Episode IV: Graveyard Shift a.k.a. Zombieland

The truck was on its side, but mostly intact.  Dust obscured everyone's vision, but our lack of sight was more than made up for by what we heard: an endless crescendo of groans and the scuffling of uncoordinated feet.  The area cleared to reveal in cool moonlight a graveyard full of the once-dead plodding toward our small band, still dazed from the crash.  Here, there, and everywhere limbs could be seen sprouting from the ground, bringing new hungry maws with them.  Over it all, at the far reaches of perception, there was a melody played on a string instrument.

It was unaccompanied, but also complex, entrancing but undeniably perverse.  It came from a source off in the distance, past a  nearby copse of trees, near the center of the graveyard, where I saw two figures about to be surrounded by shamblers.  One seemed to be muttering, and working with something I could not see, while the other cut through waves of undead with sword strokes of terrifying force and precision.  Our group was worse-for-wear, but we had a clue to how to stop the oncoming swarm, but with more shamblers exhuming themselves every second, we could not afford to take our time.

A battle rage took me and I proceeded to knock a tree onto a pair of shamblers with my bear hands while Caster rained acid those closest to him.  So it went, the tree splintered after I had struck a blow against it.  In the heat of the moment, my first thought was to either find something to kill or find a new weapon.  Isaac took to his usual strategy of flying and dropping shamblers with pebbles.  Ishmael set about performing a tactical assessment of the situation while aloft.  Lancer dashed into the trees, spearing the few shamblers that were there and got a better position.

My prayer for a new weapon was answered when I laid eyes on the burning wreckage of the truck.  Though my arms were stronger while in bear form, they lacked the ability to grip the weapon.  It was no matter.  I needed no finesse, merely an object that covered a large area.

"Beowulf, w-!"
CR-RIII-thcktathcktathckta...
Ready to kill, I ignored Isaac's admonition.  I slammed my hands into the truck and put my weight behind it, pushing it forward with abandon.  Gravestones shattered and limbs of digging shamblers were knocked away or ground into a bloody mess as I ran over them.  I could not see where I was going very well, but the bumps and fresh "paint" on the truck showed that I was making progress.

There was a flash of movement in front of the truck as Isaac opened a door in the burning wreckage.  Had I been calmer, I might have been worried by his recklessness.  Luckily, he popped out before having a shambler crushed up against him.  Out of the corner of my eye, I could see him flying away with the unconscious Vanessa, who had still been in the flaming wreckage of the truck as I used it as a weapon.  Oops.

I could hear Lancer yelling at Caster behind me, "Quit stealing my kills!" as the Jabir splashed acid onto a group of shamblers that Lancer was ready to assault.  She readjusted her aim toward the magus working on the magic circle.

"Stop, Lancer!  He's trying to break the circle."  Ishmael stayed the hand of his servant and simultaneously alerted .  The magus and sword-wielding servant both looked up from what they were doing and noticed our motley band (though I am still wondering how they hadn't noticed us when I started my truck-plow).

The party approached the magic circle through the swath I had cut through the graveyard post haste.  More shamblers kept appearing, but we had to get to the circle.  The master and servant let us approach unharmed, and we could see a device (which the new master informed us was called a "boom box") being protected by the circle.  The other masters and servants started talking, but I hadn't been given any direct orders to stop killing, and there were still quite a lot of enemies popping out of the ground.  I continued to level the graveyard and put truck-shaped holes the size of trucks through shamblers.  It was difficult to tell what the magi and other servants were discussing over the roar of shamblers, the truck, and my own growls of fury.  I could not even tell whose voice was whose.  What I heard was roughly:

"...Don't really know how to..." CRUNCH, "....trying for..." screEEEEE, "...got me in...arm," WHOOSH, "...tech-bane?... Flabbergasted..." whump whump, "...really extend up that fa-..." something that sounded like, "My leg!" in shambler, "...BERSERKER, TAKE A CRACK AT THIS!"

