’s been cut, and even the government doesn’t give their hero the support or respect once reserved for Big Man Japan.  The scene in which the customary ceremony that takes place before Daisatô’s transformation into Big Man Japan is particularly telling – it takes place in a cluttered government office of some sort, and even the documentary crew seem a bit disrespectful as they have no problem interrupting the ritual and asking them to start over so they can get a better camera shot.

As for Big Man Japan himself, he’s a CG creation.  Every monster in the movie is.  Sometimes they look okay; sometimes they look like something out of a video game cut scene.  I understand not wanting to rely on having an actor wear a rubber suit or creating a miniature city for actors to destroy, and most of the monsters Big Man Japan fights are just un-humanoid enough that it would have been difficult to create a prosthetic make-up effect/suit that would not have blown the credibility and the reality presented in the rest of the movie.

Overall, the movie runs a bit long.  While the scenes featuring Daisatô do serve their purpose, they sometimes threaten to bore the audience.  Additionally, the monster-fighting scenes do run a bit short, but the focus of this movie is not on kaiju-fighting; it is on Daisatô’s dreary existence as a government superhero whose country would rather forget about him.

There's art house and then there's art school, and Severed Ways: The Norse Discovery of America is neither.  Tony Stone is the writer/director behind the movie, and I have to be completely honest – I don’t quite understand what his point was.  I mean, it’s not like the movie’s incomprehensible.  I get it.  It’s not hard to follow.  Vikings show up on the shores of Greenland, a couple of them get left behind, and . . . heavy metal plays in the background.

Severed Ways isn’t necessarily an experimental movie – there’s a semblance of narrative here.  And it’s easy to follow, especially since we have Chapter title cards guiding us through the film.  Why we have Chapter marks in the movie itself I don’t quite understand, but in case you’re having trouble following along, or if you a writer/director who’s having a hard time connecting story sequences, I suppose they’re helpful.

I'd like to mention what I liked about the movie.  It looks great.  The minimalist production design succeeds in making the woods and coast of modern-day Maine look like the 11th century Greenland the Vikings would have encountered.  And the cinematography is fantastic.  I fully expected to see someone’s sleeve dart in front of the camera to wipe the mist off the lens because everything had a nice, foggy and desaturated look that helped to transform this independent production that under most circumstances would be nearly unwatchable into something that was at least interesting to view.

Just turn down the volume.  The movie’s gimmick . . . er, soundtrack is made up of songs from Popol Vuh, Judas Priest and Burzum.  I understand the connection between Vikings and Norwegian death metal, as tenuous as the connection might be, but to drop Morbid Angel’s 'Desolate Ways' into a movie that the filmmakers are obviously trying to present in a somewhat realistic sense didn’t seem to make sense.  Stone takes great care in presenting how real, or as the DVD cover tells us, how “gritty” the Vikings’ reality was, but the inclusion of this music made the movie feel like a long experimental music video.

Whether Severed Ways: The Norse Discovery of America is a long music video or a gritty historical epic, including a scene in which one of the characters defecates and then wipes himself with the available foliage does nothing to make the movie interesting or worth your time.

Week 82 of Mail Order Zombie brings you Week Three of Summer Knights, the crossover event between Mail Order Zombie and Dread Media during which each of Amando de Ossorio's Blind Dead films are reviewed on both shows.  This week, Brother D reviews the third film of the series, The Ghost Galleon.  Also, Brother D takes a look at the upcoming anthology horror movie Grave Mistakes, coming soon from direct Chris LaMartina.  The current Zombie Aptitude Test has a contest attached to it, and the winner will receive a Mail Order Zombie prize pack.  You want more reviews?  How about a review of the videogame Onechanbara: Bikini Samurai Squad, courtesy of Saint Nasty?  And how about this?  The Post Script is back; Miss Bren reviews the book The Estuary by Derek Gunn.  Mathew from Shelbytownship, Michigan, hits the MOZ Family with another installment of his ABCs of Zombies, and the Feedback Discussion takes up the backhalf of the show (and during the discussion, Miss Bren learns something about her buzzing nemeses!).  And before all this, we get a report from the Zombie Walk from Gen Con 2009! (And check out Need-a-Nickname Scott and Tracey at the Zombie Walk here - http://tinyurl.com/naov4n . . . !)

