Tomorrow night Oct. 13 at 10:00pm Starz will be premiering Starz Inside: Zombiemania – part of their Inside series of documentaries on all aspects of entertainment, this time focusing on all aspects zombie – from movies, books to videogames. After all zombies ARE the new vampires. If you have been reading Geekadelphia for any length of time, you are well aware of my fondness for the living impaired and the folks at Starz were nice enough to send me a screener of their documentary to check out. I honestly found this documentary to be not only very informative for new fans of the genre, but very entertaining for hard-core fans(like myself) as well, with enough information to satisfy you no matter what side of the fence your on. With interviews from the likes of Tom Savini(SFX Great), George Romero(Director of the original Night of the Living Dead), Max Brooks (Author of World War Z, whom I interviewed at Wizard World earlier this year as well) and many more I can honestly say this is one of the best documentaries I have seen on the subject to date.

Part of what makes Zombiemania great is the way it approaches the subject matter, while not taking itself too seriously it tries to deliver the facts both in fiction and reality on the subject matter.  From the roots of the zombie, and its origins in voodoo practices, to the Romero flesh eaters and finally to the plague zombies popularized today – we also get an evolution of the zombie in pop-culture from some of the greatest authorities in the genre today. The interviews in the documentary are mixed with footage from some of the greats from White Zombie to Shaun of the Dead all are represented, and some clips kids are not for the squeamish. For a documentary about the living dead, it has a lot of heart. Watching the pioneers of the genre look back on the legacy of their films, and what they eventually became and how they shaped what has come out today was really fun to watch. The interviews are all new and for this documentary proper, which I think lends a different light to some of them. Where we have seen most of these people interviewed on the bonus features of their respected films, it’s nice to see them not restricted to simply talking about one film and talking about the genre as a whole is somewhat refreshing.

More and a trailer after the jump.

The only omission I think made in this documentary is absence in the video game segment of Valve and their game Left 4 Dead. I am a little baffled by this because every other segment hit right on, and leaving out the most successful zombie video game in history just seemed like a strange choice, than the title they did focus on.  That aside, if you’re a fan of the zombies fast or slow, virus or vodoo you simply have to see this, that’s simply all I can say and if you don’t have Starz hopefully this will be released on DVD or Blu-ray in the near future, because it definitely stands on its own as far as I’m concerned and deserves a spot on my shelf right next to Document of the Dead.