- What we did is in our movie
there's another evolution
that happens with zombies
where this idea of what we would become
if the zombie plague made us stronger
as opposed to decomposing.
- I've never seen a movie
that goes into the essence of zombies
in this way.
- Zack did a great job.
In a way to give zombies more human behavior back
with Zeus and Queen
because they just want to survive.
It's crazy. Yeah.
Yeah, new species.
Oh my God.
- You have Alpha zombies that are like superheroes.
They have superhero qualities,
they have super human qualities.
- And that's where the game changes, right?
Because it's not something that moves
as fast as you
it moves faster
it has more agility.
It's almost like a cheetah
in a way it moves.
That raises the fear level
to an entirely new place.
- We use really great stunt performers
to be them,
so whatever the scariest stuntmen can do
they can do,
when you actually see that,
what that means.
It's pretty scary.
- Our stunt coordinator, Damon,
who was a legend in the game
did a hell of a job
rounding up some of the greatest parkour cats,
martial artists, free runners.
It's just amazing
what these guys are able to do.
- You can imagine if a wolf
had a human body,
how they would act.
They're predators in the end,
so they're hunting.
There's an alpha, and there's a way
of like organizing them
through intimidation.
- Zack wanted the Alpha's look
to be different,
but yet they still had
to look like they were in the same world.
So that's quite challenging.
- We wanted to do something
that's really translucent,
something that's more feral and aggressive,
something that's alert
and aware of what's going on,
opposed to your classic zombie
that is just stumbling around rotting away.
- We went through a process
where we would talk to Justin
and his artists would then
go sketch out some things.
- We went through a lot of different variations
and design with Zack.
We want to give him
as many Photoshop options
and 3D model options as possible.
So we can really hone in
on what the final looks will be.
We did that with the Shamblers
and all the other alphas as well.
- And it was this really nice back and forth collaboration
until we came up with our design
for the alpha.
- And then we start going into the sculpting process.
We really kind of started looking
at translucent shrimp,
weird aquatic kind of things
to get that look to the flesh.
I think Zeus is the perfect example
of what the Alpha should look like.
He's the most involved in this process.
He's the essence of that look.
So Zeus originally started
around three and a half hours to do the look.
Now we have him in under two
and that's three makeup artists putting
on those 24 prosthetic pieces.
- Queen is a little closer to Zeus.
Let's say got a little more of the essence from Zeus.
So she's a little more evolved,
compared to some of our other alphas.
She is also about 22 prosthetic pieces.
So she's silicon and prosthetics
on her arms,
silicon prosthetic across chest,
face, full wig, contact lenses, teeth.
The queen decapitation had a lot
of moving parts
from a full fake body
to an insert body
that we actually used
with the garrote to cut the head off.
- Even if you go like,
(grunts) come on.
- Yeah. - Yeah, yeah there you go.
- And then a complete animatronic head.
- It's a radio-controlled head
has jaws x, y.
Eyes, left, right,
up, down.
And then some on the snarl.
And tracking eyelids.
- So she's really the only full animatronic piece
that we had.
So, two puppeteers to run it
a lot of mechanical aspects
and then functioning traditional practical effects gags
and blood gags.
- We have a very large crew.
We have 35 makeup artists
and that'll be about six
and a half hours
to run 150 alphas through the works
with Zeus, Queen,
Zeus' double
and the general.
We've been able to keep it really, really tight.
- Just to be enveloped
by hundreds and hundreds
of alphas and Zeus and the Queen
and being there like realm,
literally their kingdom
to have to be dragged in there
as a human
and to be pulled in
while you're laying on this cold floor.
And there's hundreds and hundreds of zombies
and they're all growling at you
and spitting blood and yelling.
It just is incredibly frightening.
The coolest thing was seeing all these hundreds
of zombie extras react to him.
Like every time he does something
or he lashes, or he snarls,
they do the same.
This is now probably subliminally
what he always wanted,
I just don't know if he wanted it like this.
And now he truly is this,
just unstoppable force,
which I think he always thought he was.
- I think the end result is definitely unique.
It's something that I don't feel
like I've seen in this type of genre.
It just has an ethereal quality to it.
- So it was this fun experiment
with everything we've kind of done
around the alphas.
It's really fun to see how scary they can be.