While I realize that sometimes news stories can get blown out of proportion once the national media gloms onto them, I’m not sure what to think about this latest one.
The newest “zombie” story to come out is from China, where a bus driver reportedly stopped his bus in traffic, blocking a woman’s car. He then got off the bus, climbed up on the hood of the woman’s car, and began beating at her windshield. When she got out of the car in a panic, he jumped on her and began chewing her face. Allegedly, several people tried to pull the man off, to no avail…although someone had the presence of mind to snap pictures as it was happening. Thank goodness for bystanders! Police eventually responded and took the man into custody.
The bus driver is said to have only been under the influence of alcohol during the attack (although why he was drunk and driving a bus is a question I hope is answered soon). The woman, who was only identified in the Chinese news story as Du (her surname), survived the attack but will undergo surgery to repair her nose and mouth.
Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past month, you’ve probably heard about Rudy Eugene, the man who ate 75% of a homeless man’s face in Miami over Memorial Day weekend. A toxicology report was recently made public after Eugene was autopsied, and even though police and the media took the whole “bath salts” story and ran with it, Eugene was found to have no synthetic drugs in his system at all, only marijuana.
That fact, coupled with this latest story, is enough to make me wonder what we’ll see in the coming days and weeks, and whether we’ll ever know exactly what is causing this attacks.
If that’s too high of a goal, can a zombie theme park at least make good use of the urban decay that dominates a city that’s trying to rebuild while pumping some much-needed revenue back into the city? According to some developers for the Z World Detroit project, absolutely it can, and after taking a quick look at their idea, it certainly sounds feasible.
Z World Detroit will be a unique and spectacular zombie themed experience park that will transform a virtually neglected section of Detroit, Michigan. Participants will be chased by a growing zombie horde through abandoned factories, stores and homes across hundreds of derelict urban acres. The Z World Detroit initiative is a radical rethinking of urban redevelopment and Detroit’s well-documented blight and de-population. It turns perceived liabilities into assets that will bring a renewed vitality to a struggling neighborhood. When done right, Z World Detroit would be transformative for part of the city and become a legitimate destination.
Imagine experiencing what is essentially a haunted house with zombies in places like this:
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This:
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Or this:
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If done correctly, it would probably be as close as we could come to the real thing, minus the gory headshots, biting, and brain-eating. To help illustrate their idea, the project members of Z World Detroit created a video as well:
As for Detroit’s reaction to the Zombie Theme Park idea, if the author of the Curbed Detroit article is someone to go by, something this creative would be welcomed:
This sounds a lot like all that fun we had during the 1960s race riots. It is nice to know that Z Land is finally going to capitalize on our love of adrenaline rushes and nostalgia. Now even visitors from the ‘burbs can “wonder if they will make it through the night.” And new Detroiters that missed “rock bottom” can pay to have a more terrifying version of the city re-created.
It should be noted that support for the project hasn’t taken off as of yet. The current donation total stands at $570, which is well short of the the $145,000 goal. Considering the support Matthew Inman, creator of The Oatmeal, received for standing up to a bogus letter from a lawyer and the amazing support shown to Karen Klein, this seems like a perfect match for an Internet audience that has no hesitation in getting in touch with its giving side, provided it’s a worthy cause. Saving the city of Detroit with a Zombie Theme Park, one that makes use of the resources that are already in place, fits that bill very well.
The funding campaign for Z World Detroit continues until August 10, 2012.
Zombies have been in the news a lot lately, to say the least; with all the stories floating around about a “zombie apocalypse” and tales of the synthetic drug “bath salts” turning users into flesh-craving maniacs, it’s not hard to see why the Center for Disease Control has had to beef up their website with disclaimers that they are not aware of any disease that would make a person want to eat flesh and/or brains. They’ve also implemented a preparedness tutorial in the event of a national crisis or disaster which masquerades as a zombie-survival guide.
