THE DEAD HATE THE LIVING: Low-Budget Zombies

Director Dave Parker lifts his film above the usual DTV heap.

By John Thonen     February 15, 2000

Even at a quick glance, the VHS box for Full Moon Video's latest release--the evocatively titled THE DEAD HATE THE LIVING--makes it obvious that this is different from that company's standard fare. The usual photo-realistic artwork, which has graced the covers of nearly all the releases of Charlie Band's low rent video empire, is gone. Instead, the potential renter faces a hideous countenance, staring out at as if evaluating the viewer as a potential meal. Scattered around the box is another Full Moon rarity, quotes of praise from luminaries like makeup wiz Tom (DAWN OF THE DEAD) Savini and horror journalist Chas. ('Deep Red') Balun.

Dave Parker, director, of THE DEAD HATE THE LIVING, is quick to point out that the video box intimations that his film stands out from the Full Moon pack is more than just a marketing department illusion. 'I wanted to do things that would make it feel different from other Full Moon films. To come on with some gusto and give people the feeling that Full Moon can still deliver.'

Dave Parker's debut film claims another distinction in the Full Moon pantheon. Despite the fact that the parent production entity has produced over 100 fantastic genre films in its 10-year history, this is the company's first zombie movie. Once again, tyro director Parker decided to do something different, something to differentiate his zombies from the popular archetype established by George Romero's seminal NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD. 'Part of it was a money thing,' Parker recalls. 'I knew our makeup staff could never handle those Romero-style hordes of the living dead on our budget. I also knew that I couldn't have flesh eaters and still get an R-rating, which I was obligated to deliver. So I took some inspiration from the video game 'Resident Evil,' which had character zombies. I decided that I wanted to do that--to give each of them an identity. We couldn't afford a lot of zombies, but each of ours is unique--has its own quality. They're not just the shuffling dead. '

Of course, before Parker ever got the chance to create his 'unique' vision of the living dead, he had to first get the chance to direct a film, a goal he'd been pursuing for nearly a decade. 'I came out here [California] in '91 and was thinking of getting involved with either Roger Corman's company [New Horizons] or Full Moon. Corman was out in Venice, and I was living in Hollywood with no car and pretty much no money, so Full Moon, which was pretty nearby, was the obvious choice. Also, at that time, Charlie [Band, Full Moon's head honcho] was producing movies for Paramount video, and they had better production value and quality than what Corman was doing.'

Parker made himself useful in just about any capacity at Full Moon, eventually ending up in charge of the company's popular Videozonesbehind-the-scenes shorts that follow the main feature on every video release. He also made friends with many Full Moon regulars, including veteran B-movie maker David DeCoteau, who would help the eager young filmmaker finally get his dream break. 'Charlie had this script called 'THE DEAD HATE THE LIVING' that Benjamin Carr had written, and I just loved that title,' Dave recalls. 'I mentioned it one day to DeCoteau while I was whining about how I was just never going to get my break, and he went to Charlie and told him, 'It's time you give Dave a shot. If anyone around here should be doing a zombie movie, it's Dave.' Surprisingly, Charlie said OK.'

Of course, while Parker loved Carr's title, he wasn't so enraptured with the script itself. 'It was a very generic zombie movie, and I knew I wanted to do something different. It had also been written for Romanian locations [a cost effective locale where Band shoots many of his films], and I was going to film in Los Angeles.' Parker quickly convinced Band to let him jettison nearly everything in the script, except the title page. 'There were a few elements that Charlie wanted salvaged,' the director says, 'but the rest of it is mine.'

Faced with the challenge of making his first film on a limited budget, Parker decided to set the film in a locale he knew very well: low-budget horror filmmaking. 'Anyone who has ever worked on these kind of films knows that it's kind of a surreal experience in the first place,' Parker laughs. 'So I decided to take this bizarre situation of people making a horror movie who stumble on a real corpse. I made the director kind of a William Castle type, someone who would look on the body as production value and as an exploitable hook that would make the film forever infamous.'

