From the MOZ Newsdesk . . .

AMC will launch a talk show about the zombie series The Walking Dead this fall. It will be called Talking Dead and will be hosted by Chris Hardwick.

The show will will examine all the weekly plight of the survivors and their undead adversaries through conversations with fans, actors, and producers

The show will air Fridays at 11pm, right after the encore airing the latest Walkind Dead episode,

You’ll be able to catch Talking Dead on Fridays at 11, right after the “encore” airing the latest episode, with one exception: the first episode of the talk show will air directly after the October 16th premiere of TWD season 2.

Need a Nickname Scott

Download The B-Movie Cast #170 here!

Brother D appears on Episode 170 of The B-Movie Cast:

On today’s show we are just back from our vacation to London and Paris and we are exhausted. So our good friend Brother D from The Mail Order Zombie podcast was nice enough to create a great music show for us. We will all be back next week with a new show.

We're living in a grand era of horror and genre documentaries. Three of the big horror franchises from the 80s and 90s have been given the documentary treatment (Halloween: 25 Years of Terror, His Name Was Jason: 30 Years of Friday the 13th and Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy). There are documentaries covering horror authors (Lovecraft: Fear of the Unknown), horror sub-genres (Zombiemania and Going to Pieces: The Rise and Fall of the Slasher Film) and horror conventions (Monster Bash - Origins). We even have multiple documentaries covering horror hosts (Every Other Day Is Halloween, American Scary and Virginia Creepers: The Horror Host Tradition of the Old Dominion).

Image Entertainment and Something Weird Video dip their toes into the genre documentary pool with Godfather of Gore: The Herschell Gordon Lewis Documentary on September 27, 2011. However, horror fans may want to brace themselves. While H. G. Lewis is perhaps most well-known for his, for better or worse, groundbreaking horror films, nearly the first third of the documentary spends its screen time exploring the pre-bloody history of Lewis-the-filmmaker. We're given his background, how it intersects with the history of the exploitation film and the "nudie cuties" and what ultimately led him to break the bloody ground of Blood Feast. While I certainly find the non-Hollywood-side of filmmaking history fascinating, it does get a bit drawn out in this documentary. I didn't need to see as many clips from the nudie cuties; I didn't need the sound effects whenever someone's genitalia accidentally appeared in any of those film clips; I didn't need to hear everyone bragging about producer David Friedman's ability to talk women out of their clothes for his collaborations with Lewis.

Having Joe Bob Briggs and Frank Henenlotter pop up to express how awful the nudie cuties were (not just Lewis' contributions but the entire subgenre) certainly helped. I laughed out loud when Henenlotter appeared on screen to tell us how "stupid" these films were.

When the documentary gets to the gore-portion of Lewis' career, it doesn't hold back (not that it held back when referencing all the nudie cuties!). The footage is bloody, exploitive, graphic and gruesome. Surviving and available cast and crew reflect on their time working with Lewis and company, and we get a near film-by-film chronology of the films Lewis and Friedman worked on together. There's a short mention made of a falling out between the two, and then we're back to the filmography, sans Friedman. Friedman and Lewis definitely have current chemistry on screen, however; if there was any serious bad blood between the two, it must have long mellowed by now.

The documentary is interesting, and takes us to the sticky floors of film history. It moves along at a quick pace, sometimes to a fault. For a documentary called Godfather of Gore, I was surprised to come away from it feeling as if we rushed through some of the gore films. Perhaps this is indicative of my own film interests, but I didn't need as much time spent on Lewis' nudie cutie filmography.

Perhaps it was because of this quick pace that some elements of Lewis' career were glossed over or skipped all together. There's no reference made to the film Monster A-Go-Go, which Lewis kinda-sorta co-directed with Bill Rebane. The movie Something Weird is covered, but, despite this documentary being released by Something Weird Video, no connection is drawn between the film and its influence on the founder of SWV. Mention is made of Lewis' adversarial relationship with Connie Mason which apparently began when she first appeared in Blood Feast, but this is never discussed further (it's implied that Mason had a very diva-like attitude, and since Lewis is portrayed as a efficient quick-and-dirty movie maker, I would have liked to have learned how he dealt with this "diva" and why he decided to cast her again in his next film Two Thousand Maniacs!).

Mason doesn't appear in the documentary (except for an end credits sequence in which she appears on stage with Lewis and company at a horror convention singing the Two Tousand Maniacs! title song). There is a distinct lack of women overall, and most of the horror film clips showcase women getting killed (granted, most of Lewis' film victims were women, but there were some men killed in ...Maniacs!), which does give Godfather of Gore: The Herschell Gordon Lewis Documentary an odd, albeit slight, sexist edge. Of course, considering what kinds of films Lewis made, what the market was, etc., this may have been the intent of director Henenlotter.

