From green light to release, the average film takes two to three years, but the zombie action feature WAR OF THE DEAD’s production started in way back in 2005. The remarkable adventure that followed would take director Marko Mäkilaakso around the world, through countless stops and stars, three title changes and eventually end as biggest film ever shot in Lithuania. FANGORIA spoke to Makilassko a few months later on the heels of the North American release to talk about the long journey that became a zombie epic.

FANGORIA: Take us back to the beginning of WAR OF THE DEAD, when and how did the film first come about?

MARKO MÄKILAAKSO: WAR OF THE DEAD came to me in 2005 after a friend of mine in Los Angeles asked me to come up with some low budget horror movie ideas. Back then, I had a production company with my partners in Helsinki, Finland and we were producing stuff for TV series, commercials and music videos, but of course my main focus was trying to get a feature project off the ground. So during one of those brainstorm sessions, I came up with a simple storyline following a troop of Finnish and American soldiers in their secret mission to destroy an enemy bunker. The backdrop was the winter war between Finland and Russia in 1939. I liked the simple premise, but wanted a twist to it. After seeing Zack Snyder's DAWN OF THE DEAD remake, I was sold on the idea that zombies would be a great mix to the WWII backdrop. I then came up with the idea of Adolf Hitler's science team trying to create a perfect soldier, which would never die; kind of like a Frankenstein tale.

I felt that the concept had something, and I started playing with some historical facts, like where to set my fictional story. For example, in December 1939 a boat left from New York with volunteers to fight with Finns against the Soviets. So that's how I got the American's logically into the story, but of course I knew that I was not making a historical drama here, but a "popcorn" movie. So I based the story in the context of real events but made it fictional to serve my horror storyline.

FANG: Talk of this film coming out circulated for years under the name STONE'S WAR, with James van der Beek in the lead role?

MÄKILAAKSO: Originally the film was entitled ARMY OF THE DEAD, but then it changed to WAR OF THE DEAD. Back in early 2007 when James Van Der Beek, of DAWSON’S CREEK fame, was casted to play the lead, Captain StonE, one of our producers suggested to change the title to please James' agents and get rid of the "..of the Dead" concept to open up the movie to larger audience. We all supported the idea because for us it was more than "just a zombie movie,” so the name was changed to STONE'S WAR based on the character James was supposed to play. But when our summer production start date started moving forward, James got a TV-pilot offer from director Bryan Singer at the same time, so James had to drop out. James really loved the concept and had great suggestions regarding his character and the script, so I wanted to thank him, thus giving him "special thanks" in the end credits of the film.

FANG: Did losing a name make it more difficult for a while to get distribution in North America?

MÄKILAAKSO: No it did not. Before James, we were talking with lots of different actors for the Captain Stone role like Donnie Walhlberg and Nick Lachey. I originally wanted Christian Slater for the lead, but unfortunately that never came to be. It was suggested by the casting director to cast actor C. Thomas Howell and he was attached at one point when Corin Nemec was attached to play Captain Stone after Van Der Beek dropped out, but due to creative differences with Mr. Nemec, he was replaced by Andrew Tiernan in the nick of time. At that point, the producers didn't want to fly in any other American actor to Lithuania, so Mark Wingett from the UK replaced C. Thomas Howell. This was all during the first week of shooting the film! But let's see how the American audience takes WAR OF THE DEAD, I'm very excited that Entertainment One is our U.S. distributor.

FANG: Tiernan calls to mind old school tough guys like Robert Mitchum and Lee Marvin. Did you discuss that approach with him or was that just the way he saw the part?

MÄKILAAKSO: I always saw the character as an old school all-American hero, a bit like John Wayne. Clint Eastwood's Dirty Harry and Man with no name from Sergio Leone's westerns were inspiration for the character, as well. When Andrew came on board I changed my approach just a bit to match with his physical look and tone. Captain Stone is a normal guy who is drifting through life after the death of his wife. Stone is a simple, blue-collar guy and to the outside world he seems to be cooler than he really is, but when things get dirty he is not afraid of taking charge and fighting. In a way, Stone is looking for death as a getaway from his inner pain. That is why he changes from army grunt to action hero type character in a blink of an eye. Andy did a great job.

FANG: How did you end up filming the movie in Lithuania?

MÄKILAAKSO: Lithuania came because I originally shot "the winter war version“ back in early 2006 with different producers and some different cast members. Olivier Gruner played Captain Stone back then. What happened was that after one week of filming in winter in Lithuania, the producers ran out of money and the production was shut down. That was the most horrible moment in my career. Nothing can be worse than being there and making your movie, your dream and then in one morning the producers came and calmly said to me "we are pulling the plug". Can you imagine?