Casting proved one of smoothest parts of the pre-production process. Having earlier made a long-form horror styled video for the rock band Penis Flytrap, Parker created his two main characters with actors from the video, Jamie Donahue and Eric Clawson, in mind. For the pivotal role of mad scientist Eibon, Parker initially wanted to land a 'name' performer. 'I was looking for someone who was more of a presence, as opposed to a great actor, so we sent the script out to Alice Cooper, Dee Snider, and Rob Zombie. That didn't work out, so I thought of Tom Savini. He's a pretty good actor, and I thought fans would get a kick out of the man who created the zombies for DAWN OF THE DEAD, playing the character that creates the zombies in my movie.' Ultimately, the role when to Matt Stephens, a relative unknown who had impressed the director when he read for the part of the film within a film's director.

Last, but far from least, came the casting of one of the film's main 'character zombies,' Gaunt. 'The first time I saw Matt McCrory was in his head shot, which showed him standing next to a phone booth, and he's taller than the phone booth. I knew then that I just had to meet this guy.' At seven and a half feet tall, McCrory, who holds the Guinness Book of World Records title for world's largest feet--size 19 1/2--proved a most effective addition to the cast, says the director. 'When you first see him come out of that door into the hallway, and you see him in that long shot, it always gets a reaction. I've actually had people say to me, 'Oh, that's an effect, some kind of animatronic thing.' I have to tell them, 'Uh-Uh, that guy is real. He's the best special effect in the world.'

Parker tried to stress the qualities that would lift his film from its low-budget brethren in every aspect of the production, telling that, 'Since nearly all of the actors end up in effects type makeup, they had to be cast early enough to fit them for makeup appliances. That gave me the chance to get to know them and to rehearse them quite a bit, instead of it all having to happen within the 10 days of actual production. That's rare luxury on Full Moon productions.'

Parker also asked director of photography Tom Calloway to give the film a visual look that would make it distinctive from Full Moon and other horror films. Likewise, Tom Suprenant's makeup team worked to design makeups that looked different from the usual pasty-faced screen zombie. 'No one had done a zombie film in some time, so they were all excited to be involved with it. I think it was a little overwhelming for Tom at times. He's been working on major films, and he'd kind of forgotten what it's like on a low-budget movie. I'm not sure he ever got used to how fast things had to happen for us to get the job done.'

Some of Parker's strongest praise goes to his composer, Jared DePasquale, who also went beyond the norm in creating the film's score. 'There's very little synthesizer, which is what most low-budget films rely on for their scores,' says the director. 'Most of the instruments you hear are real woodwinds or strings. There's even a full choir, which gave it a European horror film feel that I really appreciated.'

Parker also peppered the film with in-jokes and homages to some of his favorite horror filmmakers, particularly the late Italian gore-meister Lucio Fulci, whose film THE BEYOND obviously inspired the final scene of Parker's film. Parker even adapted his story to address the fact that his cast and much of audience wouldn't catch the in-jokes. 'That's why I created the character of Eric, the actor in the movie within the movie. He doesn't get the horror film references either, so he's someone for the audience to identify with if they don't get them, and someone for them to laugh at if they do.'

With the film now completed and out on video store shelves, Parker can at last reflect back on the experience of his baptism of fire in the pressure cooker of Full Moon, low-budget film production. 'I learned a lot, and I think what it was all about was raising the bar, raising the level of what a Full Moon movie can be. There's a lot of lack of respect for low-budget films today--even from the people who make them. You get these people who see it only as paying their dues until they can land a big-budget movie. So why should they care about this little thing. Well, I want to make a bigger budget movie too, but I don't think that's an excuse for not doing the best job you can, making the best movie you can, within the limitations of the production. Sometimes, I was too ambitious, and it would come back to bite me on the ass. I know it's not 100% successful, but I think it does capture a lot of that '80s feel--when people were making horror movies that were just meant to be fun. It's really meant to be a kind of party movie. And I hope people do have fun with it.'