…like 28 Days Later meets a Bruce Springsteen song circa the Nebraska album…

When an apocalyptic virus threatens to turn her father into a violent monster, 18 year-old Max must lead him and her younger sister, Ellen, through a perilous mountain range in hope of finding a cure on the other side. With Max willing to risk it all to save her father, and Ellen willing to do anything to protect herself and Max, the small family finds itself not only struggling for survival against incredible odds, but also being torn apart from within.

FLESH AND BLOOD is a genre short that revolves around two key threats: the external threat of the virus (and the post-apocalyptic world that it has created) and the internal threat of a family tearing itself apart. We wanted to tell this story because we’re excited by character-driven genre films that are grounded in reality. Films like NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN, PRISONERS, and 28 DAYS LATER were all huge inspirations for the project due to way in which they were able to bring realistic characters and emotions into exciting, heightened storytelling environments. Similarly, though FLESH AND BLOOD is set in a world of “rage virus” infection, the film is grounded in the story of two sisters struggling to deal with an out-of-control parent, which lends the story an emotional truth not always found in genre films.

The World

When we sat down to create FLESH AND BLOOD, the goal was to create a different sort of zombie film. One of the first questions we asked ourselves was how to deal with the issue of the zombies themselves. From the jump, we knew that we would be dealing with a virus that affects the living, rather than reanimation of the dead, and that the infected would be fast, not slow. From there, we asked the question of what could make the virus more realistic.

The first thing we hit on the was the speed of the infection. Because this is a virus that affects both mind and body, it seemed unrealistic that it would take hold in a matter of seconds. Instead, it made sense that the virus would need time to fully take hold. Alzheimers was one example. It’s not like you get “infected” with Alzheimer’s and then suddenly you’re gone. Rather, it starts slow and then gradually takes over.