THE ZOMBIES COME TO TOWN

-DIRECTOR TRIES TO GET THE MOST GORE FOR HIS BUCK

By Richard O. Jones

Journal News

It's quiet on the set.  Too quiet.

Most of the zombies are off in the main building getting uglied-up or wqaiting around for their turn in front of the camera

Director Jeff Dunn is on the roof of the cook's cottage, giving instructions to the FX manager and the cameraman on the ground for the shot they're setting up.

Because the insurance policy he's taken out on the project doesn't cover actors doing dangerous work, Dunn is going to do the stunt himself, a directorial cameo that Alfred Hitchcock would likely have passed on.

At his call, zombies and technicians wander over to the cook's cottage.  Eight people pick up a blanket, stretching it out over a mattress that lies on the ground.   The firearms manager (an insurance comjpany requirement) loads a shotgun with two blank shells and hands it up to Dunn.

Rolling.

Dunn Crosses the peak on the roof, glances left and right.  The quiet of the morning is penetrated for a moment by two blasts from the shotgun.

The FX manager, standing just outside the frame, tosses a balloon filled with red corn syrup at Dunn.

And misses.

Take two.  Take three.

Finally, on take four, the balloon hits Dunn on the side of the face, exploding in a mass of red ooze. The stuntman/director drops the shotgun and does a slow, backward dive off teh side, out of the frame and barely into the blanket and mattress waiting to break his fall.

"That was like, way too close." he says as he comes back to the camera.

That's a wrap on that shot, and the crew breaks down the gear to set up and interior.

The movie is "Zombie Cult Massacre," not quite the lowest of the low-budget films, but way down there, measured in

Dunn's script, he says, is written for the same people who have made "Night of the Living Dead" and "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" legendary films.

His story concerns a cult leader who has created an army of zombies to scare people into joining hem by threatening the end of the world.

The cult members have tried to get a biker named Roach,  played by Hamilton actor and maverick filmmaker Lonzo Jones, into the fold, but have only succeeded in making him mad and bringing the wrath of bikerdom down upon them.

When they arrive at the compound, however, they tear down the fence that kept the zxombies out.

The shooting of the final, climactic scene, featuring an army of bikers and an army of zombies in addition to the cult army, is being shot at the abandoned Girl Scout camp near Ross.

"The climactic scene will take the longest amount of time to shoot, because there are so many quick cuts." the director says.

The roof scene took an hour to set up and shoot.  Although it will last only a second or two on the screen, it takes the same amount of setup time as a five-minute dialogue sequence.

The bikers arrive early in the afternoon, armed and dangerous, to shoot the place up, burn the place down.  The pastoral quiet of the day, with zombies treading lightly on the earth, is but a memory as the thunder of a hundred motorcycles rumbles in the air.

No, this is not Shakespeare

-although there are some overtones of social and political statements.  The main thing, however, is to get it as gory and cheeky as they can, keeping the fans of the genre in mind.

"I just put things in there I thought they would groove on." Dunn says.

When filming is done and edited, Dunn plans to shop it around at horror-film festivals to find a distributor to market it to theatres and home-video markets.