IF you see hordes of shambling blood-splattered hordes near train stations in the next few weeks there may be no need to call police or protective services officers for help.
The mob may be dressed and made up as zombies as part of an independent short movie project called Benedict being filmed in Melbourne and its suburbs.
It’s a ghoulish sight familiar to fans of TV show The Walking Dead but is slightly less common along the Frankston line.
Zombies shuffled along to Mordialloc on a Sunday morning last month (18 September) to film some scenes under the railway bridge next to Mordialloc Creek.
Bonbeach actor Rick Vaveliuk, 38, was one of the few, in his role as the titular Benedict, not infected by a zombie plague so still had the brainssss to tell The News about filming at Mordialloc for the spin-off prequel from another independent film due for release next year called The Last Hope.
“The scene was set in Europe where the outbreak begins so it’s six months before the events in The Last Hope,” he said.
“It was an escape scene at the train station so that’s why we used the tunnel and that part of Mordialloc because it fit the setting perfectly.”
He said there were about 30 people on the makeshift set, “mostly zombies and a few civilians”.
Approval for the early morning shoot was approved by Kingston Council, police, emergency services and Metro Trains.
“Everyone was very helpful,” Vaveliuk said.
The actor says he also shot scenes in Mentone, Brunswick and Doveton and “I’m spitting out all these little short movies for practice”.
A shorter version of Benedict is online on YouTube now and the scene filmed at Mordialloc will be added to “an extended director’s cut”.
Benedict’s big brother film feature The Last Hope, written and directed by St Kilda resident Leigh Ormsby, is a zombie tale with a modern Australian twist.
The film’s synopsis reveals: “The world has been devastated by the virus that has reanimated the dead to consume the living. Australia has so far remained unscathed through a brutal border protection policy and internment facilities.”
As is the custom in such films, all hell breaks loose, this time due to the arrival of “a mysterious girl” and an uprising at a detention centre.
“Will Australia, the last hope for many, finally fall?” the synopsis asks.
The short film was partly financed by its makers via Pozible crowdfunding campaigns.
Its modest budget aims to take some sharp shots at Australia’s and is billed as “a metaphor for everyone who sees Australia for what it is.”
“For Australians, our country is a beacon of hope for many due to our high living standards, the fact we are so connected to the world, yet so isolated.
“For anyone who lives here, there is hope that you can become someone. For people wishing to live here, Australia is a land of hope and freedom. But what happens when that hope is stripped away for both those wanting to come here and for those that already living here?
“Also, zombies are cool and who doesn’t love a good zombie film?!”
Benedict and The Last Hope will both be released like a zombie virus next year and its makers hope they spread quickly online.
See @filmthelasthope page on Facebook for further information.
First published in the Chelsea Mordialloc Mentone News – 5 October 2016
