Earlier this year, we had “Zombie Strippers.” Now it’s strippers vs zombie prostitutes in director Jason Matthew Murphy micro-budget feature “Zombies, Zombies, Zombies.” The movie made its debut on DVD a few weeks ago and Murphy sat down with Digital Video to discuss the inspiration for the film and making his own zombie film.
“We just took two things that we loved and put them together,” Murphy said of combining strippers and zombie prostitutes. “Of course, with a storyline like that, we knew we couldn’t take ourselves too seriously. Above all, I think the movie really shines in its comedic undertone, fun special effects gags and some really memorable characters.”
“This is literally a couple of guys who set out to make a movie and had to use their credit cards and pull in a ton of favors to get it done,” he said.
Initially budgeted to be made for $20,000, Murphy and his crew quickly decided they needed to a larger budget. The final product ended up at a price tag of just under $30,000. Murphy said the extra money was necessary to do the movie “semi-right” and they “wanted to be able to pay the lead actors, key crew, the FX makeup guys, cater meals, get blank-firing guns, etc.”
When asked about the production, Murphy said the hardest sequence to create with the final battle in the film.
“It required about 30 zombies and a ton of special effects gags,” he said. “Unfortunately, it took forever to get all the zombies in makeup, and most of the special effects gags we had planned did not work. We ended up having to get pretty creative with what we shot on set and added many more shots to our post visual effects list. In the end, it all worked out and we were able to pull it off, but it was definitely the most stressful day of shooting.”
After the movie was completed, including some digital work post-production, Murphy said it took a while to find a distributor for the film.
“It seems like everyone thinks that you just make a movie, and then some distributor calls you up and offers you millions of dollars for it. That was definitely not our experience,” he said. Murphy finally settled on a small distribution company, Passion River, to get his film out to the world. The film debuted on DVD in September and Murphy has been out, promoting the film.
Fans are encouraged to check out the film, either via Netflix (or any other on-line rental that carries it) or ordering a copy from Amazon.
