If you see this outside your window... Run!

So that’s pretty much the plan. We had slight variations on the theme but “going where there is no people” was universally accepted as the optimal solution. What we didn’t discuss in much detail is gear. What do you think would be useful to have during a zombie outbreak in terms of equipment? Let’s try to be practical about it too. Of course it would be nice to have a year’s supply of canned food, an armored truck or an assortment of weapons but you likely won’t have any of that stuff at hand when shit hits the fan. Let’s say you wake up tomorrow, and realize that all your neighbors have been infected and are roaming the streets looking for new victims. You only have few minutes to gather few things and make a run for the car – if you stay to long, or make too much noise packing you may draw attention to a whole horde of undead.

Ideally, you would want to have a zombie survival kit, all ready to go. Like a big backpack you can stuff under your bed, or into the trunk of your car. This way you don’t really need to think about packing. Just grab your kit, and run. Once you are out of immediate danger zone, you can worry about collecting other stuff – such as canned food, weapons, ammo, etc. That’s your loot list – things you will be looting and/or appropriating while on the move, or once you establish a temporary base of operations somewhere. You can write down your loot items along with their potential locations and stick that in your pack. What other necessities would you put in the kit?

Comfortable Shoes and Change of Clothes

You definitely want to put a pair of comfortable hiking shoes in your pack. Zombie apocalypse is very unpredictable, and you can potentially be forced to run away from your home wearing nothing but boxers and flip flops. That’s why you are making this kit anyway, no? So you don’t actually have to worry about changing. It is a good idea to think utility rather than style here. Since we might be migrating North, you probably want clothes that will keep you warm, and protect you from the elements.

Maps

It’s probably a good idea to get a few road maps in the pack just in case. A road atlas doesn’t really take that much space and it may prove invaluable if GPS goes tits up. I’m not actually sure how much daily maintenance is needed for the system to function properly. I mean, chances are that it will continue to work properly for quite a while seeing how the satellites themselves are solar powered and out there in space away from the zombies. Inevitably however it may fall out of sync, or deteriorate to the point where it is unusable. In fact, GPS is already in the need for some serious maintenance so without people to monitor it, it’s likely to fail sooner or later.

You will probably also want a good compass for those times when you get off the main roads, or when the road navigation becomes difficult due to destroyed road signs and landmarks.

Self Winding Grear

Since you will likely be running away from centers of civilization, you may eventually run out of fuel, batteries or ways to recharge your equipment. You should therefore make a point of equiping yourself with tools that do not need an external power source but can instead be winded up or powered in some other way.

A Kinetic Flashlight

You should also purchase an automatic, self winding watch. I know, I know – no one wears watches these days unless they have a Rolex logo on them and are used as a status symbol rather than time keeping device. Just put it in your pack. Then when your cell phone battery dies, and you are forced to ditch your car you will have an alternate time keeping device. Don’t underestimate the usefulness of having a watch – it can help you navigate, calculate distances and etc..

You might also want to get yourself a clockwork radio to listen for live broadcasts. Surviving packets of civilization will likely have emergency broadcasts running 24/7. Catching these signals may save your life. If you catch such a signal, you should immediately try to pinpoint the location of the survivor camp on your map, and then do your best to stay few miles away from it at all times. Unless of course you don’t mind your gear and food being taken away from you and redistributed among the locals. Oh, and if they are starving you may get eaten. So yeah.

You will also need some hand cranked walkies. Even if you are running alone, you will likely run into and potentially team up with other survivors at some point. And having a way to communicate that does not require electric power or working cellular network.

Backpack Solar Charger

Survival Gear

It goes without saying that you should also take some regular survival gear. Chances are you might be forced to sleep outdoors on some nights so packing ne of those ultra-light micro tents, or a bivy bag is definitely a good idea. You will definitely want one of those mylar space blankets too. You also want a decent sized first aid kit.

Now, we all know that if you are bitten by a zombie you are pretty much done. That’s a given. But zombie related wounds are not the only injuries you have to worry about. You are likely to fall down, cut yourself while shaving or even get shot and having basic medical necessities may increase your chances of survival or prevent you from getting a nasty infection.