I skidded to a halt, changed direction, and brought the truck crashing down on the magic circle.  The field quavered, but did not yield.  The truck underwent a transformation, going roughly from this:

To this:

I calmed down a bit after that, though the night was still full of the undead. I took in the surroundings.  The scenery had changed.

Before

After

"We need to divide the circle up into four parts to easily unravel the work done using the local leylines and-" I honestly couldn't understand most of what the new master said, but Isaac and Ishmael took to the task of disabling the circle with aplomb while Lancer and the new master provided moral support.  Meanwhile, the shamblers were regrouping, so Caster, the new servant, and I laid into the fresh corpses rising from the ground like a group of weresharks at a meat party (as an outside observer would probably describe it).  The monsters fell while the masters discussed and argued.  I flew back into a killing frenzy, grabbing a shambler by the leg and swinging it into another shambler, shattering both their frames.  When, at last, the master's yelled, "Done!" and the circle was dispelled, I took the nearest shambler away from fighting a group of homunculi that Caster had summoned and brought it down on the boom box as the new master went to work on it, much to his surprise.  "Berserker, you stole my kill," Caster complained.

The shades all around us fell limp, back to the cold embrace of death.  We could not hear the thuds of their falls but for a mighty roar emanating from the ground under the boom box's remains.

The ground exploded, knocking us back and showering dirt everywhere as an enraged beast pierced the earth and landed in our midst.  "Fascinating," Caster began scribbling in his book, "I have never seen this before.  Pliny the Elder called them manticores.  I did not think they were subterranean."  The mighty animal pawed the ground, deciding which of us to take in its jaws, its tail lashed threateningly.

Isaac's eyes brightened with glee.  "C'mere, boy."  His words were laced with his beast-tamer magic.  He picked up a nearby dismembered hand and held it in front of him.  He crouched as you would before a puppy.  "I got a nice treat for you over here.  Come 'n get it."  The manticore looked quizzical (perhaps even offended) for a split second until it looked longingly at the hand.  It quickly remembered itself and understood the sorcery afoot in its mind.

The manticore wasted no more time in choosing a target, it lunged at Isaac's leg, sinking long fangs through flesh and dislocating bone as it unwrapped its wings and took flight with my master dangling from its maw.

This would not stand.  I leaped onto the beast's back.  Lancer launched her javelin into the beast's belly and jumped in an attempt to use her weapon as a handhold before the manticore got away.  While her aim was true, her jump was not, and she remained grounded.  Caster used his magic to cause muscle spasms in the manticore, taking away its ability to fly, and causing it to crash down upon Caster's homunculi and Lancer.  I pounded hard on the beast's head, but it was not ready to fall, and quickly took off again.  Seizing upon an opportunity before the monster got too far away, Ishmael used a mage technique to make the manticore and Isaac relive the moment when Isaac attempted to tame the manticore.  Once again, the beast was distracted.  It went slack-jawed and dropped Isaac into Lancer's waiting arms.  I hit it again, and the manticore went down swiftly.  It crashed into the ground with a mighty thud, and I could heard its belabored breathing.

Isaac grabbed on to Lancer's shoulder and she led him to face the manticore.  Isaac got serious.  "No!  No!" he chastised as he rapped the nigh-comatose beast with a severed hand.  "That ain't how we do things around here, mister.  You are gonna behave, or I swear once we build a kennel big enough to hold you, I will put so many runes on it that you will, never leave.  Do y'all understand me?"  Caster wore an incredulous look as he used his magic to fix Isaac's leg.

"...Yes," the manticore was contrite.

As a professional slayer of monsters, I was not amused, but I was simultaneously glad for a moment of respite to mend my own wounds through the blessings of bear magic.

"Now, what're we gonna name y-wait!  I know.  I know.  I got this, you guys.  I'ma call you Bitey!" Isaac was very pleased with himself as he stretched out his mended leg.

Bitey dragged himself (herself?  How do you tell on these things?) to his feet, "That hardly seems dignified, but I suppose it is appropriate."

"What about Pliny, after the one who discovered manticores?"

"You presume to name me simply by virtue of my race?  I should name you all after the first manticore to discover a human?" Bitey retorted.

