By HEIDI GAISER/The Daily Inter Lake

After two years of work, Andrew Wiest was satisfied with his final cut of “Dead Noon,” a zombie Western movie made on a budget of $4,000. But then Hollywood got involved.

Once Barnholtz Entertainment saw Wiest’s 85-minute version of “Dead Noon,” the company predicted it could be more than a minor independent film from an unknown director from Montana.

“They decided it could be a hit, that it had a cult-movie vibe,” Wiest said. “They decided a name actor could sell more copies than just a bunch of kids from Wyoming.”

So Barnholtz brought in horror-movie icon Kane Hodder, known as the hockey-masked killer Jason Voorhees in the “Friday the 13th” series, for star power and additional footage.

“The 15 minutes of new stuff cost four to five times what the whole movie cost,” Wiest said. “Kane alone was paid more than my movie cost.”

Thankfully, Wiest said, Barnholtz footed the entire cost of the additional footage and flew him to Los Angeles for the February shoot. The film is now in the hands of the company’s editors and will be released in October on DVD through Lionsgate, one of the largest independent film distributors in the United States.

Wiest said he doesn’t know what the final version of “Dead Noon” will look like, since part of his original work will be cut to make room for the new footage.

He is predicting, though, that the final product will be heavy on action and a bit lighter in plot. But, he said, more action can only help the film’s chances for success.

Wiest, who currently lives in Bigfork with his wife, Marianne, went into “Dead Noon” with an intent to “pull out all the stops so we can keep making movies.”

The 29-year-old had been a horror-movie fan since he saw films such as “Psycho” and “Night of the Living Dead” as a child. He then discovered Sam Raimi’s “Evil Dead” series, which combined humor and horror. And Wiest said he always loved Westerns.

So when his friend Matthew Taggart suggested that the Gary Cooper classic “High Noon” would be perfect with zombies in the outlaw roles, Wiest was inspired by the possibility of blending the Western and horror genres, and then throwing in a lighter touch with a few laughs along the way.

“When we started, Westerns were not a hot item, but I knew that horror movies always sell,” Wiest said.

They started writing the script in the final months of 2005 and in 2006 began shooting in Cody, Wyo., where Wiest grew up and was living at the time as manager of a video store.

Wiest pulled together friends and family — none of whom were in paid roles — to act in the movie.

The key to making the action-filled, effects-laden movie that Wiest envisioned was bringing in a great special effects man, and Wiest found him in friend James Teague. Teague agreed to do the visual effects work for no more pay than some meals and his name in the credits.

It took Teague a year and a half of solid work, sometimes putting in 20 hours a day, Wiest said. Teague’s generosity, talent and computer skill made all the difference on a film with such a restricted budget.

Wiest said “Dead Zone” was shot with a mini-DV camera, though Wiest said he had been told you could never sell a movie shot in that format.

“You can sell a mini-DV movie, you just have to be clever about it and pull the wool over their eyes,” Wiest said. “Instead of making it slick and Hollywood, we thought that we should grunge it up.”

“Dead Noon” is synopsized as a “shoot ’em up Western horror tale,” where “ancient demons, walking skeletons and cowboy zombies join forces to take the law down in a blaze of hellfire and brimstone.”

An outlaw is resurrected to seek revenge on a modern-day Western town, and the sheriff, his brother and a sexy gun-shop owner fight to save the town from a posse of the undead.

Most of the movie was made over the course of a few frantic weeks of shooting in Cody, with additional minutes of footage shot near McGregor Lake and Bigfork.

Wiest and his wife moved to a cabin on McGregor Lake in March 2006, after the shoot was finished in Cody. After months of editing and effects work, the film was only 65 minutes long, so they brought everyone together in January 2007 at McGregor Lake to shoot flashback scenes.

“Ten minutes of the movie were shot there,” Wiest said. “They are most people’s favorite part. They’ll tell me that they want to go to Wyoming after seeing those, but I say, ‘That’s Montana.’”

Wiest said his wife has been nothing but supportive of his movie-making dreams. She has provided crucial organizational talent and is billed as producer for “Dead Noon.”

He met Marianne Myers, who grew up in Bigfork in a family of 10 children, in Bozeman at a choir concert. She was in school at Montana State University and he had been living in Bozeman, where his parents were living at the time, but was planning on moving to Los Angeles hoping to find a place in movies there.

Once he met Marianne, though, he decided to stick around Bozeman. He’s glad he’s remained in the West, and he said people in the movie business are often intrigued with where he lives and the possibilities it provides for scenic footage and a different take on life.

Marianne had helped Wiest on his first film, “Pizza, Pesos and Pistoleros.” They made that movie for $1,500 and it was accepted into the 2004 New York International Independent Film Festival, but it couldn’t find a home after that, Wiest said.

Still, it gave Wiest the exposure he needed to sell a film to a company such as Barnholtz Entertainment, which first found Wiest after expressing an interest in “Pizza.”

The early version of “Dead Noon” also has been seen in film festivals, winning best feature at the Fargo Fantastic Film Festival.

Even though “Dead Noon” won’t be seen in theaters, Wiest said that is not a disappointment.

“There are a lot of big movie stars whose movies are going straight to video,” Wiest said. “The theater is almost considered a promo now.”

Wiest was given an advance payment for “Dead Noon” and should make more money off of the royalties once the movie is on DVD. He hopes to support himself through movies and is working on a few more films, including another horror/comedy and a family film that he wrote with his father years ago about the life of Buffalo Bill Cody. Barnholtz is interested in working with him on his next film, he said.

But as far as he knows, he’s staying in Montana.

“I could move to L.A., but I have no interest in telling L.A. stories,” Wiest said. “I’ll make movies here or find something else to do.”

For more information or to watch a trailer for “Dead Noon,” visit www.deadnoon.com

Reporter Heidi Gaiser may be reached at 758-4431 or by e-mail at hgaiser@dailyinterlake.com