Horror Highlighs: THE WALKING DEAD UNIVERSER RPG, THREADS, A PURE PLACE

The Walking Dead Universe RPG: “Free League Publishing today announced the official The Walking Dead Universe RPG on Kickstarter. The game invites you to explore the unforgiving, post-apocalyptic world of the dead, where you must learn to survive. Together.

The crowdfunding campaign for the highly anticipated tabletop roleplaying game has already reached its initial funding goal. It is now running through a long list of stretch goals, such as Atlanta area map, Bonus Archetype: The Criminal, custom dice, a threat meter, adventure maps, pre-generated characters based on the TV series and a solo mode, with more on the way.

 Find out more at The Walking Dead Universe RPG Kickstarter-page!

We have seen many stories take place in The Walking Dead Universe – now, the time has come to see yours. No matter what impossible choices and daunting challenges you may encounter, the hardest choice will always be the same: Who are you going to be?

All backers that make a pledge within 24 hours of the campaign launch will receive a bonus art print of the cover art by artist Martin Grip. This only applies to pledge levels including physical rewards.

All backers will get early access to PDF versions of the complete Core Rulebook soon after the Kickstarter ends, months ahead of the official release. “

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DieDieBooks Publishes Book on Nuclear Horror Film, Threads: “DieDieBooks, a small press operating out of Kirksville, MO, has published the first in its series of book-length essays on individual horror films. Threads by Bob Mielke, about the 1984 anti-nuclear PSA from director Mick Jackson, examines the film through the lens of history, pop culture, and horror. Mielke’s impeccable research, sharp analysis, life experience, and gallows humor bring new insight into exactly what makes this film so disturbing—and disturbingly enduring.

Threads is a movie that pulls no punches, reveling in the slow-building sense of dread that arises from its nightmarish—and painfully realistic—depiction of the lead-up, destruction, and years-long aftermath of a nuclear attack on Sheffield, England. Commissioned by the BBC to warn audiences about the dangers of the Cold War, this television film has since been reclaimed and celebrated by horror fans as one of the scariest movies ever made.

Mikita Brottman, the lauded author of numerous books, who is also a Sheffield native, comments: “You cannot win a nuclear war, but as Mielke explains in this genial and engaging guide, you can definitely enjoy watching one. Although Threads paints a grim portrait of post-nuclear-war Sheffield, Mielke’s lively, lucid, and cheerful book makes the doom a little less relentless.”

The central character in Threads is Ruth Beckett, a young woman who is pregnant at the time of the blast and must raise her daughter in the post-apocalyptic hellscape. Karen Meagher, the actor who portrays Ruth, says of Mielke’s book: “We are genetically predisposed to survive. It is a primal necessity. The irony is not lost on me that it is ‘we’ who have laboured, researched, and refined instruments of destruction throughout our existence to essentially obliterate ourselves from existence! I hope the reader will consider every word Mielke has written in this comprehensive and considered, yet easily accessible, book. It took me right back to the visceral experience and time that was Threads.”

DieDieBooks was founded in 2021 by the DIY filmmaking team, Rachel Kempf and Nick Toti. In October 2022, they successfully crowdfunded their first five books, including upcoming releases on Poltergeist, The Wolf Man, Sleepaway Camp, and The Love Witch. Threads is now available in paperback and ebook formats through the DieDieBooks website, diediebooks.com.”

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A PURE PLACE: “A young and feeble boy named Paul (12) is kept captive along with his sister Irina (15) and a couple of other grubby kids on a secluded island in Greece. They spend their days manufacturing soap for their boss, a religious fanatic and self-proclaimed guru called Fust, son to a German industrialist and a Greek mother. The charismatic leader presents himself as a successor of ancient priests, promoting a cult of “purity” mixing Greek mythology and the legend of Hygeia, the Goddess of health, with Wagnerian pathos. In the upper world, the compound is filled with a swarm of members who seek to become clean and enlightened, while on the manufacturing underworld, children and the “unclean” alike celebrate their grimy existence. The siblings’ harmonic life amidst the dirt is threatened when Irina is invited to join the upper world of the cult and discovers a newfound taste for praise and desire. A jealous Paul, not accepting his sister’s wish to become clean, plots a plan against the cult and the figures that have disrupted his life. With the help of his unwashed friends, Paul takes matters into his own hands and seeks to save Irina before the arrival of the last sign which will mark the transition into a better world, Elysion.”

• Directed & Written by: Nikias Chryssos & Lars Henning Jung
• Produced by: Alexis Von Wittgenstein
• Country of Origin: Germany
• Language: German
• Genre: Mystery/Drama
• Distributor: Dark Sky Films
• Run Time: 92 minutes