Mail Order Zombie forums - http://www.popsyndicate.com/forums/viewforum/86/

Email us at MailOrderZombie@gmail.com or call us at 206-202-2505!

Vote for us at Podcast Alley at http://tinyurl.com/mozvote

Support the show at http://www.tinyurl.com/mozsupport

Dread Media - http://www.dreadmedia.net

Grave Mistakes - http://www.myspace.com/gravemistakesmovie

Know Nothing Music Show - http://knownothingmusicshow.podomatic.com/

Don't Be a Zombie at Work - http://www.dontbeazombieatwork.org

28 Days Later comic - http://tinyurl.com/28dayslatercomic
Third Left 4 Dead 2 campaign revealed - http://tinyurl.com/thirdl4d2
When Zombies Attack!: Mathematical Modelling of an Outbreak of Zombie Infection - http://tinyurl.com/zombiemath
Zombie Ants Controlled by fungus - http://tinyurl.com/antzombie
Donny Dirk's Zombie Den - http://tinyurl.com/donnydirk
Resident Evil 4 moved up three weeks - http://tinyurl.com/re4update
New pics from Survival of the Dead - http://tinyurl.com/newsurvpics

(Various production music produced by Kevin MacLeod)

It's been awhile since we've done one of these!  In this episode of MOZ Presents: The Munchies, Brother D goes over a number of movies in a series of quick reviews (House, Eden Lake, The Alphabet Killer, Bled, Gothkill, Frankenhood and Stuck).  Miss Bren joins him for two more in depth reviews of the movies Eden Log and The Mutant Chronicles, and then a special guest drops by to announce the winners of the Anacondas: Trails of Blood DVD contest.

Dexter: The Third Season hits DVD tomorrow (8/18/09), and Mail Order Zombie wants to help you keep on your toes!  Sure, you may watch a lot of zombie movies, but will that help you against a run of the mill serial killer?  Not that Dexter is "run of the mill," of course!

To enter this contest, email your name and mailing address to MailOrderZombie@gmail.com.  Winners will be determined next week on August 24th!  We have three copies of Dexter: The Third Season to give away - good luck!

Recorded in the Pacific Northwest and available for download around the world, Episode 81 of Mail Order Zombie is filled with zombies, undead Templar knights, guest appearances and . . . food?  This is the second week of Summer Knights, which means Brother D is reviewing the second film in Amando de Ossorio's Blind Dead series, Return of the Evil Dead (along with Desmond Reddick at Dread Media at http://www.dreadmedia.net).  Illwy Productions' Of the Living Dead is also reviewed this week.  The answers from July's Zombie Aptitude Test question are finally shared with the Mail Order Zombie Family, and remember, this month's ZAT question has an opportunity to earn you extra credit with a contest!  Zombie Hunter Tony's new segment Staying Fed in the Land of the Dead makes its debut this week, and Corey Graham from the Midnight Podcast joins Brother D for the first part of a two-part mini-roundtable in which they answer questions from the MOZ Family and listeners of the Midnight Podcast.  Miss Bren and Brother D end the episode with another healthy round of Feedback Discussion.

Mail Order Zombie forums - http://www.popsyndicate.com/forums/viewforum/86/

Email us at MailOrderZombie@gmail.com or call us at 206-202-2505!

