Level 7 by Mordecai Roshwald

Rating - 4 out of 5
Although very much a product of the times it was written (1959) Level 7 is an enjoyable, quick apocalyptic read.  In some distant or not-so distant future, the world is so at each other's throats that the governments build vast colonies under the Earth to protect them from nuclear war and train soldiers to sit in these bunkers and press the buttons that will ultimately destroy everything.

Soldier X-127 is one of these lucky or unlucky souls - picked because of a certain psychological profile and tricked/forced into the lowest level of the compound (Level 7) he soon finds out his destiny is to never leave a cramped, claustrophobic little world and to instead prepare for World War III.  If the war doesn't happen he is still consigned to a little burrow in the ground, if it does than it is up to him and his fellow soldiers to push the buttons to control the war and then to carry on humanity and repopulate the world.  X-127 is one of the lucky button pushers - he will be guided by a computer to push buttons that will launch our countries missiles at our enemies.  Of course the war does come (later we find out because of an accident) and we pretty much destroy the Earth.  At this point the people in the different levels begin communicating to each other.  The top level (the most unsafe one) is reserved for normal people that managed to make it before the country was wiped out.  Then as you get lower the money and/or political connections of the people rise as the safety rises.

The new underground community tries to carry on as they have been programmed to - the war room is dismantled and turned into a nursery for the new babies (the next generation) and they try to have some type of new "normal" under the ground.  This comes to an end as reports from the higher levels start coming in of sickness and contamination.  Systems are failing and radiation is making it's ways through the various levels.  As level after level succumbs we discover that we have indeed destroyed our planet and humanity.

No happy ending here but then when would a nuclear World War III have a happy-happy/joy-joy ending (okay yeah I know Swan Song - but I have some beef with that one too - reserved for later rants).  Definitely dated but you need to project yourself back into time pre-cell phone and pre-internet and this one is a lot of fun (well maybe fun is the wrong word? - umm entertaining - a good read, yes let's leave it at that shall we).  You get definite overtones of 1984 and On the Beach but it is also it's own lovable beast.  This one falls strongly in the vein of "we are our own worst enemy" and the "humans are the real monsters" morale.  If you want a little bit of nostalgia with yoru nuclear war - highly recommended. 

Movie Review - Day of the Dead 2 Contagium

So sitting with my trusty DVR and my favorite movie channel Chiller - I find Day of the Dead 2 - Contagium and think "Hey I loved Day of the Dead, I'll check this out."  Our story starts out with a flashback to a hospital with a zombie outbreak going on, for some reason one of the people bitten by a zombie takes the zombie juice/air thing (looks like a Christmas ornament) and hides it in his thermos and tries to make a run for it.  Meanwhile, army dudes come in and kill everyone and then napalm the place.  Running guy with no motive makes it to the forest and then is shot dead.  Maybe there was more to the plot here than I am giving it credit for and I just missed it but I don't think so.

Movie then moves on with no real reference or connection with Night of the Living Dead, Day of the Dead, Dawn of the Dead or Return of the Living Dead by jumping to the present to an insane asylum that now sits near the previous hospital's location.  Here they take the loonies out to clean up the nearby country side and one finds the dreaded thermos.  Of course it gets accidentally opened and the strange zombie air Christmas ornament thing infects like five of them ( I think - again by this time the true caliber of the movie had been revealed and my attention was wavering yet I hung on just to see how this would end).  They all get sick and seem like they are dead (slightly similar to Return of the Living Dead) and begin to crave blood.  But they are somehow also all connected mentally and physically and when they bite someone that person turns into a zombie but also a strange meatball open muscle/growth type of thing.

For some reason zombie air has made the one woman in the group pregnant with quick growing thing even though she has not been getting naughty - also this minor plot goes no where - she never gives birth to monster zombie thing and it is really stupid.  Insane asylum zombies sound like they would be fun but here they are not.  While bad movies can be fun, this one is really not and I feel like I have lost a few hours of my life to this poor rip-off of the zombie genre.

Unless you are a die hard "must-see-all-zombie-related-stuff" type of person, avoid this one.

Rating - one out of five stars