Monday, October 06, 2008

31 DAYS OF FRIGHT: Boogie Nights Meets Dawn of the Dead

While I was out in Seattle earlier this year for the Emerald City Comicon I had a chance to chat with writer Rick Remender, whose work includes the terrific vampirate tale SEA OF RED. While we were talking about that book and how much I thought it would make a great movie, Remender steered me towards the first four issues of his new book, CRAWLSPACE, which was in the vein of the old EC Comics like 'Tales from the Crypt' or 'Vault of Horror'.

Though CRAWLSPACE is devoted to a single story in each issue, the comparison to the old EC books is apt. If those comics kept parents awake at night wondering just what the HELL their kids were into, CRAWLSPACE's first mini-series would certainly give unsuspecting guardians a shock to the system.

Best described as BOOGIE NIGHTS MEETS DAWN OF THE DEAD, the four-issue mini-series XXXOMBIES delivers on the promise of its title. It's the summer of 1977 and a group of pornographers, sequestered away at a mansion in LA, are getting their latest skin flick in the can... blissfully unaware that an airline crash has unleashed a horrific zombie plague throughout the city. When the plague rears its ugly head in their midst all hell breaks loose as the smut peddlers and their cast of veterans and virgins fight to stay one step ahead of the zombies not to mention the mobsters looking to collect on an overdue loan to the brains of the production.

Complicating matters is the single-minded, vigilante-like pursuit of the blonde starlet's pistol-packing, truck-driving father.

Remender and Co. don't pull any punches with XXXOMBIES and fans of gore, smut and the walking dead will get a kick out of this fast-paced zombie yarn. There are a few moments that push the envelope waaaaaayyyy past anything that you could get away with on film and you'll want to keep your eyes peeled for the various thinly-veiled real-life characters that work their way into the story's background.

CRAWLSPACE: XXXOMBIES is now available as a trade paperback collecting all four issues.

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