Zombie Apocalypse heads for Hollywood

The Stephen Jones-edited anthology / mosaic novel, ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE, which I was honoured to be part of last year, providing the novella Special Powers, may now get the Hollywood treatment, having been optioned for movie development by Palomar Pictures.

Now, it's always exciting to get a flm option. It's even more exciting to get a Hollywood film option (though I currently have one of those for a different project - and thus far, many months down the line, nothing at all has happened, so it pays not to get too excited). However, it's no surprise to me that ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE is being discused in swish offices down in Burbank.

Despite a plethora of zombie-related material currently doing the rounds, there seems to be no shortage of interest from the Dream Factory on the subject of the shambling dead. Recent productions alone run into double figures, Diary Of The Dead, The Horde, The Walking Dead and The Dead being some of the better known examples (you could even count my own STRONGHOLD - though that movie's only in development; it hasn't actually been made yet). So I'm fairly confident that ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE, which has to date sold 13,000 copies, has at least a reasonable chance of hitting our screens sometime in the near future.

I certainly hope so as I think that, from a writer's point of view as well as a reader's, it was a fascinating new take on the reanimated flesh subgenre - charting the progress of a new kind of Black Death as it emerges from a London crypt, swamps Britain's capital, later swamps Britain and then swamps the rest of the world. The other authorial names involved in the original book display the genuine quality that was brought to this project from the beginning: Michael Marshal Smith, Chris Fowler, Kim Newman, Sarah Pinborough, Tanith Lee and Peter Crowther, among many others, all have their say on the matter.

At the end of the day, I'm not holding my breath about this one - as I never hold my breath about any potential film adaptation, but if it was given the right movie or TV treatment, ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE could be something really special.

Meanwhile THE DEVIL'S ROCK continues to roll.


I'll shortly be attending a special screening and Q&A session with the film's director, Paul Campion, over in Guernsey, the island where the movie is actually set. That will be a great night, while the trip should also give my family and I a few opportunities to incorporate into our holiday snaps some of those grim sentinel bunkers that the Nazis erected on the island's coast to defend themslves against an invasion that would never come.

If anyone's actually watched THE DEVIL'S ROCK on the DVD yet, you'll see on 'the making of' documentary that these places can be quite eerie at night. Pauil Campion spooked himself visiting a few of them after dark.

The reviews have continued to pile up as well, and I've managed to glean a few fun soundbites out of them.

The Guardian called us "a refreshingly odd wartime horror".

Mitch Davis at Fantasia compliments our cast for "a trio of borderline Shakespearean performances that captivate with hellish power".

(They could hardly fail with a script like that one, Mitch).

While Theresa Derwin of Terror Tree comments: "The Devil’s Rock is a fine film and deserves more than it's limited cinema release. Apologies if it doesn’t have enough innards for torture porn freaks. This film is a must for occult fans and fans of classic horror with an emphasis on story."

That's it for now. Sorry there hasn't been much activity on this blog in recent days. That's because there's been an awful lot of activity on other fronts. But I'm not complaining. It's always good to have a lot of work. The alternative could be having none at all.