Death Walks

Synopsis

In an East London shopping centre, a group of people are warned by a strange Italian woman (Francesca Ciardi) that they are all going to die. Her warnings prove to be all too real, as the shopping center is then attacked by zombies fueled by an evil supernatural power. The 25 people remaining in the shopping centre must band together to survive the night. This is made more difficult by the rising tensions as well as due to the fact that the surrounding town is oblivious of their torment due to a street party.

Cast

Production

Hawken began work on Death Walks in the summer of 2013. Filming took place in Romford, London during 2013 and included multiple extras, many of which were volunteers from the surrounding community. Hawken used the town's Mercury Mall shopping center, who donated the use of their space, and was able to complete the film through crowdsourcing techniques. Other supporters either loaned Hawken their supplies for free or donated them. Hawken initially planned for the filming to take place over a 24-hour period, but instead took place over a four-month period. During this time the cast listing swelled from 300 extras to just under 1,000.

Editing for Death Walks is expected to complete in February so the film can be submitted to various film festivals, and a successful Kickstarter campaign was launched in early January 2013 to help with the submission costs. A trailer for Death Walks was released in August 2013. On 16 January 2014 Famous Monsters Of Filmland acknowledged the film's completion as the first zero budget horror film and posted that Hawken was already working on a sequel.

The Premiere of Death Walks was held in the centre it was shot in on 15 July 2016, exactly 3 years from the time shooting begun.

Reception

After the Premiere newspaper The Romford Recorder were quick to herald the movie a success calling it funny, unsettling and surprising.

On October 29, 2016, the film played at the British Horror Film Festival. It was nominated for Best Film, The British Horror Award, Best Supporting Actor, Best Supporting Actress and Best Music. The film won two awards Best Supporting Actor (Jon Guerriero) and Best Music (Tom Wolfe) it narrowly missed out The British Horror Award, after judges decided The Barber's Cut use of visual effects on 35mm film was a bigger achievement.

The film was screened as part of the Terror Film Festival on October 20, 2016.

In September 2016 The Monkey Bread Festival gave the film a special mention for its zero budget achievement.

Death walks was released onto Amazon Prime on 18 January 2017