You will also need a good hunting knife, and a multi-tool. Other essentials are a length of rope, duct tape, sawing supplies (to patch your clothes and/or tent) as well as a fishing line, some hooks and baits and etc. You probably would want to grab one of those mini survival kit tins, or put one together yourself. They take very little space, and can be crammed with all kinds of goodies.

You definitely want to pack some waterproof matches a zippo lighter with some fuel and Ferrocerium rod or two. Eventually the matches and the lighter fuel will run out, and you may or may not have a chance to resupply. Trust me, you don’t want to be making fire by rubbing two sticks.

Food and Water

You should pack some bottled water and MRE type consumables. Water, especially will weigh you down and it is one of the things that will probably be easy to loot or obtain naturally. You can probably safely drink rain water, river water or even melted snow after you boil it. MRE’s tend to be light weight and will let you survive the first few days.

Weapons

This might be a problem, depending on your state laws. If you do own a gun, or can purchase one legally you may include it in your pack. Otherwise this should be one of the things to put on your loot list.

What weapon is best against zombies? This tends to be open for a debate. I’d think that a high caliber pistol is probably most practical (with regards to stopping power, portability and ability for an average person to obtain). Then again, unless you had some basic training, or spent a lot of time at a gun range you probably would want something like a sawed off shotgun. It has a lot of spread so it’s hard to miss and a head-shot at close range would likely put a zombie down for good. Or at least one would hope. Of course there is a catch – sawed-off shotguns are illegal in US. So, yeah…

Loot List

Ok, so we have our essentials in a pack. What should we loot and in what order? I recommend the following list:

1. Transportation – you will probably need a decent car. Something that you can take off-road and that can hold a lot of your gear and supplies. It’s also good idea to reinforce the vehicle and make sure zombies can’t just break the window and pull you out. Not to mention the gas mileage. Getting a Hummer may seem like a good idea at first, but you don’t want to be stopping every few dozen miles to fill up the tank. Any suggestions?
2. Food – you want to pack a lot of canned food, cereals and other stuff that is not perishable. Please note that abandoned supermarkets and malls are preferred hiding spots for survivors. They may not take kindly to you looting their hiding spot, and may try to stop you. Alternatively you may find a group of scared and confused people looking for a leader. They will likely to latch on to you and insist to tag along. This may or may not be favorable – depending on your transport and or supplies. Don’t forget that supermarkets may also be death traps full of zombies who got trapped inside. This usually happens when a group “rescues” some people that were bitten, and then leaves them untended allowing them to turn, and spread the infection
3. Guns and Ammo – you probably want to swing by a gun shop, police station or a military base. You probably want to pick up some rifles to give yourself an edge at long range, and some shotguns for close quarter fighting. Experienced marksmen should be handed the long range weapons, and told to only fire in single-shot mode. Inexperienced party members should be given shotguns (easier to hit things with). You should also try to give them some pointers on the spread of these weapons so that they don’t shoot any party members by accident.

   Note that gun shops can be often manned by paranoid, trigger happy owner or weapon enthusiast. Police stations and bases on the other hand tend to be populated by surviving crews who will probably try to “save you” by placing you under arrest and appropriating your gear. They usually have a lot of firepower, and should be avoided. You should always scout ahead and thoroughly check these places for human activity before looting. Well armed survivors can often be more dangerous than zombies.

Now it’s your turn. What did I miss? What else would you include in your pack? What else would you put on your loot list. My brother had some original ideas for the loot stuff. Maybe I can convince him to come by and comment. If not, I’ll append these things later. Let me know what would you put in your kit, and the stuff you think needs to be looted to ensure survival.

Some people claim that good zombie movie is an oxymoron. In part I agree, because the concept of zombies in itself is a little bit cheesy to begin with, and let’s face it – most of the movies in this genre are less than ambitious. Nevertheless I love them all. I completely adore all Zombie movies no matter how silly and pathetic they are. So while I’d trash any other movie, and berate it for plot inconsistencies or stupidity, a zombie flick gets a much gentler treatment. I watch these movies knowing they will be really, really bad and every once in a while I get nicely surprised when something rises above the sea of mediocrity.

