Welcome to filmmaking.net, Jonathon.

You should avoid using the cliches. You like zombie movies
so you've know what most of them are. It's not easy in this
genre, but a very creative person can put their own original
take on things. Avoid listening to others; this is YOUR vision.
Use what is unique to you and your style and locations. Look
at the granddaddy of all zombie films - the first two by Romero.
He used what he had very well. He used what he was interested
in well. Avoid copying others - put your own personality and
interests in your script.

There is no formula that guarantees success. I wish there was.

I've written a zombie script. I put in the things I've always
wanted to see in my script. As a fellow writer I'm not going
to tell you what I used in my script. Not because I'm afraid
you will take and use them, but because the ideas are
unique to me and my style.

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The aim of an argument or discussion should not be victory, but progress.
Joseph Joubert, essayist (1754-1824)

What makes good zombie movies good is the ability to use the zombies to promote a theme. When Romero wrote Dawn of the Dead he had access to a mall so he decided consumerism would be a good theme. Day of the Dead he put into a bunker to help highlight his military vs Science themes.

What locations do you have access too and what ideas can you promote using that location? I think I would start with a location you can get and work from there.

You also need to figure out if you want fast or slow zombies. Slow zombies are creepy. The makeup (and faults in the makeup) is more visible. The slow nature makes it harder to build up tension but easier to work for comedy-sake. Fast zombies move to quick to get a good look at the makeup most of the time and they can be scary as they force characters to act fast to survive.

Lastly are you going to make it a gore-fest similar to Dead Alive and the Romero movies or are you going to avoid the obvious gore and build on characters and tension.

I'm a huge fan of zombie flicks, if you want to run any ideas by me offline I'd be happy to give opinions.

RJSchwarz

To me, 'fast zombies' are boring: they're dumb as rocks and just run at people so you end up with a repetitive shoot them or run away story which doesn't hold much interest for me.

The important part for me in all the best movies was that the zombies weren't just dead people who wanted to kill you and eat you, but they were dead people who wanted to kill you and eat you _who used to be people you knew_. If some ravenous dead person you've never met comes running towards you and you shoot them in the head, well, so what? But if it's your mother turned into a zombie, then that starts to become interesting ('Braindead' mentioned above was a great gore movie, but the zombies wouldn't have been half as interesting if they weren't the protagonist's friends and relatives).

That said, I did like 'Dead Snow' which had fairly fast zombies, but they were Nazi zombies so my point still applies.

Wow, now I'm upset that in the craziness these past few months, I've missed your replies. Thanks for the awesome feedback.

certified instigator - I agree that we need to avoid cliches. Though, as we all seem to agree on, there are vital aspects to the zombie genre that must be present. Also, I have been watching more and more modern zombie films and I am personally loving the originality of them while still returning to the classic mystery and terror of older films. We've lost that with modern slashers and gore-fests, as RJSchwarz put it. Whatever happened to the terrifying mystery of only getting snipets of the danger? Such as in Alien, Predator, and other classic horror films? Though, as I said before, that is returning, one of the finer points I saw in Quarantine.

RJSchwarz - There will be a, for lack of a better term, political statement. Though the overall film will be the zombie story.

MarkG - I agree, it's much more horrifying to kill someone you know, especially if the audience has gotten to know the character and become attached to the character, and there will be a little bit of that aspect in my film.

I am approximately 3/4 of the way through the script and am quickly approaching my deadline! What with auditions in November/December and a currently scheduled starting shoot date in February!

"To hell with the raggedy. Time to put on a show." -Matt Smith as the 11th Doctor

I have started to like fast zombies. The slow ones create an overall feeling of dread but after hundreds of zombie movies (including Romero's latest two or three) I'm tired of the out of frame nobody sees it zombies sneaking up technique required for these zombies to get people half the time.

RJSchwarz