"And what would that be?" Caster asked.

"...Nothing," Bitey conceded.  "I suppose if you must call  me something, 'Pliny' is preferable to 'Bitey.'"

"Good, good, now Caster, can you give our new friend a hand?" Isaac beckoned toward Bitey Pliny, and Caster set to work healing him.

"Now for you two," Ishmael turned to regard the new master, who looked like he had been caught trying to slip away during the conversation with Pliny.  His servant looked irritated.  "Will you name yourselves, or do we need to come up with something for you?" Ishmael's tone had some element of mockery in it.

"Oh, uh, my name's Baltasar," he edged away a little further, "and this is Saber."

"Well met, mage, and Saber," I chimed in.  "I am Beowulf, king of the Geats, and I am honored to make your acquaintance and share the field of battle with you.  You fight fiercely, and it would be my great pleasure to engage in contest with you myself.  What is your true name, that I might know who it is I am killing?" I let slip a playful grin.

"I too would like to cross swords...or automobiles in your case, but I am afraid that the events of tonight were a bit much for my poor master," she said with a sidelong glance at Baltasar while she rested her hand on the pommel of her shortsword.  "As to your question, my name is lost even to be at this point, but telling you straight away hardly seems fun.  Let me know if you figure it out."

"Very well then, tend to your master as you will.  Goodbye," I let the two of them leave, and turned to face the rest of the group.  Ishmael and Caster seemed a perturbed at just letting another master go.  Lancer was cleaning the blood off her spear.

"Alright, fella's.  'Bout time to call it a day," Isaac said as the newly-healed Pliny took flight into the night sky, obscuring a star every so often as he circled the group.  

"Agreed," Ishmael, Caster, Lancer, and I all said at once.

We resolved to split up and head to our respective dwellings.  Unfortunately, as we walked back towards the inn, a dark truth became increasingly clear: Isaac and Ishmael were booked in the same house.  As we opened the door, we were struck with another dread reality: so was Baltasar.

Episode III: The Shambling (Part II), a.k.a. Hobo with a Shotgun

"...And you must be the magi," the man with the shotgun exhaled as he assumed a relaxed position and lowered his weapon.  His dress was priestly.  Loose-fitting, but not baggy.  I doubt he carried that shotgun around in plain sight all the time, though his presence was calming.  "I am Father George Jamieson, and I will be the Holy Church's impartial arbiter in this unexpected Sixth Grail War."

Masters and servants introduced themselves in turn, though Lancer still would not give a true name.  The priest did not seem surprised by the identities of the servants, given what he had seen.  When Ishmael introduced himself, Jamieson made reference to some obscure scriptural citation about two estranged brothers finally returning home to bury their father.  I could not help but notice a couple of the magi concentrating hard on Jamieson, no doubt scrutinizing him through magic.  Some pops and fizzles appeared in the air around Caster, seeming to indicate counter-force backlash, but oddly, nothing of consequence transpired.  Perhaps we were not simply imagining the Father's calming presence.

"Your presence here is fortunate, priest," Ishmael started in.  "We appear to have reached a quagmire that we need to pass quickly, before more of those 'things' show up."

"What is that, my son?"

Lowering his voice and drawing closer to the priest so that only the magi and servants could hear, Ishmael said, "These two," he indicated the youths we had saved, "are innocent bystanders who seem to have...lost their innocence so to speak.  Our friends have made some flashy displays, and there is no doubt that the secrecy of this Grail War is in question as long as those two remain able to speak what they have witnessed tonight."

Jamieson raised an eyebrow, looking inquisitive, "I see you paid attention to the bylaws of the Mages' Association.  You needn't worry for the moment.  Though the Mages' Association may pursue censure for grievous transgressions right away, what has transpired here appears to be maintained, and I will keep tabs on the comings and goings of your new charges.  For minor things such as this in the Grail War, I am responsible for enforcing the rules, so reporting this matter is sufficient for the moment."

"What do you suggest doing with them?"

"Whatever may please you, within reason, for the moment."  Jamieson grinned wryly.  "Keep them with you and the problem may even take care of itself," he said as he casually rested his shotgun on his shoulder.

