I can't imagine why this didn't occur to me before now

DannyinJapan

DannyinJapan

Joined
Oct 9, 2003
Messages
5,594
Why don't we, the Cantina, write and produce our own zombie movie?
Amongst all the juicy brains in this forum, we can't help but write a script that is ten times better than anything out there.
I know plenty of producers, directors and actors and have written and acted myself.
I don't mind writing the script myself, but I would want the cantina to come up with all the major plot requirements and necessary scenes, etc..

I'll get started right away if you guys want me to. We just need to start coming up with an outline. So, think about it and give me your best, most creative, innovative, sexy, unique ideas.
 
I think we need to first establish the genre.
I was thinking a dark comedy, possibly involving a zombie-human love affair.
The action sequences need to feature HI knives, you know, when the fighting gets close quarter.
Any thoughts on the comedy idea?
 
There's plenty of zombie flicks where many of the characters seem prepared somewhat for such an event. How about a scenario where the zombies bite off more than they can chew?

I propose we revive the Burt Gummer character from Tremors and have him go against the zombies :cool:


OR we could go other way and have a zombie outbreak in a circa 1969 hippy commune. We could call it Dawn 0f The Grateful Dead.
 
<Sigh> I just sold my copy of, "The Zombie Survival Manual" to Half Price Books.......

I, too, would like to see some prepared, rational zombie-fighters, instead of the usual, misanthropic cynicism of the horror genre. But more importantly, I'd be eager to get into the, "why?" of the Zombie Problem, and build a story (or at least a subplot) around the question of where they came from.
Are they carrying a disease? Are they mutants? Are they machines? Are they a new form of life? Is their existence really accidental?

This last question is the beginning of a humdinger of an idea I came up with......if anyone cares to hear it.........
 
The movie starts by reviewing different cults and "fringe" groups over the years. The Manson Family, Various militias, The Symbionese Liberation Army, That group that killed themselves when Halleys comet came, (we can tone this down or use fake groups for humor) and mentioning that pretty much all of these groups, right or wrong, had actual enemies to oppose. (even if it was life itself, in the case of the suicide cults) But nobody could explain why grown men would spend time and money preparing for an enemy that had not and would never exist, except for these guys. (high speed move-in on a little house in the Nevada Desert - Little hand-painted sign "Welcome to the Cantina - Home of the Zombie Defense Alliance")
 
I've started a few zombie/horror/terror stories in the past.... they all go generally like this....

(Zombies)
*loud crash, scratching at door*
Protagonist goes to door, looks through peep, sees nothing, opens door.

"Hello? What the.........!"
*blamblamblamblamblam*
Wife, helping, says:
"Shoot'em in the head, dummy!" Rolls eyes.....
*blamblamblamblamblam*
The End

Tough to get past the above dialogue...... *shrugs*

Andy
 
DannyinJapan said:
The movie starts by reviewing different cults and "fringe" groups over the years. The Manson Family, Various militias, The Symbionese Liberation Army, That group that killed themselves when Halleys comet came, (we can tone this down or use fake groups for humor) and mentioning that pretty much all of these groups, right or wrong, had actual enemies to oppose. (even if it was life itself, in the case of the suicide cults) But nobody could explain why grown men would spend time and money preparing for an enemy that had not and would never exist, except for these guys. (high speed move-in on a little house in the Nevada Desert - Little hand-painted sign "Welcome to the Cantina - Home of the Zombie Defense Alliance")
Click to expand...

I think we've found square one, here.
I'm thinking we need some good, solid sarcasm in the characters. Maybe some ex-military types who train primarily with FALs and M1As.
 
I've often thought that the only people in this county that would survive the zombie apocalypse would be middle America. The fly over parts are the only parts without a gigantic population density and typically have a basic understanding of firearms.

I'm loving this idea, Danny:) I would love to see someone wield Dave Rishar's 40+" GRS;)
 
Maybe you could work 2012 in there somewhere;) My Mayan tour guide told us about how the shaman at Tulum would get geeked out of his mind on mushrooms and herbs, dress as jaguar, and sacrifice someone at the alter to the gods. It is said that he would eat the heart, drink the blood, and sometimes even don the skin of the victim. Sounds a bit zombish to me.

I have two thoughts on this: Either the Mayan shaman was a captive zombified religious symbol that was let loose from his little room at the top of the alter in order to eat the flesh of virgins to appease the gods. OR, he was pantomiming observed zombie activity. Inducing himself to a zombie-like state and behaving as such in order to stem the tide, buy some time per say. Doomed to BE the zombie for the people so that the gods did not release the plague upon the earth causing those that should be with the gods to rise up in angry and devour the living. It was coming. They knew that. The time when counting the days would no longer matter or be important.

