Columbia College film professor Julian Grant drew on the aesthetic of George Romero and “Carnival of Souls” to build the apocalyptic world of “Defiled,” in practical locations and sets in Northwest Indiana.
Now Grant’s zombie thriller will be released on VOD, home video and iTunes next April via the new Chemical Burn division of California-based Reality Entertainment.
To write “The Defiled,” Grant channeled the helplessness he felt as a young man left alone with his infant son. “I wanted to make an homage to old-time horror films, strange European art cinema and German Expressionism,” he says. “I thought, ?what’s the scariest thing I’ve ever dealt with?'”
The prolific filmmaker has another project nearing release. Producer Boris Wexler of Escape Films is shopping the Grant-directed “Fall Away” worldwide. “We have a number of offers already and shall mull them over the holiday season,” Grant says.
Co-writer Grant Stokes stars in “Fall Away” as a closeted country singer who disappears. Grant says Wexler and Stokes approached him to direct “Fall Away.” “I said I would if I could rewrite the script they had. They allowed me to do and I was able to create a non-linear time frame and a ?Rashomon’-style perspective that appealed to me.