"Well, for one thing, I don't wanna sit here all night, cleanin' up more of a mess for dealin' with these two right now," Isaac chimed in.  "Can't we wait until tomorrah?  We got more monsters on the way already."  He indicated in the direction of the growing moans to the north.

"The Holy Church has ways of taking care of cleanup," Jamieson retorted.  "You all just have to worry about killing each other."

"Then for their safety, can we leave these two young ones under your care?" Caster plaintively asked.

"Sure, why not?  I could use some extra hands to help mop up," Jamieson gave each teenager a smaller version of his firearm called a pistol.  "You all, however," he turned back to the servants and magi, "could do worse than to find the source of these monsters and stop them before they start eating the entire town."

"They are wandering and without number," Lancer piped up, "It would be impossible to track them all down before they kill someone."

"True," the priest replied, "but as I've observed them, they seem to be attracted to magic.  Since you all have some of the highest concentration of magic in the area right now, I think that these horrors will swarm to you like moths to a flame, for better or worse.  Move around, and you should be able to get them to trail you.  That should protect the populace until you can track down the source of these shades until stop this unnatural raising of the dead."

Isaac was flabbergasted., "Unnatural?  I thought it was just a European thing."

Jamieson took Ishmael aside, but I could still hear, "I know I'm supposed to be impartial in this matter, but if you want my advice, kill that one first."

I wonder if he was joking...

"Ok, Ishmael, let's get to your car!" Isaac was ready to go.

Ishmael seemed almost offended, "What makes you think I have a car?"

"Oh...well I left my tractor at home, and I can't really drive those little cars, so I just figured..."

...As it turned out, none of the masters or servants knew how to drive a standard automobile, especially not on a European road, and only three of the five of us could fly.

"I have a truck," the less shell-shocked of the two youths, who we found out was named Vanessa, said.

Just because we weren't going to fly the entire way to the root of the shambler problem did not mean that we weren't going to fly at least part of the way.  The shamblers blocked the path to Vanessa's jeep, so an aerial assault was on.  Ishmael hoisted Lancer as they both levitated upward. Isaac flew as well while readying his shiny pebbles.  Vanessa loaded her pistol and climbed on Jabir's back as he sprouted wings again.  I uprooted a tree and ran toward the approaching throng.  Jamieson walked calmly behind.

SNIKKITY-SLICE went Lancer's weapon as Ishmael flung her from on high through a pair of shamblers.  Jabir focused on balancing while Vanessa took shots at shamblers, punching holes through heads below her. Isaac did much the same, but with his reusable shiny pebbles.  Lancer got in my way (fueling my battle rage), so I was unable to perform the sweeping attack I had planned for the tree.  While holding the verdant weapon in my right hand, I caved in the chests of shamblers with my left, eventually discarding the tree.  What a waste.

We neared the jeep, and the last shambler fell to Ishmael performing an impressive spin and using the momentum of his landing to puncture the skull of a shambler with his knife.  Jamieson used an ability to detect evil presences with help from Isaac's mage sense to determine that the source of the shamblers was placed somewhere to the west.

Vague directions were better than no directions, so we were off.  Shamblers seemed to anticipate our arrival through their own magical senses.  They moved to block us or trail us, but most could be avoided.  I found myself wishing that my old horses had been as nimble as this truck with Vanessa steering.  Our path seemed to approach the local graveyard (of course), but the closer we got to our destination, the more densely packed the shamblers got.

"Guysguysguys!" Vanessa became frantic as a large pack of shamblers blocking the road came into view.

"Everyone, quickly!" I yelled.  "Thin their ranks!  Vanessa, keep going lest we be overrun by horrors trailing us.  Do not yield!"

The party put its best foot forward.  Caster caused many of the approaching shamblers to spasm uncontrollably so that they could not add to the road block.  Ishmael used magic to launch tree branches at some, knocking them away.  I stood on the hood of the car while Isaac cast a spell to keep me level.  He lowered me into a position on the front end of the car such that I made a wedge to break through the horde. As I saw the rough road beneath me and heard the groaning horde ahead, I could not help wondering if this had been my best idea or my worst idea.

