Zombie army responds to extras call

Northlanders are lining up to become zombie extras in a movie being shot in Northland.

When Mig Alves put out the call for a few volunteers to be zombie extras in the movie being shot in Northland, she didn't expect an army of the undead to get in touch.

Alves is the Northland-based second director for the movie R: Rage of the zombies that is being shot in Northland from next week and in the Northern Advocate yesterday she put out the call for zombie extras.

She was expecting a bit of interest, but the call has "gone off big time" with hundreds of people getting in touch to say they wanted to become zombies.

"We've got a zombie army now ... Our only problem may be how do we feed them all when they come - I hope some of them are vegetarian zombies so we can save on the catering budget," Alves said.

"It's been an amazing response and I don't want to let anybody down so we'll try to get every zombie in the shoot. There's been interest from across the board, from 12-year-old kids to many much older."

Several disabled people had expressed a willingness to take part and Alves said the movie may end up with the first disabled zombie in it.

"Who knows? We've got a zombie pig in there - though we're yet to decide if it's a zombie eating pig or a pig that's a zombie - so anything's possible," she said.

"The funny thing is that Fred Potts [director] doesn't know yet just how far out this has become and he will be blown away by the interest. I'm just amazed at how many people are keen to be zombies - it's wonderful though."

Within two hours of the story being posted on the Advocate's Facebook page it reached more than 20,000 people, was shared over 130 times and had 150 comments.

The movie takes place 20 years after the apocalypse and the world has been ravaged by a zombie outbreak and resources are running low for the living and the undead alike. The zombies have become even more crazed by their hunger.

Whangarei artist Brad Walters has been brought in to do some airbrush work to make the zombies look even more authentic.