The Zombie Cookbook

I once had a friend tell me that, when evaluating cookbooks, it’s important to not expect every recipe to be of interest to you, and that there can be a cookbook that you love that you ignore half of. As long as there were a few recipes in that cookbook that you would not only use and love, but that you would reuse for years to come, then the whole book was worth getting.

I think that the same logic can be applied, to an extent, to short story collections. The short story, as a format, has undergone a bit of a fall from grace in the past few decades, which is unfortunate, because it’s a unique type of story that allows for a lot of variety and experimentalism that you won’t necessarily get from novels. I think that, if people approached short story collections the same way they approach cookbooks, they’d enjoy them significantly more.

All that brings us to The Zombie Cookbook, a new short story collection from Damnation Books. As the title might suggest, it’s not the most serious of story collections; a lot of the stories here walk the line between horror and comedy. There’s a long tradition of that within zombie literature, stretching back to movies like Return of the Living Dead (which was the origin of the “bbbrrraaaaaiiiinnsss” zombie meme) and Dead Alive. For someone who’s a long-time fan of zombie literature in print or film, this collection doesn’t necessarily break any new ground, but it does provide a solid entry in that tradition.

The theme of the collection, crossing zombie stories with food, is a logical connection, and one that you would think would be fairly restrictive, but there’s a surprising amount of variety among the eleven stories and poems included in the collection. I hadn’t heard of any of the authors in the collection prior to reading it, but I’ll definitely be checking some off these authors out in the future, as there are some who really manage to take the concept and make it their own.

As I said with the recipe book analogy, I didn’t enjoy every single story in this collection, but that’s okay; not everything in the cookbook has to be to everyone’s taste, and even the ones that I didn’t particularly enjoy were well-written. I’m sure they’ll have a lot of fans in their own right. When the collection hits its hight points, though, in stories like The Right Recipe and My Big Fat Zombie Wedding, you end up discovering some short stories that have a lot of depth and world-building done to them in addition to the puns and slapstick humour that pepper the book.

In addition to the stories, the Zombie Cookbook is also really nicely packaged. The cover and interior artwork are beautiful, and nicely accent the stories that they’re interspersed with. A few of the stories even include recipes for zombie cooks, which helps sell the concept of the book as well. If you’re a fan of zombie books or horror comedy, it’s definitely worth checking out at ZombieCookbook.net. Both e-book and print versions are available.

Date: Sunday 16th August 2009

Place: A fruit farm in deepest Kent

Present: AD Lane, 16 crew members, 4 actors, 11 extras, 1 actor’s girlfriend, and me

The weather could not have been better: the sky a deep azure blue, and the sun glistening on the newly applied fake blood. A number of inhumanly pale farm labourers pick apples for their co-worker to sell to equally sickly-looking passers-by. Another labourer, in a boiler suit, gazes into the distance, the smoke from his cigarette swirling around his head and momentarily masking his peeling flesh.

And Vincent de Paula, Director of Photography, glides slowly past with his camera.

This is the first time AD Lane has sat in the director’s chair since graduation and you might have expected him to look a little nervous. Instead he seemed totally at ease, chatting happily with crew, and cast during the breaks, and introducing himself to each and every extra to ensure they felt comfortable. This is my only experience of a real shoot but I was struck by the overwhelming calmness of the proceedings. I had expected the long periods of hanging about, whilst equipment was set up, or cast walked through their part, but I was surprised by how polite everyone was even during the actual filming. It was all please and thank you and there was the most delightfully gentlemanly discussion between Director, Assistant Director and Director of Photography at the end of filming before the Assistant announced, almost apologetically, ‘I think that we have a wrap.’

Maybe this was the reason why Antony brought the filming in under budget and in less time than expected. Another might be the commitment of everyone involved. You only had to listen into a tiny part of the chatter to realise that everyone there was a zombie freak. Take the young couple who had driven over two hours from Hertfordshire just to be extras. They get married in early September and yet they found time to take part. They get married in September and yet they have already invested £450 in the film and want to invest more when they know how much they have left after the honeymoon! And they didn’t even want a speaking role; they just wanted to be part of a zombie film. Now, that is true dedication and you have to believe, with that sort of support, Antony can’t fail.

So what of the trailer itself? I’m sworn to secrecy, and anyway I didn’t see the morning’s filming. But I can tell you it will feature the film’s heroes in Leslie Simpson and Efisia Fele (otherwise known as Fangoria’s Penny B Dreadful) along with the cigarette smoking zombie, Frank Jakeman. Antony is hoping to get it out in time for Hallowe’en, preferably previewing it at a festival and you can be sure that it will raise more questions than it will provide answers. The intention is to keep the punters guessing right to the film’s release.

I’ll let you know when the trailer is available, but if you want to get a preview then you will have to dig into your pocket and sign up to one of Antony’s producer packages (www.theindywoodproject.com). You too could be a zombie then, since all producers will be invited to be extras in the film itself. Oh, and don’t think you need to be a zombie freak to be involved either. It turns out they really are a very friendly bunch with more than a slight penchant for Nice biscuits!

[View with PicLens]

But before I go into full-on gushing praise mode, here’s the official blurb:

Book synopsis

They’ll chase you. They’ll rip you open. They’ll feed on you… When the sickness came, every parent, policeman, politician – every adult – fell ill. The lucky ones died. The others are crazed, confused and hungry.

Only children under fourteen remain, and they’re fighting to survive. Now there are rumours of a safe place to hide. And so a gang of children begin their quest across London, where all through the city – down alleyways, in deserted houses, underground – the grown-ups lie in wait. But can they make it there – alive?

