A zombie movie shot in the world’s largest particle physics laboratory deep underneath the French-Swiss border has become an online hit. Bosses at the Cern centre, where scientists discovered the God particle, have not endorsed the film, however.

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A team of young physicists at the research centre where the “God particle” was recently discovered are being hunted down by blood thirsty zombies following a disaster in the world-famous Large Hadron Collider.

The story is, of course, not one you can expect to see on the 24-hour breaking news channels, but on YouTube where it has become an online hit in the form of an 80-minute budget movie.

UK and American student physicists from the centre both made and starred in the film that was put together without the knowledge of bosses at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) near Geneva.

“They asked for CERN’s endorsement once the whole thing was in the can,” said spokesman James Gillies. “Clearly we can’t endorse such a thing, but nor were we going to stop it. After all, it’s just students doing the kind of thing students do.”

Decay was filmed deep underground at the heart of the multi-billion dollar complex where, last July, physicists announced the discovery of what they think is the particle -- the Higgs boson -- which made life and the universe possible.

No access to 27-mile tunnel

The cinematic mayhem follows a disaster in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), releasing the Higgs and its associated particle field which turn dozens of the technicians working around the subterranean complex into “living dead” flesh-eaters.

A group of scientists is isolated in the control room -- which the filmmakers move underground from its actual location on the surface -- and as they try to break out to safety they are picked off one by one by their zombie colleagues.

“It’s a bit of fun in the best tradition of B-series Zombie movies,” said a CERN researcher who followed the project. “It’s well done, but I can’t say the acting is Oscar quality.”

“They wanted to make the film as unbelievable as possible, and the scientific ‘facts’ cited in it are laughable, so no-one could take it seriously.”

The producers are at pains to underline that in making their technicolour epic they had no access to the actual 27-km (17-mile) circular tunnel where the LHC and the giant particle detectors and magnets are housed.

“It might just turn out to be one of those off-the-wall successes,” the CERN researcher said.

And with 85,000 viewers already having watched the film online, the researcher might just be right.

The film can be viewed or downloaded at www.decayfilm.com

(FRANCE 24 with wires)

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