Exclusive Interview With ‘Zombie Resurrection’ Co-Directors, Andy Phelps and Jake Hawkins!

There are so many zombie films made each year. Zombies are booming, so to speak right now. With the mass popularity with the undead now, the problem is that most of the stuff that comes out is just the same old stories and themes retread over and over. There’s not too much originality in the sub-genre due to the flooding of the market. With the success of TV’s The Walking Dead, everyone wants to get on the zombie meat wagon and with that, comes a lot of unoriginality and dreck. Every once in a while, something comes along that has a fresh idea and seems to stand out from the masses – enter Zombie Resurrection.

Meet UK filmmakers Andy Phelps and Jake Hawkins. They are the heads of production company Charmed Apocalypse Pictures and the co-directors on the upcoming independent zombie opus, Zombie Resurrection. What makes Zombie Resurrection unique in the sub-genre is because it has a hook that has never been seen before in the world of flesh eaters – a zombie messiah! If you think about it, if there was a zombie outbreak, after a certain amount of time, wouldn’t the zombies just rot away to nothing and become less of a hazard anymore? What if there was a zombie messiah that could lay his hands on a zombie, bring him back to life, only to be re-devoured by hordes, creating a continual recycling of the horde that keeps them fresh and extraordinarily dangerous? This is the unique question posed by Phelps and Hawkins in their darkly humorous film, Zombie Resurrection.

Zombie Resurrection is having its world premiere in Chicago this Saturday, October 26^th as part of the 7^th Annual “B” Movie Celebration at the Hollywood Blvd. Cinemas (1001 West 75^th Street, Woodridge, Illinois). Traveling all the way from the UK, Co-directors Andy Phelps and Jake Hawkins will be on hand to introduce the film and answer fans questions.

I had the opportunity to speak with Andy and Jake via phone for an exclusive interview about the film and this is what they had to say.

Horror Society: It’s very nice to speak with both of you. Thank you for taking a few minutes out to talk with me and the readers of Horror Society. After seeing your teaser trailer for Zombie Resurrection, it had me highly intrigued and I had to find out as much information as I could to bring to our readers because it looks like such a cool film.

Andy Phelps: Cool, thank you.

HS: Where did the genesis for your film Zombie Resurrection come from?

AP: The idea of having a zombie messiah who had the power to bring the undead back to life was actually a conversation I had with my son over dinner about 3 or 4 years ago. I think we’ve got him to blame, but he does get to put on some zombie make up and get his spine ripped out, that was our own thank you for a very fruitful conversation.

HS: It was a pretty long road to getting the film completed, is that right?

Jake Hawkins: This is our first film, pre-production wise; we kind of moved pretty quickly I think.

Andy Phelps: We started in January, the script was written then by the end of July we had started principle photography. Which for an independent movie like ours, your sort of have to work around people’s day jobs.

HS: Andy, both you and Jake are first time directors. What would you say was the biggest challenge for both of you as first time filmmakers?

AP: From a directing perspective, the thing that I most nervous about was dealing with actors. That was probably the biggest challenge.

JH: On the set, we had a fair amount of blood gags in the film; those were the hardest and most stressful. A couple of the blood gags we had were literally one take deals, if they didn’t work, they weren’t going to be in the film.

HS: As filmmakers, what would you say are your biggest influences?

AP: This is quite an easy one for me because it’s The Thing, John Carpenter’s The Thing. It had the most profound influence on me. When that film came out, I was just at the right age. IT’s left me in love with the in-camera special effects. It has a heft and quality about it that you just can’t get with CGI. It has been profound in shaping the way I think about horror cinema and the way I think about how to deliver in-camera gags.

HS: Yeah, I totally agree on that. For me, Zombie Resurrection has an interesting hook to it, as you mentioned before it has a zombie messiah. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like that in a zombie film previously. Do you think that’s something unique that is just in your film?

AP: In zombie cinema, I think it is. We did a bit of background research and in 2010, there were 68 zombie films that got distributed in 2010 alone. We had that marketable hook that actually showed people something they haven’t seen before in cinema, everything sort of flowed from that.

HS: The hook got me interested. From watching the trailer, the makeup effects for your zombies look to be pretty top notch. Did you use CGI at all for the effects or are they all practical effects?

JH: The zombies are all practical. An excellent makeup artist came and did ours. It has two types of zombies in it; it’s got the rotting zombies that have been around since the beginning that have been alive for 15 months or so. Those shamble and are more of pests and a nuisance rather than being particularly dangerous. We had some pretty good face casts and designs for those guys. A guy from London, Robbie Drake who has done Nightbreed and stuff like that and has a long history of horror cinema worked on designing the makeups.

HS: The zombies just from what I can tell look great.

JH: Thank you. Our concern was to do that well because if we lose the gorehounds then it’s difficult to get them back again. The look of the zombies was definitely one of our biggest concerns.

HS: Are your zombies the Romero, slow shambling zombies or are they the Dawn of the Dead remake or 28 Days Later, running zombies?

JH: We love zombies so much, we just couldn’t decide, so we’ve got both types in there.

HS: Are you shooting for a theatrical release there in the UK or will it be direct to video?

AP: Yeah, the direct to DVD and VOD was always really the plan.

HS: Are you both horror fans yourselves? Are you fans of the zombie sub-genre?

AP: Oh yeah, absolutely.

HS: I’m very much looking forward to seeing Zombie Resurrection. I really appreciate you taking some time out to talk with me. Just from what I’ve seen, I’m a fan of the film already and I can’t wait to see it. It was great talking to both of you.

AP/JH: Thank you very much Michael, we really appreciate it.

Watch the teaser trailer for Zombie Resurrection here: