Zombie World Home for the Holidays (1997)

“When there’s no more room in Hell, the dead will walk the Earth.”

So sayeth zombie master George Romero from his second foray into the world of walking corpses, Dawn of the Dead.

It’s also been said, “There’s no place like home for the holidays.”

Zombie World Home for the Holidays (1997)

Both quotes ring true for Gordon Rennie and Gary Erskine’s zombie holiday.

Greg Mathieson and wife are spending Christmas Eve in Connecticut with his family.

The Mathiesons are old money. First class on the Mayflower type of money. The patriarch continues to live in the family homestead built shortly after the dust settled after the first Thanksgiving.

It’s a family tradition for “the clan” to gather on the holiest of eves. Greg and wife are some of the stragglers, but not the last. That slot is reserved for cousin Carol who babbles a tall tale about the dead eating the living.

Her story is dismissed until Dan Rather confirms it on the evening news.

As if on cue, the town cemetery comes (un)alive as the past begin to claw their way back to the surface. Chief among them is papa Methuselah Jeremiah Mathieson. At last count he was the first among the 234 Mathiesons interred there.

And, now they want to come home.

When an Alamo stand fails, the family really are all together – for the first time.

Rennie is a Scottish comic book writer best known for White Trash: Moronic Inferno and strips in the English 2000 A.D. He has also penned several novels in the Warhammer Fantasy line.

Fellow Scottie, Erskine, penciled the story. His resume includes Knights of Pendragon and Warheads for Marvel UK, work on 2000 AD, Star Wars titles for Dark Horse, several collaborations with Garth Ennis and Justice Society of America.

Hope you Christmas Eve is less eventful, but never let your guard down too much.