The post title was a bit of a spoiler, so this probably won’t come as much of a surprise: We’re giving away five copies of Allan Graves’ Zombook! This ridiculously awesome volume from London-based Graffito Books features zombie art by Ghoulish Gary Pullin, RM designer Andrew Wright, Jason Edmiston, Eric Pigors, Jeff Zornow, The Pizz, Tom Bagley and many more! You can leave it on your coffee table to let your friends know that, A) you are very fancy, and B) you really, really dig zombies…

As horror fans, we’re enemies of decency. Taking pleasure in despicable films, books, games, etc., is our way of spitting in the face of all that is wholesome and proper.

When it comes to treacly traditions, one of the biggest offenders  is Christmas – a holiday so infested with niceties like gifts, carols, sweaters and mistletoe that even ol’ St. Nicholas himself would be heaving up cookies if he were  (spoiler alert!) a real person.

Christmas horror movies, on the other hand, take the yuletide spirit that plagues this time of year and slice it open stomach to sternum. Many festive fright flicks have preceded the two selections below, and many are sure to follow; I’ll be looking forward to every one.

Well, frugal fright fan, today we have a classic good news/bad news scenario. On the bad side, we have a visit from directionless ambition from a couple of friends who set out to make a horror film with nary a budget. I applaud their drive but not so much what they produced. On the good side, we have an overused plot device (zombies) used in an unexpected, original way.

So, as is normally preferred, let’s rip the bandage off the bad news first…

Fans of the kind of smoke-cured heaviness regularly stoked by bands such as Red Fang, Clutch and Kyuss are gonna wanna take a gander at King Giant’s new video for “Appomattox,” the first track from the band’s upcoming sophomore album, Dismal Hollow (available worldwide on Tuesday, January 31 in digipak CD, deluxe digital download and gatefold 180-gram LP via King Giant’s own imprint Graveyard Hill Records and The Path Less Traveled Records).

Being that the doom rockers, along with video director/producer Kevin Barker, took to the Appalachian backwoods to lens this zombie-infested epic for the song, they figured the readers of Rue Morgue should be among the first to see it…[pregnant pause]…in the world.

Never ones to look a gift horse in its mouth (believe you me, we look those unpredictably generous fuckers right in their crazy, coal-black eyes), we agreed to exclusively premiere the video…under one condition.

“Gentlemen, have you heard of something called The Sinister Seven? Well, you have now…” [click past the jump]

Zoinks, Scoob’! The folks behind the Year of the Dead calendar, featuring zombie babes in beachwear, are giving away five of their 2012 calendars, so you can tack one up at home or at work and get disapproving looks all year around. If this appeals to your sick bastard sensibilities, all you have to do is the following:

Send an email to theyearofthedead@gmail.com with the subject line Year of the Dead/Rue Morgue contest and tell ‘em your idea for a future Year of the Dead zombie babe photo shoot. For example: “I’d like to see an undead beach babe in a deck chair sipping brains out of some guy’s skull like it was a piña colada.” Or, “Show me a trio of zombie girls washing a hot rod with bloody water.”

Sure, zombies are glamorous – staying up all night, roaming the streets, eating all that fancy organ meat. But filmmaker Chris Walsh is here to tell us that it ain’t all it’s cracked up to be.

Chris is a one-man stop-motion machine. He writes, directs and edits his films, as well as making all the puppets and sets, recording the sound, etc. The first film we’re showing you today, Rise of the Living Corpse, has been working the festival circuit for awhile now. The second, Fitness Class Zombie, is just out. (It’s playing Knoxville Horror Film Fest this weekend, as a matter of fact.)

Chris’ films are funny and well-made, and they only take up a few seconds of your time. Watch ’em, share ’em, and let us know what you think.

Chris has a pointer: “For added effect, watch the fitness one with headphones – I took special care on the disgusting sound effects,” he says. “And I will add that each internal organ falls out in correct anatomical order. Strange, the things that matter.

For the fourth entry into the franchise, Resident Evil: Afterlife, Paul W.S. Anderson (the original film’s director and series writer) returns to the director’s chair, this time bringing along a 3-D camera rig used in Avatar. Does this style over substance director have the cinematic chops to churn out an impressive 3-D film? Let’s slide that 3D disc in the Blu-ray player and find out…
Unlike the zombie films of George Romero, the Resident Evil franchise avoids the inclusion of social commentary, preferring to remain true to its “shoot ‘em up” videogame origins, and this new Resident Evil chapter is no exception. Afterlife continues the cliffhanger story setup in the previous film. Alice (Milla Jovovich), aided by a new army of clones, invades the Umbrella Corporation’s last stronghold and birthplace of the zombie plague, an underground facility in Tokyo. After blowing the Umbrella Corporation’s facility sky high (and her clones with it), she pursues head baddy Albert Wesker (Shawn Roberts) onto his escape plane. Wesker injects her with an antidote to the T-virus, wiping out the superpowers she’d developed in RE: Apocalypse and effectively resetting the series to its origins.

If you’re anywhere near Montreal this weekend, you may wanna drop by the Miskatonic Institute of Horror Studies to check out DEAD CELLULOID: A Brief History of Zombies in Cinema.

It’s a two day tour de force on Zombie Movies taught by yours truly. On day one, we’re gonna fly through the history of zombies on film with a blistering assault of juicy clips from all sorts of weird, rotten flicks.

On day two, we’re gonna be joined live via SKYPE with the great ‘Iron’ Mike Felsher from Red Shirt Pictures. He’s been Romero’s ‘behind the scenes’ top man on the last two DEAD films and is currently working on DVD reissues of Lucio Fulci’s classic zombie flicks ZOMBIE and HOUSE BY THE CEMETERY.

New York singer/songwriter Aaron Stoquert released his first EP this week, a five-song album written from a zombie’s perspective called Run For Your Life, and kindly reached out to Rue Morgue to share his news and his music. The sparse compositions – in which Aaron sings and plays acoustic and slide guitar, bass and percussion in a haunting, downtrodden folk style – are a little shaky in spots but there’s definitely a strange sadness inherent in these songs sung from the point of view of the helpless undead.

FACEBREAKER
Infected
Metal Blade Records
Swedish death metal band Facebreaker returns with a third album of thrashy jingles just perfect for your last exit. Though there’s not a lot of dynamics going on here – it’s pretty much standard issue two guitars, bass, drums and demonic growling throughout – the band lives up to its handle with a full bore approach on all 11 tracks, most of which temper the onslaught to around the three-minute mark for a kind of neatly prepared, fast food serving of aural annihilation.