Exclusive Set Visit: Zombies Take Over Hinnon Valley, Director Rick Greenwood Talks

Steve Barton |

Aug 21, 2010

A couple of weeks ago filmmaker Rick Greenwood tipped Dread off to his then currently shooting zombie feature Hinnon Valley, and we brought back a handful of behind-the-scenes photos from the Los Angeles-filmed production as well as some stills from principal photography.

Produced, written and directed by Greenwood with additional producer credit going to Tina (Breath of Hate) Shults, production on Hinnon Valley was in full swing when we visited the night-time set of the film (then shooting at Bellevue Memorial Park in Ontario, CA), with makeup artist Michele (Behind Your Eyes) Monaco and assistant Jacky Belle (see the first image below) turning out a slew of zombies slated to menace the principals before the cameras.

Starring Alexis Zebolis as “Allison Westlake”, Maria Shadchina and Joel Zaldivar (among others), Hinnon Valley echoes in narrative Brian Yuzna’s 1993 cult classic Return of the Living Dead 3 as it revolves around (according to the film’s PR):

A deadly viral outbreak takes over the small secluded city of Hinnon Valley. Fighting for survival, a woman and a young girl band together in order to escape the city’s deadly flesh-eating inhabitants and the military presence which lurks. Feeling she is the cause of the outbreak, Allison strives to find a way to end this plague. Having already lost her son, she fights the anger and guilt inside, becoming herself a killing machine, until she saves the life of the young girl, Erin, which re-kindles her own humanity in her newfound friendship. Erin’s family is butchered before her own eyes, leaving her in shock and helpless, but in the end she gains a confidence she had never possessed. They fight not only the infected and their own internal demons, but the malicious military group that wants to harness and control the infected to use them as a weapon of war.

“I wanted to make a film that was both entertaining and immersing at the same time with great production values, even with a super low budget,” Greenwood tells us of his vision for Hinnon Valley. “I wrote the film with Alexis already cast in the lead role, and essentially it is her movie. I wanted to create a film that would get you on the edge of your seat and keep you there the entire time. To me what separates this film from other horror films is the heart of the story, which is the relationship between this woman and the young girl and how in all this mess they can still find compassion and humanity for each other. I wanted a good action-horror film with heart and crazed, rabid, fast-moving zombies!”

Hinnon Valley is currently in post-production and can be visited online at Hinnon Valley on Facebook.