Soldiers to Battle Afghani Vampire Zombies in 'Virulents'

What would it take to make a war movie extra special? How about zombified vampires? Yep, that's what you'll find in the cinematic adaptation of xxx's* graphic novel Virulents. According to Variety, director John Moore has been tapped by New Regency to turn the Virgin Comics release into a big gooey movie. By my estimation, John Moore has made two stylish and generally entertaining adventure flicks (Behind Enemy Lines and Flight of the Phoenix) and one resoundingly pointless Xerox of a genuine classic (The Omen). Still, two out of three isn't bad.

Here's a plot synopsis from the official Virgin Comics site: "A small platoon of American soldiers in search of their missing comrades comes across Indian commandoes looking for a group of terrorists suspected of hiding a most heinous weapon in the craggy breast of the Hindukush. It's a night of revelation as the Americans discove the fate of their lost brothers, and the Indiams discover the fate of their terrorists. But the terror is not in the form of flesh and blood, or bullets or gunpowder. Terror has a new name."

And that name is ... zombie vampires! Woohoo! So it's like a cross between Black Hawk Down, Dawn of the Dead and Near Dark? (Yeah, in my dreams it is.) Newcomer scribe John Cox has been given adaptation duties, and producer Gotham Chopra seems more than a little psyched about the project: The story is "set in a part of the world that has a long history of myth and mystery, and it's going to rock." So there you have it: It's set in Afghanistan. It's got soldiers and terrorists and zombo-vamps. It's going to rock. I'm officially psyched to see Virulents.

* Neither the Variety article nor the official Virgin site can tell me who wrote / drew the Virulents book. I'd dig a little deeper and find out for sure, but I think it's pretty weird so I choose to let it just hang there for now.