Christmas with the Dead (film)

Plot

Strange electrical currents from outer space hurtle toward Earth. In the fictional East Texas town of Mud Creek, Calvin lives a typical life with his wife Ella and daughter Tina. During the holidays, Ella nags Calvin to put up Christmas decorations, but he naps on the couch instead. A freak lightning storm from the strange currents causes everyone who sees it to drop dead.

Calvin awakens to find his wife and daughter seemingly dead. He lays them on their bed, but his daughter rises from the dead and crawls out an open window. Ella then rises as a zombie and attacks him. After subduing her, Calvin's neighbor Ray arrives and says Tina bit him and he killed her with a hammer.

Calvin realizes most of Mud Creek's inhabitants are now zombies. Two years later, Calvin has adapted to living among the undead. He keeps Ella chained on his back porch, feeding her dog food from a bowl, unable to kill her. He broadcasts from the local radio station hoping someone will hear him, to no avail.

He greets his former friend Ray, now a zombie, as he drives by. Calvin encounters a man shooting zombies and dragging them to his pickup. The man, G.M., says his 3D glasses saved him from the storm. Calvin objects to killing the zombies, calling them his neighbors.

That night on G.M.'s roof, they play loud music with a heavy beat, and zombies come from the woods to dance. One day, former inmates from a state mental hospital hear Calvin's broadcast and take him and G.M. hostage. They are brought to Reverend Mac, who rules over the inmates with cult-like zeal. Calvin and G.M. must escape both the reverend and his flock of mentally ill patients, as well as the zombies.

Production

Filmed in and around Nacogdoches, Texas during the summer of 2011, this movie was directed by Terrill Lee Lankford. William Arscott and Brad Maule produced it, while Arscott, Joe Lansdale, and his wife Karen served as executive producers. Joe Lansdale’s son Keith wrote the screenplay, adapting his father’s short story. Co-star Kasey Lansdale, a successful musician and Joe’s daughter, performed much of the soundtrack. Despite the East Texas heat and heavy makeup, many local residents worked as extras. The Drive-in Movies label released the DVD.