Quote: David Bussell @ January 15 2009, 11:56 AM GMTWell, for my purposes the zombie genre is niche enough without narrowing it down even further. Fine for a strip in Fangoria - not so much for a sketch aimed for a TV audience.
Yes, but you could do a zombie seige sketch in which the survivors are looking out of the window talking about how unrealistic it is for the zombies to be running, etc. Pleases the fanboys and the wider audience.
Quote: chipolata @ January 15 2009, 11:55 AM GMTThe trouble with what you've written is that you pretty much know the husband is going to be bit by the wife, so you're expecting it, but you have to go through a load of extraneous flashbacks and intraspection to get there.
I don't know that it's a certainty he'll be bitten. In any case, the 'twist' isn't that he's bitten, it's that he gets his wife back, albeit in a different manner than he intended.
Quote: chipolata @ January 15 2009, 11:58 AM GMTYes, but you could do a zombie seige sketch in which the survivors are looking out of the window talking about how unrealistic it is for the zombies to be running, etc. Pleases the fanboys and the wider audience.
I could. Or you could. It's a good idea.
Quote: David Bussell @ January 15 2009, 11:59 AM GMTI don't know that it's a certainty he'll be bitten. In any case, the 'twist' isn't that he's bitten, it's that he gets his wife back, albeit in a different manner than he intended.
Well, I guess it was predictable to me because it seems Zombie Law that you'll end up bitten by a loved one. Personally, if I was writing a zombie sketch about a man and a wife I'd have an insecure man deliberately getting his wife bitten because he fears he won't be able to keep her otherwise...
I love zombie stuff, but I agree that Sean of the Dead has pretty much pissed on everybody's undead chips.
Quote: chipolata @ January 15 2009, 12:03 PM GMTWell, I guess it was predictable to me because it seems Zombie Law that you'll end up bitten by a loved one. Personally, if I was writing a zombie sketch about a man and a wife I'd have an insecure man deliberately getting his wife bitten because he fears he won't be able to keep her otherwise...
I love zombie stuff, but I agree that Sean of the Dead has pretty much pissed on everybody's undead chips.
Another interesting way to go. He scores a girl out of his league, get's her bitten to keep her, then parades her rotting bones around his mates in an effort to impress. Plenty of room for comedy there.
It's very well written David and a real page turner. Your stuff always leaps off the page. But for me this is more sad than funny. The only real laugh in it is where her husband says "He doesn't have two brain cells to rub together" and she goes "Brains?". I imagined her doing that in a surprised comical Scooby Doo "Huh?" type of way.
I think you need to have some definite underlying joke behind this - eg: does she start getting finicky about her brains and will only accept higher-quality ones, forcing hubby to start murdering humans, starting with chavs and then progressing up to university professors as she gets ever-more fussy?
Or something like that, you know? Because I think at the moment what you have is a lovely dynamic between an adoring husband and undead wife but no underpinning gag to make it funny.
Quote: David Bussell @ January 15 2009, 11:56 AM GMT
My first feature was a zombie comedy. Sean of the Dead pissed on those chips.
Yup that's why mines sat on the hard drive lol, I did have a bit of interest in it a while back but kinda never came to anything. Oh well.
Quote: Lee Henman @ January 15 2009, 12:10 PM GMTI think you need to have some definite underlying joke behind this - eg: does she start getting finicky about her brains and will only accept higher-quality ones, forcing hubby to start murdering humans, starting with chavs and then progressing up to university professors as she gets ever-more fussy?
Bit like little shop of horrors. That's a good idea.
Why do zombies like brains? Is that ever explained in any of the trillion zombie movies?
Quote: Gavin @ January 15 2009, 12:14 PM GMTYup that's why mines sat on the hard drive lol, I did have a bit of interest in it a while back but kinda never came to anything. Oh well.
Bit like little shop of horrors. That's a good idea.
Yeah - a zombie version of Seymour and the plant. Lots of comedy potential there.
Quote: chipolata @ January 15 2009, 12:18 PM GMTWhy do zombies like brains? Is that ever explained in any of the trillion zombie movies?
I think it's just some older school zombies that go for brains, the later ones just want the flesh of the living, the latest just are mental.
Quote: Gavin @ January 15 2009, 12:21 PM GMTI think it's just some older school zombies that go for brains, the later ones just want the flesh of the living, the latest just are mental.
I can only remember one zombie flick with the zombies screaming for brains and that was a black comedy one...I think it was Return Of The Living Dead froom the eighties. And maybe also Reanimator?
