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Movie 'Zombie Killers,' filmed in Pennsylvania, to premiere in Bethlehem [The Morning Call (Allentown, Pa.)](Morning Call (Allentown, PA) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Oct. 26--Jeff Trainer, one of the owners of Sands Bethlehem Event Center, has always loved movies and always loved zombies -- long before, he says, the hit TV show "The Walking Dead." Trainer even at one point had a Los Angeles screenwriter pen a script for him. But like characters in zombie movies, the movie died. Now, also like the walking dead, Trainer's zombie movie has come back to life, stronger than ever. "Zombie Killers: Elephant's Graveyard," a thriller starring "Titanic" alum Billy Zane, "E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial" star Dee Wallace and "The O.C." star Mischa Barton, was shot in the Poconos this summer and is set for commercial release in February. Originally conceived as a film that would be offered via the video streaming the event center has developed for boxing and concerts, the film now has been picked up for distribution by Anchor Bay, one of the world's largest entertainment companies and also distributor of "The Walking Dead." The film likely will premiere with a zombie-themed gala showing at the event center, Trainer says. The film also involves the burgeoning sport of paintball. It's set in a small post-apocalyptic town defended from the undead by a team of young guns trained by Zane's anti-hero character through paintball games. That, Trainer says, not only sets the film apart, but also opens up all kinds of marketing possibilities. So much buzz has been generated that a sequel already is planned and "Zombie Killers" is likely to become a trilogy, officials say. "This is not your typical zombie movie," writer-director B. Harrison Smith says. "An analogy is this is sort of how 'Star Wars' was, a smaller film, and the next one, we're hoping, is our 'Empire Strikes Back.'" Rising from the grave Trainer, a Lehigh Valley developer who also opened Bethlehem's Steel Ice Center in 2003, says his movie idea got new life with the announcement of the event center's streaming capabilities and its tie-in to the Internet video streaming service Ustream in 2013, along with a paranormal and horror convention, Parafest, held at the event center around the same time. That's where Trainer met Smith, an indie filmmaker who secured national distribution for his movies "The Fields," starring Cloris Leachman; "6 Degrees of Hell," with Corey Feldman, and "Camp Dread," starring Eric Roberts. All were also shot in the Poconos. It didn't hurt that zombies have become a cultural phenomenon: "The Walking Dead" gets up to 17 million viewers a week. But Trainer and Smith say they agreed that their zombie movie would have to be different. Smith says the film is in the mold of "an American western. That take hasn't really been done yet with the zombie genre." A small town, Elwood, has insulated itself against the plague of zombies, with Zane's character not unlike John Wayne's Rooster Cogburn in "True Grit," Smith says. "He kind of treats it like a hospice, in which we're going to keep people comfortable until the end," Smith says -- until some of the young guns decide to see what lies beyond the town. "It's just the difference between living and just surviving. The town of Elwood could be any wild west town that's out there, whether it's Dodge or Deadwood. You have the good guys and you have the bad guys. ... I wanted this to be about the people." Yet another element that makes "Zombie Killers" current is that the movie blames the rise of zombies on fracking, the environmentally controversial practice of using high-pressure water to force natural gas and petroleum out of deep-rock formations. Dead film walking Trainer and Smith also say they decided "Zombie Killers" wasn't going to be the typical low-budget zombie film. "Anybody can do a zombie film, but they don't always put some stars in it," Trainer says. "We wanted to get some quality actors who had name recognition. We wanted to get some good stars in. We searched for stars for a while." When Zane came on board, Trainer -- a Titanic buff who owns a boarding pass to the legendary ship and holds rights to open a hotel and casino under that name -- says he took it as a sign. In addition to "E.T.," Wallace has starred in "Cujo," "The Howling" and "The Stepford Wives" and countless TV shows. Barton also was in "The Sixth Sense" and two dozen other films. Also in the film is Wallace's real-life daughter, Gabrielle Stone, an up-and-coming actress; Felissa Rose, who starred in the horror cult flick "Sleepaway Camp," and Michael Kean, who plays Stone's love interest. Special effects also are a cut above, done by people who did "Lord of the Rings," "Titanic," "Star Trek" and "Pirates of the Caribbean." Joe Lawson, whose company, Lawson Digital Arts, worked on those movies and who also works on "The Walking Dead," did digital effects. Because "Zombie Killers" is set in a world where there are not only zombie people but also zombie wildlife, the makers tapped Toby Sells, who works on "The Walking Dead," to create zombie dogs, deer, wolves and fish. Special-effects artist Angie Johnson did zombie makeup. "We surrounded ourselves with top people, like we did at the event center," Trainer says. The setting for "Zombie Killers" was different, too. Instead of a claustrophobic setting, it's shot largely in the expansive outdoors of the western Poconos: Smith's favorite