The first modern zombie film shot entirely in Africa, 2010’s The Dead (DVD
Earlier today, Disc Dish spoke with the filmmakers about shooting their film on locations across Burkina Faso and Ghana in West Africa. As the two explain on the discs’ fine commentary track, it was a dangerous if heady experience that found them having to deal with knifepoint muggings, corrupt politics, import/export nightmares, dysentery, food poisoning and leading man Rob Freeman contracting cerebral malaria.
Disc Dish: Your excellent commentary on the disc for The Dead details the hell that was the film’s shoot in West Africa. Okay, so were there any fun parts?
Jon Ford: When we wrapped, that was the most fun!
DD: That bad, huh?
Jon Ford: Oh yes, like we said. But here’s something, at least for me: The zombie in the opening scene—the one with the wonky leg–we found him carrying bags for a local guest house, which he did for something like a dollar a day. Obviously, it’s the worst job for a guy with a bad leg to have. We wanted him to be in the film and we needed him to shoot on a Saturday, but he was really nervous because he had a job and he needed the money. We offered him $50 and he was the happiest guy you’d ever seen! He loved making the movie and everything he did with us. It was like he was on vacation.
Howard J. Ford: For me, it was while we were shooting in the desert, being out there under the sky. We slept in a wicker tent—no walls or anything on those things. The bed is like a hammock, so you’re suspended above the ground and a whole world of little creatures crawl beneath you. And no toilet or anything—you would dig a hole and just take care of business. But looking up at the sky and at night, there are those stars—stars like you’ve never seen. Unbelievable.
DD: It sounds like the extremes of shooting a zombie movie in West Africa yielded a kind of spirituality.
Jon Ford: It did, it actually did, in a way. I think that when you’re placed in a very stressful situation, you revert to a very primitive part of the brain. You put on fronts when you meet other people, but out there, the real you comes out. We went to a dark place, a very dark and bizarre place, and then we came back again, into the light. Maybe the spirituality came after we wrapped, like I said before.
The zombies are loose in West Africa in The Dead.
Howard J. Ford: We went into villages and provided work for the people there. We gave them money and supplies and work. We weren’t there trying to save the world or anything—we were making a movie. But it’s an amazing feeling giving food and money directly to starving people.
DD: The Dead has long been on your agenda for more than a decade, even prior to your first feature film, the 2000 chiller Distant Shadow. And after that film, you embarked on a decade of shooting and directing commercials.
Jon Ford: The Dead was the very reason I wanted to become a filmmaker. It was the movie I wanted to make—it was my goal to make the best possible film, not just the best zombie film. That’s why it broke my heart so much that we had to chop out pages and adapt to our shooting situation when we finally made it. It became a shadow of what it could have been.
DD: Have you considered remaking it on a larger scale? Or maybe a sequel?
Howard Ford: We’ve talked about going back to try it again. We talked about that even while we were making it! On one hand, if enough people see the film and buy the film and the right kind of money is generated, it would create the need for us to go back and do it again. We’ve already got a load of scenes and a structure worked out for a second part. But we also think there was genuinely a curse on The Dead. Too many bad things happened. We might not come out alive this time.
Jon Ford: Shooting The Dead was the most miserable experience of my life.
DD: Yeah, I believe you!
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