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A cabbie and the walking dead

A local taxi driver who has written his own zombie movie is holding a fundraiser on Labour Day Monday to raise money to get the film produced.
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A fundraiser in support of “Cannibal House” takes place at SRO on Labour Day Monday. Supplied photo.
A local taxi driver who has written his own zombie movie is holding a fundraiser on Labour Day Monday to raise money to get the film produced.

While James Smith has written a feature-length version of “Cannibal House,” he's decided to produce a 20-minute short version to start out with, and enter it in film festivals to prove himself as a filmmaker.

The fundraiser takes place at SRO in downtown Sudbury starting at 10 p.m. Sept. 7, and features models dressed up like zombies, raffles and even a Cannibal House mixed drink.

Smith, who said he'd like to film the short next month, is also trying to raise $5,000 through a Go Fund Me campaign.

Because so many people have donated their time and talent, he said most of what he brings in will go towards feeding his crew and renting equipment.

In working the graveyard shift with City Taxi, Smith said there's often a lot of time between picking up fares.

Instead of hanging around with other cabbies, he decided to start writing a screenplay. It took about two-and-a-half months to complete the 110-page manuscript.

This isn't the only writing project Smith has worked on, although it is the one he's gotten the furthest with.

“Cannibal House” is a very Sudbury zombie movie, with the backstory that in the 1800s, when they were blasting rock to put the railway through, the workers who died were all buried in a field.

A grave-robber who was cursed by a gypsy turns the bodies into zombies. In the present day, ghost-hunters checking out a creepy house on the site of the graveyard run into these zombies.

“Really every other zombie movie, they were all wrong,” laughs Smith. “It wasn't radiation or viruses or medical testing. It was really a gypsy curse in 1800s Northern Ontario.”

Tickets to the fundraiser are available at Stackhouse Pizza and Sub Company on Durham Street, 84 Station on Elgin Street and Guitar Clinic on Barrydowne Road.

To learn more, visit www.gofundme.com/cannibal-house.

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Heidi Ulrichsen

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