Physics Students Make Zombie Movie Decay Deep Within the Bowels of CERN
If you ever thought CERN would be a fun place to work you’d only be half right: The scientists who work there might be awesome, but the nuclear research center makes the perfect setting for a zombie apocalypse.
Forthcoming feature film Decay is set entirely at the Large Hadron Collider, with the massive lab serving as backdrop for a dire scenario in which zombies have been created by exposure to the recently discovered Higgs boson (so much for that whole “God Particle” thing). The concept evolved in 2010 after writer/director Luke Thompson, a Ph.D. physics student at the University of Manchester, was exploring the maintenance tunnels of the European Organization for Nuclear Research along with fellow student Hugo Day.
“The dark, creepy atmosphere got us thinking it would be a great location for a horror film,” Thompson said in an e-mail to Wired.
As with George A. Romero’s 1968 zombie classic Night of the Living Dead, which was filmed mostly in rural Pennsylvania and used inexpensive props to keep production costs low, Decay’s ghoulish tale came to life thanks to the DIY spirit of indie filmmakers determined to make a movie on the cheap.
Clara Nellist, another Ph.D. student at Manchester, had also envisioned CERN as a great location for a zombie film. But there was a problem: Nellist, who would become the movie’s assistant director and associate producer, and Thompson had never made films before. Neither had future “fight choreographer” and props guy Day.
Undaunted by their lack of experience, they borrowed digital SLR cameras, recruited 17 other people for their project, made a bunch of fake blood, dumpster-dived for props and invested about $3,225 of their own money in Decay. The movie, which took two years to complete, is slated to be released before the end of November as a free download.
In addition to the awesomeness that is physics students at CERN making a zombie movie and giving it away, the film might also prove educational.
“I don’t want to spoil the film, ...
UPDATE: Movie is online! (Soon downloadable in a pc near you: “Decay” (Zombies from CERN)) |
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