Chennai, Mar 31 (IANS): With approximately a million hits within three days since the release of the trailer of his film "Go Go Gone", touted to be India's first zombie film, filmmaker Krishna D.K. says zombie culture in India is catching up and these films usually cater to two types of audiences.
"Thanks to English zombie films and television serials, zombie culture is fast evolving in India. I feel these films cater to two segments of the audience - people who know about zombies and those who don't. We made our film on this very simple premise and we are hopeful that it will work in our favour", Krishna told IANS.
"We have made it in such a way that all those who know about zombies can sit back and enjoy it, while for those who have no clue about zombies, we have very quickly elucidated what they are," he added.
Krishna has co-directed the film with Raj Nidimoru, and says they wanted to make a film about an adventure gone wrong in Goa.
"Initially, we wanted to make a film about stoners on an adventure to Goa, before finally stumbling upon the idea to make a zombie picture, which we wanted to be different yet funny. We retained the Goa part and added zombies and few characters to the story," he said.
Was it a deliberate move to make it a comedy film?
"I feel the zombie genre in itself has lot of sarcastic humour. We wanted to capitalize on the humour part and, therefore, built the characters with a fair amount of gore, scare, action and comedy. We did not want to spend too much time explaining the evolution of zombies," he added.
"Since we didn't make a serious film, we always had the liberty to play around and experiment with the subject without having to worry about trivial things," added the filmmaker.
The film features a blonde Saif Ali Khan in the role of Boris the zombie-hunter. He was cast because the script needed a superstar.
"We needed a macho guy to play the role of the zombie-hunter. He should basically be a superstar and convince the audience in the role he was to essay. Saif agreed to do it because the role was funny and nobody had even attempted such a role in the past", he said.
Kunal Khemu, Vir Das, Anand Tiwary and Puja Gupta also feature in prominent roles in the film, which is produced by Saif Ali Khan and Dinesh Vijan.
Krishna says he even though the film is being promoted as India's first zombie flick, there is no evidence to substantiate it.
"We call it the first zombie flick based on statistics known to us. Who knows some filmmaker in some part of India may have already made a B-grade zombie flick and people didn't know it. We are publicising it as the first zombie film because we probably are going to release it first," said Krishna.
"If someone else wants to release a zombie flick before us, then so be it. We know there is already couple of films in this same genre being made," he said.
Shot mostly in Goa and Mauritius, "Go Goa Gone" was completed within 60 days on a modest budget. The crew hired international make-up artists to get the perfect look of the zombies.
With the trailer having already garnered enough attention, Krishna and Raj are gearing up for the promotions of the film, which is coming out May 10.
"I think the trailer has created enough curiosity for the audience about the film. We are planning some impromptu events as part of the promotions and also plan to release few more viral videos to keep the buzz alive until the release", said Krishna.