A sentimental last weekend at Tessa's deceased Grandparent's mansion transforms when her brother Frederick decides to set the stage for his "experiment in life perspective". Tessa, her boyfriend Phil and Frederick are plunged into the dark recesses of their pasts which lead them down the path of no return.
Learn more about "Mansion of Terror" at https://angrybearfilms.com/mansion-of...
Director's Notes:
The original cut of "Mansion of Terror" was shot as part of a "48 Hour Horror Filmmaking Competition" called "Blood Shots". The competition was held yearly in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. It was an October tradition, in celebration of halloween. The aim was to write/shoot/edit/submit the film within 48 hours. Teams are allowed to bring together cast, crew, equipment, locations, and resources well ahead of time, but the actual script can only be written once the clock starts. My team followed the rule, although I can't guarantee every team did the same. Cheating would have taken the fun and challenge out of it, in my opinion. Although, as a way to discourage cheating and up the challenge; each team is given an "inspiration package". For our film, we were given a line of dialog "I saw something in the mirror", a murder weapon "nail gun", and a sub-genre of horror "Giallo".
"Giallo" is a style of horror that emerged in Italy in the 1970s. It often involved a femme-fatale, colourful psychedelic lighting, and vivid and artistic gore/death. This sub-genre was a curve ball for us. In our writing, we tried to justify the elements of "Giallo" in our story. A drug trip seemed appropriate. Having a couple of characters be unaware of their condition, and stuck in a mansion full of memories, led to a delicious dynamic of the mind haunting itself.
Our team got really ambitious with this one, maybe too ambitious. We had multiple shooting locations, that spanned three cities, Vancouver, Richmond, and New Westminster. We shot some of the more elaborate shots in the film at the Hycroft Mansion. As amazing as the Hycroft was, it was expensive, and we could only afford to shoot there for a couple of hours. The rest of the interiors for the "mansion" were shot in a hotel in New West, and at the Patricia Hotel in Vancouver's east end. I have wild stories about this shoot. I wish we had behind the scenes footage of the nail gun murder, because shooting that was down-right hilarious.
The competition cut we submitted was entertaining, but it was hard to understand. There wasn't enough context to go along with the insanity. I saw potential in the film, though. I wrote a few extra scenes, got everyone back on board, and we managed to convince the location owners to grant us permission to shoot there again. We also threw together a promotional photo shoot. The photo shoot gave me a chance to take photos in areas of the Hycroft Mansion I wanted in the film, but didn't have time for during the competition.
"Mansion of Terror" was a blast to make, and a crazy challenge. It hasn't had the same success as "Grow the Fuck Up!" or "A Match Made in Heaven", but it screened at a few festivals, had a bunch of public screenings in Vancouver, and even had a public screening in Toronto. It's a fun watch.
Also, years back, I got back together with my co-writers on the short film, Johnny Gingell and Don Knodel, and we wrote a feature length version of the story. The feature screenplay was well received in table reads, and one LA producer showed interest in producing it, but alas, it wasn't to be. Writing the feature screenplay was fun, maybe one day we'll be able to shoot it.
