Ithaca Mourns: A Zombie Odyssey

A little over 4 years ago, some fellow Movie Geeks and I decided to put our money where our mouths were and actually get about the business of filmmaking. We called ourselves "No Hands Films." Together, we have so far completed two short independent horror films, the second of which - a modern-day "zombie version" of Homer's "The Odyssey" - I can now shamelessly show off here via the miracle of YouTube and my younger brother, Chris, who got it uploaded in 4 parts (image-quality is somewhat degraded from the original, as it is after all Internet video) and also did the bulk of the editing work on the movie-proper.

Happy Halloween.

Part ONE:

That's our omni-talented writer/director/star Tim Luz, my best friend, as the lead zombie. (full listed credits are end the end of Part Four and listed on the actual YouTube page) He came up with the stories and scripts that both completed "No Hands" productions have been filmmed from so far. Tim's brother Nick, Melissa and CJ, friends of the production, are the other three. That's my little bro, Chris, as the cop. The (really terrific-looking, even at this resolution I think) makeup FX were handled by Kristen Juliano, a lovely and ridiculously talented young woman who just delivered like gangbusters the whole production. This opening was shot on-location at a real old-as-hell cemetary we found just sitting randomly in a semi-developed field. Creepy as hell, honestly.

Part TWO:

The little zombie girl who gets taken out here is my kid sister, Catie. Of the Zombie Hunters, my brother's pals Jason and Jared are the "cowboy" and the "soldier" respectively, "No Hands" charter-member Casey Malone as "yuppie" and that's your's truly as the one-eyed axe-wielder. "Roger," the leader in the long black coat, was played by Jeremy Soltys, a founding member of "No Hands" who is, quite simply, a fantastic actor with real screen presence. He's great in this, seriously. There's a "splatter on the lens" gag here that works great, but was actually an on-set mishap we opted to keep. Kristen handled the majority of the gore-FX here, while Chris and I provided the opticals for the gunfire. Jeremy provided the awesomely-realistic prop guns, which really helped sell this.

Part THREE:

That's Michelle Tentindo as "Penny," another good friend of the production who did a great job. Believe it or not, about the entirety of this in-house sequence was shot (on-set makeups and all) in about a day, which is pretty amazing. The score, BTW, was provided by an ultra-talented fella named Mike Beaudoin; while the hard-rock song comes courtesy a local band called "On The 3."

Part FOUR:

So there you have it. We actually had our first theatrical showing of this over Halloween Weekend here in Salem, and it went over pretty damn well. We're all really proud of this, and I hope you've enjoyed seeing it as much as we did making it ;)