Zombie film shot in student's school canteen (From Haringey Independent)

Zombie film shot in student's school canteen

11:20am Friday 17th February 2012 in News By Hermione Wright

A zombie fan from a Haringey school shot his own horror film in his school canteen.

Sam Toller, who is 16 but started producing the film when he was 15, is showing his work for the first time in a screening at his school, Alexandra Park in Muswell Hill, on Wednesday.

The drama and media GCSE student from Winton Avenue convinced 27 of his friends to douse themselves in blood and dress up as zombies for the low-budget thriller called We Are What We Eat.

His inspiration for the ten minute film came last year, when he imagined fellow schoolmates biting each other while in assembly.

He said: “I had an idea in assembly – it was horrific, but I thought, what would happen if students started biting each other and it formed a chain reaction?

“There’s a see-through tunnel in the film made of glass which is in my school. I was coming through it and I started looking at a hoard of kids and thought what if they were all zombies?”

Sam has entered the film into a variety of upcoming film festivals, including a scary movie festival based in Leicester Square in August, FrightFest.

Sam drew 310 storyboards by hand for the zombie thriller, which were filmed during two days during the first week of the summer holidays in 2011. It was also shot in the Bluebell Wood in Muswell Hill.

The thriller is based on the story of a student called Nicole who is bitten by her zombie boyfriend, which leaves her chasing her school friends around her secondary school.

The short film cost £700 to produce, although most of the expense came from gruesome make-up, food for the 40 cast members and prosthetic teeth for the zombie crew.

It took the crew over an hour to clear up the fake blood which covered the floor of his school canteen.

Darien Davis, a freelance producer who helped Sam to create the film, said: “I am really pleased with how the film turned out.

“I believe it has festival prospects and my main aim was to help him make a film that hopefully exceeded the expectations of a 15-year-old’s short film, and we definitely did that.”