by Alison

the mist from the field

creeps into the road and I

think of Stephen King

by Alison

My apologies to Ryan Mecum, but I never would have picked up Zombie Haiku in a million years if Kelly had not assigned this review to me in the early stages of Haiku By Two.

You see, I hate slasher flicks. I hate blood and guts. I hate the idea of unattached limbs. And I can’t stand the current horror movie craze. Has anyone seen the trailer for the newest slash-fest Sorority Row? Ugh, don’t even get me started…

Still, Zombie Haiku was my “job” and so I went ahead and read it. Although it certainly isn’t my cup of tea (I’m with Kelly in that I prefer my imaginary worlds to contain unicorns), it turns out that Zombie Haiku is an entirely different beast than I had imagined.

Zombie Haiku is a horrifically funny little book of haiku written in story format that chronicles the day in the life of a new zombie. New zombie dude checks out and curbs his zombie appetite in the city, at a retirement home and–of course–a cornfield!

Sure it’s disgusting. But it’s B movie humor disgusting versus disgusting-disgusting. As in this haiku:

Getting trampled on

used to eventually kill you.

Now it just annoys.

Kind of funny, huh? And even this gross haiku caused me to smirk:

Elbows bend one way,

except on this guy screaming.

His bends two ways now.

Although the tone of the book is B Movie, other haiku were over the top for me and were simply disgusting-disgusting. Such as this haiku:

His finger digs deep

down the hole where his nose was

and pulls out a toe.

Okay, I can see the humor in this one, too. But still - Ick!

I must admit I enjoyed the slick and cool comic book styling of Zombie Haiku.The book is splattered with cherry kool-aid colored blood and each haiku is hand scribbled, apparently by a maddened zombie. To add to the effect, Polaroid pictures of zombies, victims, cornfields and malls are littered throughout the book.

Okay, so Zombie Haiku is nothing like that horrible Saw series of films, thank God. Instead, it’s funny and cleverly written as a haiku fantasy Zombie story, and if you are one to like a dark sense of humor, it might just give you some kicks.