Scouting
Beautiful, isn’t it? Who knew that our characters, whom you will hopefully love to hate, will meet their grizzly demise in such a serene atmosphere?
This was the first stop as Jerry, Joe, Leton, Karis, Quinn, Jeremy, Heather and myself scouted locations for our hopefully next big project we are tentatively calling “Summer Slasher”. Located near the Fox Park/Lake Creek area right outside of Laramie, Wyoming, this location houses Jerry’s family cabin, the inspiration behind the horror movie script he and I created.
We crossed a bridge that our characters could walk over as they prepare for a dip in the lake, passed patches of dead trees that our killer can watch silently from, and as the others all walked ahead, Heather deviated from the trail and discovered a hobbit hideout (doesn’t it look like a dugout that the hobbits hide under when they’re being chased by the wraiths??).
Next, we headed to Jerry’s cabin to set up headquarters and meet up with his brother, Kevin. This is the cabin where Mom and Dad will consummate their desires, leaving their kids unattended and in danger, where our college kids will bunk together, and where our killer will hack away the front door with a machete.
Kevin was to be our tour guide for the day; he and Jerry discovered an old, abandoned graveyard by accident last year, and our mission was to find it again.
But Kevin was too busy socializing with the neighbors, so we bought some time walking down a path housing a dangerous-looking rock cliff and a cross stuck in the earth; was it there as a grave marker, or a scare-tactic...some kind of warning to stay on the path?
We reached a set of cabins that were so old and fragile, they looked like they’d collapse with a sneeze from the heavens. We entered them anyways, our curiosity begged us to look inside.
SIDE NOTE: two of those cabins were utilized in our short film “Sex Kittens in Campout Massacre” a few years ago. They were in rough shape then, but had definitely aged since then.
While there, we shot some fun test footage: the group walking along the path, planting an axe near Heather’s head, Joe and Leton playing the horny couple exploring one cabin, and Jeremy and Quinn checking out the other cabin digs.
Still no sign of Kevin, who was supposed to meet us on the road, so Jerry decided he could probably find the graveyard on his own. So we drove to a clearing on a hill and began the ascent, when suddenly, Kevin rolls up in his ATV with his dog, Doc.
Kevin blazed ahead, most of us unable to keep up. We had to keep calling his name and listen to see what direction he went. As we journeyed upwards, we came across acres of dead trees, something out of the Blair Witch Project. And as we thought of that creepy movie, someone discovered a man-made tee-pee out in this middle-of-nowhere hike.
By this time, we were all growing tired and Kevin’s voice was farther and farther away. Heather called out that she had discovered a skeleton, and at first I thought she was joking, but then I stumbled upon it. Sure enough, the remains of an animal, probably a deer, lay in pieces at our feet. A rib cage here, a leg bone a few feet away, and a skull even farther away, as if its attacker ripped it to shreds, flinging parts wildly across the forest.
Jerry was getting frustrated with Kevin’s abandonment, and the sun was quickly setting, so he made the call to head back down. We shot some more footage before we left: Joe running from an unknown entity, Jeremy running in front of the camera (biffing it by accident, but like a true actor, kept going; what a genuine-looking fall!) and Leton playing our heroine scrambling on the forest floor. Heather led the way, but to our unknowing, we didn’t head down in a straight direction. We started crossing areas that looked new. Concern began running through us all, wondering when we’d hit familiar area.
Then, we heard trickling water. There was a creek up ahead. We never crossed a creek to begin with. We were going in the wrong direction. We looked at the creek, which was way too big and marshy to cross. So, we looked for an alternate path.
That’s when we ran into more tee-pees. One was creepy enough, and now there’s three?! Did we hit the main village? Then someone called out they had found the cemetery. But it wasn’t the cemetery that Jerry discovered last year.
It was a pet cemetery. Enclosed in a metal fence, headstones were new and modern. Off in the near distance, we could see a cabin. We were in someone’s backyard. This was quickly becoming something out of Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
We didn’t care anymore, we walked up to the cabin, right by the side and out onto the main road. An elderly neighbor saw us all emerge, and Jerry explained to him that we got lost and didn’t mean to trespass. The man didn’t answer; just shot us all a dirty look and watched us, making sure we all exited the community.
We finally reached the road, and as we did, Kevin came speeding down the hill. He had found the actual graveyard, and it ended up being closer to the road than we thought. Jerry made a mental marker in his mind (where the power line T intersected at the top of the hill) but we were all so tired we did not want to go back up and see it.
As the day ended and we headed back to Cheyenne, we mapped out a plan: how we can utilize the area, the cabin, the graveyard, the rocky cliffs. Where actors could sleep (cabin, tents, neighbors cabins). We wanted to start filming right away! Summer of 2017 was going to take forever to arrive.
Fundraising first, actors search second. Patience, young grasshopper. Our homage to 80s slasher flicks will happen, but we have some building to do first. Today's journey was exciting, our horror film was taking shape through each footstep we took today.