[Rec] came highly recommended, but since I knew it will be a zombie flick I watched it with that particular mindset. I didn’t need to. For a zombie movie it was abso-fucking-lutely brilliant. You could argue that there was nothing new in this movie and you would probably be right. But that’s not the point. Using old themes and plot elements is not a crime – otherwise all film makers would be in jails. The trick is using these elements together in a way which is either innovative or entertaining. Jaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza did exactly that – took bunch of standard pieces and put together a puzzle that is more than just the sum of it’s parts. For once the end product of mathematical recycling is a polished, high quality little gem instead of a malformed turd with a piece of corn in the middle.

The plot is simple: a young TV reporter and her camera man tag along with a group of firemen as part of a show which I gather is a more serious version of Insomniac with Dave Attell. One of their fairly routine tasks that night is rescuing an elderly lady who is trapped in her apartment. Only the poor little lady is covered in blood from head to toe, and goes berserk biting people left and right. Next thing we know the police seals off the building threatening to shoot anyone who attempts to leave, trapping scared tenants, firefighters and the reporter inside. You know what is going to happen next. But that doesn’t change the fact that the movie is very well done.

If you watched way to many zombie movies, you can pretty much call the shots here and guess who dies when, and who gets infected with a good degree of accuracy. But this doesn’t mean the plot doesn’t suck you in, and keep you on the edge of your seat. This is not a Hollywood production and it shows. There is no sympathetic leading man with a military background who can blow away the zombies and sacrifice himself heroically. There is no female lead who plays a damsel in distress half of the time, only to show incredible amount of courage, self determination and sheer force of character to carry her through the ordeal unscratched. There is no silly heroism, no moving sacrifices, no cool headed leader to take control of the situation. What [Rec] shows you is bunch of absolutely, frightened ordinary people desperately trying to stay alive. You see chaos, fear, panic and desperation which feels real because these people seem real.

The whole movie is filmed using shaky cam method just like Blair Witch or Cloverfield. If you get motion sick easy, you may get annoyed. But the jerky motions and weird angles are limited here, and kept only for special circumstances. What we see on the screen is supposed to be filmed by a professional camera man using stabilized equipment meant to be used on the move. The camera moves erratically when he is running, or gets freaked out but for the most part he keeps it as stable as possible – just like a professional news person would do which is a benefit for us viewers. Other movies tend to give their cam-carrying characters brief appearances and screen time – [Rec] does not. We can hear him, but never see him and he technically functions as sort of avatar of the viewer. He is our Gordon Freeman – the faceless guy you identify with because he is the “lens” through which you view the portrayed world.

[Rec] does another cool thing – it explains why our protagonist doesn’t just leave the camera when shit hits the fan. I was totally annoyed with this when watching Cloverfield for example. Any normal person would stop filming at some point, survival being more important than making permanent record of the event. However they keep it rolling, because we, the audience, need to find out what happens next. In [Rec] we are dealing with an actual news crew – they have a much stronger incentive to keep filming than the dude in Cloverfield for example. This is essentially the story of their life and being able to capture it on film can not only make them famous, but also be used as evidence of horrible lack of regard for their lives shown by the police outside the building. They are not just some dude who decided to film things for a day – this is their job. Of course at some point all of this stops mattering to them but – as it would to you and me if we were put in a life threatening situation. Instead of just keep filming for the sake of filming [Rec] gives our protagonist new excuses to keep the cam around long after he stops caring about recording things. For example when the lights in the building go out they are forced to use the cam mounted spotlight for illumination. Wwhen that gets broken, they must rely on night-vision mode. Btw, night-vision segment at the very end of the movie is brilliant. I’m not going to spoil it for you – I’ll just say it is genuinely freaky, and incredibly well done.

The explanation for the Zombie outbreak is not mind blowing, but then again show me a movie that explains flesh eating corpses in a plausible and original way. Most of the time I don’t really care how it all started – once you seen one zombie origin story, you have seen them all – and skipping that part of the plot may save you the embarrassment, and make room for more drama. [Rec] gets points for at least trying to give us some obscure and cryptic scraps of info from which attempt to piece together how the infection got into the building and guess at it’s nature. Again, it’s nothing spectacular but it works withing the framework.