This is a great idea.
Like most everyone else I think the flashback is more of a distraction than a positive addition.
The bit I liked in particular was the trying to do normal stuff to remind her of her non-vitally challenged self. I think you might lose the flashback and do a bit more of this.
A Butch and Sundance bit popped into my head where he cycles around with her on the handles bars (possibly trying to twist round and bite him) and then he pushes her off on the bike and she just falls over cos she doesn't remember to pedal or something.
Like many people on the forum, it appears, I have a guilty zombie sketch secret. 
Hi
I liked this one as well.
I found it both funny & touching.
I remember trying to write a sketch (on an inferior writing site) about a man chatting to his Zombie mate & being really pissed off that his pal has recently infected him.
I couldn't quite seem to get it to work so I shortened it & changed it to a page from the guys diary instead.
Not sure if that really worked either, but I do think that the Zombie subject itself has some really great possibilities.
I'd be very interested to see where you take this story.
Quote: Lee Henman @ January 15 2009, 12:10 PM GMTIt's very well written David and a real page turner. Your stuff always leaps off the page. But for me this is more sad than funny. The only real laugh in it is where her husband says "He doesn't have two brain cells to rub together" and she goes "Brains?". I imagined her doing that in a surprised comical Scooby Doo "Huh?" type of way.
I think you need to have some definite underlying joke behind this - eg: does she start getting finicky about her brains and will only accept higher-quality ones, forcing hubby to start murdering humans, starting with chavs and then progressing up to university professors as she gets ever-more fussy?
Or something like that, you know? Because I think at the moment what you have is a lovely dynamic between an adoring husband and undead wife but no underpinning gag to make it funny.
Cheers, Lee. Tonally I was going for something like (as you mention in one of your later posts) Return of the Living Dead, where the comedy takes a back seat to the drama/horror. In that sense they aren't technically "sketches" I suppose, so I didn't set the script up as well as I might have.
Quote: chipolata @ January 15 2009, 12:18 PM GMTWhy do zombies like brains? Is that ever explained in any of the trillion zombie movies?
That started with "Return of the Living Dead"(1985) one of the corpses strapped to a table said they eat brains to stop the "pain".
It was not a feature in the Romero movies, "Night of the Living Dead" (1968) was the first film to feature flesh eating zombies. Those zombies ate whatever they could get, even bugs.
I really liked My Zombie Wife. It has an EC Comics feel.
I wrote two episodes of a scifi horror comedy, but I'm afraid it's too grisly to sell 
Quote: Lee Henman @ January 15 2009, 12:28 PM GMTI think it was Return Of The Living Dead froom the eighties. And maybe also Reanimator?
And let's not forget the Return of the Living dead sequels. I don't think anyone was brain hungry in the reanimator movies though, just crazed.
The brains thing is an invention of comedy I think. I can't recall a single straight zombie movie with the undead hungering for grey matter.
Quote: Ponderer @ January 15 2009, 12:31 PM GMTThis is a great idea.
Like most everyone else I think the flashback is more of a distraction than a positive addition.
The bit I liked in particular was the trying to do normal stuff to remind her of her non-vitally challenged self. I think you might lose the flashback and do a bit more of this.
A Butch and Sundance bit popped into my head where he cycles around with her on the handles bars (possibly trying to twist round and bite him) and then he pushes her off on the bike and she just falls over cos she doesn't remember to pedal or something.
Like many people on the forum, it appears, I have a guilty zombie sketch secret.
Some nice ideas in there. I have to say though, so long as we're talking distracting additions, that tandem bike ride scene in Butch in up there with the best of them.
Don't feel bad about your zombie love - wear it on your sleeve. And remember, stash a crowbar aside for when the zombie apocalypse comes. If you don't know what that means, you're obviously not reading the same survival guides as I am.
Quote: Fred Sunshine @ January 15 2009, 12:33 PM GMTHi
I liked this one as well.
I found it both funny & touching.I remember trying to write a sketch (on an inferior writing site) about a man chatting to his Zombie mate & being really pissed off that his pal has recently infected him.
I couldn't quite seem to get it to work so I shortened it & changed it to a page from the guys diary instead.
Not sure if that really worked either, but I do think that the Zombie subject itself has some really great possibilities.
I'd be very interested to see where you take this story.
Ta, Fred. As I said before though, this is a self-contained story. There are enough ideas floating around on this thread alone to write plenty more though.