Arts & Entertainment
Video: Zombies Spotted in Eastern Connecticut! Captured (Auditioning) on Film!
Tryouts for roles in a zombie movie result in gruesome makeup and scenes of monstrous behavior for a movie to be filmed in Norwich and Mystic.
Zombies took over a recent casting call in Manchester, CT—looking horrid with their open wounds and not terribly sociable behavior, their ungraceful gaits and rude stares. Some appeared to be in training for gnawing on human flesh.
All of this inappropriate behavior was done for the sake of cinematic art, of course, as Connecticut and Rhode Island residents tried out Saturday for roles in a horror film.
Nothing could prepare people auditioning for "Remains," a zombie movie scheduled to be filmed this summer in Mystic and Norwich, for the part, mostly because the movie's crew is casting for a zombie they haven't yet created.
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"Today they're mostly doing classic zombie looks," said Ben Chester, the movie's make-up and special effects artist. "I'm hoping it's going to be a totally different look."
The post-apocalyptic zombies in the movie will be victims of a nuclear power plant explosion and some will be listless from the effects of the radiation while others will be energized. The living dead will have a deformed appearance and melted skin, which Chester said he hasn't seen in other movies.
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"I'll just start sculpting and let the clay tell me what to do," he said. "I'm a slave to the medium."
Though the movie is set in Reno, NV, the filming will be take place in Connecticut. The auditions were held at Manchester Community College, but beginning in June, the indoor scenes will be filmed at the Ramada Inn on Route 27 in Mystic and the outdoor scenes will be filmed in Norwich.
Producer Andrew Gernhard promises the film will have many twists, for both the living and the living dead.
The movie is being produced by Synthetic Cinema International, a Rocky Hill-based production company with other credits like, "Banshee!!!" and "Assault of the Sasquatch." "Remains" is a movie adaptation of a graphic novel by author Steven Niles and illustrator Kieron Dwyer and will be shown on NBCUniversal's Chillers channel after the DVD is issued late this year.
Editor's note: This article previously appeared on Stonington-Mystic Patch.