Writer/director Keith Wright recently spoke with “Breakthrough Entertainment” about his new zombie flick “Harold’s Going Stiff.”
In “Harold’s Going Stiff,” which screens 10:15 p.m. Friday, Aug. 30 and 2 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 31 exclusively at the FilmBar, Stan Rowe plays a man suffering from a frightening new disease that is turning him into a zombie. After an experimental new treatment fails, his condition deteriorates and he ends up on the run from a group of violent vigilantes who are out for blood.
Listen to “Breakthrough Entertainment’s” full interview with Wright by clicking HERE. The following is an excerpt from the interview in which the writer/director discusses the driving forces behind “Harold’s Going Stiff,” including the film’s ultimate theme.
“Basically, I was looking for an interesting project. I was really interested in making a zombie film. But there are so many zombie films out there. In fact, if you go to something like IMDb and put in the word ‘zombie,’ there are like thousands of results. So I was really interested in trying to come up with a different spin on the zombie film. I wanted to try to do something that had a little more depth to it that wasn’t sort of like just a slasher movie.
“And that was the challenge, really, to try and break the mold a little bit on zombie films. I love the classic George Romero zombie films. They have so much depth to them. I just wanted to try and figure out a new way of approaching the zombie film since there are already so many zombie movies out there – and a lot of them quite generic with nothing new to say. So we really just tried to take a different spin on it.
“If you look at the film’s theme, it is about someone who is becoming ill. One of the driving factors of the story was this idea of aging and dementia. I had a grandparent who suffered from dementia so that idea of slowly losing someone is something that is definitely in the film. The zombie element represents the progression of that disease. And I think that is kind of a universal thing that everybody can sort of relate to – people getting ill around them and having to deal with that.” – Keith Wright
