You probably read about this one/saw the poster online earlier this year, rolled your eyes, and thought "what phone-mast burning, Trump-supporting idiots created this rubbish?"
Hi there. I'm the writer of 5G Zombies.
Watched the Blu-ray (surprisingly difficult to track down and purchase) the other day and was surprised, despite my involvement, at the story of how this all got started. It's a global enterprise, but turns out to be primarily driven by Brits, including yours truly. Which I had little idea about!
Following OUIJAGEIST, director John Walker was invited to participate in an ABCs OF DEATH-like project called 'Emojis of Horror'. We were assigned an emoji, given certain parameters, and asked to make a ten-minute film for inclusion in a planned anthology. We made our film, I don't think anyone else did, and the project foundered. A couple of years later I heard that our footage might be getting used in an American film, and before you know it I'm on IMDb as co-writer of something called 5G ZOMBIES, which is causing mild outrage (even before anyone saw it) from those upstanding members of society who don't think that 5G is The Devil. Ho-hum, I figured, at least we've preserved our short film THE CORIOLIS EFFECT for posterity.
An interview with the US co-director of the piece on the Blu-ray tells it slightly different - it seems our man John W approached him with our short film, he watched it and liked it, and only then decided that our ten minutes of footage shot in exotic Dudley could form the basis of a movie. So we kicked the whole thing off! For which I apologise. THE CORIOLIS EFFECT (sans title card, though that appears somewhere during the extras, and our director confesses he can't pronounce the title!) starts the ball rolling - an UZUMAKI/Twilight Zone-influenced piece by me and Steve Hardy, using our assigned emoji 'the blue spiral' as a component. This is then followed by a string of videos shot by people in their homes and garages and basements, pretending that there has been a 5G-spawned zombie apocalypse, though we never get a glimpse of a zombie and only hear a few of 'em growling or trying to break in to places they shouldn't. It is what it is, and I grew to tolerate it after a while (it really does take time to get into the style, once our more conventional piece has finished ten minutes in), but then I'm biased - in truth, it probably merits the kicking it has received. It runs for 96 minutes, which has brought unfavourable comparison with the similar and much, much shorter (61 minute) Charles Band Coronavirus cash-in released around the same time.
As a fan of Jesus Franco and a keen follower/student of Euro horror movie credits and the weird way in which journalists/fans/passers-by often seemed to get co-opted into helping out on productions at the dodgier end of the market, I have to say that I'm thrilled that my 'film career' (such as it is) is already so convoluted, just two productions in!! I watched Umberto Lenzi's ORGASMO the other day, which credits the great Bertrand Tavernier (at the time a renowned French critic, years before his directorial success) as assistant director - apparently he never met Lenzi and had absolutely nothing to do with the making of ORGASMO! My involvement with 5G ZOMBIES is more concrete and tangible, and did actually happen, but I feel Monsieur Tavernier's pain and confusion!