There is a nice spotlight shone on regular Lewis performer actor William Kerwin. It quickly became obvious that everyone who ever worked with Kerwin remembers the late actor fondly, and it was nice to hear stories about how he not only performed in front of the camera, but helped whenever and wherever he could behind the camera. Additionally, footage from an unfinished H. G. Lewis film called An Eye for an Eye has been restored and cobbeled together for this DVD release, and I think it's a real shame this particular film was never completed. It definitely has a broader feel than most of Lewis' genre output at the time, and would have perhaps made an interesting eventual double-feature pic to play against X: The Man with the X-Ray Eyes at some point.

John Waters appears in the documentary and makes an interesting point: there's no such thing as exploitation cinema anymore. Everything that was shocking - nudity, gore, etc. - has all been co-opted by Hollywood and appears in mainstream films now. Perhaps this is why Lewis got out of film industry when he did, but, again, this documentary doesn't explore this stage of Lewis' career too deeply either. He just kind of . . . stopped making movies. He went on to have a successful career in marketing, and that's that. The DVD ends. No mention of the Blood Feast sequel or the Two Thousand Maniacs! remake. We see some footage of Lewis at a business conference, Waters, Briggs and company reflect on Lewis' place in film history, and the end credits role.

While I certainly wish the documentary had been less love letter and more historical document, I still enjoyed the Godfather of Gore: The Herschell Gordon Lewis Documentary. Briggs doesn't say much more than he's already written in his book Profoundly Disturbing: The Shocking Movies that Changed History and Waters certainly doesn't dive into anything new from him, either. I don't think it's something I'll go back to again, but it did give me some ideas of some movies to add to my To-Watch list.

Download Mail Order Zombie: Episode #174 here!

We're not podfading - we're pod-recharging! This is Episode 172, the final-for-now episode of Mail Order Zombie, and before we go on hiatus for the rest of 2011, we've got a lot of business to finish. Brother D takes a look at the movies World of the Dead: The Zombie Diaries (dir. Michael Bartlett and Kevin Gates), Attack of the Moon Zombies (dir. Christopher R. Mihm) and Woods of Terror/Zombie Village (dir. Jason Impey). MOZ Family Member Zombiwan calls in to help talk about the movie Forest of the Dead (dir. Brian Singleton), and Miss Bren sits down with D to watch and talk about Season One of the television series Zombie Hunters: City of the Dead (created by Patrick Devaney, who's featured with producer Chrisopher J. Murphy in an interview from HorrorHound Weekend). Even though Brother D and Miss Bren are taking a break from zombie podcasting, Professor Chad isn't missing a step with his Zombie Aptitude Test and is still take answer for the current ZAT question. Need-a-Nickname Scott is back with the news in the Zombie Beat; the winner of the Zombie Hunters contest is announced; we review your emails and voicemails in the Feedback Discussion . . . we packed a lot into this episode to help tide you over until Mail Order Zombie proper returns in January 2012!

Email us at MailOrderZombie@gmail.com or call us at 206-202-2505!
Palavr.com Forums - http://palavr.com/forum.php/

Plan D: The Official Website of Derek M. Koch - http://www.derekmkoch.com

Attack of the Moon Zombies - http://www.moonzombies.com
Zombie Hunters: City of the Dead - http://www.zombiehuntershow.com
The Monster Channel - http://www.100ymm.com

High School of the Dead "Best Scene" - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNtlMjRqfQs
Dagon Industries - http://arkhambazaar.com/dagon-industries-store
The H. P. Lovecraft Film Festival - http://hplfilmfestival.com/

Stag Night of the Dead UK DVD release - http://www.stagnightofthedead.com/blog/stag-night-of-the-dead-dvd/
Fangoria's exclusive details on Stag Night of the Dead's DVD release - http://www.fangoria.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=5619:exclusive-trailer-pics-stag-night-of-the-dead&catid=1:latest-news&Itemid=167
Zombies, Run! iPhone & Android app - http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/sixtostart/zombies-run-a-running-game-and-audio-adventure-for
Plants vs. Zombies add-ons - http://toucharcade.com/2011/09/08/plants-vs-zombies-update-adds-new-mini-games/

(Various production music produced by Kevin MacLeod and Midnight Syndicate.)

RIP Third Coast Zed.

Download Mail Order Zombie #171 here!

In this week's episode of Mail Order Zombie, Brother D pushes through three movie reviews: Vs. The Dead (dir. Jeff Beckman and Phil Pattison), The Walking Dead Girls (dir. Tyler Benjamin) and Bloodlust Zombies (dir. Dan Lantz); he also tackles the upcoming novel Dead of Night: A Zombie Novel from award-winning author Jonathan Maberry. Throw in some hot Zombie Aptitude Test action, the Feedback Discussion and a new contest? Let's do this thing!

Email us at MailOrderZombie@gmail.com or call us at 206-202-2505!
Palavr.com Forums - http://palavr.com/forum.php/

(Various production music produced by Kevin MacLeod.)