Local 'Living Dead'-inspired film in national film festival

Chances are, if you’re a Walker Weekend fan, you’ve watched ‘Night of the Living Dead’ numerous times in conjunction with the event. This weekend, you can try something new.

“A Night of the Undead” debuts tonight, Friday, October 7, with a screening at Somerset Cinemas 8, and on Saturday, those coming from the annual “Zombie Walk/Walker Weekend” event at Eubank City Park can go to the theater for a special event screening with cast and crew at 9:45 p.m.

It will also be playing this weekend at the Key Twin Cinema in Russell Springs.

The brainchild of local filmmaker Kenny Scott Guffey, “A Night of the Undead” is billed as a sequel to the 1968 George Romero classic “Night of the Living Dead” — which was possible without directly getting permission, explained Guffey, an Adair County native now living in Pulaski County.

“You actually don’t have to,” he said. “The original film, ‘Night of the Living Dead’, is public domain, which is how we were able to remake it. There was an issue with the copyright when it was initially released because the film was originally called ‘Night of Anubis’ and then they changed the title to ‘Night of the Flesh Eaters.’ and apparently there was another film with that title and they didn’t want to confuse the two so they changed the title to ‘Night of the Living Dead’ and when they removed the ‘Flesh Eaters’ title from the film and put the ‘Living Dead’ title on, they forgot to include the copyright that was on there with the ‘Flesh Eaters’ title.

“You were seeing for years all these really low-budget releases of the film on VHS and DVD and Blu-Ray,” he added, “but it is public domain so it was free for us to basically adapt as we wanted to.”

Guffey made “Undead” with his filmmaking partner Jake Young, as part of their production outfit MTS Pictures. They’ve entered it into the Lift-Off Global Network film festival, an online event that allows viewers to vote for their favorite selections.

“We were an official selection (for the film festival), which means they watched it and they said, ‘Hey, we want to include you in the festival,’” said Guffey. “People can buy tickets to the festival, watch the films, and vote on their favorite ones.”

So far, Guffey said, “Undead” has reached as high as number two in those rankings. People have until October 17 to vote.

Even so, Guffey isn’t urging anyone to cast their vote for “Undead” if it isn’t their favorite.

“It’s not about winning,” said Guffey. “I just wanted to get the movie out there where people could see it. That was the best option, putting it in a festival, because people can view it all over the country at the same time.”

Go to https://checkout.liftoff.network/f-lift-off-sessions-october-2022 to purchase the ability to participate.

Guffey has always loved the movies but started out doing a podcast in 2020, Beam Me Up: A Podcast, with notable guests like Muse Watson, the villain from “I Know What You Did Last Summer,” Julie Dawn Cole, a.k.a. Veruca Salt from the 1971 “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory,” and prolific ‘80s actress Diane Franklin.

“I’m like, if I’m going to do a movie-based podcast, I want it to be done right,” he said. “I didn’t want to just talk about movies, I wanted to have people that were included in the films.

Guffey kept contacts with some of the people he had on his podcast, and through those had the opportunity to work on some films, and his interest in making them “grew from there.” He met Somerset’s Young at the end of 2020 and the two hit it off as a filmmaking team.

Guffey asked Young to direct “Undead,” though he assisted with that as well. It was the onslaught of COVID-19 news and chatter, however, that truly inspired Guffey’s zombie movie vision.

“During the height of the pandemic, everybody was locked in their houses and afraid to go outside; they were afraid of dying or being infected by what was right beyond their front door,” said Guffey. “I really kind of took notice of that and said that ‘Night of the Living Dead’ could be a great allegory for COVID.”

The original ‘Living Dead’ had social issues as undertones as well, Guffey noted, and referencing COVID could make this film relevant to a modern audience, complete with elements in the film like face masks and warnings to keep six feet away.

“The characters in the piece, it’s a post-COVID world and they’re conscious of that,” said Guffey. “We definitely play up the COVID metaphors in the film.”

In making ‘Undead’ as a sequel to the original ‘Night of the Living Dead,’ said Guffey, they didn’t want to do a direct remake, because that’s been done too much already — “all with the same name.”

“That was another reason why we wanted to slightly adjust the title to ‘Night of the Undead’ so that there was less confusion,” he said. “If someone wanted to find our film, it was easier to find it. ... You don’t have to have seen the original to understand (this film). It very much is its own story. In our film, they recognize that the original event happened, but society is kind of divided on that as they are on most any issue anymore: ‘Did it really happened the way it was reported, or was it a hoax, or was it some kind of government cover up?’ We delve into that.

“These (present day) kids, who obviously weren’t around when the original incident happened but grew up hearing stories about it, want to figure out if there was some truth to that,” continued Guffey. “So they go to visit the farmhouse from the original film.”

The majority of the film was shot in the Shopville area in an abandoned house — “That house was a story all on its own” — from April through the end of May, and then added some additional scenes elsewhere, going up through early July.

The film features local actors Denny Kidd, Mason Johnson, McKenzie Clay and Brianna Phipps-Stotts, as well as Brandon Ludwig of the show “Gamers Paradise” and Nancy Anne Ridder, who was “one of the girls in the bathroom in the original ‘Scream’ movie,” said Guffey.

As a film, ‘A Night of the Undead’ serves as sort of a fan’s love letter to the film that made the zombie genre what it is today — one that inspired generations of filmmakers in its wake. Guffy, Young, and the others who took part in the film are now a part of that unique horror lineage.

“It’s definitely been a labor of love for all of us involved,” said Guffey. “A lot of love went into it from everybody, from the cast to the crew. We weren’t trying to outdo the original film from George Romero. There’s no way you can top that. It’s a classic. We really just wanted to make a movie about a movie that we loved and that we thought needed to be re-told for a modern audience.”