We've hit gold with zombie pic . . .in Govan

And amazingly, the £200,000 gamble paid off big time for Arabella Croft and Kieran Parker.

Their movie Outpost has already pulled in £1.2million and is about to go on general release to the nation's multiplexes.

The couple, both 37, with two young children, had so much faith in their film about zombie stormtroopers they put everything into it.

Their little home-made film, much of which was shot in Govan, was kicked off with £200,000 of their own money, including the cash they got from remortgaging their West End house two years ago.

Outpost, set for release on May 16, eventually won a backing deal with film giants Sony and lured one of the hottest action actors in the business - Ray Stevenson. He became an international star after his appearance in the BBC drama Rome and he's fast moving up the Hollywood rankings after signing a major deal with Sony Pictures.

Outpost is out on DVD in the States and has received great reviews, with the film rights also being sold throughout Europe.

It's a fantastic success story, but the tale of how the film came to be is almost as dramatic as the movie itself.

"We could have lost the lot," says Arabella. "But sometimes you feel you have to take a gamble and we did."

Arabella and Kieran met six years ago while they were working on a short film as production assistants. And, apart from the developing romance, they realised they shared a career dream.

"We just seemed to be on the same wave-length right from the start," she says.

"We have the same focus and we wanted to have a movie hit. We wanted success and we knew that, combined, we had the talents to make it happen."

The film is set in Eastern Europe but because of the restricted budget, filming took place in a Dalbeattie, Dumfriesshire, munitions factory, with Govan doubling as a major city.

It follows a crack team of ex-soldiers hired to find cash stashed in an old military bunker. But the men stumble upon an old test zone where the Nazis did a series of gruesome experiments on their own soldiers during the Second World War.

After the couple raised the original working capital, they had another major problem to contend with - Arabella became pregnant.

"I was actually in Cannes trying to sell the film when I went into labour," she says, smiling. "But it's all worked out and we now have a baby, Isaac, as well as his big sister, Holly, who is three."

Gradually Arabella and Kieran pulled in more backing, which allowed them to invest more in the production; improved sound, better soundtrack, lighting, etc.

And once the film was shot, film company interest soared, and the tale of Special Forces taking on evil Nazi zombies seemed to be a winner.

"What also helped massively was getting Ray Stevenson on board," says Arabella. "His work on Rome had made him a big name in the States and he was great to work with."

Sony came in with their £1.2m figure after seeing just a few minutes of final footage. But there's no doubt the couple deserve their financial boost.

"I suppose fortune does favour the brave," said Arabella. "But I think fate has kicked in along the way."

Arabella believes the film would not have came about had it not been for her moving home from London to care of her cancer-stricken mother, who later died.

"If that hadn't happened, I wouldn't have met Kieran.

"And all the time, when we were in doubt about whether to take the chance on this film my mother's voice would come into my head saying Do it!' "So we did. Perhaps helped by the fact that we were so naive, but we did it anyway."

Already the producing couple are ready to get to work with the Outpost team again for their next film Blood Makes Noise, a vampire-cop revenge thriller.

Other projects in the pipeline include Ebony and Noodle - a supernatural horror set in the Mexican desert - and The Devil's Staircase, a chilling urban backpacker horror adapted from Helen Fitzgerald's novel.

If their passion and talent is anything to go by, the future is bright for this enterprising Glasgow couple.