Review by Keri O’Shea
‘Suddenly, it was obvious we had lost our way and been unwillingly lured into a world where our artistic talents had been bought out by corporations wanting to sell stuff, and we were going to get old and die miserably, having never made that film that had sparked our youthful passion in the first place.’
What’s it like – really like – making an independent horror movie? For most of us here, either reading or writing at Brutal as Hell, we simply deal with the end product. If we watch the extras on a disc or attend Q&As, sure, we might glean more about what goes on before that screener lands on our doormat, but for the most part, we can only ever know a little about what goes on beforehand. Even so, in watching a movie like Jon and Howard J. Ford’s The Dead, even the layperson might imagine that there is more than one tale to tell about how and why one would come to shoot a zombie film in a remote, lesser-known African country like Burkina Faso. If we generally know very little about the actual process of filmmaking, then I’d bet good money that we know even less about Burkina Faso – despite it being a country of approximately fifteen million souls.
Well, you’d be right that there’s a significant story (or twenty) behind this film, and I am pleased that one of the directors made good on his promise to a member of his African team that he was going to write down the story of making The Dead. And I’ll say this as well, before I go any further; if your respect for the people behind this film doesn’t quadruple after reading Surviving the Dead, then I simply do not understand you.
The quote I’ve included above is key to understanding why this project happened: see, the Ford brothers always dreamed of making movies. A financially-rewarding (but otherwise unrewarding) career in advertising sprang up instead of a career in filmmaking, and both men reached a point in their lives where they just thought, it’s now or never: Nigerian nappy adverts, or fuck it, let’s make that zombie film we always wanted to make. So it’s goodbye life savings, hello absolutely everything irritating, frightening or life threatening which you could imagine, short of an actual zombie outbreak. I think everyone should pick this up, so I’ll avoid too many details, save to say that in the story of this shoot you can expect to read about violent mugging, bribery, freak weather conditions, serious accidents, roadblocks, AK47s, life-threatening illnesses, borderline mental illness, extreme privation and corruption on a shocking scale. Oh, and death. Did I miss anything out?
The first thing which comes across from Howard J. Ford’s writing is his earnestness; his belief in the project and the decision to take a big risk is quite something to read. Of course, nothing after this point was remotely easy for anyone involved, but however low the directors and their team got, the descriptions of what was happening to them often resonate with affability and, if I may say so, a very British sort of self-deprecation. When Ford says of the relentless bribes they had to pay to get anything done, ‘I literally had a bad shoulder from handing over cash’, you feel his exasperation but there’s definitely some gallows humour in there too. Lots of the anecdotal material has that quality.
Ford provides a lot of detail here, but his style is conversational, and this means the book proceeds at a good pace. At 109 pages, it’s not a massive tome anyway, but I never felt that the book was too tangential. As well as describing those three months of the shoot, there are box-outs included in the text: these are Ford’s takes on various features of the filmmaking process, such as investment (apparently dentists are big on movie investment, so if you’ve paid for an amalgam then you may have inadvertently bought an extra a coffee on a film shoot), celluloid vs. digital format, selling the end product, and so on – which offer a welcome overview, without being so long that you lose the thread of the main story. I certainly didn’t feel alienated by mentions of these technical aspects. The behind-the-scenes colour pictures add depth, too, making it possible to put a face to those names which keep on cropping up.
This is a very emotion-laden book and by its nature, a very personal book: extreme conditions breed extreme responses, so expect a great deal of excitement crashing into disappointment, fraying tempers, rage, guilt, and perhaps most of all – frustration. Frustration haunts this shoot like a stealth hangover, and you will come to understand that – even though Ford quickly gets back to his pragmatic voice, the bitterness they all felt at the way a lot of things turned out is really palpable. As striking as the end product turned out to be – and remember that I liked The Dead a great deal – hearing about all the things they wanted to do with the movie and couldn’t, for so many reasons, is harsh. That said, as a fan and critic (well, at least of sorts) it was a little galling to be called out on the way we criticise films when we don’t know exactly what happened during the making of them – as irritating as this must surely be for filmmakers, we fans can only comment on the film we get to see. I appreciate that reading reviews which slate, for instance, a certain sequence you desperately wanted to do differently must be a nightmare. I do get that, or at least I get that a lot more now, thanks to this book. But in our defence, we fans can’t react to anything else. Well, if I now appreciate the difficulties of filmmaking more than I did before reading this book, then I’d say that’s no bad thing. (The book also puts to bed once and for all any of those pathetic racism accusations, but I don’t want to dignify those with any more time and effort than I have already. Read the book, and understand.)
To sum up, I think this little book is more important than it knows it is, if that makes sense. The Dead is a unique film, and its unique circumstances have helped to create something which must be of interest to fans of indie horror. It’s rough and ready in some respects – it needs a damn good proofread (which I’ll do for you, if you’re reading, Howard Ford) but it’s from the heart, and an engaging, often shocking read. Making a horror film where there was none before led to a film shoot like none before and a glimpse at a part of the world unknown to many of us. The chance to learn more about that filmmaking process provides a new perspective on just why people have this insane drive to make independent films…
…And, as a fan, I’m suddenly a lot more grateful to these ‘other people’ who do just that.
Surviving The Dead is available now at the official website, and will be more widely available later this month.