Manuela Velasco does an incredible job in portraying the frightened reporter. At the beginning she comes off as a self confident, a little cocky, vain and stuck up but pleasant person. She does multiple takes of a shot because her hair was covering her face, tries to trick or guide people’s interviews for a better effect. She gets bossy. When she is interviewing a little girl trapped in the building she totally milks it by putting words in her mouth for greater emotional effect. When she sees the magnitude of the story she has on her hands she pounces on it ferociously, taking risks and even putting her camera man in danger to get a better shot. And then as things get worse, you see her coming unglued. She is vulnerable, scared and completely helpless just like everyone else. She becomes the Alyx Vance to our Gordon Freeman – a strong emotional focus of the story. She is the vehicle through which we feel the sheer terror of the situation and her performance is superb.

I whole heatedly recommend this movie to anyone who loves Zombie flicks, or enjoys a zombie-style horror movie now and then. It is not terribly original, and it is not some masterpiece of cinematography. It does not try to be ambitious, it does not try to make you think, and it does not try to smuggle in a message about the evils of science, or human vanity. What it delivers is raw emotion, and edge of your seat thrills. It is a zombie movie but instead of mindlessly aping the existing works it takes their themes and setups and subtly subverts so that while predictable they seem new and original. In that it is unique and refreshing stab at the genre which seemed all but depleted by Hollywood lately. The plot is very simple, but solid and without major holes. Characters are simple and not terribly deep, but average and ordinary enough to be believable. Acting is superb all across the board, and the camera work tries not to be too annoying. It is a Zombie movie reanimated in style and with great deal of finesse.

Of course there is one issue here: the movie is in Spanish and if you don’t speak the language you will need to watch it subtitled which I hear is deal breaker for some people. I’d still recommend watching it, but if you refuse to read you will be happy to know that a Hollywood remake starring Jennifer Carpenter (aka Dexter’s Sister) will hit US theaters in October. I watched the trailer and it seems that they kept it pretty close to the original (almost scene by scene) up until zombies show up at which point I saw a lot of gun waving, testosterone fueled bravado, bunch of action sequences and cheep scare shots – in other words, standard Hollywood bullshit which was so gloriously absent from [Rec]. It seemed like they they were trying to “Hollywood up” something which worked great because it was filmed in a style that was intentionally different. The end product will likely suck, since they are going to miss the whole point of this film by a mile, without even knowing why. But that’s Hollywood for you – they’ll never miss an occasion to fuck up a good thing.

[tags][Rec], rec, quarantine, zombie, horror, review[/tags]

Formal review aside, let me complain about the plot now. Spoilers below!

The whole explanation for the second outbreak in the movie was totally lame. How lame was it? Let me count the ways:

1. Two kids sneak out of the tightly controlled “Green Zone” by jumping the railing on the bridge and walking on the outside past heavily armed guards
2. The area in the walking distance around the “Green Zone” is still full of bodies. You’d think they would sweep it clean by now, but no…
3. A sniper positioned on a roof sees the kids sneaking out, and reports it. When he does this, the kids are just beyond the bridge. All that needs to happen now, is for one of the bridge guards to open the gate and bring them in. They let them go instead. WTF?
4. Instead of immediately capturing the kids, they let them loot a pizza place, steal a delivery bike and drive all the way to their old house where they find their mother still alive
5. Finally the army wakes up and sends a helicopter and a heavily armed team after the kids which conveniently arrives at the house when the kids figure out that mom is kinda-sorta infected
6. They take mommie to the base, run some tests and find out she is a carrier – she has the Rage virus in her, and can infect others, but she does not exhibit any symptoms except for the bloody eye thing.
7. The kid’s father is some sort of mega super/janitor who conveniently has a master key to everything – including the high security quarantine room where they hold his wife
8. So he goes to see her, and gets infected

I have no clue why the dude had a key to that room, but I’m pretty sure he shouldn’t have it. I mean, come on!

And why the hell did they send a decked out commando squad in full gear with an air support to get the kids? As far as the army was concerned the last infected died months ago. All they needed was one or two dudes in a Humvee. Go figure.

[tags]28 weeks later, 28 days later, movies, movie, zombies, the rage virus[/tags]

Previously I advocated fortifying in some well protected building with food supply. Since then I changed my mind. Think about it – what happens to all these people in Zombie movies who stay in urban areas? They die! Barricading yourself in a mall is only a temporary solution. You will soon be out of power and if the zombies figure out there are people inside the mall they will start to accumulate in the parking lots like in Dawn of the Dead.