WHACK
Shamblers split apart at my touch, chunks flying every which way.
THUD
Monsters outside my reach hit the metal exterior of the truck.
EWWW
Lancer's yell as a chunk of necrotic flesh hit her in the mouth.
scrreeeeeeEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
Though we had cleared the horde, Vanessa was unable to maintain control of the vehicle.  It spun and toppled over, sliding to a halt at the graveyard's entrance, where a new horde anticipated its meal.



In case anyone was interested, we DID keep score.  Here's the Grand Murder Tally so far.

Grand Murder Tally	43
	Berserker	Caster	Isaac	Ishmael	Lancer
Total	14	14	4	3	8
Session 0: "Angry Birds"
Total Kills:	0	0	2	0	1
Itemized Kills:	Lolwut? (Not for lack of trying)		2 Geese		1 Goose
Session 1: "High School of the Dead"
Total Kills:	8	8	1	1	6
Itemized Kills:	8 Zombies	8 Zombies	1 Zombie	1 Zombie	6 Zombies
Session 2: "Hobo with a Shotgun"
Total Kills:	6	6	1	2	1
Itemized Kills:	6 Zombies	6 Zombies	1 Zombie	2 Zombies	1 Zombie

Episode II: Shambling, a.k.a. High School of the Dead

Author's note: Personally, I find it a little vexing that zombies are commonly portrayed as A) craving brains or B) saying, "Braaaains," while they are otherwise incoherent.  If you ever watch a zombie movie, it's rare for a zombie to actually eat a brain and even rarer for the brain to be targeted over any other organ.  Indeed, you would be hard pressed to find a single zombie movie in which the zombies actually said, "Braaaains."  For the purposes of this story, however, I'll be using, "Brains," in place of onomatopoeia for the shamblers' moans, gurgles, and sundry vocalizations.

"By grandpappy's beard!" Isaac exclaimed as a shambling horror tried to bite him only to get skewered on Lancer's javelin.

The discussion would have to wait (despite Ishmael's grumbles about "rules" and "witnesses"), for the night was suddenly alive with the dead.  Shambling monstrosities of human corpses were coming out of the shadows seemingly willy-nilly, and apparently dead bodies brought back to life hunger for the flesh of the living or the flesh of servants, which is not really flesh due to our lack of true physical bodies.  Also, apparently this insatiable hunger gained from becoming undead means that these horrors (which I will call "shamblers") is specifically for living human flesh, since they ignored the geese.

I grabbed Isaac, and lept atop a nearby building while Ishmael levitated into the air, and Lancer took the shamblers head-on.  Jabir (Caster) set about summoning homunculi in front of him and sent them toward the throng.

From the top of the building, I was better able to survey the situation.  A horde of shamblers was coming from the north, but the field where the party was situated had already been surrounded by no fewer than twenty of the wretches.  They did not seem strong in comparison to a servant, but the prime concern was not my safety or that of any other heroic spirit, but the magi, our sources of prana and links to this world.  The shamblers would be able to make quick work of them if we did not take action.  I am but a brawler, accustomed to fighting a lone opponent, and lancer seemed to favor throwing her weapon and then approaching the target to finish it; not the ideal strategy for dealing with a horde.  We were going to have to rely on Caster, I felt, to control the crowd.

I began to feel foolish in the faces of the magi; as the shamblers started to climb the building where Isaac and I were perched, both he and Ishmael used their magic to levitate out of the reach of their would-be assailants.  “Sic ‘em, Beowulf!” Isaac cheered before popping a shambler’s head open with a shiny pebble.  Isaac’s gleeful expression persisted even when he willed the gore-soaked pebble back into his bag (which was filled to the brim with his prized pebbles).  Ishmael decided to improvise, using nearby rocks to crush shamblers through creative levitation tricks.

