Resurrecting Romero’s Vision in Dead Genesis

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In this bit of news item, I'm going to sit back and let what I found in the "production notes" tell you about this upcoming new indie zombie -"Dead Genesis."

“Resurrecting Romero’s Vision”

With a digital camera and a low budget, 23-year-old filmmaker Reese Eveneshen of Guelph aims to inject new life into the ongoing but graying zombie-film genre. In what Eveneshen considers a uniquely honest homage to the Romero classic Night of the Living Dead, his feature-length Dead Genesis passes on campy revisionist efforts to re-visit the stark, bleak landscape depicted in the original monster movie. While the film offers a genre-requisite gore-fest, the story is far more focused on “creating a platform for dialogue on the torture and violence in the world,” says writer/director/shooter Eveneshen who “was disturbed by some online videos showing troops humiliating, torturing, and destroying what appear to be helpless human beings. So the zombies in my film are the metaphor for these people.”

“Director Statement”

As a young film lover growing up I was dazzled with imagery from several different film makers, Scorsese, Carpenter, Spielberg, Corman, De Palma, Coppola, Kaufman, Fulci etc. But the one film maker that stood above all of them was George Romero. His body of work was immense, and obviously he was most famously known for his "Dead" series. I have been an follower of his work (even the non-zombie fare) and I've always wanted to make a film that served as a love letter essentially to his brilliance in film making.

Dead Genesis is that love letter. I've had a love for zombie movies for years, but if I was going to make one I was going to make it the right way… and the only right way I know is the Romero way. His crafty ways of crossing harsh social commentary with terrifying (and often grisly images) was the way to go. I looked at the state of our world and witnessed what I consider to be the downfall of humanity on television. This apparent senseless slaughter of millions, this had to be told in a movie. And what better medium than a zombie movie.

With only a small handful of money and some great talent, we fought tooth and nail for a brutal three week shoot in the summer of '09 that really kicked our ass. But we knew that is would all be worth it in the end, all the blood, sweat and tears were for something. We had a story to tell and we would fight to the end to get the story on screen. The goal was to try and make a movie that would appeal to two different genres: The zombie film genre and the thinking film genre, if you were looking for a zombie movie, you would have it. If you were looking for something else, hopefully you would find it as well.

Dead Genesis is about the fall of humanity and the eventual rise (or genesis) of the undead. I hope and think that at the very least, its an entertaining film for people to watch. But I also hope it opens up a bit of a dialogue as well.

Synopsis: Seven months have passed since the dead took over. Many cities and states have been abandoned and left to die. Society is trying to create a new order from the chaos. The military has been officially assigned the task of fighting the undead hordes. However several self sufficient hunting groups made up of everyday citizens have been established to take on the threat in a war aptly referred to as the 'War on Dead'.

In the midst of this global tragedy, media has redefined itself to try and capitalize on the new world order. Jillian Hurst, a former news writer and amateur documentarian, has set out to make a pro-war propaganda film to support the W.O.D. She joins up with a pack of renegade hunters known infamously to North America as 'the DeadHeads'. The moral dynamics and hardships of fighting in a war against the undead are told from several different perspectives.

Made up of Christians, atheists and men and women of varying ages, the disparate band of anti-heroes seeks to cleanse the landscape of the undead with each DeadHead motivated by their own personal agendas. Everyday brings the possibility of death and horror, but also offers new bonds that redefine family and friendship.

Dead Genesis is currently doing the indie film festivals in Canada... if you want to know more about this film, be sure to check out their official site.

via: YouTube