"Decker... leaps head first into the witchy joys of playing evil,
one done do by the hands of those that should have protected her. She's great fun to watch."
-- David Duprey, That Moment In
My friend Nathan Wilson grew up in a (very) small town in Minnesota.
Every town in Minnesota seems to have a legend about a local witch, and Nate's hometown was no different. For years after moving to Los Angeles to pursue a career in film, Nate dreamed of bringing the legend of "The Witch of Loon Lake" to life. To make a long journey short, Nate partnered with Ansel Faraj to write the script, and the three of us drove halfway across the country to film it.
Loon Lake is truly an independent film. It's not an "independent film" with a studio backer and a budget of $5 million. We had a total crew of five people -- including Nate and me, who also play leading roles in the film. Everything you see in the film was something that we created, down to the loon models which I crafted myself on my kitchen table.
We were welcomed by Nate's family and by the community, who opened their hearts and their homes to us, and who helped us in ways too numerous to list. The final product is a folk horror film that captures much of the landscape and the character of the region, and that hopefully conveys our love of the community as well.
Unlike many (most? all?) of the films I've done previously, Loon Lake isn't about a body count or about showing the myriad creative ways that you can graphically and gruesomely kill your main characters. Loon Lake is more psychological in nature, and raises questions about grief, faith, and belief. Even though much of our story takes place in the 1880’s, it is surprisingly relevant in today’s world of immediate journalism. The heart of the narrative could easily be transplanted into today’s political landscape with the added element of social media: when confronted with two diametrically opposing accounts of the same event, who do you believe? And what is “the truth”?
We are very proud of the finished product and of what we were able to accomplish with limited resources. Loon Lake is currently available to stream on Amazon Prime Video and TubiTV. We hope you enjoy it!
"Decker's performance ignites the emotional action. She's sexy, vulnerable and intense, injecting Capalbo/Gorlow's concept with all the subtle oddness that it requires. And once her ulterior intent (her spice of insanity) is exposed, Decker cements Sima's fate with a sublime deftness that most actresses can only dream of achieving."
-- Michael F. Housel, BizarreChats
I’ve always found it difficult to give an “elevator pitch” to describe The Dinner Party. It’s an odd, enigmatic little bird that doesn’t fit squarely into any defined cage, which may (of course) be one of the reasons I love it. It’s not a “horror” movie, though admittedly there are some things that occur that some viewers may find horrific… it’s not exactly a “dark comedy”, though there are more than a few moments that I find funny…
Fundamentally, The Dinner Party is a modern Greek tragedy. I had trouble coming up with a way to define “Greek tragedy”, so I will just copy and paste someone else’s definition here:
In ancient Greek theatre, a play in which the protagonist
falls to disaster through the combination of a personal failing and circumstances with which he or she cannot deal.
Greek tragedians are known for exploring the themes of human nature: jealousy, lust, hubris, retribution, and sacrifice, to name a few. One of the reasons we even know about Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripedes is that the basic elements of the human condition that were examined by these tragedians still resonate with readers today – 2,500 years after they were written.
I believe that if you, the viewer, are a human who feels deeply, there is something in The Dinner Party that will resonate with you.
I can’t predict which elements of the story or which triumphs or failings of which character will connect with you, nor can I state with certainty which of these were even intended by the writer (the talented Eric Gorlow, who also portrays my brother, Calvin). But I can identify a few of the human questions to which I felt a specific connection.
The Dinner Party is about being in a relationship that you know is poisonous, but which is also inextricably linked to your own life – so much so that if the parasite is removed, the host itself dies. The Dinner Party is about an obsession so strong that it takes on a meaning, purpose, and a life even more important than your own. The Dinner Party is about trying to control your own destiny and what happens when the necessary outcome begins to slip away from you. The Dinner Party is about an idealist desperately trying to hold on to a beautiful mirage of one small microcosm of the world, and the heartbreak that ensues when, against her will, she is forced to confront the unforgiving desert in which she actually lives.
Ultimately, The Dinner Party is about a struggle to find meaning in a world where there is a sensory overload of meaning… or, perhaps, no meaning at all.