“As you command,” I replied to my master.  I drew out the hilt of my broken sword, Naegling, more as a show to the other servants than out of real necessity.  In these grail wars, a servant is commonly measured by the impressiveness of his noble phantasm, which in my case is my legendary hand-grip.  In life, it was my custom to take a foe using literal strength of arms.  Even when my opponent was armed, that would be an advantage to him that I would make up for with sheer force.  No sword I wielded would withstand more than a single blow that I struck.  Such was the case in the final battle of my life and legend; against the great dragon that eventually slew me, I drew my great heirloom, Naegling, and clove it in twain even as it sliced into the great beast’s hide.  In this grail war, I found myself in a situation similar to mine in life: I was strength looking for a weapon.  While my hands were on a weapon, it gained the benefits of my strength and skill.  However, aside from my broken heirloom, anything I swung to strike, wood or steel, would shatter beyond use or repair.  I knew to use nothing important, only heavy things.

As I was saying before the history lesson: I drew out the remains of Naegling since it was more impressive than my bare (bear) hands.  Still, I could not help but think that compared to what Lancer (spear) and Caster (book) were bringing to the fray, I may have been coming up short.

Shamblers struggled up the side of the building, and I caved their heads in or slashed them in two, bellowing as they bit into my flesh.  I was quickly surrounded, but my battle rage was far from quenched.

The stoic lancer was taking the brunt of the assault on the ground, but held up with remarkable resilience.  Uttering not a word, she tore holes with her javelin and slashed limbs with her sword with a  certain eloquence that one does not oft see of spear fighters.  Knowing her enemies were legion, she never stayed one place long.

“Minions!” came the keen from Caster’s side of the field as homunculi clashed with shamblers.  What the constructs lacked in combat ability they made up in being wall-like.

For every shambler I killed, two more took its place.  I slammed my fist down and destroyed the roof below the creatures and myself.  Most of them fell awkwardly, breaking bones or landing on objects.  I crushed the remainder with tables I found, and exited the classroom back to the battlefield.

“Hey, guys, wait up!  We still gotta decide when to shank you!” Isaac flew at full speed (I assume) after the teenagers, who were trying to flee the scene again.

“BRAAAA-hurf!” the youths ran headlong into a shambler.  It clawed at them and tried to bite their necks, but they dodged with surprising aplomb.  Isaac “helped” their cause by lifting the youths into the relative safety of the air.  Unfortunately, this unexpected lifting made one of the teenagers miss a dodge and the shambler grabbed onto a leg.  The three bodies flew up into the air as one.

To make matters worse one of Caster’s spells went awry.  What was supposed to be an explosion in the midst of the shamblers reversed the gravity all around the battlefield.  Down became up and up became down for everyone but Lancer (who was outside the area of effect and in the process of elbow-dropping a trifecta of shamblers from atop a metal playground fixture).  Caster was easily able to fly, as were Ishmael and Isaac, who quickly adjusted to steering the youths.  Isaac shook the Shambler off the young ones, and it proceeded to fall upward.

The only problem left was me falling upward with two shamblers.  I tightened into a somersault while holding my sword arm out, slicing through both shamblers with one swing.  On my way down, I entered spirit form to avoid injury.  The other shamblers and their remains fell with bone-splitting cracks.

Ishmael looked around from his high vantage point.  “Gravity seems to be right now.  The field looks clear, but more of those things are coming from the north.  Let’s take a moment to assess our conditions once we take out that las-.”

“Capital!” Ishmael’s warning was interrupted by Isaac as he and his charges reached the ground.

“BRAAIN-“ KA-PLOWSHHH!

Everyone turned stunned looks at Isaac, covered in gore and shards of cranium with the last shambler right behind him.  The shambler, however, was missing its head and upper torso.  Behind the shambler, pointed at where the monster’s head used to be was the business end of (what I later found out was called) a shotgun held by a towering, white-haired man clad in somber robes.

Back from the dead

Good ol' Stormshrug reminded me that since we just finished an RPG campaign, it's time for a new "What I Played".  Here it is for Ceros, Techmarine of the Storm Rhinos (successor chapter to the Imperial Fists):

:-D

It is a point of pride for me that the major things getting changed in the new Fantasy Flight RPG book are the ones that this character was built on.

