Two zombie films (or at least films featuring zombies) seem to be in production or development from an indie outfit called Strongman Pictures in Australia.
One is Z3D5:
In a war blasted, post apocalyptic landscape a handful of survivors struggle to maintain military order in a world destroyed by a reckless desire to control mother nature. The end is only the beginning. Screenplay by D. Armstrong, in development.
Behind grim institutional walls, a young woman is restrained. An unseen surgeon blasts two massive electric shocks through her skull. An ice pick is hammered past her eyeball and spears her brain. It is violently twisted. Her frontal lobes are destroyed. Free will dies. She becomes responsive only to the most basic human drive – hunger. She has become a zombie. Evil is just a state of mind. Screenplay by D. Armstrong, in development.
In lieu of more substantial writings (the Backbrain has been busy of late), here’s the trailer to the iMax doco-drama Sea Monsters, featuring some very impressive CGI critters:
Do zombies have souls? It’s a contentious issue, but the following little film goes some way toward demonstrating that at least they have soul.
While the zombie apocalypse unfolds in the background a zombie recites poignant haikus about being a zombie, while another blows soulful tunes on his sax.
What is Gualagon, I hear you ask? Well it’s a German-made, Japanese style kaiju film done as a radio play — inspired by such Toho classics as Furankenshutain tai chitei kaiju Baragon [trans. Frankenstein vs the Subterranean Monster Baragon] (1965; dir. Ishiro Honda) [aka Frankenstein Conquers the World (US, 1966)]. The play includes characters such as “Dr Tamblyn” and even a “Serizawa Institute”. If these names don’t evoke any memories, you’d better get out your Toho classics and re-watch them, starting with Gojira!
Gualagon — Frankenstein’s Schreckengigant [lit. Gualagon — Frankenstein’s Fright Giant](directed by Konrad Halver; concept bby Ralf Lorenz)
Kaiju Search-Robot Avery stumbled upon this — using some canny skills of uncovering clues — and was intrigued to find Ralf Lorenz’s name attached to it. Lorenz is the force behind the long-unfinished German King Kong knock-off, Kongula.
But wait! Though Gualagon is a radio play, the creators have been visualising it as well:
Avery comments: “The monster’s design appears to be a conglomerate of Hedorah and Guilala”.
The Story (rough translation)
In 1966, just off the Japanese coast, the freighter Asahi Maru fights its way through a heavy storm, when something incomprehensible happens: the ship is destroyed and the only survivor maintains that it was destroyed by a gigantic kraken-like monster! Professor Tamblyn, specialist at the Serizawa institute in those forms of gigantism caused by radiation, examines the wreck of the ship and is dismayed to realise that a tremendous danger threatens Japan! While the military mobilises and naval forces patrol the coastline, reporters Keisuke Kusano and Isao Ogawa come upon traces of the monster Gualagon — and thereby put themselves in deadly danger. Panic breaks out when the monster comes ashore one night and attacks Osaka… The race is on for scientists to develop new weapons to deal with the fright giant of Frankenstein! From the depths of the sea he comes! Inexorably, gigantically, all destroying!
A trailer will be going up on the Gualagon website (eventually), which also says that there will be more plays forthcoming and perhaps a comic. Let’s hope they decide to do a movie as well!
First, the Backbrain’s partner, Cat Sparks, greets him with: “Hope the zombie hordes bring you something nice!”
Then ORB editor, Sarah Endacott sends this:
Then a Clarion South survivor, Chris Green, says: “Have a happy birthday! You’re one year closer to the beloved zombie apocalypse a few of us have been planning…”
In response, another Clarion South survivor, Jason Fischer, sends him this greeting:
Then this arrives from another buddy — horror writer Stephen Dedman, who added: “Happy birthday, Rob, and many happy revenants!”
