Ted Campbell, co-director of “Rigamortis: A Zombie Love Story”
LAHorror.com had the pleasure of reviewing “Rigamortis: A Zombie Love Story” and was able to catch up with one of the film’s directors, Ted Campbell, and one of the film’s producers, Matt Olson. They explained to us the challenges behind the production, which was shot in a mere seven days on a grassroots budget with filmmakers from both the West Coast (Campbell) and the Midwest (Collateral Damage Productions) who largely communicated from their respective locations to create the piece.
“I think that’s one of the amazing things about this film that I hadn’t done before. Ted was working with us from LA; he was not at the auditions,” Olson told LAHorror.com. “We cast Max [Glick] without ever meeting him through an online audition test. We were able to send back and forth versions of the script. The project was conceived on the Internet and designed for the Internet. There were points where Jenny [Stolte, producer] and Dave [Dewes, co-director/producer] were in Michigan, I was in Chicago and Ted was in LA.”
And it certainly came out well—let this kind of collaborative effort be an inspiration to young filmmakers. With some excellent talent behind the script and lyrics as well as amazing music and singing, “Rigamortis” easily has all of the pieces to become a popular musical.
“I would say the glue to the whole entire piece is [composer] Greg [Szydlowski],” Campbell said. “And then discovering Lisa was like ‘holy shit’…And Max was someone I knew as an actor [and] I had worked with before. And when we were talking about it I was like, ‘Well, I know the perfect Parker but I don’t know if he can sing’…but he did a quick little camcorder or iPhone video of him singing, like some Britney Spears song or something,” Campbell recalled laughing.
It’s not good to be a zombie in “Rigamortis”
“Rigamortis” certainly holds its own in terms of talent on both sides of the camera—it’s full of it. And while “Rigamortis” is obviously a zombie movie, it doesn’t exploit the gore factor that is so easy to do. Part of the reason for that can be behind some of the inspirations for the film itself.
“I think one of the main motivations for the lack of gore is because a big inspiration for this movie is Joss Whedon, and ‘Doctor Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog’ specifically,” Olson explained. “The TV shows that really kind of inspired this kind of thing—‘Buffy,’ ‘Angel,’aren’t gory. They can get the same effect without the gore. We wanted to make something that everyone can kind of watch and enjoy.”
But that doesn’t mean that true zombie fans won’t appreciate it. In fact, while it may be a love story first, the idea of the zombie was hardly lost by the filmmakers.
“It’s one of the few movies where you root for the zombies,” Olson said. “If you’re actually a zombie fan, you’re kind of hard-pressed to find movies where you root for zombies.”
“It’s a hell of a lot of fun…I think there’s definitely a heart at the center of it. It’s not a parody of zombie movies. It’s not a farce…there’s a level of appreciation for the genre in it,” Campbell added.
“Rigamortis: A Zombie Love Story” will be playing at the San Diego Comic-Con this weekend and that’s only the beginning. “I want to make it a feature,” Campbell said. Let’s hope so – we’d be dying to see it…
For more behind the scenes videos, please visit this films official website. “Rigamortis: A Zombie Love Story” is available for rent and purchase on iTunes. Also be sure to follow @RigamortisMovie.
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