Also, I'm reviving the blog for the thematically appropriate task of talking about zombies.  Personally, I have a hard time seeing why people are so fascinated by an army of incoherent walking corpses, but I'm right there with the general public.  I often wonder what life would be like in a situation where people some kind of contagion has made so the dead come back to life and try to eat you and you are at risk of becoming like them/normal people are infected by some plague that turns them into mindless consumers of human flesh.

Zombies in concept are fairly old hat by now, and the bottom line for most zombie movies (especially those made by George Romero) is that humans are the real monsters.  See also 28 Days Later, the video game "Dead Rising", the Left 4 Dead comics, and many other sources for examples of this.  After all, zombies only try to eat you, so you generally know what you're up against.  Humans are the unpredictable ones.

Zombie movies also tend to follow certain rules (I know I'll be leaving out several at least):
1. Zombies don't eat other zombies.  (Don't ask me why)
2. Zombies don't swim.  (They'd drown?)
3. Zombies are attracted to noises.  Loud noises.
4. Zombies don't use tools.
5. Zombies are weak to head shots. (Not saying that removing the head or destroying the brain is the be-all and end-all, but there is no situation where it doesn't help at least a little).
6. At least one of the protagonists or villains will become a zombie.  It's just good for drama either when the character has to be put down (if a protagonist) or to show the character's monstrous nature taking form (if a villain).
7. If an uninfected character is unarmed in a room with a zombie who is aware of that character's presence at any point before that character leaves the room, barring the use of improvised weapons at the last minute, that character is toast.
8. In general, if there's more than one zombie and nobody has a weapon, someone is going to die.
9. Zombies have Feel No Pain.

These tropes are pervasive, so I have adjusted my expectations of zombie movies to account for their presence (nay necessity).  However, I have grown to expect something different from the modern day zombie movie.  While it's all well and good to pay homage to the classics, the fact is that they're classics because they've tread over this ground.  Ironically, I want something full of life from my zombie movies, not something old and rotting.  Shawn of the Dead is a very good example of this: it sticks to or avoids all of these tropes, but adds to it that the characters (who are modern day people) will simply refuse to admit that they're in a zombie movie.

Shawn: The Apocalypse is on.

Ed: Let's go to the pub like we always do.

I like it when movies teach new tricks to old dogs, so finding subversions of tropes in zombie movies is a definite plus.

Taking Stormshrug's book, I'm using a version of Rome's Rapid Rubric for critiquing anime (Action/Plot/Fanservice).  Behold the ZRR: Action/Fanservice/Zed-Score.  

- Action: I heartily believe that, at their core, zombies are mobile punching bags that give you feedback when you're sloppy.  As such, the action element of a zombie movie is paramount.  Games like Left 4 Dead, Dead Rising, House of the Dead, and even Spiderman: Web of Shadows point out to the viewer that since zombies need to be made less dangerous (de-animated?), they are going to kill you, and "that's not your mother anymore" (Shawn of the Dead), you may feel free to dispatch them in whatever way you see fit.  Have fun with it.  Go crazy (but not sadistic, otherwise you're the villain).  Disarm them (literally?) and put them out of their misery.

- Fanservice: Unlike anime fanservice, this ties heavily into the action.  What I'm talking about here is the sheer amount of lulz that can be pumped into a scene of the living beating the tar out of a walking corpse.  How much style is there?  Is it done imaginatively?  The premises for zombie movies are generally far-fetched, so let's roll with it.  Am I laughing during the movie at all?  If yes, higher score.

- Zed-Score: When it comes right down to it, a zombie movie is still a movie, and so should be judged like any other.  This score is one to assess the quality of the film in the context that it is a zombie movie.  This score largely depends on the other two scores, but will be adjusted based on the qualities that the movies has as a movie (consistent characters, snappy dialog, etc.).

Scores are from 0-10.

With all this in mind, it's time to get to my thoughts on some zombie movies.

