Don't go out into the woods...
Jeremy Milks
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Prey for the Beast : Deliverance meets Night of the Demon
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Old fashioned 'man-in-a-monster-suit' terrorizes Ottawan woods in Brett Kelly's new film
If you go out in the woods today, you're in for a big surprise...If you find your local grocery store shockingly low on Karo syrup and red food colouring for the next few months, don't be surprised. The classic ingredients for low-budget fake blood will be in high demand as Ottawa B-horror auteur Brett Kelly is back at it again.The amazingly prolific Kelly will be filming Prey for the Beast this September in the wilderness around Ottawa, making this film his eighth directorial project since 2002. In addition to directing, Kelly has exercised his acting chops in 17 films in the same period, giving David Carradine and a young Kevin Bacon a run for their money.
With Lee Demarbre shooting his next exploitation flick, Black Kissinger, in Jamaica, Kelly seems to be the lone filmmaker still using the capital for scenery, although you won't be seeing the spires of the Château Laurier in the finished product.
Prey for the Beast concerns a group of men heading out to the woods in an effort to comfort their pal "Bud" (played by Kelly) who has just struck out in a relationship. Of course, not too far off is a group of women doing the same thing, but alas, the gods are cruel, and a monster is lurking ready to dispatch them all one by one.
"Kelly had the idea to do an old-fashioned '80s-style creature film, in other words, a non-CGI 'man in a monster suit' movie. As with Kelly, once he thinks it up, he's getting down to making it in no time," explains scriptwriter Jeff O'Brien, a
West Coast native who met Kelly through a B-movie message board.While O'Brien has described the plot as "Deliverance meets Night of the Demon" (the latter film featuring a homicidal Sasquatch who in one scene rips off a victim's penis while he's pissing on the side of the road), he's also aiming for something a little deeper, saying that the monster is a catalyst "for a lot of stuff on relationships, on men and women."
O'Brien is hesitant to reveal any figures on the budget, claiming, "It's always the first question on most people's lips. Some people mistakenly believe that what you spend on a movie equals what it's worth."
Casting is now finished after losing one actor who had to leave for military duty in Afghanistan. According to O'Brien, location filming begins September 9. "If it looks remote and woodsy, we'll be there. As far as pre-production goes, scheduling a movie can be compared to herding bees. Tough stuff."
| Film Review 101/Brett Kelly goes deep into the 80's woods of horror clichés to unleash his latest, Prey for the Beast |
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Horror is amazingly cheap to do but damn, does it ever sell like mad! You know it occured to me while I was reading the general plot behind "Prey for the Beast" that these must me damned crowded woods because every other horror movie has a bunch of yahoos and twits going off into the middle of nowhere for no good reason and there they run into some kind of monster or masked serial killer or evil cult or some cursed cabin. Anyways, it's always something. Got me thinking, all of these evil creatures must have these really funky maps where they can and cannot go just so that they don't accidently wander into Jason's camp or the deadite cabin from Evil Dead. Maybe the movie sucks but the production sounded like fun.
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Pedro Eggers
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I rather like the idea of creatures and nasties in the woods competing against each other to see who gets to kill and maim the humans. Turn the convention on it's tattered ear...
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Jeff O'Brien
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