As if Israelis didn\u2019t have enough reasons to worry, the streets of Tel Aviv were packed with thousands of pale, blood-dripping zombies on Sunday. They staggered along Rothschild Boulevard, threatening drivers of cars and pedestrians alike. It wasn\u2019t an assault of the living dead but a Purim celebration called Zombie Walk, which is held in the city annually.<\/p>\n
Fans of horror flicks will undoubtedly be delighted to learn that, with perfect synchronicity, the new Israeli film \u201cCannon Fodder\u201d by the young director Eitan Gafny has just been released here. The movie is being distributed abroad by Screen Media and will soon be available as a DVD in the United States.<\/p>\n
\u201cCannon Fodder\u201d had its genesis as a graduation project by Gafny and Tom Goldwasser at Tel Aviv University and evolved into a full-length feature \u2013 \u201cthe first Israeli zombie movie,\u201d according to the filmmakers. Inspiration was derived from the success of \u201cWorld War Z\u201d (which is set partly in Israel), but the plot line is more up-to-date: Hezbollah develops a biological weapon that turns everyone who comes into contact with it into a zombie. An Israeli commando unit (consisting of a cross-section of Israeli society: a native-born sabra, an Ethiopian immigrant, a settler and a Russian immigrant) enters Lebanon to do battle, while the zombies storm the security fence.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a graphic picture, with loads of lopped-off limbs, bursts of blood and perforated heads. With the exception of the lead role, which was written expressly for the actor Liron Levo, the other parts are played by anonymous actors and friends of the filmmakers.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the age of 11 I already knew I wanted to make \u2018Cannon Fodder,\u2019\u201d Gafny says in a joint interview with his wife, Yafit Shalev, who produces and co-stars in the film. \u201cI grew up watching pirate cable television in Holon, especially cheap action movies with Chuck Norris and [Jean-Claude] Van Damme. I always knew that it would be terrific fun to do action movies in Israel, with zombies against soldiers. After dreaming about zombies and soldiers for a whole night, I got up in the morning and said to Yafit, \u2018I have an idea and you have to talk me out of it.\u2019 But she said, \u2018That\u2019s really cool.\u2019 Two months later we had a second draft and started to look for funding.\u201d<\/p>\n
To find investors for a film that was off the beaten track in the Israeli cinematic landscape, Gafny treated the project like a startup. \u201cThere\u2019s a business plan, you talk in numbers,\u201d he says. \u201cOur concept is one of commercial cinema. We all love and respect art-house films, but we want to see a different type of cinema, too \u2212 more American, more fun. As soon as you treat it like that and grasp that at the end of the day it\u2019s a product that has to be sold, you handle things differently.\u201d<\/p>\n
If B movies are made on a low budget in the United States, \u201cCannon Fodder\u201d was made \u201con a fifth of the budget of an American B movie,\u201d Gafny notes. \u201cWe knew from the start where we were heading. Israel has no B-movie tradition, you know that you are working within a very limited budget. The effects are amateurish, but that\u2019s part of the genre. In Van Damme\u2019s movies or in Sylvester Stallone\u2019s \u2018The Expendables,\u2019 the explosions look even less good than ours, and that\u2019s okay.\u201d<\/p>\n
For the action scene of hungry zombies on the Rosh Hanikra shore, for example, they needed 300 extras who would work for free. \u201cWe called every person we\u2019d ever met, and it was heartwarming to see the response,\u201d Shalev says. \u201cBut they enjoyed themselves, too. We drew scars on them and they were able to scream their heads off and let go. It was better than going to a shrink.\u201d<\/p>\n
Much of the budget that was saved on the effects was invested in makeup. The team contacted makeup schools in the United States and Canada and offered graduates the chance to intern in the production and gain experience working on a feature film. \u201cWe struck a deal with a college in Canada called Complections and got a marvelous makeup artist named Jennifer Cummings,\u201d Shalev relates. \u201cAt the same time, we recruited Studio Art and the makeup artist Karen Davidoff, who did special effects for us.\u201d<\/p>\n
In case you were wondering how long it takes to transform a regular person into a zombie, the answer is: 45 minutes. \u201cWe became very efficient at makeup, and we also decided, for budgetary and script reasons, to have the plot cover the first days of the epidemic. That way the zombies are fresher and more human and don\u2019t need as much material to be used on them,\u201d Gafny says.<\/p>\n
Local cinema-goers appear to be excited by the final product. \u201cWe had a screening at the Cinema South Film Festival in Sderot that surprised us out of our minds. Wild energy, laughter, people sat on the stairs because there were no more seats,\u201d Shalev recalls.<\/p>\n
To which Gafny adds that they had their perfect target audience in Sderot: \u201cYoung people who want to see atypical Israeli cinema. What they found funniest were the racist, very not politically correct bits about Israeli society, which of course were done intentionally.\u201d<\/p>\n
The commando unit, with its representative characters, generated extraordinary responses in the audience. \u201cWe really wanted to get everyone\u2019s goat,\u201d Gafny says. \u201cWe knew that the leftists would say that all the zombies are Arabs and the rightists would say that we are legitimizing the right of return. We wanted extreme reactions.\u201d<\/p>\n
Shalev: \u201cWe screened the film at the London FrightFest film festival, and the critics were absolutely divided about the content. One of them called it a \u2018right-wing piece of shit\u2019 and another branded it \u2018left-wing propaganda.\u2019 But all we wanted to do was have fun.\u201d