The synopsis really only pays lip-service to the story, though, as there are several strands running throughout the books – some of which tie up at the end, while others are left wide open for future books (of which I hope there are many).

On one level, this is a zombie story for teens, packed with rotting flesh, shuffling cadavers, and some scenes of full-scale gore. At its heart, though, this is a story about what it means to be a teenager, finding your own way in the world, and learning exactly who you are.

It is populated by a large cast of characters – some instantly likeable, others just the opposite, but all well-drawn and three-dimensional – and their interactions as friendships develop (and often crumble) sets this book well above the average horror novel.

Characters die – real characters, you’ve come to root for – and tragedy fills almost every chapter, but there’s a rip-roaring adventure in there, too, which will have you cheering almost as much as it’ll have you gasping with shock.

This is without question one of my favourite books ever, and it if isn’t an instant smash when it is released in September, I’ll welcome the zombie apocalypse with open arms.

What do you do if you’re a young British film-maker, driven by a burning desire to make a film and you are determined to retain control of the concept, the script and cinematography?  Well, if you’re AD Lane you bring your well-honed entrepreneurial skills to bear on the problem and come up with an innovative internet-based funding campaign that in 6 weeks has already raised £6,500 towards his target of £100,000 plus.

We at ThePhantomZone wanted to know more about the man behind this spoof zombie film, THE INVASION OF THE NOT QUITE DEAD, and his independent film company, the Indywood Project. So your intrepid hack braved the vicissitudes of the A224 to find Antony Lane holed up in his cosy front room complete with ominous treadmill, computer persistently emitting email bleeps, new Wii, and a couple of black and white cats. Resisting these distractions, we settled down to chat.

Antony Lane, happily oblivious to what's going on behind him

Antony is passionate about film. He’s been a consumer for years. And not just any consumer. With his mum, he set up and ran Clockwork DVD, the first shop to sell DVDs in the Grimsby area. He stocked it in the beginning with his own DVD collection, offering to provide new copies to order within three days. All the DVDs were American format, there being so few British ones available at the time. After a year the shop was fully stocked and he then started up the first DVD rental service in the area. Sometime later, after legislation changes and competition from the big DVD rental chains forced the closure of the shop, he also ran an ebay DVD shop. This experience was to prove invaluable when it came to designing a fund raising campaign for Invasion.

Selling and renting DVDs also provided Antony’s early film education and made him realise that what he really wanted to do was to make films himself. So he signed up for a degree at the International Film School, Wales in Newport where he came into contact with Ken Russell (visiting professor) and Justin Kerrigan (alumnus and director of Human Traffic).  Talking to them about their experiences opened his eyes to the film industry and encouraged him to become an independent film-maker. The Indywood project was born!

His avid viewing of films and DVDs over the years has provided Antony with a very firm idea of what he wants to achieve with Invasion. Listening to him talk about Tony Scott’s film The Hunger, or the Spierig brothers’ Undead, makes you realise that for Antony, two things are important above all else: a really good strong story and superb cinematography. Indeed, his major criticism of much of what falls within the horror genre is that it is either badly written or badly filmed or both. He is particularly vociferous about the hand-held almost home movie type of horror film that has been spawned by the Blair Witch Project. And he has few good words for mainstream blockbusters like Drag Me to Hell, where the gore is more important than the characters.

One of the movie posters

So expect something rather more thoughtful and rather more polished from Invasion. To that end Antony has already lined up two potential cinematographers, both of whom have worked on movies he respects. As to the story, Antony has written the screenplay himself, and, if he has doubts about anything, I sense that it is the screenplay that most worries him. He’s had the thumbs up from Ken Russell and the actors who have seen it and that should encourage him. My own view is that his lack of complacency is a good sign and with the crew that is assembling itself around him, he has very little need for concern.

All he needs to do now is find the finance. And that’s where the entrepreneurial skills Antony developed selling DVD come to the fore. His Twitter campaign is the first of its kind. He now has about 8000 followers and is raising between £750 and £1000 a week, largely through the sale, at £20 a go, of pre-ordered DVDs, along with a zombie photo-makeover and an opportunity for UK residents to take part in the film as an extra. Six weeks into the campaign, over 170 people from all over the world had already signed up for this, this hack included!

At the same time he has also auctioned a sizeable chunk of his 2,500+ DVD collection on ebay, and has secured funding and sponsorship from a number of local, national and international businesses. Indeed, the Indywood project is about to go truly national with newspaper coverage imminent and a BBC documentary due to be aired in a few months.

Now he has had another marketing idea and has teamed up with an illustrator to produce an online cartoon strip which will fill in the back story, taking the villain from Switzerland in 1978, when the meteor falls and the populace is infected, up to the present day on an island 20 miles off the coast of England. It’s likely the cartoon will be made available free to all those who have helped fund the film and maybe at a price to others. So, there you go, another incentive to get involved and about as much information about the plot of the film that you are likely to get anywhere!

And when will investors start to see what they have funded? Antony is planning to begin filming a teaser trailer in four or five weeks. This will, of course, be part of the fund-raising exercise, but it will also allow all us investors to get a better feel for how the film will look. Then, all being well, he hopes to start filming proper early in 2010. He plans to do some of it in Kent, largely to say thank you for the support he has received from the local community, but he will also film in the Brecon Beacons, the Isles of Scilly, and, funding permitting, the Alps.

Lastly, here’s the Scoop! Invasion of the Not Quite Dead is not a stand-alone project. Very few people know this yet but Invasion is only the first film of a trilogy. So expect to see more innovative fund raising campaigns coming from Antony’s direction: he’s got two more films to finance after this one!