Now, Bangor, Maine has gotten in on the act with a “Zombie Apocalypse Day”, which prepares people for any sort of disaster and helps them learn to think on their feet in the event of an emergency. It just happened to be a zombie emergency this time, and it just happened to be in Stephen King’s hometown (oddly enough, he hasn’t written much about zombies, unless you count Pet Sematary; his 2006 novel Cell touched upon the phenomenon, but incorporated technology into the mythos).
Dozens of people participated, including members of the National Guard and health care workers from nearby hospitals. People got into zombie makeup and were set free to role-play after getting into character; the storyline involved a deadly outbreak originating in Jamaica which is spread through bites.
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Image credit: Kevin Bennet/Bangor Daily News
“The entire thing is very similar to any regular pandemic influenza planning,” said Kathy Knight, director of the Northeastern Mine Regional Resource Center. “So we can use what we learn here in the planning for that type of event.”
While Stephen King didn’t attend the event, all those zombies invading his town probably didn’t escape his attention.
Zombies aren’t real, of course, unless you live in the world of “The Walking Dead”, and even then they’re not called zombies. But “Walker Apocalypse” just doesn’t have the same ring to it. Of course, with all the stories pouring in from around the nation involving bath salts and their pesky, flesh-eating affect on the human brain–9, at last count–it might be prudent to call this the “Bath Salt Apocalypse”, as The Village Voice suggests.
Whatever you call it, it’s pretty damn scary. And, I hate to do this to you, but here’s one more story to add to the growing pile.
A Utica, New York police officer responded to a call about a disturbed person at a bar on Saturday night. When he arrived, he found a 41-year old woman sitting in a stairwell with a blank look on her face. When he tried to engage her in conversation, she became agitated and violent and tried to bite him repeatedly, yelling that she wanted to “eat and kill someone”. She was later taken to the hospital, where it was determined that bath salts were indeed the culprit for her insane behavior.
According to their official Facebook page, Utica officers also responded to two different bath salts calls in one day on June 21st; one regarding a man who claimed to be having bath salt withdrawals and chest pains, and the other involving a woman who was taken to the hospital after experiencing “hallucinogenic effects” from the drug. And while most agree that the synthetic drug causes more of a psychosis than hallucinations, it can lead the user to have very realistic visions that are compared to those that come with taking LSD.
With all the stories coming in about the drug’s effects, it’s sort of surprising that people are continuing to use it. Every drug has its share of dangerous side effects, and some can be fatal, but face-eating? Murderous intent? That’s a side effect I believe I’d want to stay away from, even if I enjoyed partaking.
The world continues to be infatuated with zombies, and the trend is showing no signs of slowing down. This is evident when you browse Kickstarter for some of the projects seeking funding. It’s not hard to find zombie films, zombie art, zombie fashion, and of course, zombie games.
There are plenty fo zombie projects to choose from if your’e looking to invest your money into the greater good of the genre at large, but there are no doubt many of you zombie fans out there who are more interested in games above all else. With that in mind, here are six zombie game projects that are currently in need of handouts.
Note that some of these are not video games. There are some card games thrown into the mix for good measure.
Alexander Kinyua, the Maryland man who allegedly ate his housemate’s heart and dismembered the body last month, is now in custody of a state hospital to have his sanity evaluated.
Although he has been formally charged with first-degree murder and assault, officials want him to be checked out by the hospital before they make any further legal decisions. The move comes after Kinyua’s confession to the murder of his roommate and fellow Morgan State University student Kujoe Agyei-Kodie, and after a history of online rants and odd behavior was revealed.
Before the murder, Kinyua was an avid user of social media sites like Twitter, where he posted seemingly random rants and observations which are now chilling in light of his actions. He also hosted a radio show called Warrior Syndicate Radio, which was, according to Kinyua, aimed at “warriors skilled in combat or warfare … coming together to form a syndicate learning portal for Warrior Clans.”
He took to Facebook to rant about mass human sacrifices, and he also posted disturbing comments on a video posted in an online forum called “Black Gods Attack” under the name COREeye67:
“I JUST MADE MY OWN QUOTE: No bastard ever won a war by dying for his GODS AND GODDESSES. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his GODS AND GODDESSES.
