The Idea

I've had an idea floating around in my head for about a year - a day in the life of a survivor of an apocalyptic event.

I thought it would be interesting to explore what life would be like if you were the last person alive. What would you do to keep yourself occupied? How would you acquire the supplies needed to survive? How would it affect your state of mind to be alone for so long?

I've married this idea with my love of Zombie movies and have decided to produce a short that follows the last man alive on his daily routine. It's tentatively titled 'Last Dawn'.

This isn't a very original idea, but I'm determined to find a way to create something that an audience won't dismiss as old hat. It also fits nicely with my transformative moment theme. My central character will have experienced a change of unimaginable proportions to reach the point he is at when we take up his story.

I have a great appreciation of the Zombie sub-genre, mainly due to the work of George A. Romero. Considered by most to be the godfather of the genre, Romero made pictures which are still considered definitive examples of the Zombie movie.

My love of Romero's work has provided me with another reason to tackle the subject of the 'Living Dead'. I suffer frustration when I watch a lot of modern Zombie flicks because of the way the genre has evolved. While there isn't a Zombie picture made after 1969 that can claim it's not influenced by Romero's work, most modern examples have discarded the essential themes that he introduced. Those themes include the precariousness of civilisation, human reversion to animal instinct, distrust of authority, consumerism as slavery and the breakdown in human communication.

These themes have often been discarded in favour of a more disposable and digestable form of the genre. Zombies are no longer the vehicle by which these themes are disseminated and have themselves become the Raison D'Etre of the pictures. Zombies for Zombies sake, if you will.

The monster is now a pop-culture icon. They're the star and the humans have become entirely expendable as film-makers seek to titillate the audience with violence rather than ask them to think about the nature of our collective existence. Romero never intended us to root for the Zombies. In fact,  they were just a McGuffin he used to get his point across. The Zombies could have been replaced with any multitude of nefarious creatures or cataclysmic events and the effect would have been the same.

So, I'm going to try and bring the Zombie film back to it's roots. In my movie, the nature of humanity will be the main theme and the star will be a human being behaving as a human being would in a horrific situation. The Zombies will only exist to facilitate the sharing of my ideas.

If fact, it's likely that I'll make a Zombie movie without any Zombies.