Of all the literary/horror mash-ups you can think of - Moby Dicknado, War And Peace And Piranhas, Lord Of The Flyblown - Pride And Prejudice And Zombies is the one that’s actually happening. That it’s an even more far-fetched conceit than anything you could possibly invent is a joy that was not lost on the Hall H throng. Comic-Con came to have its minds (and English text books) blown and the film’s cast and filmmakers did their best to oblige in a panel that showcased a chunky first trailer.
In attendence were writer/ director Burr Steers, cast members Lily James (Elizabeth Bennet), Sam Riley (Mr. Riley), Bella Heathcote (Jane Bennet), Douglas Booth (Mr. Bingley), Jack Huston (Mr. Wickham) and Matt Smith (Mr. Collins), and the masher-upper-in-chief Seth Grahame-Smith.
The movie’s set up is simple: after seven decades of zombies roaming 19th century England, cluttering up parlours and disrupting piano recitals with their unearthly groans, the Bennet sisters have had as much as they can stomach. Elizabeth and her sister, along with Darcy, Mr. Collins and Booth’s mysterious Mr. Bingley, tool up for the zombie takedown. If you want to see a film in which Matt Smith says “Oh, fuddles!”, this one’s for you.
The trailer cued up by director Burr (Igby Goes Down) played surprisingly straight. In fact, large parts of it felt more akin to a BBC Jane Austen adaption than a zombie flick in the George Romero tradition. Not accidentally, either. “The only way to go at it is to do it without winking once at the audience,” stressed the novelist, Grahame-Smith. “The movie isn’t going for the joke. It’s like the most elegant costume drama and then zombies show up and you’re like, “What the fuck!” Sure enough, the final chunk of the sizzle reel was awash with slavering hordes of dead-butants staggering through Georgian England. London burns and the Bennet girls get busy fighting back.
The onus on creating a credible, intricate 19th century world for the film meant a return to the ball for Cinderella. “Nothing is easy in a corset,” laughed Lily of her character’s costumed smackdowns. “All that frustration and sexual tension comes out in destroying zombies.”
What, one audience member wondered, would Austen herself have made of it all. “She was a very funny writer,” speculated the writer. “I like to think she’d take it in her stride or, you know, kill me.”
And sequel potential? “Sure, we’ll see how it does,” cautioned Grahame-Smith. “I wouldn’t be opposed to it at all.” Sense And Sensibility And Succubi then? Don’t count against it.
The second part of the Screen Gems/Sony presentation offered a radically different slant on the pandemic horror. A rabies outbreak has turned the lights off globally in Patient Zero as the first trailer, introduced by director Stefan Ruzowitzky, illustrated in one of those natty powercut montages. Representing Westeros from Ruzowitzky’s cast were John Bradley and Natalie Dorner, with Matt Smith returning for a second consecutive panel. “You said zombies,” Dormer immediately chided the moderator. “This is the infected.”
In fairness to the mod, the zombies infected definitely have the fetid air of the undead, as a small group of scientists go about experimenting on them to find a cure in a claustrophobic underground facility. Matt Smith’s scientist, bitten but not infected, is able to communicate with their subjects. He uses vinyl records to torment the captive infected - The Moody Blues’ ‘Nights In White Satin’ and Joe Cocker rather than more obvious choices like S Club 7 or Crazy Frog – although the appearance of an infected Stanley Tucci throws a spanner in the works. Cool, fully conversant and yellow of eyeball, it’s the Stanley Tucci we know and love, only less, well, alive.
Check back here in the next day or so for the trailers for both Pride And Prejudice And Zombies and Patient Zero.