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Cabin Fever in a Post-apocalyptic World

Zombies not Required

Plot Summary:

Mike (Dean Chekvala) and Kim (Amy Cale Peterson) are a married couple that have taken sanctuary in a remote, solitary cabin for six months after a devastating viral outbreak. Time and isolation has taken its toll on their supplies, and on their marriage. Not only have they had to kill off the infected friends that had taken refuge with them, but also had to bury their infant child, who had succumb to a virus that turns your eyes and blood black, and drives you into a deranged, murderous state...

Cowboys vs Zombies: The Devil’s Crossing

(USA, 2014)

Director/writer James Ryan Gary feature debut, Cowboys vs. Zombies: The Devil’s Crossing was made on $5,000. With this kind of budget one would expect some flaws, but the true flaw is with the screenwriting. The film was originally named The Devil’s Crossing and was made in 2011, not getting an US release until December 2013.

When the film opens we see the protagonist Shadrach (Michael Sharpe) digging a wintery grave in the woods, talking to who is perceived to be the grave digger’s boss. This scene sets up what appears to be a period piece. But don’t let this fool you. Onto the next scene, the opening credits. We are now in a “saloon” in a town called Celeste...

Crusade Comics Founder Billy Tucci talks prepping, zombies, and his latest projects

New York Comic Con 2013 Interview

Originally written and published on zombietraining.com on November 15, 2013.

William [Billy] Tucci founded Crusade Comics in the early ‘90s from his one-bedroom apartment in Queens, NY. Crusade Comics’ flagship title, Shi: Way of the Warrior has sold over 4 million comic books and grossed over $25 million in sales since debuting in March 1994. Several comic characters, including Top Cow’s Witchblade and David Mack’s Kabuki, actually debuted in Shi.

Tucci also did the penciling for Marvel Comics’ Heroes for Hire, and DC Comics’ Sgt. Rock: The Lost Battalion...

Being a male writer, it is not often easy to write female characters that are truly genuine, and writing one that is strong, proactive and speaks her heart and her mind can certainly be a challenge. But Bracken MacLeod seems to fully comprehend how to give his two lead females unique and genuine voices in his debut novel, Mountain Home.

Lynnea Lowry works as a waitress at an isolated roadside restaurant called Your Mountain Home Kitchen. When retired combat veteran Joanie Myer, who suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder, stages an assault on the diner, Lyn’s world is turned upside down. Surviving the assailant’s bullets is only the beginning of her nightmare...

Author Joe Hill stated, “Horror was rooted in sympathy… in understanding what it would be like to suffer the worst,” and J.C. Michael knows the intricacies of how to make characters suffer.

As the year draws to a close a mysterious stranger makes a proposition to club owner, Warren Charlton. It’s a deal involving a brand new drug called Pandemonium.

The good news: the drug is free. The bad news: it comes at a heavy price, promising much but delivering far more.

J.C. Michael has written a well-crafted narrative of vivid imagery that will make you cringe. Discoredia by J.C. Michaels is disturbing, dark, twisted, depraved and violent. If you have ever thought about going to a rave party and doing drugs, you will never again entertain the thought after reading this book.

The story of the Bell Witch poltergeist has been around for nearly two hundred years, and there have been a handful of books written on the haunting, even one based on a manuscript written by Richard Powell, an eyewitness of the Bell Witch haunting. For those of you unfamiliar with the legend, it is the basis of the films An American Haunting (2006) and The Bell Witch Haunting (2004).

According to the legend, the first manifestation of “Old Kate” occurred in 1817, shortly after John Bell moved his family from North Carolina to the Red River community in Robertson County, Tennessee, when Bell encountered a strange animal in a cornfield on his large farm. Strange beating and gnawing noises outside, along with raining rocks on the roof, quickly followed this first contact...

Originally written and published on zombietraining.com on October 16, 2013.

Before the Panel Began:

There were a lot of great panels on the main stage at this year’s New York Comic Con, but the most anticipated was The Walking Dead that was at capacity long before moderator Yvette Nicole Brown (Community) even took the stage. As the panel for Marvel’s The S.H.I.E.L.D. was about to commence, the main entry gate was rolled down, leaving over 2,000 Walking Dead fans cued up along barriers with no longer a chance to enter.

Taking the Stage:

As Brown took the stage she received a warm standing ovation, and launched into introducing Executive Producers Gale Anne Hurd and David Alpert...

Originally written and published on zombietraining.com on October 4, 2013.

I will admit that I am tired of the whole zombie thing. Did a guy who writes mostly in that genre just say that? Yeah, I did. As an author of zombie stories and a film critic for both zombietraining.com and my own blog, it is a necessity that I read and watch all things zombie. Lately, I have watched so many zombie films and read a plethora of stories that have been genuinely uninspiring and a rehash of the same old plot—a small band of survivors holding out against the threat of a zombie horde—that I have seriously considered not writing anymore zombie stories. That was until I was asked to read Tonia Brown’s Badass Zombie Road Trip.

Badass Zombie Road Trip is not just another zombie story about surviving in...