10,000,000+ YEARS, WHAT THE F***!!!”
The profile photo of Kinyua from Warrior Syndicate Radio shows him with his face painted, warrior-like; that was not the first time he’d done such a thing, according to classmates. One girl reportedly saw him walking around outside on campus with his face obscured by paint, chanting.
It’s clear that in the days leading up to the murder–and a previous attack on a fellow classmate with a baseball bat–Kinyua had developed an obsession with the military, war, and weapons. What is not evident is why his strange behavior went unnoticed for so long.
Brad Pitt’s zombie flick “World War Z”, which is based on the acclaimed novel of the same name by author Max Brooks, is quickly spiraling out of control. The film s rumored to be quite different than the source material, a fact which has not settled too well with those who adore the book. However, fan reaction to the film is currently the least of the production’s problems.
Although the film wrapped production weeks ago, screenwriter Damon Lindelof has been tapped to rewrite the script, which will include alterations to the picture’s finale. Additionally, director Marc Foster is scheduled to return for seven weeks of reshoots, which, as everyone knows, is never a good thing. However, Paramount’s Adam Goodman doesn’t appear to be too concerned about such things.
“The footage from this film looks fantastic, but we all agreed it can have a better ending,” Goodman said of the reshoots. “Getting the ending correct is essential, and we are in that creative process. World War Z is a giant summer movie and we are confident it will be a global hit when it’s released June 2013.”
“The director was not empowered. There was nobody that steered the ship,” the source explained. “When you get [a director] who can’t do it all, you get a struggle as to whose is the singular voice. They just couldn’t get it right. There was a lot of spinning of plates, a lot of talking. [But] they did not have a plan.”
In order to make changes to the film’s final act, Paramount has moved the release date from December 21st, 2012 to June 21, 2013. Earlier this year, the studio bumped “G.I. Joe: Retaliation” from its original June 2012 release to March of 2013 in order to convert the film to 3D and add increase Chaning Tatum’s screen time.
The past week has been a bizarre and scary one across the country (and even up into Canada), as stories have poured in about so called “zombies” and cannibals who have murdered, dismembered, and/or eaten other people in fits of violence. So far as anyone can tell, none of the stories are related, and that is perhaps scariest of all.
One of the accused murderers, a college student in Maryland by the name of Alex Kinyua, allegedly killed a man who was staying with his family, dismembered him, and ate parts of his brain and heart. The grotesque act was discovered after Kinyua’s brother found body parts hidden in the basement and had their father contact authorities. Now, evidence has turned up of a rant Kinyua posted on Facebook a few months ago involving mass human sacrifices, and the news is disconcerting in light of the week’s events.
In the post, Kinyua asks fellow students if they are “strong enough to endure ritual HBCU mass human sacrifices around the country and still be able to function as human beings?” He also referred to the Virginia Tech shootings and stated that “ethnic cleansing is the policy, strategy and tactics that will affect you, directly or indirectly in the coming months.”
While it’s not clear yet what his motivation was for either the rant or the murder of his family friend, it’s certainly a look into the mind of a possible disturbed individual. However, it may only raise new questions, such as whether or not Kinyua was planning something big.
Kinyua was involved in a violent dispute with another student on May 19th and allegedly beat him with a baseball bat, causing serious injury to the man and leaving him blinded. He was set free on $220,000 bond for that charge; he is currently being held without bond on a murder charge.
The so-called Miami cannibal–31-year old Rudy Eugene–who attacked and ate 75% of a homeless man’s face last weekend was apparently viewed by friends and family as a bible-toting regular guy who didn’t drink or do hard drugs. And although he had at least one prior arrest on his record for battery, his mother and girlfriend say he wasn’t a violent man.
His girlfriend says she thinks something supernatural made him attack 65-year old Ronald Poppo, and although she can’t say for sure what that might be, she’s leaning towards voodoo or some other curse.