That’s right, you can finally control your own undead minion using a brain-shaped remote that toggles it on and off. No more breaking into graveyards and casting voodoo spells, technology will do it all for you! One push of a button sends your own personal zombie shuffling and moaning in whatever direction you point him! Use this remote control zombie to scare your office mates and torment your pets. (Source: McPhee.com)
Whereupon, I stumbled upon these:
And good friend Iain Triffitt makes this claim:
Though he added: “Of course, it would be beholden on my not becoming a zombie, but what’s the likelihood of that happen — …. BRAINZZZ!!!! NEED BRAINZZZ!!!
Australia’s entry in the J-Horror revolution begun with (or at least given its major impetus by) Ring [aka Ringu] (Japan-1998, dir. Hideo Nakata) is a low-budget supernatural horror film called Watch Me.
Watch Me (Australia-2006, dir. Melanie Ansley)
Starring Frances Marrington, Sam Voutas and Tanya McHenry, it follows in the aesthetic tradition of films such as the Japanese Ring, Ju-On: the Grudge, Dark Water and Kairö. It tells the story of a film-school student caught up in a supernatural infection spread via email attachment, and involves a snuff video, a red-haired ghost and the deadly injunction to “Watch me!”
Watch Me did the rounds of the film festival circuit nearly two years ago and was generally greeted warmly (though generating a decent chill factor). The Backbrain found it to be an excellent addition to the scary female ghost tradition.
At last Watch Me is about to receive the wider distribution it deserves via DVD, as it is being released on September 2nd from Brain Damage Films. Extras include an alternative opening, interviews with the cast and crew, and the director’s first short film: “Butcher”.
The Backbrain conducted an interview with producer (and star) Sam Voutas a while back:
On J-Horror:
I completely agree that we’re talking about an international aesthetic now. It’s by no means fixed to one country. Mainland China and Hong Kong films are coming out with J-horror style films, too. It makes sense really. Horror was getting a bit repetitive, self-reflexive as they say, then in came J-horror, which just felt completely different, so it’s really added a lot of spice to the genre. Watch Me would be very happy to be added to that family. Even if it is only the tiny ugly cousin three times removed.
On the Shoot:
On the shoot we had very few problems! People pretty much knew that this wasn’t a big film and put their egos to the side. Indie film is really too small for egos. Of course, there were the usual technical or set problems, but doing things indie for the most part actually makes things easier. You do things your way, you have control. No need to take something to a higher authority and seek permission regarding content or style, as you have to do so painstakingly in TV.
Like the best of the post-Ring J-Horrors, Watch Me manages to achieve an identity of its own. What it does is take the subgenre’s basic conceptual elements and forges its own vision of them, melding a slightly different narrative approach, subtle trope variants and some new thematic elements onto the template. Director Ansley and producer Sam Voutas may not be creating a new aesthetic, but they have produced an effective extension of the old one.
Seems my question in the previous Backbrain post regarding the release of Romero’s Diary of the Dead in Australia has been answered. The Master himself is coming downunder to promote said release for the Melbourne Film Festival this month. He is speaking with Giulia D’Agnolo at the Coopers Festival Lounge at the Forum Theatre on Sunday, July 27, and will launch Diary the night before.
Note: the above image is not of Romero. Bub has endured, as has George, but the latter is less… well… dead.
Before Diary of the Dead has even appeared in Australia [Come on, guys! Where the hell is it?], news is out that George Romero will direct a sequel. The as-yet-untitled Diary of the Dead 2 is, according to DreadCentral, “99.9% a go … to start production this September”.
Our heroes, trapped in the mansion where we left them, battle waves of ravenous zombies, barely escaping alive. In search of a safe place to settle, they commandeer an abandoned ferry and sail to a deserted island, only to find that it is already populated by a civilization of the dead. Told in the same first-person style that distinguished “George A. Romero’s Diary of the Dead”, the next episode of the saga is a violent siege set in the middle of nowhere, a desperate struggle for survival, and peace, between two tribes: the living and the living dead.
