Blood, Sand, Screams and classic horror, you know when the British Phoenix team have been around! The third feature film from indie director Stuart Brennan has just wrapped filming in North Devon, UK and has left a trail of excited anticipation in it’s wake! From the Producers of ‘The Lost’ – the last film to feature horror legend Peter Cushing, their next feature is expected to be even bigger.

The premise follows a young man, who in the midst of his failing ebay business and the height of the foot and mouth epidemic, wakes up for breakfast, to find his parents have been turned in to zombies! A trail of destruction follows as he wreaks a path of zombie carnage to escape the horrors before him. From the beaches to the fields, the streams to the sea, zombie blood will be spilt….

Incredibly the feature was shot in just 6 days using full HD equipment supplied by Maniac Films, and was sponsored by Salt Rock Surf Wear, Otter Brewery, Terra Madra and Broomhill Arts Hotel. Producer Yuen-Wai Liu explains; “Stuart had been asking me to find him something interesting to direct, and with his hectic producing and acting schedules, we only had a short time to be able to fit in the actual shoot, so I managed to work with Leo McKellan (scriptwriter of the forthcoming boxing epic ‘Risen’ starring Joe Calzaghe) to write something based around Stuart’s hometown, that we could shoot quickly and easily, within a genre that had proven appeal.” And the team did just that, the film is set in Barnstaple and travels all around it’s surrounding areas.

Yuen-Wai Liu continues; “we then approached a number of local companies to ask if they wanted to get involved, and the response was overwhelming, we’re very happy with the support from the local community and would love to shoot down here again. Devon has such a great variety of locations, it’s a real gem for filming.”

A facebook site has been set up already, and a few pictures from behind the scenes at the shoot have been released there. Check it out here

Yuen-Wai Liu also discussed the casting process; “We advertised for local actors, but again the response was overwhelming, we had actors as far abroad as Canada offering to come and work on the film! In the end the majority of key roles came from London, but others came from Coventry and one of our make up girls even came from Yorkshire!” Local talent did get their chance to shine though; “We cast one lead from Sticklepath, in a role we had over 200 applications for, India Cook, a local student from North Devon College got the role after a private audition. We also had around thirty students from NDC appear in the film as well, some with speaking and featured roles, others as zombies!”

North Devon College were contacted by the director as he’s a former pupil and thought it would be fun to get involved. Steve Harrison saw the opportunity for some invaluable experience for his students and arranged an open audition and workshop with the director. The students have remarked how much they enjoyed it and the turn out, despite the rain and wind the night before, is further evidence of that.

The film is guarenteed a US dvd release next year, but there are hopes that it could go on to bigger things. Already there are a number of well known companies snooping around, including Lionsgate and Pathe.

Director/Producer Stuart Brennan explains why he decided to do a zombie film, after recently producing ‘The Feral Generation’ and the award winning ‘The Lost’. “The one thing that strikes me about horror films is that they are fun to make, there’s always people having a good time on set and people are very passionate about making the film look as realistic as possible, so although horror isn’t what I veer towards as an audience member, as a film-maker it’s something that inspires me.” He goes on: “in the last few years there have been some excellent zombie films and I always like the idea of a zombie apocalypse, but you always see it in built up areas and you seem to always get a scope of the bigger picture, but I’ve always felt, that’s not what you’d feel, that’s not what you’d see, you’d just be incredibly scared and freaked out that there were zombies everywhere, and you’d try and escape it. So this film is more a character piece, with an incredible central performance from Joe Bone, where we follow one man caught up in a nightmare of a world.”

The film is currently in post-production at a HD editing facility in the UK, and will have a full Dolby mix and HD grade in early March, before being finished in time for Cannes.