“That wasn’t him, that was his body but it wasn’t his spirit. Somebody did this to him,” she said.
Eugene’s girlfriend doesn’t want to be identified, but Eugene himself was of Haitian descent. Haiti is known for tales of voodoo and zombie curses, although in reality it has gotten blown out of proportion because of elaborate Haitian funerals and rites of the dead. Eugene’s girlfriend says she doesn’t necessarily believe in voodoo, but she doesn’t know any other way to equate the man she knew to the man on the excruciating 18-minute surveillance video which captured him ripping apart Poppo’s face.
The Memorial Day weekend attack was the first in a string of bizarre and sickening incidents, including a California man who ripped another man’s heart and tongue out before burning them to expel the “demons” he saw in the man and a Canadian porn star who allegedly chopped up his roommate with an icepick, raped the corpse and then ate parts of it before dismembering the body and shipping various appendages to political offices around Canada.
I swear this is how it started in “Dawn of the Dead” didn’t it? A couple of stories here and there. Like a man eating another mans face in Miami, and a man eating another man’s brain and heart in Baltimore?
Well, now we get the story of a pizza shop owner in Saten Island New York City who bit another mans ear. Apparently it all started because of a change to the TV station on the TV that hangs in a local diner. A former waitress who was hanging out there became angry and her and the man got into an argument.
It was then that the owner of the pizza shop, Thomas Tomasello, got in his face and started screaming at him. Then the victim, Nicholas Cacace, did the stupid thing and started to taunt Tomasello. This is the part of the story that I neither understand or believe but it is what was reported so here we go. Cacace then went outside to smoke and was follwed out by shop owner Tomasello who proceeded to bite the mans ear.
Tomasello was arrested and charged with second- and third-degree assault charges and was released on $1,000 bail. He will have to appear in court in August. Maybe homeland security knew something we didn’t when they bought 450 million bullets. The zombie apocalypse 2012 is underway!
The news this week has been inundated with stories which seemingly prove it is finally upon us, after all our fan worship for zombie-related films, comics, and shows like “The Walking Dead”. Of course, none has been so strange or horrifying as the tale of Rudy Eugene, the Miami man who attacked a sleeping homeless person on a causeway, stripped him naked, and ate about 75% of his face. Still, a series of odd and mostly violent attacks, murders, and disfigurements/dismemberments have occurred since, sending a good many people into a panic as to whether the end is upon us.
Now we can add one more story to the mix, this one of an unnamed Swedish man who cut off his wife’s lips and ate them. And although the man had a perfectly sane reason for his rage–he says she was cheating on him–it begs the question: Who does that? It’s fine to get angry about your significant other creepin’ on you, but seriously…to cut off their lips? And then eat them? What is going on here?
“It was honor related,” a source told the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet. “He doesn’t seem to regret a thing; he believes she insulted him…he didn’t want the lips to be able to be sewn back on.”
Ohhhh. Okay. That makes sense then.
Now, I’m not saying this has anything to do with what’s been happening here in the states and in Canada (where a porn star is wanted in connection to a grisly murder/dismemberment/cannibalism); I’m not saying we should be going underground in preparation for some apocalyptic goings-on; I’m not even saying that zombies are real (although with each passing day, as I scroll through the news headlines at the beginning of the day, I am beginning to wonder). But I am curious as to why there’s suddenly an influx of insanely violent events that more often than not involve rage and/or cannibalism. Has this always been going on and the stories just didn’t make national headlines until Rudy Eugene went apeshit and ate someone’s face? Or is this really the beginning of something big?
I suppose we’ll have to wait and see. Until then, consider this.
Karla Homolka’s name may sound familiar to people here in the states, for a very specific and horrifying reason; the Canadian woman was convicted of the brutal sexual assault, murder, and/or dismemberment of two teen girls along with her husband, Paul Bernardo. One of the victims was Homolka’s own 15-year old sister. However, she struck a plea bargain–which was infamously dubbed the “deal with the devil” because she managed to do it before videotapes of her involvement in the murders surfaced, granting her a paltry 12-year prison sentence–and was freed in 2005.
