Currently Crowdfunding: ‘ZTV: Sympathy for the Devil’
For horror fans looking for something unique, director Jason Ragosta has the project for you. Ragosta completed his short film ZTV: Sympathy for the Devil as a proof-of-concept for the larger script ZTV: The Prezerve. The film introduced viewers to the post-apocalyptic world he created, where zombies share the screen with a ruthless media empire. Supporters responded to the concept, and Ragosta has kept building on the same universe ever since.
ZTV: Sympathy for the Devil centers on Douglas Sikes, a war criminal who runs a black-market trading ring inside a walled quarantine zone. The zone also houses the ZTV Broadcasting Company, which stages a live competition called the Prezerve. Prisoners face torture devices and infection on camera while audiences watch at home. After Sikes’s daughter appears on the show, he launches a direct assault on the network and the woman who runs it.
ZTV: Sympathy for the Devil synopsis
Douglas Sikes, a convicted war criminal from the American Zombie War, runs a black-market trading ring from the bowels of a walled-in quarantine zone turned for-profit prison. Sikes and the other prisoners live under the watchful eye of the ZTV Broadcasting Company, and at the whim of the Prezerve, a capital punishment reality game show that uses zombies, and horrific custom-built devices, to torture, infect, and execute the prisoners and their families on network television. Paul and his daughter Lily arrive at Doug’s home to find him grief-stricken and consumed with rage after his daughter Steffie’s gruesome episode has aired her terrible fate for all the world to see. Paul and Lily find themselves in the crossfire as Doug readies to unleash bloody vengeance on the institution and the vengeful woman who have oppressed him. Come see it here! Come see it live! Only on ZTV.
ZTV: Sympathy for the Devil release and festival run
Picture lock arrived ahead of the festival circuit. The short premiered in Los Angeles at Screamfest on October 16, 2021, and received an October 2021 release date on IMDb. The screenings gave the project its first wide exposure beyond the crowdfunding backers who helped finish the effects and edit. Festival programmers highlighted the blend of reality-show satire and zombie violence, and the short continued to play smaller genre events in the following months.
Franchise developments after the short
The prequel comic ZTV: Undead Empire reached supporters in 2022 with physical copies mailed to backers and a handful of reviews appearing on horror blogs. The comic expanded the quarantine zone’s history and introduced new characters who later appeared in Ragosta’s interviews. The feature script ZTV: The Prezerve remains in development without a public production start as of 2026, though Ragosta continues to reference the larger world in festival bios and social posts.
Ragosta’s subsequent projects
After finishing ZTV, Ragosta directed the Mother Love segment for the 2022 horror anthology Sinphony. In 2025 he completed the short Grizzly Peak, which stars Danny Glover and mixes animation with live action. He maintains an active slate that includes adult animation pilots and development work for episodic horror, keeping the same mix of world-building and practical effects that defined the original ZTV campaign.
Legacy of the ZTV concept
The Dread Central quote that called the short Big Brother meets Death Race but with zombies still circulates in festival notes. The film’s niche run proved that a small crew could sell a sprawling media-dystopia premise to genre audiences. Ragosta has carried the same interests forward, folding animation, practical gore, and serialized storytelling into later projects while keeping the ZTV universe available for future expansion.
Jason Ragosta was born in Connecticut. He attended the Maryland Institute College of Art and started working in stop-motion animation at Wreckless Abandon Studios as a storyboard and concept artist and assistant cameraman, before moving to the west coast to work in film. Jason then went on to manage a sound stage at the Academy of Art at the University in San Francisco for actress Diane Baker (Marnie, Silence of the Lambs) before working for a year as a production assistant in the editorial production office on the Disney film John Carter, directed by Andrew Stanton. From there, Jason spent a decade working in animation, independent films, commercials, and music videos, before completing his first independent short film, Boy in the Dark. Currently, he is in post-production on ZTV: Sympathy for the Devil, a proof-of-concept short film for his horror feature script, ZTV: The Prezerve, as well as writing and illustrating his prequel comic book series, ZTV: Undead Empire. His later credits include the Mother Love segment of Sinphony and the short Grizzly Peak.