FANG: It must have been a nightmare.

MÄKILAAKSO: Absolutely horrible, and I was in a middle of massive army scene with all the actors and extras. So we all left Lithuania and returned to Finland. I was in a war of my own with the Finnish producers, but the owners of Lithuanian Film Studios saw the dailies and loved what they saw, and then a funny thing happened, they called me and said that they would like to make the film with me!

After a long, long lawyer battle I got the rights to my script back and Lithuanian Film Studios owner and producer Ramunas Skikas was behind me to make the film happen. So all of a sudden, I had this international power team behind me ready to make my WWII zombie actioner. That was really an amazing moment. So, naturally we shot the movie in Lithuania.     


FANG: This is the most expensive film ever to be shot in Lithuania. Is that a comment on the scale of your film or simply that there isn't many big action films shot in Lithuania?

MÄKILAAKSO: I think there has never been this kind of a film in Lithuania before, and the one million we spent making this film is lot of money in Lithuania, so I guess it comes from that. Also, I think it came because the early magazine and news stories, especially in Finland, was mentioning our budget to be around four-five million, which we didn't even have. 

       


FANG: WAR OF THE DEAD seems to have the feel of World War II film that happens to have zombies in it.

MÄKILAAKSO: From the very beginning, I wanted to take this subject matter very seriously, even though lots of "unreal" things occur, which fight against the real tone and that is also why I chose the "zombies" in this film to not be like typical zombies. I guess this movie is, in a way, an anti-zombie film, since these guys don't just lurk and eat you, they fight back and have superhuman abilities because they were designed to be the perfect weapon. But, when you mess with dark side things attend to go usually wrong. I also wanted to give the film an epic look, inspired by the BAND OF BROTHERS series (which I used in my mood reel before filming) and even Sergio Leone's westerns. This is the reason why the heroes are wearing long jackets, for example. I love westerns and this film was in a way like a western to me.

The tone of the movie was a very tricky thing. I didn’t want to make it campy, but I also didn't want to make it way too serious. I also wanted to have this roller-coaster adventure feel of the INDIANA JONES films and non-stop action films of the 80s with Stallone, Schwarzenegger, Van Damme, Chuck Norris, and Michael Dudikoff. That's why I made this kind of cliché one-liner dialogue, inspired by those types of movies. So, basically I kept the dialogue minimal and maximized the action. Not only was I mixing the war and zombie genres, but I was also playing with dangerous territory in the B-action films tone.

FANG: The audience doesn’t really see many close-ups of the zombies, themselves. There is a lot of shadow play going on, even in the action sequences. Obviously your cinematographer Hannu-Pekka Vitikainen played a major role in this. How did you develop that look with him?

MÄKILAAKSO: From the very beginning, I had a very clear image how the film and zombies should look. The lighting, sets, costumes, camera angles and movements I wanted were written right in the script. My approach always is very visual. So I need the right people to work with to make that world come to life. Hannu-Pekka, the DOP and Art Director Kari Kankaanpää were the perfect match.

Hannu-Pekka and I had done lots of music videos together before we made WAR OF THE DEAD and we knew each other very well. I presented my vision to Hannu-Pekka about how I didn't want to see the zombies and left him to do his magic with the lighting. He knows what I want and I trust him 100% to get it. Art Director Kari Kankaanpää gave so much to the sets, and my vision matched perfectly with his. I didn't want to rely on the makeup FX, since we didn't really have the money or people to do them elaborately. I wanted very simple, more close to vampire-type of look, and I felt it's creepier if they just come at you like raged animals.

FANG: You just finished filming a TV film called DEADLY DESCENT. When should we expect to see it and what else do you have coming up?

MÄKILAAKSO: DEADLY DESCENT, starring Adrian Paul and Chuck Campbell, will come out from Syfy later this year. I'm also not really involved with post-production or anything, so it's not as personal as WAR OF THE DEAD and I was mainly a hired gun. DD gave me an opportunity to travel to Bulgaria to shoot in the beautiful mountains and I loved it. It was perfect to do after such a long and painful work, which WAR OF THE DEAD was. I needed that kind of guerrilla, fast and furious filmmaking. So I'm happy that I made DEADLY DESCENT. I haven't seen the finished film though.

At the moment, I'm working on a new movie which is based on an original story, and I believe it will be something really good; something I hope to be proud of. I'm very excited about it. I'm ready for my next long battle!

For more on WAR OF THE DEAD, see Fango's review. 

---

MOVIES/TV - Fearful Features