Now she’s being linked to another alleged murderer, porn star Luka Magnotta, who is being sought for the murder and dismemberment of an unidentified man in Montreal. The victim’s torso was found in a suitcase stuffed into a pile of garbage in a Snowdon neighborhood; police believe it belongs to the same person whose hands and feet were mailed to various political offices around Canada.
Magnotta has allegedly posted more than one video online of him stabbing a man to death on his bed with an icepick, which police describe as pornographic and involving cannibalism–making this one of several disturbing stories related to vicious “zombie” attacks this week. And in a weird twist, Magnotta has been linked to Homolka after rumors surfaced that the two once dated. Although Magnotta has denied any involvement with the convicted killer, it certainly seems a strange coincidence that two people who have been linked in the past would share a dark love of perverse sexual pleasure tied in with murder and dismemberment.
A Canada-wide warrant has been issued for Magnotta for his connection to the murder, although no leads have been reported yet.
If you’re easily scared, you should probably steer clear of this article. Because I, horror-movie-and-zombie-lover, am kinda starting to get freaked out by all the insane stories pouring in from around the country about people going totally bitchcakes and ripping each other apart.
Since the story of Rudy Euegene–the Miami man who ate a homeless man’s face off last weekend–broke, other tales have been popping up in different states but with surprisingly similar amounts of violence, sparking rumors that a “zombie apocalypse” is upon us. The scariest thing is not even that it is happening, but that we don’t know why it’s happening. In the movies/comic books, zombies are easily explained by an illness of some sort, or a government experiment gone wrong, or similar. But these attacks don’t seem to have a connection, other than an altered state of mind, and no visible cause.
On Sunday, New Jersey resident Wayne Carter reportedly cut off pieces of his own flesh and cut out a rope of his intestines to throw at police after barricading himself in his home. Police say Carter has had psychiatric problems in the past. He survived the incident but is in critical condition.
On Tuesday, California cage fighter Jarrod Wyatt attacked his training partner in his apartment after allegedly drinking mushroom tea and hallucinating that the man was possessed by demons. He ripped out his heart, cut out his tongue, and tore off most of his face before burning the parts in order to expel the demons. A friend found him naked (like Rudy Eugene) and covered in blood with body parts scattered around the living room.
That night, in Baltimore, 21-year old Alexander Kinyua‘s brother found a human head and hands in a washtub in the basement of their house. He alerted his father, who alerted authorities, and Kinyua later admitted to killing roommate Kujoe Bonsafo Agyei-Kodie and eating his heart and brains. According to The Baltimore Sun, Kinyua had previous arrests for violence, but still…weird, no?
While one cannot immediately jump to the conclusion that these stories are in any way related, it’s just weird to see them all pop up at the same time and to involve such a heightened state of violence. Rudy Eugene, the Miami attacker, has already undergone an autopsy, which reportedly turned up normal, but officials are waiting for the toxicology results to come back to get a better understanding of what his state of mind might have been during the attack. Rumors are swirling that he may have been under the influence of “bath salts“, a legal substance that causes fits of rage, heightened strength, and a severe effect on the brain, which some say is irreversible.
The past month has been rife with horrifying stories focused in the American South; first, the tale of college student Aimee Copeland, who lost her leg, foot, and both hands after cutting her leg in a zip-line accident and being exposed to bacteria-laden river water in Georgia. Soon after, three more stories surfaced of the so-called “flesh-eating disease”, which is a form of the common bacteria that causes strep: new mom Lana Kuykendall from South Carolina, who was rushed back to the hospital after giving birth to twins and complaining of severe pain in her leg. Soon after, Georgia resident Robert Vaughn–who coincidentally stayed just a couple of beds away from Aimee Copeland in the hospital–was told he had contracted the bacteria as well and had 2 1/2 pounds of dead flesh removed from his leg. Vaughn says he was nowhere near the water, but believes he might have picked it up from the brush while doing a landscaping job. Now, a fourth victim has come forward: Paul Bales, a Georgia grandfather who slipped and fell off a boat ramp in early May and cut his leg. Although he was exposed to a different water source than Copeland, the connection is worrisome for Georgia residents. Bales’ son says the antibiotics have stopped working to fight the disease and that he is scheduled to have one leg amputated below the knee.
