Cockneys vs. Zombies
Matthias Hoene is bring zombies to the East End this week as he makes his feature film directorial debut with Cockneys vs Zombies.
I caught up with him to chat about the movie, taking on the directing responsibilities and what lies ahead.
- Cockneys vs. Zombies is about to be released into cinemas so can you tell me a little bit about the movie?
It’s about a gang of teenagers who decide to save their grandparent’s pension home - which is due to be torn down to make way for a new housing development.
As they do so a construction site unearths a black plague tomb and that unleashes a zombie virus on East London. Our bank robbers not only find themselves surrounded by police but they are facing a zombie invasion as well.
Even though the zombies are slow they realise that their grandparents are even slower with their Zimmer frames and wheelchairs so they have to go and rescue their grandparents and get out of East London.
- You are in the director’s chair for the film so where did this project start for you?
Well I came up with the idea and then I brought on James Moran to develop the script for me. I came up with the idea when I was working with a couple of cockney actors on a short project.
We had some vampires in that movie and it was so funny seeing cockneys, who really don’t ever let down their guard or anything faze them, come up against a supernatural enemy.
They wouldn’t blink and eye and go ‘oh my god it’s a zombie’ they would just go ‘ok, whatever now get out of my way’ - it is a really fresh attitude for a horror film protagonist.
So that is where the idea came from and I just thought ‘we have got to do something with cockneys and zombies’ and the title came from there. We developed the script trying to deliver on the concept of fun and rich characters caught up in an East End zombie outbreak.
I have lived in the East End of London for fifteen years so I wanted to make it about this area changing and how the old traditions are being lost in this redevelopment - that is all being symbolised by the zombie invasion.
- Quite often the East End of London is depicted as gritty and dark place and you have turned this idea completely on its head so why did you decide to move away from this? How did you go about painting the East End in a different light?
I wanted it to be a place worth fighting for as I felt that all of the protagonists in the film wanted to stay in the East End and they wanted to protect East London culture.
It is my homage and my love declaration to the East End and I was very keen to paint a picture that it was a place worth fighting for - even in the case of a zombie invasion.
So I love the place and I just wanted it to be a really warm and lovely feeling film with guns and swearing and zombies.
- As you say you brought James Moran onto the project to develop the script so what was it about him that you though would be perfect for that job? And how did you find working with him?
James is fantastic because he is one of the very few comedy/horror writers - which is a very difficult genre to get right. He is a big fan and he gets the silliness of it and how to have fun with it.
But also what he is great at is writing rich and really likeable characters and that was something that I was really keen on; he has done that in Severance and his work for television.
- The movie marks your feature length directorial debut so how did you find the whole experience?
Making a film is great fun. As a director you go through so many stages of developing a script and then going through the whole financing process and then there is casting and the shoot before going into post production and music - you change gears every time.
Of course the shoot is the high adrenaline of it and it is amazing when you see all of the great actors and I was so fortunate to have such a lovely cast together.
When you see them bring the script to life and then all of the hundreds of people around it that are needed to make a movie on this scale it was great. It was a lot of fun.
But really the pay off is when you show the film to an audience and you see everyone reacting and laughing and giggling and that is what making movies is all about; when you see the fans enjoying your film that is what it is all about.
- Harry Treadaway and Alan Ford are just two of the names that are on the cast list so can you tell me a bit about the casting process?
What I was keen on… I wrote the script with the role of Ray Macguire with Alan in mind and this was the only character where I showed James some of his old work and said ‘I have got to him as the main pensioner because he is so cockney’.
I wanted to put a cast together that was really interesting and intriguing and not expected I wanted people to read the cast and go ‘they are all really good actors that we haven’t seen in this type of film before’.
I felt that Alan would hold it all together with his rather stern cockney manner but at the same time he has a heart of gold and is just the nicest person as well. I felt that that was the key to it.
Then when legends like Honor Blackman, Richard Briers, Tony Selby and Dudley Sutton all came on board that was amazing - they would say to me ‘Matthias we haven’t worked together since 1972’ and I was like ‘oh my god I wasn’t even born then’.
Then the younger cast were great as well with Harry Treadaway and Rasmus Hardier - Harry is an amazing method actor but he is a lot more liked than you would normally see and Rasmus is a great comedy actor but he also has a lot of physical presence in this film.
Michelle Ryan is of course amazing. Then we also had Jack Doolan, Georgia King, Tony Gardener and Ashley Thomas as well.
So I just tried to get a round and interesting cast of character actors and comedy actors and people that you haven’t seen for a while.
- There have been some great movies in this genre over the years did you pull on any in particular as inspiration for this movie?
My biggest influence was Peter Jackson’s Braindead, I use to watch it on VHS when it was passed around in school and we couldn’t let our parents know that we had it.
To me that is the original zombie comedy - of course I love all of the other entries into the genre as they are all great. I felt that tonally it was different to all of those because in a way it is a zomedy but it is more like a cockney adventure with zombies - so it is a zomventure I would call it.
I felt that tonally it is different enough and you get to see so many things that you have not seen in a zombie film before. I was working hard to make it an entry into the zombie genre that was worth its keep.
- The movie was shot in London so how did you find that and what challenges did you face while you were on location?
Shooting in London was great - a lot of it was shot in East London. We were very lucky last April when we were shooting it was almost non-stop sun and that made shooting easier - if we had shot this April it would have been a lot more miserable - that would have been fine it would have been a rainy zombie movie.
I love shooting in London and it is great when so many films have to go to other places for funding reasons. It was great that we got the opportunity to shoot this movie in London because it would have been weird if we hadn’t.
- The film is being screen at FrightFest so how excited were you to get the movie into such a high profile horror film festival?
I am very excited about the world premiere at Fright Fest because it was exactly the kind of audience that I made the film for.
I think that it will be the best screening for it as it sold out - last year we showed five minute of it and it was so amazing to see the crowd’s reaction - so I am really looking forward to watching this film with everyone as it will be great.
- You kicked of your career in commercials so how have you found the transition into feature film?
Commercials are a great film school. I wanted to make the transition into feature films with a project that I had developed - so not a director for hire but something that is my passion project.
So that is why I took the time to develop Cockneys vs. Zombies and I have found it a great and fun transition.
In commercials you are very much bound by the clients where as in features you do what you would love to do see and that is what I did with Cockneys vs. Zombies.
- Finally what is next for you?
Well I have got a couple of projects in development - I am developing a fantasy project set in England and I am also developing a science fiction project in LA.
Cockney vs. Zombies is released 31st August
FemaleFirst Helen Earnshaw