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Haunted City
Shannon
McDermott
1989-05-30
Female
smcdermott.ca@gmail.com
1211
Haunted City
A vigilante ghost sets out to free trapped spirits, doomed to continuously relive their own demise, by avenging their deaths.
00:29:59
United States
English
United States
https://www.facebook.com/Blinky500/
Television, Web / New Media
Horror, Thriller, Web Series, New Media
No
1080i
16:9
Color
No
Chris R. Notarile
Chris R. Notarile
Chris R. Notarile
Tess Speranza, Laura Van Yck, Shannon McDermott, Lindsey Bean, Llenelle Gibson, Ryleigh Leggett, Matthew Thomas Stallings, Chris Bostrom, Edward Kasper, Tom Patrick Propofsky, Aaron Toft, Ivy Votolato
***The first 3 episodes in the series run time total is 29mins 59secs including credits***Haunted City Chapter 1: 10mins 11secsHaunted City Chapter 2: 8mins 8secsHaunted City Chapter 3: 11mins 40secsA lot of people over the years have asked me to make a Crow fan film. And as much as I'd like to, I just couldn't see myself doing it. I like the idea of an avenging spirit, and I like the the gothic motifs and visuals associated with the Crow, but there is only so much you can do with that character before it becomes redundant. The Crow has a singular mission, avenge his or her death, and move on. We've seen it done numerous times and I just didn't want to be another fish in the sea. So I got to thinking.Believe it or not, I actually did write a Crow script YEARS ago, but never made it. It inevitably became the origin story for Haunted City's Jane. With the Crow, he/she is physically there. But with Jane, she's an actual spirit. She is intangible. She can't be seen and she cannot touch a lot of things. I think having such freedom to move, combined with such physical limitation makes for a more interesting character.Jane is definitely a soul who did not want to walk into the light. She has unfinished business and she intends to stay as long as she can. And Tess Speranza played her to the T. Cold, calculated, bitter, and pragmatic. For an eccentric person, it was really interesting to see her become so muted when playing Jane.Laura Van Yck reprises her role as Death. Jane needed someone to talk to, and rather than have it be some random reaper, I figured why not Death incarnate? My personification of Death is human by nature. I figure when your entire existence is dedicated to the end of life, you develop a very in depth understanding of the human condition. For this short, I didn't want to start things off with an origin story. How Jane died is not important, at least not right now. I just wanted to jump right into her new "life" as a vigilante ghost, and show how she goes about avenging others.One of my greatest joys in making my original shorts is being able to connect them to the greater BCU. It's a great way to flesh out characters and stories more, as well as keep things fresh. Being able to add Selista into the mix of Haunted City was just the kick I needed to continue the adventures of Jane. And being able to have Shannon McDermott square off against Tess Speranza and Laura Van Yck was pure joy. These three women are at the top of their game and own their respective characters. My only regret was that it all came to an end. Production only lasted one day, though it was a long one, the hours flew right by. Newcomer Ryleigh Leggett played "the child", and that title does her no justice. She is definitely wise beyond her years and a talent I hope to work with again.The story for Chapter II was simple. I wanted Jane to fight Selista. For those of you unfamiliar with the character, she's pretty much the Loki of the BCU. She was the big bad of my Phantom Faye series, and even cameoed in KRUEGER : The Legend of Elm St. I've been wanting to do more with the BCU Phantoms, so it was nice to finally have a vehicle for at least Selista. It was also nice to establish a few more rules for the supernatural elements of the BCU, especially with Death.Now with Haunted City as part of the BCU, I am able to casually bring in more familiar faces and put them in more gothic style stories.About 10 years ago, I wrote a really cool script about evil, demonic clowns. And I never got to make it, which has been urking me for quite some time. So when I was writing this chapter of Haunted City, I instantly knew I wanted to take as many elements from my clown story as I could, including one of the main antagonists- Mimzy. Llenelle Gibson shines as this maniacal monster. Some of you may remember her as Tammy from my Betelgeuse fan film, or as Tiffany from my Chucky series. We wanted to make the character as memorable as she is creepy, and Llenelle gave one hell of a performance. Another element I wanted to incorporate was my take on the Charon, the Ferryman. I also have another years old script about this character that I've been unable to make, so it was nice to bring him in as well. I always thought it would be cool to show the Ferryman as a personal chauffeur. Of course, if I had the budget, he'd be driving a much nicer car, but you get the idea. When working with Chris Bostrom on the character, I told him I wanted Charon to have a very safe feeling about him. For lack a better description, I told him to act like Doug Jones. I met him a long time ago and to his credit, Doug has a very safe and calming presence to him, but because of his size, it can visually appear creepy or unnatural. But it's Doug Jones, and he's awesome!You may have noticed that Josie's personal hell looks a lot like a suburban home. Well, that's what happens when you have no budget, you gotta get creative, so I did. I figured Josie would be locked away in her early 90's grunge era home. As you can see, she is quite young, which means she had Jane at an even younger age. If you do the math, you can assume that Josie didn't have a very good childhood, especially if she was a teen mother. It's not glaringly obvious in the script, but it's definitely in the subtext.
Chris is a 2005 graduate from the School of Visual Arts with a BFA in animation, specifically acquired to become a more efficient filmmaker. Majoring in Stop-Motion animation, (a sub genre in which films like "Corpse Bride" and "The Nightmare Before Christmas" are made) Chris learned various techniques in the art of special FX making, from makeup and prosthetics to set design and prop building.Upon his graduation, Chris had already amassed nearly twenty short film credits to his name and by 2017, well over 300. Some of his more notable works include the very popular online horror fan film, "The Nightmare Ends on Halloween", a horror short that brings Freddy, Michael, Jason, Leatherface and Pinhead together; the viral PSA- The Powerpuff Girls which is Chris' fasted growing video; the notorious online film serial, "The Deadpool Webseries" (which caught the jealous eye of 20th Century Fox) and the fan favorite "Krueger : Tales from Elm Street", which has been hailed as the definitive origin series for Freddy Krueger by fans and ANOS alumni, alike.In August of 2007, Chris began work on his first feature film, "Methodic", which is also, officially, the world's first basher movie- a sub genre of horror created by Chris himself. The phrase was coined after deciding that the killer in "Methodic" would actually beat and bash his victims to death.Shot for a next to nothing budget, in a record-breaking ten day shoot, Chris made "Methodic" into everything he felt the horror genre represented. "Methodic" hit stores on DVD, domestically, in September of 2009 and was later picked up by Netflix for instant streaming. In his time, Chris has amassed a notable fan-base via his Youtube channel with over 60,000 subscribers and over 30 million channel views.Chris is the CEO of his own company, Blinky Productions Inc., which operates out of California and has produced dozens of commercials, music videos, event coverage, short films and feature films alike.
2020-03-01
In Consideration
Award Winner
Late Deadline
Horror
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXjupV2W1SI&list=PLctLdbuxkDm9KsTeFJvDdkwQNGXeL84Y7&index=1
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