The Call of Duty: Black Ops map expansion, called “Escalation,” is now available to Xbox Live subscribers. Escalation adds five new maps, including four that are available in multiplayer mode.

As we told you back when the expansion map pack was first announced, the new maps include a Russian Zoo, a Cuban hotel and casino, a weapons of mass destruction stockpile, and “convoy.” If you still haven’t had your fill slaying the living dead, the update also includes a new zombie experience called “Call of the Dead.”

The update is available for $15, 0r 1200 MS points. What are you waiting for, get to downloading! Those damn zombies aren’t going to kill themselves. And while you’re waiting for it to download, check out the cool poster for the “Call of the Dead” maps after the jump.

Continue Reading →

This week on The Flickcast Chris and Matt are back and ready for action. Of course, that means a whole bunch of new and recurring topics to discuss and debate.

Some of these include the brand new Green Lantern footage/trailer from WonderCon, WonderCon itself,  Zack Snyder’s Sucker Punch, HBO’s Game of Thrones, more casting news, The Hangover II trailer, the Supernatural anime series,  and the new Thundercats animated series coming soon from Cartoon Network.

And for a fourth week running, no Charlie Sheen. Believe us, we’re happy about it too.

Of course, your hosts also made some picks this week including Matt’s pick of the movie Creepshow and Chris’ pick of the brand new AMC’s TV series The Killing.

As always, if you have comments, questions, critiques, offers of sponsorship or whatever, feel free to hit us up in the comments, on Twitter, at Facebook and MySpace or via email.

By Chris Ullrich

Reprinted from Fantastic Fest, 9/30/09

As a big fan of horror movies and the zombie sub-genre, I really wanted to like George A. Romero’s Survival of the Dead and was prepared to give it the benefit of the doubt as much as possible. Although, my expectations were pretty low after Romero’s last two zombie movie efforts Land of the Dead and Diary of the Dead. Sadly, this film didn’t even manage to rise up to the level of my lowered expectations and is, instead, a heavily flawed and often very bad addition to Romero’s body of work.

Still, this is the man who basically invented the zombie film genre, so attention must be paid and respect given for his enduring legacy as one of this country’s innovative artists. But something has obviously gone a bit off kilter and the writer/director seems to have lost his way. I’m not sure how this phenomenon works exactly, but somewhere along the way a director seems to lose his vision.

After several great and innovative films the later films start to get worse and worse. Unfortunately, George Romero seems to have fallen into that trap, much like another acknowledged master of horror John Carpenter seems to. Look at Carpenter’s last few films and tell me they are as good as his earlier work in The Thing, Starman, Escape from New York and, of course, the original Halloween.

Continue Reading →

With the release of George A. Romero’s Survival of the Dead only a few days away, it’s about time for a trailer to drop and it has. In this video we get our first real look at the latest installment of Romero’s zombie saga that started with Night of the Living Dead way back in 1968.

In case you’re just joining us, Survival immediately follows the events of Diary of the Dead and concerns an island off the coast of Deleware called Plum. On the island are two families, the O’Flynn’s and the Muldoons, who are ocked in a struggle for power and approach the zombie plague with two very different attitudes.

The O’Flynn’s are forced to exile family patriarch Patrick (Kenneth Welsh) by boat to the mainland, where he meets up with a band of soldiers, headed by Guardsman Sarge (Alan Van Sprang). They join forces and return to the island, to find that the zombie plague has fully gripped the divided community.

Check out the trailer after the jump. Survival of the Dead is available on VOD, XBOX Live, Playstation and Amazon this Friday and in theaters on May 28th.

Continue Reading →

Anybody who’s been to a theater in the past year or so knows that zombies are all the rave today. From Sony’s Zombieland bringing in nearly $65 million in a matter of weeks, to the sudden resurgence in the work of George A. Romero, zombies are neck-and-neck with vampires these days.

With that said, of course the craze is bound to hit the video game world, as it did in spades with last year’s Left 4 Dead. The game managed to cram every zombie movie scenario into a first-person shooter to make you feel like you were really fighting for your life against an army of the undead, as scary as that sounds. While there were some pretty haunting moments in the game, there really isn’t anything as cathartic as blowing up zombie heads.

Like clockwork, game developer Valve (along with EA Games) is releasing the sequel to the highly-praised game this year around the same time. The characters are all new, as are the settings, but the most important is the new storyline. Many games these days are more compelling than some films, and the newest trailer for the game only proves that further.

Check out the Zombie Survival Guide trailer after the jump, and be sure to race to the game stores on November 17th when the game gets a nationwide release.

Continue Reading →

As a big fan of horror movies and the zombie sub-genre, I really wanted to like George A. Romero’s Survival of the Dead and was prepared to give it the benefit of the doubt as much as possible. Although, my expectations were pretty low after Romero’s last two zombie movie efforts Land of the Dead and Diary of the Dead. Sadly, this film didn’t even manage to rise up to the level of my lowered expectations and is, instead, a heavily flawed and often very bad addition to Romero’s body of work.

Still, this is the man who basically invented the zombie film genre, so attention must be paid and respect given for his enduring legacy as one of this country’s innovative artists. But something has obviously gone a bit off kilter and the writer/director seems to have lost his way. I’m not sure how this phenomenon works exactly, but somewhere along the way a director seems to lose his vision.

After several great and innovative films the later films start to get worse and worse. Unfortunately, George Romero seems to have fallen into that trap, much like another acknowledged master of horror John Carpenter seems to. Look at Carpenter’s last few films and tell me they are as good as his earlier work in The Thing, Starman, Escape from New York and, of course, the original Halloween.

Continue Reading →