I’ve always loved Halloween. Any day that celebrates imaginary monsters and the telling of scary stories is alright by me. When I was young my folks didn’t allow me to trick or treat because of Halloween’s pagan origins, but as they matured in their Christian faith, they began to realize that the holiday had become a harmless celebration of imagination. By that time though I was too old to participate, so for me Halloween has the added allure of a holiday I never really got to be a part of. This allure has influenced the stories I tell–I keep returning to horror themes in my short films. My senior thesis film used werewolf imagery to represent humanity’s sinful nature and my first major short out of college was a subversion of the slasher genre, where the masked stalker was the one in danger. Now I’m at it again with my new short film HAUNT.
I was home schooled all the way through high school, so I found my main social circle in the after school musical theater group I was involved in. I spent many lovely evenings sitting on the cold floor of a church gym chatting with my friends and working on blocking scenes, memorizing dance choreography, and learning three part harmonies. Most of my formative years were spent heavily involved in this group, and it did a lot to form the person I am now. While performing in over 15 musicals I agonized over numerous crushes, gained lifelong friends, and debated my way closer to my Christian faith. Lately I’ve reconnected with this group–much the same as it was when I was a kid only with new faces–and I’m now teaching film acting classes for them, which is a great opportunity for me to make films.
HAUNT is the result of a class I just finished teaching for this group. Combining my interest in Halloween with my experiences in youth theater and my Christian faith, the film tells the story of a teenage boy dealing with the loss of a close friend who was a strong believer. The film takes place over the course of one day, October 31, starting with play practice and ending at a harvest party lock-in. You can watch it below.
Making this film as part of a class meant that I was limited to two hour sessions and meeting in a multi purpose room in a church. Rather than shooting against a backdrop or on a green screen like I’ve done in the past, I instead wrote a script that fit the settings and actors I had. It’s probably my most personal film yet, full of little nods to things that happened to me and people I knew when I was a teenager, and it was a real pleasure to create. I abandoned my tripod, opting for a hand-held rig, and instead of using lots of lights, I shot with fast vintage C-mount lenses, giving me a cinematic shallow depth of field and the ability to speedily set up shots. It’s not a perfect film and I still have a lot of growing to do as a filmmaker, but I feel like it’s a step in the right direction. This is the type of film I want to continue to make, immediate and focused, with a unique plot and realistically communicated truth. Modern Christian cinema is really comfortable with working in worn cliche, which bothers me because cinema is such a flexible art form–you can tell any story in any way you want, and that’s exactly what I want to do!
EXTRA: Here’s an extended cut of the short film Attack of the Giant Woman featured in HAUNT. I shot it on black and white Super 8 film to differentiate it from the rest of the project.