Greetings, all. Ambush Bug here with another AICN HORROR: ZOMBIES & SHARKS column. This time around, I had a chance to talk with Loren Semmens, the writer and producer of the new zombie horror/adventure film DEAD SEASON. I have a review of the film later on in the column, but first, here’s what Mr. Semmens had to say about DEAD SEASON…
AMBUSH BUG (BUG): So I saw DEAD SEASON. I actually watched it I believe a week or so ago and I just watched it again last night. It’s a really cool zombie film, so where did the idea come from and where did you originally come up with the concept for the film?LOREN SEMMONS (LS): Well we wanted to do a zombie movie that was set further out into the future than most, just because it seems like the bulk of zombie films seem to take place right when outbreaks occur or a month or two after, but we wanted to do something that was in a more remote world, so we were like “Let’s set it a year after the initial outbreak.” So that is what inspired us to do something a little bit different with zombies, but from a more practical standpoint Adam, the director, and I had always wanted to work together on a project and we were visiting the island where we shot and realized that it would be the perfect location to do a zombie piece. So we kind of wrote it around that.
BUG: So you shot it on location on an island?
LS: We did. The bulk of principle photography was on the island.
BUG: Yeah, that’s very cool, because there are so many zombie films, particularly George Romero films that talk about just going off to a secluded island and living off the rest of their years free from the zombie apocalypse and that’s kind of what you guys are doing here in this story. How influential was Romero’s original zombie films to you guys?
LS: Very much so. More than anything we wanted to stay true to a couple of things, one being kind of the rules of how Romero has set up zombies like how you get infected. You get infected through being bit. You don’t have to be killed. Also, if you’re not bit and you just die, you’re going to come back to life as a zombie. So we really tried to stick to those rules and furthermore, Romero tries to incorporate more of interpersonal relationships in his stories too. They are not necessarily all about zombies, so we tried to have some of that as well, kind of as an homage, but also because in our minds it just makes for a better and more interesting story as opposed to just people who are slaughtering zombies left and right. BUG: Yeah, and that’s the other thing that I noticed about this film, it feels like an actual film whereas a lot of zombie films it is just about killing a lot of zombies or running away from zombies or all the gore. But here you guys have an actual arc. There are a bunch of different characters. Also, you guys have a love scene, which isn’t seen that often in horror movies anymore, so it was refreshing to see all of those things happen in this film. Was that a conscious choice just to make this more of an all around film?
LS: Absolutely. As most people, we are not just horror movie fans and I kind of wanted to do a film that could be entertaining to people who didn’t only like zombie movies and if you just happen to watch it on On Demand or something like that and you’re not a huge zombie person, you would still be able to get engulfed into the story. So that was definitely a conscious decision to include more dramatic elements and the response to this has been interesting, because some people feel kind of let down that it’s not just a straight up hardcore zombie gorefest and others have been pleasantly surprised, so everyone takes away different things from it. BUG: There definitely does seem to be a shift in how zombie films are approached. Either they pair off zombies with weird things like ZOMBIES ON A PLANE or ZOMBIES VS. VAMPIRES or something like that or they go the more difficult route and that’s what you guys did, actually telling a story that doesn’t involve the shot of initially finding out the zombies. Was that a hard sell for people to buy into?
LS: I think so, just because audiences always have expectations and we kind of toyed with them, but didn’t necessarily break them. We still have eighty-five kills in the movie. I was bored one day and decided to count it, which is almost exactly what the entire first season of THE WALKING DEAD has, so a lot of people who have said “Yeah, I like the movie, but there’s a little too much drama and the story stuff,” all of the other stuff is still there, but I think because we put it in a more organic nature it might just not have seemed like straight gore and slaughter and stuff.
BUG: I kind of feel like horror fans just go in and they just want to see the horror, they don’t want to see the build up sometimes or the investment that can be made with these characters. It’s almost like if they get to know the characters, they won’t want them to die and a lot of filmmakers know that too so they make the characters so cardboard, you want them to die.LS: I’m hoping that that’s changing. I mean just in the past couple of years, you’ve probably noticed this too, there’s definitely been a decline in your standard torture porn horror stuff and I think that was the precipice where people are like “Okay let’s just cut to it. I just want to see people getting slaughtered and tortured and everything that you can get away with just to have an R rating.” I do give some credit to television here, because there are so many great episodic shows on, anything on AMC basically, and Showtime and HBO too that viewers are wanting more than just your standard horror stuff, so hopefully it is changing.
BUG: I don’t want to reveal anything about the film, but you guys do kind of leave it open for a possible second DEAD SEAS0N. Would you guys be interested in doing that?
LS: Yes, that’s something we are interested in doing. We have a couple of ideas of how to pull something off that would be really kind of awesome, it’s just a matter of seeing how the response is from the general public and if we feel there is a desire for people to want more, we are ready to jump at that opportunity.
BUG: Cool and what about the two characters, Elvis and Tweeter. How did you go about casting for those roles? LS: We are based in Los Angeles, so we did normal casting calls on casting websites as well as contacting friends of ours who have backgrounds in acting. Scott Peat, the gentleman who played Elvis actually directed a short film where he played a character that was kind of similar. I showed it to Adam and we really thought that he would be great for this role, because we wanted someone who was more a kind of everyman where he’s not this massively ripped dude who is just going to destroy anything in his path. He more has to use his critical thinking, yet still be humble. So we thought he was a good person for that role and you know Marissa was the same thing. We auditioned so many girls and it’s really tricky when finding a female protagonist who has to be tough, because you can either go the really butch route where it’s just like Michelle Rodriguez in every movie that she’s in, or Milla in the movies she is in and we tried to have something a little more unique, yet still believable that this woman would be able to survive for a full year on her own. That’s kind of the process we did. It was a little trickier than we had hoped, but in the end we are very happy with who we got on the movie.
