When the Zombie Apocalypse Arrives, Saskatchewan is the Place to Be, Says Filmmaker

"Lost in a world reclaimed by nature and overrun by mysterious creatures, a young man with amnesia teams up with an eccentric survivalist to find his missing girlfriend." – Die Alone marketing.

If you want better sleep during a zombie apocalypse, Saskatchewan is the place to be, according to filmmaker and U of R alumni Lowell Dean BA’02 (Major in Film and Video Studies). His latest movie, Die Alone, just won the Midnight X-treme Audience Choice Award at the Sitges Film Festival in Spain and hits theatres in US cities including Los Angeles, Houston, and Tampa on Friday. 

Film is about collaboration and team work so the quicker you can find what you are good at and find your teammates who can support your weaknesses, the better chance you stand of making something and making something good. — Lowell Dean BA’02, writer and director, Die Alone and WolfCop

The movie was filmed on location in Regina and 40 minutes outside of the city in the beautiful Qu’Appelle Valley. Actors Carrie-Anne Moss (The Matrix), Douglas Smith (Big Love), Kimberly-Sue Murray (V-Wars), and Frank Grillo (The Purge) star in the horror thriller. 

We caught up with writer and director Dean, to talk about filmmaking in Saskatchewan, his memories of U of R, and tips on zombie survival.

What stands out to you from your time in Film Studies at the U of R? 

I remember being impatient and wishing I was already making films, but I had a good run at the U of R. I remember having intimate film production classes with 15 to 20 people so we had the ability to build relationships with the professors and one another. Those relationships continue to this day which is quite special. There are at least five people that I had classes with that I work with regularly on projects. They are often the ones watching a cut and handing me notes. 

How do you describe Die Alone to someone who has never heard or read about it? 

The thematic idea at the core of the film is how far would you go in the most extreme way for the people you love? This film is really about seeing people pushed to their limits in a post-apocalytic setting. When there are no rules, how would you act? It is also absolutely a love story, but it's like a little bit like  Homer's Odyssey. The main character, Ethan, goes throughout the movie meeting people, and each of them has their own circumstances and characters they care about — either living, dead or missing. And so he's like, I'm special. I have to find this person I care about, and every person on his path is like, well, welcome to the club. We all have that problem. Everything else is window dressing. So it's about people, and it's about a guy obsessed with finding his girlfriend and along his path he has amnesia, so he doesn't know how to find her. The worst time to have amnesia is during an apocalypse.

Your zombies have a different look – they are dark and gory but with flowers and leaves covering them, too. Why did you choose this look for your zombies? 

You often see zombies on the screen as slow moving and stuck on the ground, so I thought what if the world kind of grew around them — if you were lying there dead and couldn’t die because you were a creature? The zombies are more based in nature which came about when I was trying to determine how to make a zombie movie more original. I had these visions of them as beautiful creatures, not just what we have come to expect of gray, gross, and skeletal but now there’s a beautiful flower spreading out of an ear or moss covering one side. It’s like when you see a wall is broken or windows smashed in an old abandoned building but then nature in the form of vines covers it in a way that it looks cooler than the way it used to look. The creatures are a point of fear in the story, but also in the right light, they can be kind of beautiful. It’s not a heavy-handed environmental message, but it’s definitely about mother nature’s revenge, how we treat each other, and how we treat the planet the consequences at some point. The film is a visual exploration of that consequence. 

This film is also about perseverance. How so? 

The first draft of the film was completed more than 10 years ago. I think it's a blessing the movie didn't get made until now because the first drafts I wrote were not as good. The genre evolved so much and a million zombie movies were made which impacted how I improved the engine of the story. The core of the film stayed the same, but for sure it got way better over a decade of writing, rewriting, pitching, and trying to find someone to finance it. We had so many false starts. We were literally days away from starting to film in Kamloops, BC, when we changed the location to Saskatchewan because new government funding became available. We moved everything and started filming here last summer.

What did it mean to you to make the movie here in your home province? 

At first, I didn’t think it meant much to make it here in Saskatchewan. I was so frustrated and desperate to get it made anywhere. But throughout the process, I began to feel that making it here was kind of like the secret sauce. I wouldn't have gotten the love and support anywhere else that I received here. And truthfully, I was at a point in my career where I was like, I just have to get out of Saskatchewan. I have to make something somewhere else, so people believe I can. But I wouldn’t change it for the world. The care, the effort, the resources, and the house we ended up getting for the main location, would never have happened anywhere else, so what a gift. 

The landscape here did really excite me about making a zombie movie in Saskatchewan. In every apocalypse movie, people are in big cities like New York and they’re running up through apartment buildings getting snatched at every turn. And I just thought, what a great place we live in for a zombie apocalypse because you can see 360 degrees. This is where I would want to be if we were in the middle of the end of times. I would want to get as far away from people as possible and be somewhere that if I doze off and wake up, I can still see you coming. 

What advice do you have for the next generation of writers, producers, and crew hoping to break onto the scene? 

This may sound textbook but be tenacious and have something to say. I think the film industry is tougher than most. People don’t really care if you succeed or fail and there is no classic ladder to climb as you evolve in your career. There’s a lot of zig zagging and snakes and ladders, and you just have to find your own path. Even more important though is find your community. Film is about collaboration and teamwork so the quicker you can find what you are good at and find your teammates who can support your weaknesses, the better chance you stand of making something and making something good. 

Happy Halloween!

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Die Alone garnered positive reviews in Canada and will be available in digital and On Demand in the US on October 18 and later this fall in Canada. If you can’t decide between a horror, love or adventure film, Die Alone is the perfect movie-night pick as it has a bit of all three genres. Dean’s earlier film, WolfCop, is also showing at the U of R ShuBox Theatre on Thursday, October 24 and tickets are free. You can watch the movie, meet Dean at the 10^th Anniversary screening of the film, and enjoy free mini donuts and popcorn.

Feel inspired? Learn more about studying animation, documentary, dramatic, and experimental filmmaking at U of R.

Banner photo: Die Alone zombie embodies gore, as well as nature’s beauty. Credit: Lowell Dean