‘Slumdog Millionaire’ meets ‘28 Days Later’ in Ford Brothers’ latest zombie epic – The Dead II: India

August 22, 2013

The second in Howard and Jon Ford’s cult commercial franchise will be the opening film at Film4 FrightFest on 22 August 2013, screened to a sell-out crowd. The eagerly awaited ‘The Dead II: India’ (trailer) is the first international film of its genre to be shot entirely in India.

Set against the spectacular scenery of Rajasthan, the film sees a devastating zombie outbreak take hold and American turbine engineer Nicholas Burton (Joseph Millson) must trek from one side of the country to the other if he is ever to see his pregnant girlfriend Ishani (Meenu) again.

The 2010 release of the first of the Ford brothers’ films, zombie road movie ‘The Dead’ set in Africa, received international critical acclaim. It was a huge success in North America, upon its release it was the fastest selling DVD in its genre and remained the number one best-seller in its genre for six weeks. These achievements meant the brothers were able to finance ‘The Dead II: India’ themselves.

The Ford brothers are well-known and respected in the UK as the new Ridley and Tony Scott.

Howard comments: “We knew we’d get around to making another film one day as there was plenty of scope to where we could take our idea of abject horror and emotional devastation, presented against a stunning natural backdrop. But it was while we were escorting The Dead to various festivals around the world, listening to the overwhelmingly positive feedback and reading many of the internet comments, that we felt compelled to make another film pretty quickly to satisfy the demand we knew was out there.

“Although making The Dead was a total nightmare in terms of locations and logistics, I still felt our creative itches hadn’t been scratched and that we needed to continue our adventure into the living dead unknown. The mood wasn’t there initially as we still had a lot of ghosts and unfinished business lurking around from our first flesh-eating foray.

“But all of sudden it meshed and came together. Story ideas and situations just vomited out – like Linda Blair with Delhi Belly!”

Jon adds: “Part of the magic of The Dead was its minimalism both in terms of dialogue and how it played out in the road movie style. Not everyone was going to get that and we knew it. So we decided to up our game this time and try to push it up to a truly epic scale, without losing what was so special about the first film. There was a tenderness to The Dead that people loved and the character connections are what many warmed to”.

Media law firm, Wiggin, also played a unique role in the production of the film, working closely with the film-makers in setting up the film and handling all distribution rights.