Zombie Movies

For the past year I have been following the hype around Thomas Newman’s Bong Of The Dead. All I kept hearing about was this epic $5000 zombie movie soon to be “cult hit”, made by one man in his basement. If you’re a die-hard zombie fanatic then you’ve probably already heard about this up and coming visionary first time director. According to Thomas Newman he has been paving the road to his own success one single digital frame at a time, with his scope set on busting into Hollywood. The filmmaker claims he had literally locked himself away for over 3 years working vigorously holding hours suitable only for the undead.

His journey began back in 2008 when he had apparently only written 7 pages of a script, with no title, and had only shot a single sequence involving 3 zombies ascending from a dark tunnel. The whole sequence was beautifully orchestrated to Darren Arinofskys “Requiem for a Dream” sound track and was gory enough to make you squirm and scream for more. The sequence had mass appeal and production value due to the realistic gore and zombie make-up provided by Mike fields. Newman pitched Mike Fields on the concept for his film then sealed the deal by offering him a co-producer position. It was impressive to see what Thomas Newman had achieved for zero dollars and proof enough that perhaps he would be able to pull off an entire feature length movie of the same caliber with only $5000.

The mini sequence or “Hook”, as he called it, worked according to his plans because he was able to quickly attract a cast and crew consisting of friends, family and local talent recruited from Craigslist. Once he had assembled his team and secured the locations he set out to shoot the entire movie in an ambitious 15 days. He was also determined to shoot the whole movie on a single borrowed HD cam which in his words, “some people laughed at” at the time. The result is a very stylistic polished film that one would not expect given the circumstances and equipment or lack there of. That said, now that the film is finally complete and out there, the praises are pouring in from fans, critics and major festivals from around the world.
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Well it’s the interview you all have been waiting for! We had the great pleasure to sit down with the writer, producer and director of the upcoming feature length zombie movie, Bong of the Dead, Thomas Newman and the following are his answers.

For those that don’t already know, Bong of the Dead is a creation of the warped mind of Thomas Newman. The blood and gore was put to full effect with the FX guru Mike Fields who is a veteran of every major gore and horror movie of note as of late.

Bong Of The Dead is a comical road adventure about two close friends who find a way to make the best of a mass zombie outbreak caused by meteorites from outer space. Tommy and Edwin are a pair of major stoners who one day discover a way of using zombie brains as a means of growing potent pot. Now that the world is abandoned and there are flesh eating monsters at every turn what more can one do except find a way to benefit from it. The boys manage to deplete their supply of weed and decide to take a road trip in search of more zombies in order to kill them and use their brains for fertilizer. Along the way they find themselves hostages to a psychotic zombie who has an evil plot to take over the world.
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The following is our second interview with the cast and crew of the upcoming feature film Bong of the Dead. Today we interview horror FX guru Mike Fields. If it’s gore, fantasy or just plain mind-blowing you can pretty sure Mike Fields may have had his fingers on it. The zombies in Bong of the Dead will be some of the best you have seen.

MIKE FIELDS:
With a track record like “Masters of Horror”, “Narnia”, “Fido”, etc. its easy to figure out that the quality of the FX in this film is top notch! Mike Fields brings years of experience and his great talent to Bong Of The Dead.

Interview with Mike Fields
1) Q. Why did you jump on board as Co-Producer to Bong Of The Dead?
I’ve worked in this industry for years on a lot of productions for other producers and top directors around the world. When I was presented with the opportunity to work on a film that I was not only going to do the make-up for but also Co-Produce, I was all over it! I know Thomas’s work and know that like myself he works fast but puts out quality and I wanted to bring the same type of quality he was after for our first feature together.

2) Q. What was your biggest challenge?
The budget that Thomas wanted to do this epic like film with was a bit challenging at times. We had to do make-up on over 50 people for the battle sequence and we had to make it look great or else there would be no point! When we first discussed the film and the $15K budget I knew that we were going to have to cut some corners. I immediately began creating latex masks for zombies which would be background instead of creating original face applications.

3) Q. What makes this film different from any other film you’ve ever worked on?
The thing that makes Bong of the Dead stand out from the rest is the fact that its a 100% original script idea. There are no films out there to date that I know of personally that combine all the genres together into one action packed movie. I mean we have, comedy, horror,action, adventure, we even have romance in there at some point and it all works! This film has so much action, blood and guts that for the 15 solid days we worked on it there was not a single person on set that was not covered in blood at some point.

The upcoming comedy zombie movie Bong of the Dead is a movie I had the great pleasure to work on. I was a bit of do everything for the production including things as mundane as moving around lights and cables during the shoot to being a full-on raging zombie eating the living for fun and giggles.

The movie is a production of writer, producer and director Thomas Newman. No not THAT Thomas Newman, but Thomas Newman the horror film guy. This Thomas Newman is a Canadian working his butt off to do everything that a 30 person crew would do. The movie was shot on a small budget but from the finished scenes I have had the luck to view – it has a multi-million dollar look. This guy is going places!
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