Hell, work swine flu in there if ya want;)
 
Well, I had started on such a thing. . .but as a series. So there can be story and action.

There's a few things I always wanted to see in a zombie flick.
1.) Military action. Not a few dumbasses in an underground bunker a la George Romero. Rather, something, or someone had to be extracted from the heart of a city. In jumps a company from the 75th Ranger Regiment. There's lots of guns, lots of firing, a few old school flamethrowers (I mean come, on NO flamethrowers in all those zombie movies? For shame, and a run down a crowded street by an AC-130 gunship.

2.) People actually prepared. Not the typical, "let's hide in the mall" buffoons. No, real, honest to goodness, we're going to go build a fort and make a defendable, sustainable community.

3.) I'd also like some humor. Two of the main characters in my story are (Who'da guessed?) Cpl Punishment and Tank Girl. There's another guy that goes down to the Quickie Mart to pick up the hot cashier before heading into the zombie apocalypse.

4.) Quick scene: Cpl Punishment and the other guy show up at an old woman's house who had been signaling for help. They say they can help. She asks how they can know what to do. They say (deadpan, like the Blues Brothers) "We're with Zombie Squad, we're professionals." You see them from their right sides, with the ZS patches on their shoulders. Another guy runs up. He's maybe 16 years old, fat, got greasy black hair and horned rim glasses. He speaks with a lisp. He show up, huffing and puffing, and says: 'I'm with Zombie Squad, how can I help?"
The two other guys don't move, stay completely deadpan, but reach up and rip the ZS patches off their shoulders and slip them in a pocket.
The old lady turns to them and asks: "What outfit did you say you were with?"
Again, deadpan, they reply simultaneously: 'Umbrella Corporation, ma'am."

:D

If you don't know what Zombie squad is, look here and have fun:
 
So the zombie vector was kept in by the Mayans, finally escaping from it's temple-prison in the Yucatan in 2009. (H1N1)
Zombies don't come from diseased people, however. They are people who took some kind of govt. issued vaccine THEN caught Mexican flu. The disease and the vaccine battle it out, first causing brain damage and then a kind of flesh-destroying effect like leprosy.
People who get the disease and then take medicine usually recover. People who catch it and die, do not come back to life. It only occurs in pre-vacs.

(how am I doing?)
 
Sounds plausible to me:) I like a little realism in my zombie movies if it is going to actually address the cause of the situation. The whole radiation from an exploded satellite never did much for me. George was smart to drop any zombie cause out of his movies, because where he was going with it sucked pretty bad, IMHO.

DSC01524.jpg

Here's a decent pic the temple I was at. This is the site, btw, where the Spaniards stormed ashore to conquer the Mayan. Little historical tidbits: Tulum is the only site where the Mayan EVER won a battle against the Spanish. There is a coral reef (second in size only to the Great Barrier) that the Spanish ships got hung up on. A few actually sunk.
The whole "City of Gold" thing was actually due to the Spaniards seeing Tulum from far off on a sunny day. The ENTIRE city was decorated and covered in "sun obsidian", the kind of obsidian that casts a golden hue when the sun hits it just right. The Spanish ripped it off later thinking that maybe there was gold INSIDE the glass....wonder how many nasty cuts they got on accident.
You can see the doors at the top. That's where the mysterious shaman would come out all crazed and "glass eyed" where he would cut the beating heart from a "virgin" (really just meaning a person who had not procreated an actual child yet). He would eat the heart and other parts of the body before wrapping himself in the inside out skin that he cut away. To be such a sacrifice was the great honor that could be bestowed upon someone.

DSC01527-1.jpg

Here is a better pic of the little temple to the side of the main alter. This building looks crooked. However, it was actually built this way for a purpose. There is a series of windows cut into the sea-facing side so that when you look into the doorway on the solstices and equinoxes at a particular time of day, a bright glow will shine through. It means, time to get on with the sacrificin'. 4 times a year....for 500 years.

Here is a picture of a typical dopey tourist Mayan-zombie snack.:foot: Notice how the poor SOB is forced to carry around all the crap while his wife snaps stupid shots of him. If the ruins where to crack open and horde of the dead were to pour out, he'd be toast....I hope they eat his shudder happy wife as well:D.
DSC01529.jpg


Here the zombies have turned the camera on her as she cowers in a corner. That sassy look isn't going to save you.
DSC01554.jpg
 
All right, several quotes at once here:

DannyinJapan said:
The movie starts by reviewing different cults and "fringe" groups over the years. The Manson Family, Various militias, The Symbionese Liberation Army, That group that killed themselves when Halleys comet came, (we can tone this down or use fake groups for humor) and mentioning that pretty much all of these groups, right or wrong, had actual enemies to oppose. (even if it was life itself, in the case of the suicide cults) But nobody could explain why grown men would spend time and money preparing for an enemy that had not and would never exist, except for these guys. (high speed move-in on a little house in the Nevada Desert - Little hand-painted sign "Welcome to the Cantina - Home of the Zombie Defense Alliance")
Click to expand...

