A lonely groundskeeper at a small cemetery is all that separates us from the zombie apocalypse!

THE GATEKEEPER is a short horror film written and directed by Jimmy Weber and produced by Annie Baker.

Starring Kevin Cunningham as the lonely groundskeeper, THE GATEKEEPER is a fun film for fans of vintage comic books and 1950s horror flicks.

KEVIN CUNNINGHAM - The Gatekeeper
COREY COSTELLO - Monty Hellman
KAYLA CHALK - Zombie Girl
TARA HUNTER - Zombie
JOSEPH JOHNSON - Zombie
MATTHEW DUNN - Zombie

JIMMY WEBER - Writer, Director, Post Production
ANNIE BAKER - Producer
DAVID LIBAN - Executive Producer
AARON SAYE - Assistant Director
MATTHEW DUNN - Key Grip
VALERIE MORITZKY - Special Makeup and Effects
COREY COSTELLO - Sound Design
THOM BUTLER - Production Sound

Like any fan of horror, I've always been a huge fan of ZOMBIES. The only thing scarier than the apocalypse is an apocalypse with the flesh eating undead. So naturally, I wanted to make my own zombie film. While most zombie flicks concentrate on a single group of people during the zombie outbreak, I've always been more interested in how it happened. Not necessarily if it was a virus, satalite crash, or Hell's population, but the single moment the outbreak began.

With that concept in mind, I developed the character of The Gatekeeper. An old, under appreciated cemetary groundskeeper who has been protecting the human race for as long as he can remember. For some reason, he stepped up to the challenge of keeping us safe without asking for anything in return.

What if something were to happen to him? What if he couldn't continue doing his job? This was the driving force behind THE GATEKEEPER from the very beginning...with zombies.

Like all of PRETTY PEOPLE PICTURES movies, we didn't have much money to spend on THE GATEKEEPER. So we spent the money we had where it mattered. Utilizing my backyard and garage to their fullest capabilities, we managed to create a spooky little shack and graveyard. There was one problem however: we didn't have any gravestones or a fog machine. "We'll fix it in post!" I declared, like all arrogant directors are prone to do, but this time was different, I had a plan.

That plan was to spend the next four months of my life sitting in front of my computer motion tracking, rotoscoping, and color grading the eight minute film to make it look the way it was supposed to. I can honestly say, my plan succeeded.

Filming THE GATEKEEPER was so much fun, I thought I was doing something wrong. Our crew of six people was our largest yet and each person worked so hard I thought I was paying them. By the time I had to tear down the shack in my garage when filming had ended, I was a little bummed. If every movie was this fun to make, directors would never stop filming.

(MORE MAKING OF INFORATION, INCLUDING PHOTOS AND VIDEO WILL BE ADDED SOON!)

2009 Chicago Horror Film Festival - Best Short Film Nominee, Best Actor Nominee Kevin Cunningham- (view website)
2009 Horror UK's 28 Hours Later - Official Selection - (view website)