If there are 6 zombies outside, you have a pretty good chance to escape. If there are 600 of them, leaving that mall might not be possible without some clever plan – like building a spiky armored bus with chainsaw ports or something. :P

I think the best solution is to head for the most desolate, rural area you can think of. I live in NJ – one of the most densely populated states around so I’m pretty much screwed. I think the best option for me and my family would be to try to get out of the state. Me and my dad know some nice places in Catskills (Upstate New York) where we used to hike and fish. There are few small towns in the area, and lots of forests where you could camp out. I think if we could get out of NJ we could go into the mountains and camp out there. I have no clue where to get a gun around here, but there are at least 2 or 3 little gun shops up there in the mountains. I know because they also sold fishing equipment and bait. We could definitely loot one of them, or alternatively buy some guns if the town was not infected yet.

Few people around means less potential zombies to worry about. If you camp out in a remote area, living out of canned goods, fish and rarely go near the towns there is a good chance that zombies won’t be able to find you.

This would of course only be possible if we could find a safe passage out of NJ. Catskills are only about 3 hour drive from here but during a Zombie outbreak that might be a long trip.

Everyone should have a zombie survival plan. What is yours?

[tags]zombie, zombie survival, zombie survival plan, zombie outbreak plan, outbreak[/tags]

via myconfinedspace

You never know when we are going to get overrun by zombies.

[tags]humor, zombies, survival, funny[/tags]

And then I looked up, and quickly realized that this was a hoax. Let me show you how I know this. The URL of the story is http://65.127.124.62/south_asia/4483241.stm.htm. See anything wrong with that? Look at the IP address.

The IP of bbc.co.uk is not 65.127.124.62. BBC is located at 212.58.228.155. If you don’t believe me click on both of the links and compare the results.

A quick reverse DNS search reveals that the domain name that points to 65.127.124.62 is in fact baserape.com. I probably don’t have to tell you this, but a respectable news agency probably would not register such a domain, or blast heavy metal music on their front page. Who owns baserape.com then?

According to a whois query that domain was registered by Godady to Domains By Proxy:

Registrant: Domains by Proxy, Inc.

DomainsByProxy.com
15111 N. Hayden Rd., Ste 160, PMB 353
Scottsdale, Arizona 85260
United States

Registered through: GoDaddy.com, Inc. (http://www.godaddy.com)

Domain Name: BASERAPE.COM

Created on: 08-May-03
Expires on: 08-May-10
Last Updated on: 03-Jan-06

Administrative Contact:

Private, Registration BASERAPE.COM@domainsbyproxy.com
Domains by Proxy, Inc.
DomainsByProxy.com
15111 N. Hayden Rd., Ste 160, PMB 353
Scottsdale, Arizona 85260
United States
(480) 624-2599

Technical Contact:

Private, Registration BASERAPE.COM@domainsbyproxy.com
Domains by Proxy, Inc.
DomainsByProxy.com
15111 N. Hayden Rd., Ste 160, PMB 353
Scottsdale, Arizona 85260
United States
(480) 624-2599

Domain servers in listed order:

HELIUM.INTEGRALCORP.COM
CALVIN.INTEGRALCORP.COM

What is Domains By Proxy? It’s a company that acts like a proxy between a private user and the domain registrar. For example, you may not want to have your home address and phone number associated with your personal blog, or some silly fan site that you created. So you use a company like Domains By Proxy that will act as a mediator between you, the registrar and the people who need to contact you regarding your website.

What does this all mean? It means that just about anyone on the planet earth could have registered baserape.com. It is definitely not affiliated with BBC in any way. And if you do a wee bit of research into this, you will probably see that this is an old circulating story that was already debunked by snopes.com.

Come on Xeni – you know better than this!

Update Fri, September 15 2006, 09:12 PM

Oops, it seems that BoingBoing took down the article. I guess they were too embarrassed that they fell for it, that they didn’t even want to post a clarification like they usually do :P

[tags]bbc, zombies, cambodia, Quan’sul, Cambodian Troops, malaria, boingboing[/tags]