SCORES of zombies will stagger into a theatre for the world premiere of a horror film made in Oxfordshire.

Director Tony Jopia, 50, shot his low-budget zombie flick in Banbury two years ago – with 300 people from the area coming forward to play undead extras.

Apocalypse will hit the screen for the first time in Chipping Norton Theatre in January, in a double bill with Mr Jopia’s other movie, Cute Little Buggers.

The director, who lives with his family in Enstone, said: “We’re super excited to be doing the premier in Chippy.

“We’ve put it to everyone who was in the film to come to the afternoon show dressed as zombies and we’re going to fill the theatre no problem.”

Apocalypse was filmed in Banbury in 2014 and follows the story of a journalist trying to reach her boyfriend after a virus released by terrorists begins turning the population into flesh eating hordes.

The other film being screened is Cute Little Buggers, a sci-fi about bunny rabbits taken over by aliens and the locals who fight back against the deceptively adorable invaders, filmed in Duns Tew.

Both of the films - produced by Tirana Films and Great Dayne Entertainment and line-produced by Bicester's The Film and TV Company and Brainy Monkey Post - will be released globally later in 2017.

Speaking about Apocalypse, Mr Jopia said: “We had hundreds of people being zombies in the centre of Banbury. We even turned the centre of an operational roundabout into a café and had a car drive into it and blow up. The town must have wondered what was going on.

“It was surreal at first. Banbury’s a town I would normally do my shopping in and there I was exploding cars.

“Whenever I’m in Banbury now people say to me ‘weren’t you the one who was shouting at those zombies?' People seem to remember me as the man telling zombies to run over there or run over here. It gets quite humbling.”

Mr Jopia, who works for Sony Pictures Entertainment, is now planning to launch Hellborn Entertainment, a studio with the aim of making horror films in Oxfordshire, with his brother Stuart and son Alex.

He said: “The thing is, I came over to this country as a boy in the 1970s as a refugee from Chile. When I was here I saw Airport 1975, a disaster film, and it just blew me away.

“I knew from that moment, at the age of nine, that I wanted to be a film director.”

Apocalypse and Cute Little Buggers will be premiered on January 15.