BUG: Very cool. So you were one of the writers for the film as well as producer for the film as well. What was the collaborative process like going into this? Were you all friends going into this film?
LS: Yeah, and I mean ninety percent of us who were on the crew had worked on previous projects and a lot of that is because we were trying to pull off something a bit more difficult on not a lot of money here, so we needed a lot of favors. Adam and I collaborated on every step of the process. He handled more of the directing obviously, because he’s the director, but aside from that we both wrote it together. I handled a bit more on the producing end, but he obviously did a lot of that too. It was really collaborative and fun in that regard. BUG: How about working on the island? Were there any specific horror stories or anything like that?
LS: Absolutely. Yeah, we shot during dead season, that’s why we titled the movie DEAD SEASON, when there weren’t tourist there, which was great because it allowed us more access to the island, however dead season is dead season for a reason and that’s because it’s when most of the rains are and hurricanes and things of that nature, so nature was not very forgiving when it came to what we had to deal with. Aside from the rain, we also had tons of lizards and wild horses and these little frogs, so sound was just abysmal trying to get a quite take, especially when we were trying to set up a world where it’s post-apocalyptic and the characters are having issues with not having enough food. (Laughs) So it was like “You can’t keep hearing animals or seeing them in the background of shots if they’re supposed to be starving,” so that was definitely difficult.
BUG: Cool, well what do you have coming up next?LS: Yeah, we absolutely have not taken any breaks and even though this movie is done and out right now, we’ve been working on a bunch of other projects. Adam just finished directing a feature that is very different. It’s a dance movie, but he and I both together and alone have different concepts that we’ve been writing, some which are larger like episodic and miniseries TV stuff and other features. Anything from straight dramas to sci-fi things and everything in between.
BUG: Cool, well I look forward to seeing more stuff from you guys. Congratulations on the film and yeah, good luck with the upcoming films.
LS: Thank you so much, Mark.
BUG: DEAD SEASON is available now on DVD! Check out my review of the film below!
New on DVD this week!DEAD SEASON (2012)
Directed by Adam DeyoeWritten by Joshua Klausner, Loren Semmens, Adam Deyoe
Starring James C. Burns, Scott Peat, Marissa Merrill, Corsica Wilson
Find out more about this film here!
Reviewed by Ambush Bug
I know zombie films are a dime a dozen out there and the truly cool thing to do is chime in down there in the talkbacks with something like “Oooo a zombie film, how original!” but while I tend to agree that some of the other monsters out there deserve their time in the sun, every now and then a good zombie film comes along. DEAD SEASON is one of those zombie films.
The thing that makes DEAD SEASON stand out from the rest of the zombie movie hordes is that it basically picks up where every Romero zombie film ends. Both of Romero’s DAWN and DAY OF THE DEAD end with the survivors heading out for an island, thinking that a some place secluded from humanity is the answer to survival. The two leads in this film Elvis (played by Scott Peat) and Tweeter (Marissa Merrill) believe this to be true to and set out on a boat to an island in hopes to live the rest of their lives zombie free. Turns out, the island is not the paradise they had hoped for.Basically, DEAD SEASON takes two sole survivors from two other fictional zombie films and tells the story about how they continue to try to survive. Much more akin to THE WALKING DEAD than any other type of zombie film, here the cast is used to the zombie outbreak. The outbreak scene is often an integral part of the zombie film where the cast must first be shocked at the fact that zombies exist, then they fight back. To me, I’m most tired of the outbreak scene in zombie films. It’s been done to death and one of the best things about DEAD SEASON is that it omits these done to death tropes you usually see in zombie films and goes in its own direction.
On top of that, more so than most horror films these days which either are scaled down to just gore, violence, and scares, the filmmakers decided to give this story some quiet moments, some character moments, and yes, even a love scene. I know it’s not all that amazing or revolutionary, but given the amount of horror films these days that forget to add quiet, character, and yes, even a love scene, it was nice to see all three show up in DEAD SEASON. We get to know Tweeter and Elvis. There is a real character arc, making these two characters not just fodder for zombies, but people we actually care about. And when someone you care about is about to be chomped by the walking dead, it is infinitely more interesting.Imagine that.
If more zombie films were like DEAD SEASON, I doubt folks would have that eye-rolly, groany, bitch-n-moany feeling when the subject of zombie films comes up. While most zombie films focus on mass destruction, gore, and zombie killing, DEAD SEASON focuses on strong storytelling…and it doesn’t forget to add the destruction, gore, and zombie killing when necessary too.
See ya Friday for our regular AICN HORROR column, folks!
Ambush Bug is Mark L. Miller, original @$$Hole/wordslinger/reviewer/co-editor of AICN Comics for over ten years. He has written comics such as MUSCLES & FIGHTS, MUSCLES & FRIGHTS, VINCENT PRICE PRESENTS TINGLERS & WITCHFINDER GENERAL, THE DEATHSPORT GAMES, WONDERLAND ANNUAL 2010 & NANNY & HANK (soon to be made into a feature film from Uptown 6 Films). He is also a regular writer for FAMOUS MONSTERS OF FILMLAND & has co-written their first ever comic book LUNA: ORDER OF THE WEREWOLF (to be released in late 2012 as an 100-pg original graphic novel). Mark has just announced his new comic book miniseries GRIMM FAIRY TALES PRESENTS THE JUNGLE BOOK from Zenescope Entertainment to be released March-August 2012. Also look for Mark's exciting arc on GRIMM FAIRY TALES #76-80 which begins in August 2012.
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