THE ZOMBIES of Rugby have had their 15 minutes of fame preserved for posterity.
Action-horror film Redcon-1 – which features scores of Rugbeians as zombie extras – has been released on DVD, Blu-ray and digital download.
Director Chee Keong Cheung and actor Mark Strange, who appeared in Batman Begins, brought an undead friend to Sainsbury’s in Dunchurch Road today (Monday February 25) to announce the launch.
They were accompanied by a tank supplied by Dunchurch mechanic-turned-army-vehicle-collector Andrew Baker – the man behind the village’s annual Tanks, Trucks and Firepower Show – whose fleet of military vehicles was used in the film.
Parts of Brownsover came to a stand-still when the crew from production company Apocalypse Pictures descended on Copeland and Borrowdale in September 2016.
Residents queued up to be transformed into zombies for the scene, in which eight special forces soldiers arrive in a Scorpion tank and an armoured humvee to be confronted by a gang of the undead.
Chee said: “People in Rugby brought a really great community spirit. People came out on to the streets to get involved, from residents to the police – they’ve been amazing.
“It’s been really welcoming to have the community involved.”
In a review for the Guardian, former Observer film critic Mike McCahill praised the director for bringing “a fanboyish glee to a gory post-apocalyptic rescue tale”.
He even singled out Observer editor Andy Morris’ brief role as an extra, saying: “I particularly enjoyed the zombie postie, found mid-round, rabidly tossing letters into long-abandoned gardens” – described by Chee as a “stand-out moment in the film”.
Geoffrey Macnab in the Independent said the film looked as if it must have been fun to make, adding: “The filmmakers’ enthusiasm levels never flag.”
Even notoriously hard-to-please critic Mark Kermode praised the film on Radio 5 Live’s Kermode and Mayo’s Film Review, saying: “The sheer scale of it is fairly impressive.”
Jennie Kermode of eyeforfilm.co.uk said: “Where it’s good it’s very, very good. The direction and editing are orders of magnitude better than you’d expect for a film of this ilk and deserve serious notice.”