Over Memorial Day weekend, a Miami man, Rudy Eugene, attacked and cannibalized a homeless man on a causeway, devouring most of his face in what police speculate was a drug-fueled rage. He ignored their cries for him to get off the victim and stood up growling, nude, and covered in blood with flesh dangling from his mouth before being shot at several times. Police say it took more than one shot to take him down; they believe he was under the influence of a new drug called “bath salts”, which causes the body temperature to skyrocket and leads to severe delirium, similar to the effects of LSD but much more powerful. The drug has been known to give users almost super-human strength and rage, making them dangerous to the public, themselves, and police.
Taken separately, these stories would be enough to make anyone want to lock themselves inside the safety of their own homes forever. But together, they are causing rumors about a zombie apocalypse, the end of the world, and conspiracy-theories involving the government. Given the fact that zombies have seen a rush of popularity in recent years, particularly after the sudden and enormous success of the AMC show “The Walking Dead” (based on the comic books of the same name), it’s not hard to see why people are scared.
When the Center For Disease Control released a blog post titled “Preparedness 101: Zombie Apocolypse” earlier this month, it was mostly viewed as a joke; but in light of recent events, it seems strange that the CDC–which is located in Atlanta, Georgia–would view preparedness for disaster as a laughing matter. People are scared and are looking for answers and comfort, and when they don’t get it, rumors begin flying.
While it seems clear that no answers are immediately forthcoming, the one thing we can be sure of is that, so far at least, it seems some of these things can be prevented. If you live near a warm water source–especially in the South–whether it be a lake, river, or pond, take care not to expose even the shallowest cut to it. Clean all wounds immediately, even if they aren’t bad enough to require a doctor’s attention. At the first sign of severe pain in a limb, go to the hospital at once.
Until an autopsy is performed on Rudy Eugene, we won’t know exactly what caused his horrific attack; not much has been released to the public about his victim, although he is alive and in critical condition.
How often do you think about the zombie apocalypse? If your answer is less than twice a day, then you’re doing it wrong. Sure, filling your head with thoughts of Scarlett Johansson and your fantasy football team is more pleasant – but those thoughts waste time. Precious preparation time.
Now that we live in a world permeated by social media, it’s safe to assume that things like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube will play a pretty big part in the zombie apocalypse.
And that’s exactly what this video explores. Recently posted by the Pixelpersecond channel, #Zombies: Followers of the Dead takes on the form of a documentary, set 6 months after the zombie outbreak. Those who survived tell their stories. It becomes apparent that social media played a crucial role in the aftermath, as it both helped and hurt the cause.
Apparently, Twitter was a force for good – providing clever hashtags, spreading the word on safe zones and supply locations. But it was also a force for evil – spreading lies and rumors about improper ways to fight the horde. Crosses don’t protect you against zombies, idiots. That’s vampires – and it doesn’t always work with them anyways.
And unfortunately, their depiction of the purpose YouTube would serve during the ZA is probably pretty accurate.
Check out the extremely well-done video below –
Now that you’ve seen it, I can tell you that they claim (on YouTube) that the entire thing was unscripted. Pretty impressive.
Back in May, the CDC tweeted a link their own zombie preparedness guide, which was featured on their blog. This tweet resulted in the crashing of the blog due to the amount of traffic. Strangely enough, the preparedness guide makes no mention of good strategies fro the utilization of social media during the outbreak.
That’s a shame, because you better believe that the first thing most people will do after witnessing their deceased loved one rise, is tweet about it.
