When a strange virus quickly spreads through a safari park and turns all the zoo animals undead, those left in the park must stop the creatures before they escape and zombify the whole city.
ZOOMBIES theme is animal zombies, therefore you can anticipate The Asylum to ramp up the lunacy, which they do, however, ZOOMBIES is a well told story that provides plenty of action, exciting animal zombie attacks, comedy, and a mother daughter relationship. All the fun and action is complimented by some terrific sounds and music provided by The Asylum veteran composer Christopher Cano.
ZOOMBIES was directed by Glenn Miller and written by Scotty Mullen. Miller has worked on dozens of Asylum films as a Director, Assistant Director, and Casting Director amongst other jobs. This is the second time both worked together as Miller directed Mullen’s comedy screenplay, THE COED AND THE ZOMBIE STONER. The two collaborated on Zombie Stoner to make a zombie and boobs comedy. For ZOOMBIES they put their heads together to make an action horror and they both had a lot of fun doing so.
Mullen has been casting films by The Asylum for a year now including, LITTLE DEAD ROTTING HOOD, NIGHT OF THE WILD, SHARKNADO 4: THE 4TH AWAKENS, and ZOOMBIES. He got his start casting celebrity cameos for SHARKNADO 3 which led to other jobs on their films. Prior to casting, Mullen met The Asylum’s Director of Development at the 2013 Great American Pitchfest which led him writing the hilarious comedy THE COED AND THE ZOMBIE STONER. With the success of Zombie Stoner, The Asylum approached Mullen to write ZOOMBIES and he was extremely excited and grateful to get another opportunity to write for them. His passion is writing all genres, so when they asked him to write an action horror, he was ecstatic. “I was asked by The Asylum to write a screenplay about zombie animals,” Mullen shared. “When we talked about the story, a requirement was to make sure there are zombie giraffes in it, right then I knew it was going to be an exciting and fun script to write. While I was writing the screenplay I needed to be innovative, because there are so many different animals I could have used, but I had to be budget conscious.”
Since Mullen also was the Casting Director for ZOOMBIES, he was able to bring on cast members that he envisioned in his screenplay that would be perfect for each role. “I wanted to age down the cast, so I made sure the intern in the film where young. Working with LaLa Nestor who played the role of Dr. Rogers young daughter Thea was a pleasure. In fact many people tell us that their favorite scene is the one with LaLa and the zombie Koala.”
With a well-structured story, ideal foreshadowing, timely placed roadblocks, and maintaining action and drama throughout, Mullen did an excellent job writing the screenplay. “Overall, I couldn’t be more grateful to The Asylum for giving me the chance as a real writer and everybody who was involved in the film, everyone simply wanted to be there making the film and put a lot of time and effort into ZOOMBIES,” shared Mullen.
AIRSPEED is another screenplay currently in production that Mullen wrote for The Asylum that is due out in November. Also, KNIGHTS which was directed by Jared Cohn is currently in post-production and due out in early 2017. Other films he is currently working on are SHARKNADO 4: THE 4TH AWAKENS, ISLE OF THE, and MONSTER SQUAD.
Hands down the animal attacks are some of the most entertaining out there. The appearances, movements, and actions are astonishing thanks to the amazing SFX team and the finest Special Effects Coordinator, Joseph Lawson. “ZOOMBIES was a particularly challenging show because of the large variety of real creatures (almost all of them furred) that we had to get through in a very short timeline. It was a mixed VFX success with some of the shots being the best we’ve done, particularly with fur. There were shots some with the monkeys in the open where the bodies were real monkeys but the faces were digital replacements. The hardest thing with real animals vs. fantastical creatures is that everyone knows what animals look like, how they move, how they behave. That’s MUCH harder to effectively translate into the digital world without massive time and resources. Still, I think our team managed pretty well under the circumstances for a film of this scope and budget. We also started to experiment with new ways if introducing effects into our shots for destructive elements and simulations. No matter what the show turned out pretty well as a “Jurassic Zoo” adventure,” shared Lawson.
Tammy Klein plays the role of Chelsea and she also worked with Lawson on the Special Effects team as the Compositor. She had a rare and fun opportunity being able to composite her own attack scene as she shares, “I was absolutely thrilled to be able to do that – I mean who gets to decide how they’re going to look as they’re very possibly dying? Dan Dod made the raptor and eggs, and I composited (added and blended) them in to the shot; also adding extra blood, scratches, bruises and dirt to my legs etc. that wasn’t added on set.”
The opening scene is an introduction to the Eden Wildlife Zoo and it provides significant foreshadowing to some dramatic escapes and battles later in the film. As the zoo is preparing for the grand opening, Dr. Ellen Rogers (Kim Nielsen) brings in a group of interns to assist her. Meanwhile, in the lab a monkey is infected with a zombie strain and it attacks and overtakes the lab professors. As much as the lab professors tried to confine the virus the monkeys escape after a brutal and intense scene with security checking up on the professors. Quickly the virus begins spreading throughout the zoo, turning all of the animals into violent zombie animals.
The zoo is Dr. Rogers dream and it’s starting to crumble upon her. When her daughter Thea (LaLa Nestor) has a near death encounter with a cuddly koala, it’s then Dr. Rogers knows the animals need to be eliminated. As more animals get infected, the conflict consistently increases. Dr. Rogers, Thea, and the others are in survival mode, but yet have the challenge of preventing the animals from escaping the zoo.
Throughout the film there are plenty of dire situations making the audience curious, who will survive and will the animals be stopped? As much as there is a lot of craziness, there are some dramatic and compassionate moments between characters and even between characters and the animals.
Check out ZOOMBIES for a fantastic film with lots of action, drama, quality kills, suspense, and a skull crushing gorilla. The DVD is currently available at Amazon, Redbox, and mark your calendars for Friday May 13th when ZOOMBIES will be airing on FUSE TV. Also, go to the FUSE TV website and play the ZOOMBIES online game!
