Movies based on video games are usually lackluster at best, but director Zach Lipovsky wants to change that with his upcoming film Dead Rising Watchtower.
This isn't your average zombie movie, as it combines cutting-edge filming techniques with dark humor and countless homages to Dead Rising games to create a unique cinematic experience. We recently had the chance to sit down with Zach and dissect the details of the zombie film, which debuts on the free online streaming service, Crackle, on March 27th.
GameRevolution: Why do gamers want to see Dead Rising: Watchtower?
Zach Lipovsky: It's a really faithful adaptation of the world of Dead Rising that has fun elements to it, but we also go really far with the conspiracy and journalistic side of the world… the main characters are not only trying to escape being eaten while fighting their way out, but they're also trying to find the truth to what's really going on, which is at the heart of the games.
GR: What are some of the challenges you've faced going from a movie like Leprechaun Origins, where you have one deadly antagonist, to Dead Rising Watchtower, where you have thousands?
Zach: The thing that makes Dead Rising so unique is that you have hundreds and hundreds of zombies in the streets. One zombie by itself isn't scary, you have to have a bunch for them to be threatening… It was pretty funny how once I started making the film, everyone I knew wanted to come out and be a zombie. There's something about zombies that everyone loves.
GR: Was it a challenge in making them look unique?
Zach: Something I like so much about the game is how it's got character zombies. You've got cops and firemen and football players, and everything is very specific, unlike The Walking Dead where everything kind of just becomes a grey mob. When people see the zombies they'll see how we really pulled out specific characters and very specific kind of like mini-bosses that are true to the game and makes it have a much cooler and unique palette.
GR: Are you much of a gamer yourself?
Zach: Yes, I've always been more of a desktop computer gamer into RTS-type stuff, but I really got into Dead Rising and played all three games. We even got an Xbox at the production office so the whole crew could play it and write down anything they thought was awesome from the game so we could put it in the film.
GR: What kind of crossovers from the game to the movie can we expect that might not be seen in other zombie movies?
Zach: I was really excited by how unique the Dead Rising world is. Not only do the zombies have muscle memory, so that cops can pull out guns and mothers push strollers, you know, they still have a little bit of who they once were inside of them. But more than that, the idea of Zombrex is the core of the whole film, so the idea that there's a drug you take once a day and it will keep you from turning into a zombie if you've been bitten, but you'll always still have that virus inside of you.
…In the film we explore what that would be like if you have the virus inside of you and you don't get your Zombrex, the next day you could be a monster. How does that make you feel? How do the people around you treat you?
GR: How much of a focus is there on building weapons?
Zach: Well, that obviously has to be in there. It was fun because Capcom was quite involved. I said, “Tell me about every awesome combo weapon you didn't put in the game so I can put them in the movie.” They said, “Coming up with a combo weapon is, like, the hardest thing to do. Every one we came up with, we put in the games, so good luck!”
We were able to put some of the iconic ones into the movie, like the Sledge Saw, and we even made some of our own. In the finale, there's a combo-weapon vs. combo-weapon fight where three people with combo-weapons fight each other.
GR: What is the craziest weapon in the movie?
Zach: My favorite is one I came up with called the Roto-shield, which is basically a garbage can lid that has a drill going through the inside, and on the outside is a lawnmower blade. So you have spinning blades attached to your shield and when you're blocking, you're also cutting zombies up.
GR: Is the movie filled with dark humor?
Zach: Dead Rising has a really fun action adventure, over-the-top world world that's not dark and serious. The film itself has the same feel… in this film people can be like “shit, zombies, quick, grab weapons, let's kill these bastards!”
GR: Are there wacky costumes, like in the games?
Zach: Yeah, we have to find the balance, so some people have crazy costumes when we need them to and other times you have to make it a little bit believable so it works as a film. But there's characters, there's psychopaths, even the main hero starts changing the way he looks as he finds items.
Almost every scene in the whole film has references to the games whether it's the type of food they're eating to regain hit points or even like in DR3 there's a Frank West statue you can find… so we made one and hid it in the background of pretty much every set, so players can go through the film and try to spot it, kind of like a mini-game built into the movie.
GR: Are there other Easter eggs or specific angles that are reminiscent of the games?
Zach: Yes, there's camera angle, props, almost every set you'll notice stuff in the background from every version of the game and zombies wearing the same things they did in the games… I remember DR3 starts with this haunting image of a kid's bicycle with the wheels spinning in the wind on the street. Shots like that I took and put straight into the film.
GR: How much is the main character in the movie, Chase (who's an online journalist), based upon Frank West, the photojournalist from the original Dead Rising?
Zach: Chase is kind of like a Frank West in the digital age…Chase is like a vice reporter, going in like Frank did, behind the quarantine to get the scoop, but he's doing it with his cell phone and trying to put the scoop on Facebook and Twitter and update it.
GR: Would you explain some of the “cutting edge techniques” used in this film?
Zach: We really experimented a lot with using GoPros and other action-type cameras to get unique views like attaching one to a zombie's foot looking up at it as it runs after you or attaching one to a weapon as it jabs into a zombie and cuts them open. We also put a GoPro on the end of a stabilizer, attached that to the end of a 30-foot pole, and then we could whip it around really fast in the middle of a fight scene to give it almost like a bullet-time effect.
GR: What is the significance of the word “Watchtower” in the film's title?
Zach: That is the reveal at the end of the film, so I'm not going to tell you what it is, but the film builds and builds to the answer of that question.