The Horde

ZRR: 7/8/6.  This movie took me by surprise.  First of all, it's the first French horror movie I've ever seen, but the plot sounded like anything you'd get from the U.S.: cops try to take out some narcotics dealers, and while they're doing so, the zombie apocalypse hits.  So the dealers and the cops work together with a resident of the tenement that they're in to try to get to safety.  There's very little exposition, which is totally acceptable.  Neither the audience nor the characters actually know what determines who became zombies or that the apocalypse is going on until it's beating down the door.  This lack of explanations left more time for break-neck action.  What you get from this movie is mostly a subversion of rule #7: survivors fight back even while unarmed.  Somebody forgot to tell the characters in this movie that zombies are supposed to be scary.  When a person alone and taking on more than one zombie with naught but his bare fists, he is not cowering, he is fighting for his life, and he is fighting dirty.  Beyond the action, the cinematography is fairly nice, but the characters are largely too grizzled and hell-bent on revenge against their teammates to give them much depth. They are, however, a hardcore group of survivors who aren't afraid of getting their hands dirty.

Dead Snow

ZRR: 9/9/9.  I've played most of the Call of Duty games, so when I saw, "Nazi Zombies," in this movie's description, I found it hard to resist.  The story revolves around a group of Swedish medical students taking a spring break vacation to a cabin in the frosty Scandinavian mountains.  Shortly after getting there, they meet a man who warns them of evil in the area and then leaves.  What follows is an exhilarating homage to zombie gore-horror (e.g. the blatantly-referenced Evil Dead series).  This is mainly a subversion of two standard rules.  First: the zombies have retained much of their knowledge, and they were all S.S.  Second: the protagonists fight back when outnumbered and even when out-armed.  I watched this once alone and once with my dad and brother, and I found myself laughing in all the same places and even a few new ones.  The zombies are engaged and dealt with in ways that are tried and true (note the chainsaw in the box art) and in ways that are new and imaginative (e.g. one's face gets abraded off with a snowmobile).    

Mutant Vampire Zombies from the 'Hood

ZRR: 3/3/2.  I was skeptical about this movie and I probably should have listened to myself.  With a title like that, there's got to be some good comedy to come out of a zombie movie like this.  Turns out I was wrong.  From the dated visuals to the stilted writing, to the appalling acting, this was a bad movie.  Sure, you've got kung-fu being done on zombies.  Sure you've got someone actually working with the idea that, "If zombies are just people who have lost all their higher functioning, and are purely at the mercy of their basic instincts, wouldn't they start trying to do one of the other four F's once they've been fed?"  The four F's, by the way, are the functions mediated by the hypothalamus in the limbic system of the brain.  They are: feeding, fighting, fleeing, and mating.  Well.  Zombies know no fear and don't fight other zombies...  Actual quote from the movie: "I have had it with these mother fucking zombies in my mother fucking hood." *sigh*

Dead Alive (a.k.a. Brain Dead)

Seriously, guys, you should watch this.

ZRR: 9/10/10.  This is the work that made Peter Jackson famous.  Once you watch it, you'll think to yourself: I really liked the Lord of the Rings movies, but who the that it would be a good idea to let Jackson direct them based on this?  No one will answer you even if you ask the question out loud.  No one, because you're alone, so very alone.  With tongue firmly in cheek, this movie sets out to make a bloody mess of the plight of the late 20th century 20-something male still living at home with his widowed mother.  The mother gets bitten by a Sumatran Rat-Monkey (you read that right), gets sick, and to make a long story short, you get a cult classic gore comedy with too many oddly funny moments for me to recount here without doing them disservice.  This may be the only movie that I've ever watched twice in one week of my own volition when I've had other things to do.  

What got me to consider watching this movie in the first place was a friend's description of one of the later scenes wherein the main character walks into the anteroom of his house, which is full of zombies.  He summarily starts up the lawnmower he's holding, faces the blades ahead of him, and trudges through the crowd.  He wipes the blood out of his eyes, and turns around to assess his handiwork.  He sees that there are still more zombies and a few spots that he missed in his initial walk.  He sighs, picks the lawnmower back up, and resumes his steady walk.  A waltz plays in the background.