'Pride and Prejudice and Zombies' Movie: Director Says It Is A Humorous War Movie

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies |

A lot of people cannot wrap their heads on the idea of zombies dominating the peaceful setting of Jane Austen's classic novel "Pride and Prejudice," but somehow, Seth Grahame-Smith's novel "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies" managed to do so.

Its film adaptation, directed by Burr Steers will be led by "Cinderella" star Lily James, who will portray Elizabeth Bennet.

During an interview with Collider, Steers talked about the humorous aspect of the film and how they incorporated flesh eaters into the historical setting.

"Oh, it's got humor, yeah. But it's not like sketch. The idea was to create this sort of alternate world where this pandemic has taken place and then to stage 'Pride and Prejudice' in it. That doesn't sound very funny, but it is, because ultimately it's absurd but you play it straight. No one's playing it hitting punchlines and things like that," he laughingly said.

When he's at the editing room, Steers admitted that he would laugh at the scenes they shot despite the blood and gore involved. "They are really funny because you're playing it straight," he explained.

But Steers does not want "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies" to be labelled as a comedy, because it is "definitely a war movie."

In fact, Steers guarantees that the zombies found in his movie will terrify audiences. "That's the whole idea is that you're afraid of them, that they're a threat. My idea was to do everything as well as I possibly could - do the zombie movie as well as I possibly could and do 'Pride and Prejudice'as well as I could," he said.

The director did his best to make zombies and Regency England as cohesive as possible, and that is why he classified being a zombie as a disease.

"There are different stages of the disease," he revealed. "We have four stages of it, so you'd be infected and then you'd become a full-blown zombie and then you'd start deteriorating from the point where you were bitten. And then you have crypto zombies (who) are the zombies that haven't gone fully over, they're sort of in between."

Meanwhile, Steers also shared that George Wickham will be the main antagonist in the movie. He did a lot of horrible things in "Pride and Prejudice," but Steers said he will be even  worse in "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies."

"I made Wickham more formidable and not just sort of a foil. I mean he's a big presence," he said.

"Pride and Prejudice and Zombies" will be released on February 5, 2016.