Ok, admittedly, we're about 6 weeks late to this interview, but we've been trying to find out some information on writer/director Shaun Robert Smith's upcoming Nazi zombie flick The 4th Reich since we first heard about it. Thanks to FilmShaft for getting the scoop. Here's how Smith got started on the movie.
I did a student film in 1998 which was a thirty-five minute story set in Vietnam and it was about disease experiments. I was watching a lot of (films) Hamburger Hill, Apocalypse Now and lots of zombie films and wanted to match the two together. The story evolved over 12 years and because I knew more about the Second World War, I decided to set the story then.
And how did Smith land Tom Savini and Jason Flemyng to his cast?
Well there’s bit of a back story to that. During my time at college, I went to a Tom Savini lecture and I had my AWOL To Horror script — the student film I was doing — and he had a flick through it and said it was great and he said if I ever came to make it give me a call – he was probably joking. 12 years later, I gave him a call. He’s always been an idol of mine and he loved the script.
We have a superb casting director on board — Jeremy Zimmerman — and he’s done some really huge pictures and has got the contacts. And of course, it’s the strength of the script. If they thought the script was rubbish they wouldn’t do the film. Jason Flemyng and Sean Pertwee all read the script and absolutely loved it. It’s not got the biggest budget in the world, but these guys like coming back to their roots and doing lower budget things. They’re not after their next couple of million to do a film. They want to do a film if it’s good. I had Sean Pertwee in mind while writing the script and said to Jeremy can we get somebody like him and next day he was in the film.
Savini won't be doing any special effects on the movie, but Smith promises a an action-packed gore-fest.
I’ve kind of gone on record and said it’s going to be the mother of all zombie films. Which it is! I want to make the world’s first truly terrifying zombie film. Zombies are usually used with humour attached, but I want to make the world’s first truly, truly, truly zombie film. On one hand it’s a haunted house film with lots of scares and on the other hand, it’s an all-out gory zombie film and on the third hand, it’s a war film. Primarily, it’s a war film with horror! There was Dead Snow which was a black comedy and Outpost was more Nazi ghosts. I think we’re going to be taking the sub genre a little bit further. What we put on the screen will be very different. We’re going all out on this one. It’ll be no holds barred gore. I’m going to cross the line because I can always cut stuff out at a later date — only to be added back again on the DVD with the Director’s Cut. It’s going to be dark…a very dark horror film.
Production should start this week. Smith says they hope to have the film done by the end of the year.
Source: FilmShaft
