Great scares and off-color humor, that is a tricky —
no, make that a VERY tricky — undertaking when you are making a horror flick
designed for the purest of genre fans.
One false step and you are toast with an un-watchable film and all of
the production money goes down the drain.
With that said, word arrived from Indican Pictures
this past week that writer/director Drew Cullingham’s Shed of
the Dead will be making its domestic DVD
debut on Sept. 17.
The backstory on this British zombie flick is a
little murky, but filmmaker Drew Cullingham (A
Vampire’s Tale, The Devil’s Bargain)
appears to have put the film together back in 2015/16 … did some additional
work in post, maybe had some shop-around screenings and then it sort of dropped
out sight.
At some point Indican Pictures got wind of it and in
May of this year tested the film in a very limited theatrical break. The feedback was off the charts. Audiences loved it. Even better, audiences raved about it!
Then came Memorial Day and screen availability dried
up — summer blockbusters grab everything.
Indican Pictures found itself between a rock and hard place, they’ve got
a genuine indie horror hit on their hands and the temptation is to move it
quickly into the home entertainment marketplace. Instead, patience proved to be the key word
… let Labor Day come and go and wait until Sept. 17 for Shed of
the Dead’s release on DVD. Perfectly played.
For the record, the ARR works out 123 days.
This is a gem.
Cullingham has assembled a terrific cast that includes horror icons Kane
Hodder, Bill Moseley and Michael Berryman, which immediately gets genre fan’s
hearts pumping. He also somehow managed to recruit English scream
queen Emily Booth (Sacred Flesh, Fallen Angels, The Reverend,
etc.) as well, plus he got legendary British voice talent Brian Blessed to be
the voice-over storyteller.
The result is both funny and bloody.
Trevor (Spencer Brown) is a slacker, who is married
to a shrew of a wife by the name of Bobbi (Lauren Socha), and so he retreats to
his role-playing fantasy world housed inside his garden shed. His only friend is Graham (Ewen MacIntosh)
and they spend their time in an alternate war-gaming fantasy world (some very
strange stuff going on here).
His fellow gardeners have come to notice that he
contributes nothing to the common area and want him and his shed gone. At this moment reality and fantasy collide
together and Shed of the Dead
becomes an indie treasure.
There is a horrible accident during the eviction
process — a dead body has to be dealt with — and just at that moment there is
the arrival of a zombie apocalypse.
Trevor not only has to be resourceful if he is to keep his shed, but
he’s going have to put “Casimir the Destroyer,” his war-gaming persona, to work
to survive the zombie hoards!
It is definitely not Shaun of
the Dead, but Shed of
the Dead (bloodier and funnier, in a
weird sort of mash-up way) … and Indican Pictures might just have the best
indie horror/comedy of the year on its hands come Sept. 17 when the DVD is available
for genre fans to savor and enjoy.
Summing up a movie in one sentence can be
tricky. Filmmaker Jessica Scalise came
up with, “It's about a girl trying to turn her sister's wedding into a horror
film,” when being short and concise as to what Zilla and
Zoe was about.
It’s a nice tease.
And to find out what it is all about, check in with Indican Pictures on Sept.
10 as that is the street date assigned by Indican for the DVD debut of
Scalise’s Zilla and Zoe.
Drawn from her own childhood experiences and her
brief career as a wedding videographer in college, we are introduced to Zoe
(Aida Valentine), a gung-ho ten-year old who is an amateur filmmaker. As we soon learn, she has her heart set her
on winning the local “Horror Film Contest” (complete with a cash prize), which
pits her against film school students.
No problem!
Normally, such a venture might move along at its own
pace, with perhaps nothing more than a parental inquiry or two, but Zoe has got
the special effects and mayhem down pat — quite impressive for a girl of her
age.
Her werewolf movie (complete with werewolf hair
gathered from shaving the neighbor’s dog) is going to be delivered with gore,
lots of gore — in the spirit of, oh say, Herschell Gordon Lewis — and that
proves to be too much for her father (played by Greg James) as he puts the
kibosh on her film project.
He just has too much on his plate as Zoe’s older
sister, Zilla (Sam Kamerman), is making plans to be married and the wedding is
a disaster in the making. So no horror
film, but even Zoe’s father realizes that the girl has talents and offers her
an alternative to soften the blow … “you can film your sister’s wedding.”
Rewrite! Her
sister’s wedding week as a backdrop for a werewolf tale with lots of gore! The casting is perfect … lesbian wedding,
pushy future in-laws, with plenty of “baggage,” and a desperate search for a
willing location for the nuptials … a horror tale to be sure!!
Zilla and Zoe is
packed with plenty of laughs (in the spirit of Little
Miss Sunshine, Juno and Napoleon
Dynamite), so be sure to check it out on Sept.
10 when it arrives on DVD.
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