All The Scary Details You May Want To Know About Vampire Zombies From Space with Michael Stasko

When Mike Stasko makes up one third of the core team who helped fine tune what Vampire Zombies From Space is, I’m really hoping for more! His latest film is almost similar to Casey Walker’s A Little Bit Zombie, a movie made more than a decade ago. Both deal with how victims eventually become a member of the walking dead, and to find a cure is rarely explored. I will post an old interview I did with him and include updates regarding his next horror movie, which is currently in post-production. And please visit this link to read part one with writer Jakob Skrzypa.

While the circumstances are completely different between these two particular films, I’m a sucker for zombie comedies. It’s a subgenre that gets a movie made at least once every two years, but not a lot of them stand out because they lack originality. The last time I laughed out loud was with Anna and the Apocalypse! The fact that it’s also a musical says it all.

There are honestly not enough movies being made that marry random genres together. I have to say it was by sheer luck that this movie and Night of the Zoopocalypse released nearly back to back. The dose of nostalgia and euphoria I had was on cloud nine. Afterwards, I had to fall back to the animated medium to rewatch Monsters vs Aliens to round out what I feel are in my top five favourites of this subgenre. 

This talented filmmaker has written, produced and directed seven feature films to date. Although works like Iodine and Boys vs Girls are not as widely distributed, he plans to fix all that. When he’s not teaching at his alma mater, the University of Windsor, he’s working on his next television or movie project. When he was in town promoting his latest, I had an awesome chat with him afterwards. The first question I had to ask concerned where he drew inspiration from, and why drawing from the pulps was important to this film, not only from a visual perspective but also performance-wise.

He replied, “Oh yeah, there’s nods to Flash Gordon, which is very obvious…. and also Buck Rogers and Dragnet. I had a good package of films where I even shared a list with some key heads of each department to look at for reference.”

Would you want to revisit Vampire Zombies From Space with a sequel?

It all depends on the audience reaction. [At first], I thought this may be the only time in my career where I get to do a black and white 1950s, Ed Wood style movies. I’m a movie junkie as well; so I don’t want to put all the eggs in one basket. For a sequel, I wouldn’t want to just redo the same jokes. I’d have to go in a different direction.

I like movies where you can watch it in a second view and pick up more and more stuff. So there are jokes that I even like in there that don’t get noticed right away. But when someone views it the second or third time, they might start to see some Easter eggs they put in there, hopefully.

How did the Troma influence come in?

I like to think we’re a little higher brow than a Troma film. I love Troma films, and my film doesn’t really borrow from it. Aside from Lloyd’s cameo, that’s it. I love him and his work for sure, but I wouldn’t describe this film as inspired by Troma. My film has a lot more heart and is not as schlocky. 

How many Easter eggs would you say there are? Intentional and unintentional. 

If you listen to some crowd scenes, if you really want to dial in on what they’re saying in the background. I don’t want to give too much away, but everything’s purposeful and extra jokes within there kind of thing. There’s a lot in there. 

For the sound design, I imagine you had lots of fun. I could hear some familiar sounds, and for the sets, there was a sense of déjà vu too.

Yeah, it’s hard not to. If you look at some of the matte paintings that we did in there, that’s definitely a Star Wars homage, or if you want to call it we pulled from it kind of thing. But Star Wars had a crazy influence on what things sound like in outer space, what things sound like on a spaceship.

And Aaron Foto built a lot of the miniatures. He put in a lot of work into Vampire Zombies From Space. So a lot of those details you can find on that second viewing can be anything. You can recognize that’s the top of a toaster on that space platform! We (the props and effects department –Ed) became experts in this sandbox. Although ironically, there were sometimes like you had to do extra work to make it look that bad or whatever. You had to make, in effect, have that cheese glimmer to it.

How much of the film would you say was truly DIY? That is, in terms of getting effects done right or those audio cues. I distinctly heard some familiar sounds from other films.

This was the most intensive work than any other film I’ve made. This was like the most sweat heavy of doing it yourself, figuring it out, watching YouTube videos, and creating your own versions project I’ve ever done. I even had a team, Suede Productions, which is also out of Windsor, involved. They’re an international CGI boutique that I do producing work for, and they saved the day on this production. There’s some actual CGI in the background to make the practical effects stand out.  

I found the half-body flight scene very impressive. I know it has to be done digitally. That was probably the biggest challenge they had on their plate.

You have to remember we’re making Vampire Zombies as though it’s made with 1950s movie-making technology. It has to be rough around the edges and stuff. We shot in colour, but the monitors were always in black and white. If you were to watch this film in colour, all these effects would stand out like you wouldn’t believe. It would be very hard to watch because you wouldn’t see the colour grades. You would recognize those are pool noodles or that’s duct tape over there.

After watching your film, one movie I couldn’t help but be reminded of is The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra.

MS: Those guys did a great job with that and the sequel too is actually really good. But I mean it’s crazy how that’s the one movie you have to mention because that’s how small the subgenre of it and the films that have done it are. 

If you’re talking about a specific satire of that, I’d say maybe two every five years a kind of movie will come out and break through. Or maybe less because it’s got to re-pop up in the zeitgeist kind of thing. But you have to look at what the final target audience is and put on the producer’s hat to figure out what kind of business that it can do. 

To get your movie out there, what’s your plans after the film festivals?

We have Black Mandala as our sales agent distributor. They’re based out of New Zealand, Argentina, and the UK. We’ll have to deliver a distributable file to them this month as we continue on with our film festival circuit. And we’re still looking at different options within Canada too; we’ve had offers.

It’ll get a good release and people will see Vampire Zombies From Space in all the ways they have now to access indie films. Because I’m a fan of actually owning the product and seeing it online, it’ll happen.

If you had a choice, what would you include in the eventual home video release? 

It’s ultimately up to the distributor…. but I’d love to see a VHS release. That’d be really cool. And yeah, I grew up in that. I had a tape collection of over 600 titles because I thought I was going to own this forever. And then DVDs came out, and then Blu-ray…. but I digress. I’d love to produce a commentary track. I’ve done that on my other films and stuff. Maybe even make a track that’s like a watch party like Mystery Science Theatre.

I’d also love to see a group of people post their take of my film to YouTube. I’d love to see a group of drunkards just making fun of Vampire Zombies From Space. That would be hilarious to see happen.

For those folks hesitant on this type of satire horror pulp comedy, what would say to them?

I’m not comparing my film to others because I think it’s impossible to compare it to the Mount Rushmore of films, Young Frankenstein. A big part of why that film works so well is because it sets up the audience, so when you flip stuff on its head, it’s that much more funny.

Is there anything you like to say in closing?

Whoever is reading this interview, please go watch Vampire Zombies From Space. We need that word of mouth to help spread the word.

Vampire Zombies From Space World Premiere