locations near the Monroe County village of Kunkletown, where he lives, and at Skirmish, the 700-acre paintball mecca in Carbon County that's the largest in the United States. He says computer-generated scenes are filled with hordes of zombies. "Most zombie films are very claustrophobic because they're low-budget," Smith says. "So you shoot them in very tight places: apartment buildings, urban centers, where you can get 50 people and make them look like 1,000. "I've seen almost every zombie movie ever made, and they're almost always the same thing. With this, we went wide. And that's one of the main things people say when they watch it; 'It's a big movie.' The panoramas are huge.'" Filmmakers declined to reveal the film's budget, but say it was modest -- less than $1 million. Paint your zombies Perhaps what sets the movie apart most is the inclusion of paintball, the military-strategy sport in which teams shoot at each other with capsules containing dye. Trainer's son Ian is a professional paintball player who competes internationally on the San Diego, Calif., team Dynasty, and Trainer, who is familiar with the sport's culture, thought it would make a good plot device. "We thought it would be good to introduce characters and use a philosophy where younger people who play paintball knew how to fight," he says. "The paintball guys that I've seen -- when I watch my son, sitting in a bunker playing against Russians who are top-notch guys and a lot older than him, there's no fear." Trainer also thought paintball was an untapped market for movies. "I was looking at this as an investment," he says. "If there are 12 or 14 million paintball players worldwide and we have a streaming company, we could stream a movie for $4.99 and go after the paintball world. If there's 10 million people [who watch], I have the chance at $50 million in sales." In addition, the paintball world offered countless marketing opportunities, he says. He says he has signed a contract with the world's biggest paintball gun manufacturer, Planet Eclipse, to promote and distribute the movie in the United States, Europe and the Far East. He says he has a similar agreement with HK Army, the world's biggest producer of paintball clothing. Video game publisher Activision, which makes the immensely popular "Call of Duty" franchise, also makes paintball video games and will do tie-ins, Trainer says. The filmmakers even got paintball's biggest stars to act in the film -- Ollie Lange, whom he called "the Michael Jordan of professional paintball," and Ryan Greenspan, another of the sport's most elite players. The movie was shot in just 21 days in September, though Trainer and Smith say adding special effects took much longer. Coming to life Trainer says that the plan still is to offer "Zombie Killers" on the streaming service. He says it's a growing method of movie distribution, citing a recent deal that paid Adam Sandler $50 million to make films for Netflix. Trainer says they're working on making it available to download on phones. He says Smith, with his industry contacts, also opened him up to more traditional distribution. "Once we made the film, we interviewed everyone" to distribute it, including the industry's heaviest hitters, such as Lion's Gate and Miramax. Trainer and Smith say Anchor Bay was impressed by the film, but say the paintball marketing approach especially interested them. "I started getting all these companies from paintball onboard that I thought we could hand to Anchor Bay as an added value," Trainer says. "Their marketing team was amazed. We're adding some things that just aren't thought about." The deal calls for the film to be offered in Walmart as well as major services Netflix and Redbox, and video on demand formats such as iTunes, Roku and Hulu, Trainer and Smith say. A theatrical release is possible, but Anchor Bay likely will first release it cable On Demand services to gauge interest, Trainer and Smith say. Theatrical releases add exponentially to a movie's cost, with not just theater rental, but advertising campaigns, Smith says. Anchor Bay would have to assume those costs. "We hope that it will go theatrical, but we'll see if the numbers warrant that," he says. A script for "Zombie Killers 2" already has been written, with plans for it to be released in 2015, Trainer and Smith say. No actors have signed, but Trainer says Zane is eager to reprise his role. Trainer and Smith say Anchor Bay is open to a sequel, and possibly even a trilogy -- Trainer says he always envisioned the story that way. "I think we're getting some buzz," Smith says. He said Scream, the world's second-largest horror magazine, recently had a piece about the movie that was promoted on the cover. Barton spoke about the film in an interview with The Huffington Post. Trainer says he envisions a premiere of the movie at Sands Bethlehem Event Center that would bring Zane to town and include a weekend of zombie-related events [email protected] Twitter @johnjmoser 610-820-6722 ZOMBIE KILLERS: ELEPHANT'S GRAVEYARD --What: Movie filmed in northeastern Pennsylvania. --Stars: Billy Zane, Dee Wallace, Mischa Barton, Gabrielle Stone, Felissa Rose. --Plot: People isolated in a village where fracking has led to the rise of zombie people and also zombie wildlife --Scheduled release: February, with a planned premiere at Sands Bethlehem Event Center. --Info: http://www.zkegmovie.com ___ (c)2014 The Morning Call (Allentown, Pa.) Visit The Morning Call (Allentown, Pa.) at www.mcall.com Distributed by MCT Information Services |