Director
Yoshihiro Nishimura began working on the script to
Helldriver in 2009. Nishimura took influence from
George A. Romero's film
Night of the Living Dead which dealt with current events. Nishimura stated that there was "quite a lot of satire and social criticism in this film...I describe what ensues after the nation splits in two, with humans controlling one half and zombies the other, and the kind of discrimination that would occur within Japan were something severe like this to happen."
[1] On May 15, 2010
Helldriver began filming in an abandoned warehouse in
Choshi, Japan.Other scenes involving hordes of zombies were filmed outside
Mt.Fuji.
Helldriver had its world premiere at
Fantastic Fest in
Austin, Texas on September 28, 2010.
[2] It was also an Official Selection at the
Sitges International Fantastic Film Festival in 2010, the
Brussels International Fantastic Film Festival in 2011, the
Calgary International Film Festival in 2011 and
Montreal's
Fantasia International Festival in 2011.
[3] The film had its theatrical release in Japan on July 23, 2011.
[2] The screening of
Helldriver at the New York
Japan Society in April 2011 was a benefit in aid for the
2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami.
Film Business Asia gave the film a six out of ten rating, calling it a "average-to-occasionally-inspired effort" that was not as strong as Nishimura's
Tokyo Gore Police but better than
Vampire Girl vs Frankenstein Girl. The review went on to say that the film "suffers from the perennial problem with all zombie movies: the creatures have only one way of attacking and the heroes have only one way of killing — which soon becomes repetitive unless there's an interesting story or characters."
[2] The
Hollywood Reporter gave the film a negative review, stating that "Even for a genre film, the storyline is negligible" and the "action choreography is run-of-the-mill."
[5] The review went on to praise the make-up in the film, stating that "Nishimura put tender loving care into image and costume design...Even "walk-ons" have distinct facial features and expressions
-wikipedia.org
