by Mandy J Watson

Posted: 28 October 2009

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What do you end up with once you're picked the best? A lot of weird stuff. Here's a selection of zombie shorts that didn't make it into our recent film festival. In these, "horror" really stands for "horrorble" (including that joke) but if you're open to it there's still lots of fun to be had watching this crazy selection. Once again, you need to be an adult to access these videos.

In sorting through the selection of potential shorts for our zombie film festival we rejected a lot of films we found because they just didn't meet anyone's idea of a standard. In the discard pile, however, there were still a few (very rough) diamonds that had some fun moments or showed potential that hopefully will result in better works by the filmmakers in future. Therefore, here's a B-roll collection of near misses, lost opportunities, absurd humour, and, well, a few too many examples of "what the hell were they thinking?!?"



Zombie Mayhem
By: Borderdude, US
Running Time: 00:02:15
Size: 11.5 MB
Give a zombie a rocket launcher and let him loose at the airport. There are lots of pretty explosions and the choice of music complements the mayhem surprisingly well but there's really no storyline or attempt at creative expression and ultimately, therefore, no point.
URL: https://tv.rockstargames.com/videos/view/id/E4BFAE2F60D25A84



Zombie Is Crazy 2 !!!!!
By: Comb0 PL, UK
Running Time: 00:03:32
Size: 3.8 MB
There are some excellent editing and camera-angle choices in this short and there are moments that are just so absurd (though they say much more about the filmmaker and his gaming assistant than zombies) that you can't not laugh (the pause at 00:36, for example, is genius - but way too long - and listen for the wet "thunk" at 02:36) but unfortunately some of these bizarre diversions and non-sequitur moments mean the final product just isn't up to scratch. This short almost made it to the final pick, too, but the end bit (made worse by the phantom character shadow bottom right which probably belongs to the errant military man who for some indiscernible reason is everywhere)... what the hell?
URL: https://tv.rockstargames.com/videos/view/id/5CDBE855FCC3AB65




Zombie Is Crazy !!!!!
By: Comb0 PL, UK
Running Time: 00:00:44
Size: 18 MB
It's funny, totally bizarre, and it makes no sense, themes continued by this filmmaker in his sequel, Zombie Is Crazy 2 !!!!!, which we discussed above. Seriously, what is this guy on?
URL: https://tv.rockstargames.com/videos/view/id/1EF26570B26ED308



Zombie Angel
By: TST Sparco, Slovakia
Running Time: 00:00:40
Size: 2.6 MB
We still laugh when we watch this but the timing is off, as you'll see. It's got potential and it's a clever idea but it's not quite there yet.
URL: https://tv.rockstargames.com/videos/view/id/A6980371051EA38F




His (Un)lucky Day
By: Sparrow, The Netherlands
Running Time: 00:02:55
Size: 15 MB
Filmmaker Sparrow has a great visual sense with excellent use of camera angles and environments and tight editing (noticeable in his other shorts as well, one of which made it into our official festival selection) but we really don't know what's going on here. The ending was stale with unfortunate reliance on a clichéd classic and the beginning, with the zombie, made no sense.
URL: https://tv.rockstargames.com/videos/view/id/1C462AADEE45D064



Zombie Action !!
By: Blackgun91, Germany
Running Time: 00:01:54
Size: 9.1 MB
Another sentient zombie. Did I miss a memo? The bridge landing is mad but kind of fun but the dalliance in the fast-food restaurant is silly. Where's the mayhem? Why does he want fries? He should be after brains! BRAINS, dammit! Is this humour? It's not funny.
URL: https://tv.rockstargames.com/videos/view/id/BE941A7CE23FD448



Suicidio Zombie
By: Wodahsevil, Brazil
Running Time: 00:00:24
Size: 2 MB
If a zombie's already dead can it really commit suicide? You can contemplate that philosophical nugget in quiet moments of reflection. We rejected this one because it has a gratuitous "death" that's not that visually thrilling (unlike Zombie Falling by RhumNcoke, our official festival gratuitous fling).
URL: https://tv.rockstargames.com/videos/view/id/CE91F6224D777548




ZOMBIE -1-
By: Dregun, South Korea
Running Time: 00:02:05
Size: 10.7 MB
There are some great camera angles but the pedestrian cowering under the camera drives me crazy. Plus, a zombie on a scooter firing an automatic weapon...? That's a lot of dexterity for the undead.
URL: https://tv.rockstargames.com/videos/view/id/73EC2BC0685F7B62



