Wave of terror SLAYS the state
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I presume you will be excited to know, dearest creatures, that the Land of Lincoln is being overrun by creatives with cameras – zombie invasions are so 2010, after all – who are making horror films as the swirling fall season sets in. ‘Tis a synergy that has not only struck a handful of media production teams in east central Illinois, like C-U Blogfidential has covered several times recently, but also many others throughout the state. I thought it might be fun to stray from the Champaign County beat for a spell and take a bit closer look at these developments, entangled on my interwebs and tantalizing me with fleeting glimpses as I browse every day for story leads and news reads. The fresh dirt is laid bare below, where I exhume five genre flicks that are clearly not of this C-U, so dig in … but only if you dare!
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We’ll begin our Tour de Fright at the famous river city where it’s rumored that if it can play there, it has staying (and scaring) power anywhere. Peoria-based event videographer and filmmaker Derek Huey shared on Facebook with our friendly neighborhood Champaign Movie Makers a link to a post by PopHorror.com that revealed the first set images from MY GIRLFRIEND THE SERIAL KILLER. This long-planned tale of terror finally got underway in early September after being promoted through the indie horror grapevine for a spell. Samantha Marie is the co-writer and co-director with Huey on this project, a female-led frightener that is seemingly bent on bringing the gruesome fun with a dash of the supernatural on top, and Huey House Productions plans to resume work on it in March of next year. Set to star in GIRLFRIEND with Marie are Robert Bess, Noellie Burger, Jason Alan Cook, Joe DeBartolo, Heather Harlow, Mel Helfin, Kaylee Williams, and the very busy SLEEPAWAY CAMP veteran Felissa Rose.
Marie, DeBartolo, and Harlow will also appear in TORTURE THE FLESH, another serial killer drama that has finally sprung to bloody life after a delay. Cheevies Film Productions of Elburn released a very terse preview on October 1 that promises revenge at the hands of shotgun-wielding Daniel (Darin Bowman) after murder apparently tears his family apart. Additionally, production shots on Facebook depict a strong police procedural angle to the story while very little has been revealed about the horrors in store, apart from that provocative title. Bill H. Bailey, Bobby Bozek, Andre Boyd, Portia Chellelynn, Michael Holub, Jay Jewitt, Chantelly Johnson, Lillian Lamour, Jimmy Shay, and Gary Soumar lead a large cast that includes another well-known genre actress, Lynn Lowry from SHIVERS, while downstate actor Myles Valentine (FINAL SUMMER) can be seen leading the charge of officers at the preview’s end. Launched two decades ago and captained by Derek Braasch and Nina Trader-Braasch, the prolific mini-studio also runs the Reel Horror Fest, which will return for its third year on Saturday, October 30, in Lombard.
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Circling south, Brian Crowdson of Crowdson Creative in Springfield has been busy assisting Aaron Thomas with the latter’s debut feature called DON’T LET ME STAY, a psychological thriller written by Thomas about a group of college acquaintances who are invited to an old mansion by someone they had lost touch with. Crowdson is co-producing with Ayokunle Spencer of Tyayoku Studios in Lexington, Kentucky, while Los Angeles-based cinematographer Bo-Yu Chen directed the camera work and Clinton Robison of R&R Film Productions in Bloomington served as the assistant director. Filmed primarily at a bed and breakfast location near Chatham back in August, according to an article published by the Illinois Times, DON’T LET ME STAY appears to take a more low-key approach to its characters’ conundrums than our other movies. Jacki Bainter, Isabella Cooper, Devin Durbin, Thomas Fitch, Ronnie Hudson II, Nick Kafkis, Max Kwiatowski, Tabitha Ott, Eric Schanker, and University of Illinois graduate student Keenan Dailey (GREENE) play the primary roles in an indie shrouded in mystery, given how little exists about it on the Web, and maybe that is good discipline in this share-all social media age.
Then again, if the C-U podcast Mashley at the Movies hadn’t passed along a tidbit on Facebook about the next title, I would not have known enough about it to share! The Skyview Drive-In Movie Theater of Belleville hosted the world premiere of FOUNTAINE AND THE VENGEFUL NUN WHO WOULDN’T DIE on Tuesday, September 21, and I imagine the crew at Monster Kid Productions wouldn’t have unleashed it any other way. Directed by James Dean and starring Jaclyn Tripp, Ron Clower, Zera Lynd, Brian Davis, Keith Nussbaum, and Mallory Stern as “Mary” the titular sister, FOUNTAINE may appear to the non-film schooled as a KILL BILL knock-off made on an impoverished budget, but it’s really a go-for-broke salute to all the sleazy, oozing, exploitative, kung-fu punching action one could have handled on an average day, circa 1981, playing the grindhouses located up and down 42nd Street in New York City. Judge for yourselves how well this St. Louis-made concoction apes the qualities of disreputable vintage cinema by watching the trailer on YouTube and eyeballing the poster art below with a noticeable THRILLER vibe.
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Although it’s uncertain when VENGEFUL NUN will again exact vengeance in front of an audience, we know with much better certainty how and when our final horrific confection can be viewed. Let’s jet all the way from the East St. Louis region to Lexington, where The ScareFest Horror and Paranormal Convention will host a “black carpet” theatrical premiere of 13 SLAYS TILL X-MAS on Saturday, October 23, 7 p.m., at the Central Bank Center. As the holiday anthology has already been distributed on Blu-ray disc by Scream Team Releasing since the spring, I take it this event is meant to give the project and its collaborators a belated public bow as well as serving as a hometown showing for 13 SLAYS producers P.J. Starks and Eric Huskisson and their studio, Blood Moon Pictures, which is based in nearby Owensboro. I’m including 13 SLAYS because one of the segments, “Kringles the Christmas Clown,” was filmed in Illinois by Jed Brian (UNLISTED OWNER) and stars Peoria actor Steve Christopher (COLLEGE DEBTS) as “Kringles.” A last-minute fact check confirms that 13 SLAYS is available to purchase or rent through Amazon Prime when it had been AWOL only a few weeks ago.
And with that final gruesome gift in the grab bag, we’re just about done kicking up dust along our detour that is lined with on-screen killers and cretins. Horror is a universal language in storytelling and a thematic avenue rich with potential to explore all the things that make us human, imperfect, and susceptible to the unknown. It can awaken us, thrill us, and shake us to the core. To some viewers, that will sound exactly like a recipe for fun whether it’s All Hallow’s Eve or any other time of the year. We’ll see how these excursions shape up in the coming months and, while we await their arrival, be sure to look out (and we do mean, “Look out!”) for our further reports about even more local films in this blood-red vein.
~ Jason Pankoke
[Updated 10/22/21, 10:45 p.m. CST]
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