Good opener; I can see the humor here. We should defeinitely use humorous references/fake groups for this, and I advise that it should be bipartisan humor. After all, being (apparently) more liberal than some folks here, i can attest that there's all sorts involved in both the film, AND the audience.



So the zombie vector was kept in by the Mayans, finally escaping from it's temple-prison in the Yucatan in 2009. (H1N1)
Zombies don't come from diseased people, however. They are people who took some kind of govt. issued vaccine THEN caught Mexican flu. The disease and the vaccine battle it out, first causing brain damage and then a kind of flesh-destroying effect like leprosy.
People who get the disease and then take medicine usually recover. People who catch it and die, do not come back to life. It only occurs in pre-vacs.

(how am I doing?)
Click to expand...

Gorgeously. This fits in neatly with Steely's idea....

Maybe you could work 2012 in there somewhere;).........Inducing himself to a zombie-like state and behaving as such in order to stem the tide, buy some time per say. Doomed to BE the zombie for the people so that the gods did not release the plague upon the earth causing those that should be with the gods to rise up in angry and devour the living.
Click to expand...

If this had happened in the distant past (the Zombie Survival Guide deals with this), and the Mayans had known, then we have the beginnings of a backstory. We could also set up some topical humor, involving the conflict between herbal and chemical medicine, and/or make some valid points about traditional culture vs. the modern world. It's a point that the Gurkhas and the Nepali would probbaly appreciate.

And if we do THAT, then we might be able (indirectly) to salute our friends at HI, who made the whole thing possible.:thumbup:
 
Also, good research, Steely. Connecting the pre-Columbian sacrifical rituals with zombie cannibalism is a clever notion, and the "city of gold" angle could provide some valuable ideas and aesthetic direction: "Zombies of El Dorado" could easily take on an Indiana Jones quality, complete with violently tongue-in-cheek humor that could translate very easily.

here's yet another idea, the "humdinger" I mentioned earlier:

Considering how tailor-made the cinematic zombie is for causing mayhem and destruction (it is, after all, a fiction......we hope), we could easily go with the idea that it IS a creation, and not a accidental or natural occurrence. In a scene/subplot that clearly reflects my misspent youth watching Star Trek (and in particular, the influence of the Borg) we could have a scientist analyzing the zombie "infection" under a microscope , and after a painstaking search, finding not a virus, not bacteria, not even a toxin. Not anything biological,....but mechanical: NANITES!

Teeny-tiny little micromachines spreading the condition, killing their victims and deliberately building them into a kind of walking weapon for raining down gore and destruction on the world. In a heated exchange with the military leader of the film, s/he tries to explain the significance of this: " don't you understand? Someone created this thing....ON PURPOSE!!!" and when asked who, or what, could create this, the scientist subtly says, "I have no......earthly idea."

This, in turn, could fit right in with the Mayan theme that Steely proposed,adding a Crystal Skull/Chariots of the Gods layer to the film.....as well as suggesting room for a sequel.

By the way, it's about time that I told you all that I'm an ex-actor. Although I now am trained as a CAD Designer, I spent 5 years as a struggling performer, here in Austin, complete with a 4-year degree in Theater Arts. Also, Austin is something of an independent-film mecca, with plenty of actors, editors, film-makers, and social networks for the same, and even studio spaces. We have a lot of resources to offer around here.
And we've done Zombie stuff before: "Z, A Zombie Musical" was filmed in Austin, and has been making the rounds of the festivals for a couple of years now.
 
Man, we have a lot of talent in here:) I'm humbled to be 'round y'all:):thumbup:
 
Don't feel intimidated: you're doing a fine job of what we call, "Dramaturgy," in the theater world: researching the subject matter in order to augment the production. Just keep it comin', and let's all remember to bounce ideas off each other!
 
Nicholas said:
Don't feel intimidated: you're doing a fine job of what we call, "Dramaturgy," in the theater world: researching the subject matter in order to augment the production. Just keep it comin', and let's all remember to bounce ideas off each other!
Click to expand...

lol my "research" was the 45 minute bus ride and 45 minute walking tour I took with the guide....this was after the 45 minute boat ride where they tried to sell me 9 dollar margaritas every five minutes and way after I paid $99 for this triphecta of 45's:D
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top