“In January 2005, full production was independently funded by one individual, Andrew ‘Jack’ Whittaker. He and his wife had won $314.7 million in the Powerball lottery in 2003. Whittaker’s funding of a horror movie seemed like a great idea to him, so the deal was struck, Devon Sawa, Sanoe Lake (below) and Matthew Lawrence were cast as leads, and production began in late summer 2005. The 25-day production got off to a smooth start—until the IA and Teamster unions targeted the movie, picketed the set and shut down production, forcing me to sign union agreements that added over $250,000 to the already tight budget. The added cost was only a warm-up to my next nasty production surprise.
“That came during the final week of shooting in September, when Whittaker informed me that he and his wife of decades were divorcing, which could ‘freeze’ his ability to provide further funding for the movie for possibly up to seven weeks. The strain on the production was tremendous. Those seven weeks turned into a grueling two-and-a-half-year nightmare, as Whittaker’s divorce escalated into a deep, deep freeze of everything he owned. Finally, this past February, Whittaker agreed to provide completion funding, and I promptly entered into a postproduction services deal with Milwaukee-based Lightning Rod Studios. The movie is now steamrolling toward the finish line.”
DAMN! After going through all that, this flick better be at least above average! The plot does sound promising: Sawa stars as Andrew, a young man plagued by dreams of being killed by an inhuman being. His friends convince him to face his fears by joining them in an off-road cycling excursion into the desert—where Andrew’s nightmares come true as an alien biologist called the Catcher begins attacking the youths and dragging them into an underground catacomb.
No word yet on an exact release date, but hopefully we’ll have one sooner rather than later.