Prey For The Dead

The Skeletal Spotlight shines this time on:

My home-made movie "Prey For The Dead"

Back in the summer of 1991, a friend and I took my single VHS camcorder out on location in several cool places and made our "big 15-minute epic" horror movie. We filmed in two historic cemeteries; the credits were filmed in Rose Hill in Macon, GA and the first stalking scene in Bonaventure in Savannah, GA. That was the same cemetery where later they filmed scenes in "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil." We only had one battery, so we had to film quickly and with as few takes as possible.

The entrance to Boanventure, seen in the movie.

The above area can be seen in the background as the truck is driving down the cemetery road.

The monument where our hero visits before the stalker appears.

Rose Hill Cemetery in Macon, GA where the credits were filmed. Awesome location!

It was all for fun, and there was no special lighting, costumes or effects. We just made it up as we went along, except for the general idea: a man has been having nightmares of being stalked by a stranger in a skull mask, and he's now in therapy. As he relates the dreams, we see them as he did. Keep in mind that all of the sound was dubbed in later, we didn't use any of the sound from the camera. Since it was made on VHS and dubbed to a tape editor then back to video, the picture is not great, and the Youtube compression makes it ever fuzzier. There are some tape wrinkle artifacts as well. It's very amatuerish, so don't expect too much... but I enjoy watching it, so you might.

The statue that the main title is over in the movie.

Another Rose Hill tombstone you will see used in the credits. Can't get a bad angle here!

The cloth pullover skull mask was a neat item that fit over your head like a stocking, and was a tight fit, giving the impression of makeup more than a rubber mask might. Since there were only two of us, when one was in the shot, the other had to film. I play the stalker and my friend plays the hapless victim, but the names on the credits are nonsense monikers made up to protect the guilty. Hope you enjoy it; we had fun making it!

Here's part one; I had to cut it into two sections for YouTube upload.

Well, of course you noticed the Evil Dead-influenced camera shots... I love doing that "camera on the ground" kind of movement. There's even a quick shot of a building I videotaped while in Miami thrown in there for the location of the psychiatrist's office exterior.

The second half, available below, was filmed in the mountainous terrain and caves at Grandview State Park in West Virginia.

Part two, the shocking conclusion of "Prey For The Dead."

And there you have it, the results of a vacation 17 years ago spent running around filming like mad. I know I could do better today with the digital cameras, PC editing, etc., but I'm not as inclined to don a skull mask in public as I once was. Maybe I'm maturing... maybe even growing up, perhaps?

Nah. Just getting older and more tired, is all. The cemeteries are too hot and the hills are too steep.