ZOMBIE&MONK -2-
By: Dregun, South Korea
Running Time: 00:02:36
Size: 13.3 MB
Lest ye think that was it - oh, hell, no! Here comes part 2. There are more great camera angles and some interesting gratuitous action moments (as well as some sick ones), and there's good use of slow motion, but this story is still not making any sense or going anywhere, no matter how fast they drive. My only logical interpretation? "Zombie" is the dude's hip-hop/rapper/gangsta name or he's a WWE wrestler run amok, or something (either way he's not so much undead as deranged and trigger happy). The first would explain the blood and guns; the second explains the Speedo (finally!).
URL: https://tv.rockstargames.com/videos/view/id/D3E405DA3FEDF99C




COP in STRIP CLUB
By: tiagobellicCat, Portugal
Running Time: 00:01:51
Size: 9.6 MB MB
You've got stripping cops and you've got Zombie Niko, both courtesy of mods, so what do you do? Nothing! What an absolute waste. Speaking of which, what's up with that background stripper cop with the invisible abdomen? Seriously, I'd like to know.
URL: https://tv.rockstargames.com/videos/view/id/29BC500767DD798A



The New Experience
By: benjahut, Denmark
Running Time: 00:01:59
Size: 10.2 MB
It's an interesting premise - let's paradigm shift and reinvent what characters usually do - and it shows promise... briefly... but in the end we're left with the same mayhem and murder that's the basis of the game and the majority of the Rockstar Games Social Club TV shorts. What a wasted opportunity.
URL: https://tv.rockstargames.com/videos/view/id/D18E419ADEF2BAA4



Rekuiem / Rekuiem By Shaker
By: shaker-uzi, France
Running Time: 00:06:29
Size: 33.1 MB
There's potential here (the shot of the car sliding through the garage at 04:50, for example), and I really like the music, but we can't quite accept the paradigm of a zombie that's such an adept (in context, of course) driver. The ending is cool, and almost poetic, but it feels as though two different movies have been stitched together. Plus, a lot of the first half of the movie is really just repeat shots of the action we've already seen, just with different camera angles, which results in over a minute of unnecessary footage. Finally, the best part of the short, at 04:23, occurs when a car hits the zombie but, sadly, I think it was an accident.
URL: https://tv.rockstargames.com/videos/view/id/0A14F69376CAFDBF




gta 4 psycho zombie cobrahill84
By: cobra-k2/cobrahill84, Germany
Running Time: 00:03:32
Size: 53.4 MB MP4 (high res)/12.2 MB FLV (standard res)
This video isn't on the Rockstar Games Social Club TV site as this filmmaker is aiming for a wider reach and has started posting films to YouTube but we found it in the course of researching zombie shorts so we decided we may as well evaluate it for possible inclusion in our film festival lineup. This film uses one of the zombie character-skin mods, which immediately makes it stand out, but the film comes off more as though it's the story of a blood-spattered psychopathic killer on the loose than a zombie (and, in fact, that would make more sense). He's far too lucid and methodical in his approach. Therefore we decided not to include it in our final selection but, like the next video you're going to read about, there's a horror aspect to this one that's still very appropriate for Halloween.
URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZXUa7SBR1A



Fire Zombies
By: Imyge Skillz, US
Running Time: 00:01:06
Size: 5.7 MB
Our film festival's focus, in honour of Halloween, was on zombies because that's the only official "horror" element available to the GTA IV players to include in their films (although mods, such as a few "Zombie Niko" skins [ Example 1 | Example 2 ], are starting to appear that can widen that range, as was demonstrated in the short listed above). Therefore we rejected this short, with its misleading name, because it has absolutely nothing to do with zombies. However, of all the shorts we've watched on the Rockstar Games Social Club TV web site, this has to be one of the most psychologically disturbing. The quality of the game's graphics and physics engines means the realism in this short isn't far off from something that could be generated for a Hollywood movie (or could happen, and probably has happened, in real life), so we're ending off the B roll with this rather sick inclusion. Be warned: it's not for everyone - but it is truly in the spirit of Halloween.
URL: https://tv.rockstargames.com/videos/view/id/CC42002812DFA260

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