By MICHAEL GINGOLD
It’s described as “THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE meets THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW.”
Busy genre filmmaker P.J. Starks gave us the first look at the initial poster for NKY Films’ OPEN HOUSE, on which he’s serving as executive producer. Written and directed by Ricky Glore (ALL YOUR FRIENDS ARE DEAD), it’s a combination fright film/musical comedy starring Timmy H. Barron, Ali Delianides, Lisa Walton and Jasmine Fondrisi. The synopsis: “A young mother and her teenage daughter live a vagabond life, bouncing from town to town, squatting in homes that they have tricked realtors into showing them during the day, and then breaking into them later at night, so they have somewhere to sleep. This grift seems to be working well until the two come across an overzealous realty couple, who show the duo a house, but refuse to let them leave.”
The movie will be shot largely at Bobby Mackey’s, a notorious haunted slaughterhouse in Wilder, Kentucky that has been featured on The Travel Channel’s GHOST ADVENTURES. Chris Morris and Mike Flinchum are producing, Trevor Thompson (MALUM, MOM & DAD) is handling the makeup effects and the score will be conducted by David Kornfeld, the Jeff Award-winning composer of HAYMARKET: A NEW FOLK MUSICAL who is currently serving as associate conductor of the Broadway musical JAGGED LITTLE PILL’s nationwide tour.
“A project like this is a lot of fun for me,” Glore says, “because it feels like a horror amusement park on film. There are scares, thrills, chills, gore, dark humor, music and more! Something for everyone, while still being truly disturbing and original.
“One of my favorite things on-line from recent years is when someone edits a trailer to a non-scary movie, making it look as if it were a horror movie. To me, that’s what OPEN HOUSE is. What if someone re-edited Christopher Guest’s WAITING FOR GUFFMAN to make it look like all of those community theater actors were delusional, murderous, cannibalistic, singing psychopaths? Add a dash of David Lynch surrealism, the flavor of the original THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE, a sprinkle of THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW and a pinch of MOTEL HELL… Welcome to OPEN HOUSE. Let us show you around!”
“I’ve always been a fan of musicals in general,” Starks adds. “In recent years I’ve been seriously toying with the idea of writing a horror musical, but my other projects have been keeping me busy. Well, I finally got my chance to take part in one when Ricky reached out to me about OPEN HOUSE. We don’t get enough films like this, so I can’t wait to see it come to fruition. I can see OPEN HOUSE joining the ranks of REPO: THE GENETIC OPERA, STAGE FRIGHT and most recently ANNA AND THE APOCALYPSE.”
The filmmakers have launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise funds for the feature; you can check it out here.
