‘Walking Dead’ star Chandler Riggs on his new Tampa Bay project
‘Walking Dead’ star Chandler Riggs on his new Tampa Bay project
Kiley Petracek Wed, November 11, 2026 at 7:31 PM UTC
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Film Tampa Bay’s Birdie Doyle takes a photo of Chandler Riggs with a fan dressed as Carl Grimes from "The Walking Dead" during a meet-and-greet at the Tampa Theatre on Oct. 29. ©Kiley Petracek
Chandler Riggs, who played Carl Grimes for eight seasons on “The Walking Dead,” grew up on-set in the muggy heat of rural Georgia. Following a fictitious fatal bite from a zombie, and a few years of other projects, Riggs is back in the horror scene — this time in Tampa.
Riggs and his production company, Smooth Blend Films, teamed up with Film Tampa Bay to bring “Biohazard” to life, a live-action fan film based on video game “Resident Evil 7.”
It was no small feat — Riggs wrote, directed, edited and starred in the short film.
“It was fun being on the other side of things and collaborating with the team, and getting to work with them in a really cool way,” he told the Times.
After its Oct. 23 YouTube debut, “Biohazard” had a big-screen showing on Oct. 29 at the Tampa Theatre with a meet-and-greet and an on-stage Q&A.
A line of fans snaked around the block ahead of doors opening at 6 p.m., with the meet-and-greet lasting longer than the anticipated hour.
The short film squeezed the plot of the game “Resident Evil 7” to under 20 minutes. Players follow hero Ethan Winters in first-person as he looks for his missing wife in a seemingly abandoned house in a Louisiana bayou.
Riggs, playing Winters, wakes up at a dismantled dinner table with the Bakers, a family turned into humanoid fungal creatures called “Molded” — a scene from the game widely compared to “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.”
After Winters makes his way out of his chained seat at the table — and a gory scene of a limb amputation that YouTube has censored — he walks down a dark hallway with only a lit match, coming face-to-face with one of the family’s humanoids and a police officer.
“I wrote that as an homage to ‘Walking Dead,’” Riggs shared during the Q&A.
He compared the scene to “The Walking Dead” pilot episode, following a similar shooting style to when Rick Grimes leaves a hospital through the stairwell and finds a box of matches.
“In the game, it’s kind of an inconsequential area, just for you to catch your breath,” he said. “We wanted to catch your breath, but also keep the tension going there.”
"Biohazard," a locally shot "Resident Evil 7" fan film by writer, director, actor and editor Chandler Riggs debuted at Tampa Theatre on Oct. 29. The showing was the only time the film was presented on a big screen.Large feat, small budget
The team only had two days to film the entire short, with one day consisting of six location changes.
The biggest challenge was the low budget. Special effects were donated from legendary “Walking Dead” makeup artist Greg Nicotero, the production team found a $500 car — with a working engine — to crash into a wall and only one camera was used for the entire production.
“We had a lot of different shots that we had to get in one day, and if we had two cameras, it would have sped things along a little bit, and we would have gotten more out of a day,” Riggs said.
Most of the film was shot at Arturo Fuente Cigar Factory and Centro Soccer in Ybor City as it undergoes renovations.
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Film Tampa Bay brought over four students from its Production Assistant Training Program that helped with stunts and “transforming an old cigar factory into a dilapidated bayou house.”
“Everyone’s getting underpaid, but everyone’s coming together to just make something cool, and that’s what I love about being on independent film sets,” Riggs said. “You lose a lot of that on higher budget stuff.”
Riggs has been entertaining the idea of returning to horror with a “Resident Evil” adaptation for years. The idea sprung while playing video games with his friends on a Discord server one day in 2023.
“I’m a huge advocate for fan films,” Riggs said during the Q&A. “It’s an awesome way for filmmakers to just have greater exposure for what they do.”
In the meantime, Riggs worked with Tampa filmmaker Shane Brady on other projects around the region. He starred in Brady’s project, “HACKED: A Double Entendre of Rage Fueled Karma” filmed in Downtown Tampa and Dunedin’s Honeymoon Island. Riggs also acted in Brady’s production, “The Last Time,” a horror-thriller movie filmed in Tampa that’s currently in post-production.
“[‘Resident Evil 7’] takes place in Louisiana, but I couldn’t have done this in Louisiana,” Riggs told the Times. “I don’t know anybody in film and television in Louisiana, but I know that I can trust the people here.”
On set, Brady introduced Riggs to Tampa’s film commissioner Tyler Martinolich. A few days later, the pair sat next to each other on a flight to the Cannes Film Festival by chance, where Riggs’ idea for a Resident Evil adaptation was revived.
“I did a handshake deal with him right then and there and said ‘hey, you bring it back to Tampa, we’re going to underwrite that, we’re going to figure out a way to make this happen.’” Martinolich said while introducing the film at the Tampa Theatre showing. “And here we are!”
Chandler Riggs, who played Carl Grimes in "The Walking Dead," answered questions from film commissioner Tyler Martinolich during a "Biohazard" Q&A at the Tampa Theatre on Oct. 29.
Riggs isn’t new to fan adaptations. He previously starred as Peter Parker in a “Spiderman” horror adaption, “The Spider.”
“The really hard thing with original short films is that not a lot of people want to watch them,” Riggs said during the Q&A. “I don’t think there’s anything wrong with using an existing [intellectual property] to try to showcase both your love for the IP itself, and what you can do as a filmmaker.”
Some franchises have historically disagreed. Years ago, the Los Angeles Times reported that CBS and Paramount Pictures have placed limitations on fan films to avoid copyright infringement following a “Star Trek” adaptation lawsuit.
“I’ve seen fan projects for other people’s stuff get shut down before it even comes out,” he said. Riggs asked the production crew to sign NDA’s “because [he] was so scared that word was going to get out to Capcom.”
On the release date, Riggs said the director of “Resident Evil 7” and “Resident Evil 9,” Koushi Nakanishi, reposted the trailer on his Instagram story with a “Wow!” sticker.
“They didn’t give us a cease and desist, so that’s great,” he laughed.
What’s next for Chandler Riggs
Fans can watch both the censored and uncensored versions of “Biohazard” on YouTube.
As for Riggs, keep an eye out for his acting in four films that are in post-production, including “Florida Wild”, which was shot in Myakka City.
“I hope I can meet with [Constantin Film] and maybe collaborate with them on something ‘Resident Evil’-based in the future,” Riggs said.
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
