The zombie apocalypse continues to run rampant in the world of pop culture, and in the new film Decay, made by physics students at the European Organization for Nuclear Research, it makes its way to the Large Hadron Collider, where zombies shamble into the tunnels of CERN following exposure to the Higgs boson particle.
Decay will be available for free Creative Commons-licensed download on Saturday from the film's website, but writer/director Luke Thompson gave Wired an exclusive clip of the movie – complete with a walker stalking the grounds of the Large Hadron Collider – to hold you over until then.
Like the low-budget fun of Night of the Living Dead before it, Decay gets its kicks from using DIY methods – Thompson, a Ph.D. physics student at the University of Manchester who had never made a movie before, and his crew of 19 borrowed digital SLR cameras, used physicist friends as actors, turned the Geneva research center into a set, went dumpster-diving for props, and pooled $3,225 of their own cash to get the film made. And like George A. Romero's classic 1968 horror flick, it could wind up a nerd/cult favorite. Thompson said the nearly 500 people showed up for the movie's world premiere in Manchester last week and the reaction was overwhelming.
"The audience was laughing at the B-movie jokes and pseudo-science, gasping at the gory bits and genuinely screaming at the scary bits," he said in an e-mail to Wired. "Really the highest goal we had besides having fun was to make something people would honestly enjoy. I'm so, so proud of that, and I think everyone else is too."
*Decay'*s premise is that a malfunction at the particle accelerator causes the maintenance crew at the facility to become zombified and hunt down students. It's not exactly scientifically accurate – at least let's hope that isn't the result of the recent discovery of the "God particle" – but Thompson hopes his flick will be able to offer some smart satire on people's misconceptions about science, though he'd prefer you see the film to find out what.
CERN didn't officially endorse or authorize the 80-minute flick (the director and his cohorts only filmed in areas accessible to all researchers at the facility) but it has been supportive, and in a statement told Wired recently that Decay "shows how pure science can stimulate creativity.”
Stimulate creativity it did. And after two years of hustle and planning, the film's creator is glad to see it released to the clamoring hordes.
"We're all really excited about the film finally coming out," Thompson said. "It started out as a fun little idea, and ended up gathering momentum and getting a lot bigger than any of us expected."
Check out another teaser and the full trailer for Decay below, then head to the film's website to get the scoop on how to download the full movie on Saturday.
