This poster — designed by Joe Sherlock — heralds a new War-based zombie flick produced by John Bowker and Joe Sherlock, and directed by John Bowler.
Platoon of the Dead (US-2008; dir. John Bowker)
Three soldiers must fight to survive the night in a seemingly abandoned house, when a zombie platoon attacks.
The executive producer is J.R. Bookwalter (of The Dead Next Door fame) and it was written by director John Bowker, who has quite a history in low-budget genre filmmaking.
There is a tradition in war-based zombie films, going back to Revolt of the Zombies (US-1936; dir. Victor Halperin) and Revenge of the Zombies (US-1943; dir. Steve Sekely) through The Frozen Dead (UK-1967; dir. Herbert Leder), the classic Shock Waves (US-1977; dir. Ken Wiederhorn), Zombie Lake (Spain/France-1980; dir. Jean Rollin) and Oasis of the Zombies (Spain/France-1982; dir. Jesús Franco) — to such more recent takes as Uncle Sam (US-1997; dir. William Lustig), the innovative Homecoming (US-2005; Masters of Horror series; dir. Joe Dante), Outpost (UK-2007; dir. Steve Barker) and the much-anticipated Worst Case Scenario [aka. Woensdag Gehaktdag] (Netherlands-[in development]; dir. Richard Raaphorst). Nazi zombies feature quite often in this sub-genre — which isn’t surprising really. If zombie movies are about our fears regarding the return of past evils and the insatiable nature of unethical mortality, then these represent one of the most iconic incarnations of that fear lurking in our cultural psyche. But the sub-genre has been used often (as the above named films indicate) to critique contemporary wartime politics. War is one of the great man-made creators of the dead — and there’s generally little reason why the war-dead wouldn’t be resentful.
We’ll see what Platoon of the Dead adds to the tradition when it is released to DVD by independent horror distributors Tempe Entertainment in the new year.
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Nice bit of work in that third picture. Looks like macaroni and cheese.
Yes, I was thinking the corpse had turned to melted cheese. Now there’s a thought: if they use the melted cheese with a pizza base and other ingredients they could make an undead pizza… “Pizza Night of the Living Dead”.
“Night Of The Living Dead Pizza Delivery Dude”….hmmn?? I love macaroni and “cheese” so count me in!!
It could be mustard… hence the mustard gas mask…
BTW, here’s a bit on Snowzilla, which may be relevant to Backbrain…. or not.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10547826/
Cool! (Literally!)
Joe Sherlock here – I was DP on Platoon of the Dead – directed a day and also did some of the effects – The zombie picture above was a paper mache’ prop I sculpted and then smothered in butterscotch pudding!!!
Hi, Joe. Thanks for dropping by. Good use of butterscotch pudding! I guess there’s quite a tradition in the use of food stuff as the basis of physical FX — starting with the famous pea-soup in “The Exorcist”.
While you’re here, how’s the film going? Is it finished yet?
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