Govan zombies taste film success

Picture from the film Outpost, courtesy of Gavin Struthers

A zombie-thriller partly shot in Govan has helped to kick-start the careers of a Glasgow couple who re-mortgaged their house to fund the film.

Movie producers Arabella Croft and Kieran Parker, who have two young children, decided to risk �200,000 of their own cash on the film Outpost.

The film about Nazi soldiers who come back from the dead has been snapped up by Sony Pictures for �1.2m.

It has already been released on DVD in the US and is due to hit UK cinemas.

The couple, who run the film company Black Camel Pictures, have worked in the industry for many years.

Arabella said they took a calculated risk on the project.

"We've both worked in the industry for a long time - making the tea for years and climbing every rung of the ladder," she said.

"We spent many nights talking about it - but we decided that we were young enough to take a chance."

"We re-jigged a lot of our finances to raise an awful lot of our own money, but we went into it with high hopes and passion and belief."

The film was bought by Sony Pictures for �1.2m

The film, directed by Steve Barker, is set in Eastern Europe but was shot in a Dumfriesshire munitions factory and Glasgow's Govan.

Kieran came up with the idea for the film, which he described as "Platoon meets the Sixth Sense," and went on to develop the story with writer Rae Brunton.

After receiving favourable reviews in the US, Sony Pictures has decided to screen Outpost at 130 cinemas across the UK from May.

Kieran said it was worth taking a financial risk on the film.

He said: "We knew what we wanted to do, but no-one was going to invite us to the table.

"Zombies didn't save our house, but they may have kick-started our careers."

The pair, who scooped the Best First Time Producers Bafta this year for their work on Outpost, have several other films in the pipeline - including a sequel, Outpost II: The Red Zone, and a new action-thriller called Breathe.

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