ZONE 261

Back in 2010, I started to hear about ZONE 261 and sometime earlier this year is the first time I saw the video below. Well, the video popped up again when I was doing a little research on THE WALKING DEAD and I felt like the film was in some sort of film limbo. I needed to find out more.

To sum up:

Landskrona, Sweden, 2013. Strong ethnical hatred between immigrants and native Swedes. A ship crashes into the harbor dock. Police enter the wreck - and are attacked by the infected crew. Bitten policemen fall in a coma - and wake up as rabid monsters.

The disease spreads like a wildfire. Everyone tries to escape.

But the city is quarantined - the military erects a concrete wall around the city. The few non-infected - Swedes and immigrants alike - take shelter in the citadel.

As the infected try to claw their way into their sanctuary, the non-infected have to decide who the worst monsters are: their former enemies inside - or the infected on the outside.

As the tension inside the citadel escalate to boiling point, the non-infected, in order to survive, have to decide if they view their former enemies as monsters - or as brothers and sisters; if they see each other as immigrants and Swedes - or as fellow humans.



Pretty straight forward overall. A little politics tossed in - sure. Weapon slinging zoms? Ok. Make it interesting. Most of this film will rely on execution and directorial style. We'll see...if and when it gets made.

I think this was a sort of viral effort to get funding. I love the look of it, though there are a few things I'd like to see changed, of course.





According to the films FACEBOOK page posted 9 hours before I wrote this article:

Dear Zone 261 fans. Our monster project is alive and kicking. If everything goes according to plan we will start shooting the film next year!

We've just updated our homepage where we now have a crowd funding tab. Check it out at www.zon261.com

We will be making most of our announcements from our other facebook fan page ZON 261. We would very much appreciate it if you'd like this page as well.

/ZONE 261 team

I guess we'll see where things head in 2013. It seems that pre-production was originally slated for 2011, but that might have been held up a bit by funding. Understandable. You need cash to make a film.

I've also been reading some of what is being said about the film and there are some interesting bits out there. The things I thought were rather funny were what people were upset about.

"The zombies looked bad."

"They used weapons - I didn't like that at all."

"That roar was off-putting."

"I hated when the gas station zombie in LAND OF THE DEAD picked up a weapon and learned how to use it. Dumb."

(Culled from an article found at QUIET EARTH )

I can't agree, personally. Films are about taking concepts and applying a spin that either the writer or Director sees for the production. Woody Allen has made mysteries and Francis Ford Coppola has made a horror film. Holding their films up to other works will show some major differences in style and content.

Why do zombies all need to do the same thing? Look the same way?

By that reasoning, The Almighty Romero's "zombies" (called the dead or undead) are not "true zombies" by the old old school term. There were no real references to flesh eating or brain eating or anything like that. They were basically slaves to do the bidding of someone who knew voodoo.

THANK GOODNESS (Badness?) people took the legend and lore and changed it! Romero and his dead coming back to life for no reason and their trying to eat people. Dan O'Bannon, Rudy Ricci, John A. Russo, and Russell Streinerfor coming up with the awesome "BRaaaains!" and undead antics in RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD. Hell, TONS of new takes and new ways to show zombies done in film over the past three decades and more. Why not try zombies with weapons and add more to the mix? Make things even more dangerous and frucking scary!

Kudos to thinking out of the box and trying something new! I wish more people did. I anxiously await ZONE261!