Vote for us at Podcast Alley at http://tinyurl.com/mozvote

Support the show at http://www.tinyurl.com/mozsupport

Dread Media - http://www.dreadmedia.net

Internet connects zombies for Salt Lake City Zombie Walk - http://tinyurl.com/slczwalk
Busy Milla Jovovich's wedding and zombies - http://tinyurl.com/millawedding
Survival of the Dead at Fantastic Fest - http://tinyurl.com/romerofest
Toronto Zombie Walk: Special Director's Cut Edition - http://www.torontozombiewalk.ca/
Newmarket Recreation Department summer camp performs "Thriller" - http://tinyurl.com/thrillernewmarket
Dana Stow & Christopher Noon mention zombies in their wedding vows - http://tinyurl.com/zombievow
Barack Obama, zombie killer - http://tinyurl.com/evilpres
My Rotten Life - http://tinyurl.com/rottenlife
Record-Setting I Spit on Your Rave - http://tinyurl.com/spitrave
Zombies on Smallville - http://tinyurl.com/smallvillezed
Zombies on Medium - http://tinyurl.com/mediumzed
The Walking Dead coming to TV - http://tinyurl.com/walkingdeadtv
Shaun of the Dead crashes Universal Studios' Hollywood Horror Nights 2009 - http://tinyurl.com/universalzed
Bruce La Bruce's LA Zombie - http://tinyurl.com/LAZombie
Star Wars: Death Troopers - http://tinyurl.com/swdeath
Death Troopers in Star Wars Galaxies - http://tinyurl.com/galaxyzed
RiffTrax LIVE: Plan 9 From Outer Space - http://tinyurl.com/plan9live

Episode 80 kicks off with Summer Knights, Mail Order Zombie's month-long look at Amando de Ossorio's Blind Dead films (along with Dread Media); Brother D tries a bit of Spanish when reviewing the first film in the franchise, Tombs of the Blind Dead from 1971.  He'll also review the 1980 Bruno Mattei film Hell of the Living Dead.  After the Introduction and the news in the Zombie Beat (special thanks to Need-a-Nickname Scott and Jay Emmitt for their hard work this week!), Brother D and Miss Bren are joined by Aaron from Zed Word: The Zombie Blog for a lengthy discussion of the upcoming Steven Rumbelow adaptation of the David Moody novel Autumn.  A new Zombie Aptitude Test question is also announced, and this time, a contest is worked into the ZAT - score!

Mail Order Zombie forums - http://www.popsyndicate.com/forums/viewforum/86/

Email us at MailOrderZombie@gmail.com or call us at 206-202-2505!

Vote for us at Podcast Alley at http://tinyurl.com/mozvote

Support the show at http://www.tinyurl.com/mozsupport

Dread Media - http://www.dreadmedia.net

Autumn - http://www.autumnthemovie.com

[REC] 2 Teaser - http://tinyurl.com/teaserrec2
D. J. Caruso to direct Dead Space - http://tinyurl.com/deadspacedj
Night of the Creeps on Blu-ray - http://tinyurl.com/bluecreeps
Subject 245: The Punk from Sideshow Collectibles - http://tinyurl.com/subject245
4th Nazi zombie level for Call of Duty: World at War - http://tinyurl.com/wownazi
Rachel Caine's Dead Sexy - http://tinyurl.com/deadsexybook
Zombieland interviews - http://tinyurl.com/zlandinterviews
New Left 4 Dead DLC in September - http://tinyurl.com/crashcoursel4d
Beatles, Zombie Mashup - http://tinyurl.com/fabfourdead - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjuTJB2MiIc
The War of the Worlds, with zombies - http://tinyurl.com/warworldszombies
Living Dead in Denmark - http://tinyurl.com/denmarkdead
Nudist Camp Zombie Massacre - http://tinyurl.com/nudistcampzombie
Boom! Studios Announces Zombie Tales 2061 Signing - http://tinyurl.com/talessigning

We live in a wonderful technological age.  The Internet can help put movie enthusiasts in contact with movie makers and movie suppliers; nearly every cinematic craving can be met be filled with a bit of time, research, patience and communication.

Except for Siege of the Dead.

Brother D heard about this movie from a friend at a film festival a few years ago, and has since then been trying to find it for himself.  He's been told it's a great no-budget independent movie, but the moviemakers are no longer selling it online.  The production company's website is no more, and the only clip Brother D has seen of the movie is the trailer on YouTube. 

Initial attempts at contacting anyone involved in the movie have not been productive, but we're not giving up!  Mail Order Zombie family - do any of YOU have this movie?  Brother D would really like to see it - not necessarily to review on the show (although that would probably happen!), but to finally see it for himself!

Can you help hook a Brother up?

The Video Dead is a zombie movie that's never had a proper DVD release, and in this day and age of distributors finally starting to release the films that have been gathering dust in their vaults, someone's trying to make sure The Video Dead doesn't continue to gather that dust!

Head over to http://www.myspace.com/thevideodeadondvd to learn more about this fan's efforts to make this DVD available.