In the film, a skeptical grad
student and a renowned paranormal specialist investigate a
haunted house and the deeply
troubled woman who resides
there, whose afflictions may be
beyond the capacity of human
understanding. The film is the
opening night feature of the
2016 New Jersey Film Festival
on Saturday, January 30. Spaltro, who grew up in Jersey City,
has been a fan favorite of the
festival for years. His first feature
film Things I Don’t Understand
won Best Feature at the festival
three years ago and Cat’s Cradle
won Best Short last year. Spaltro
will be on hand for a Q&A session following the screening.
“One of the first things I did
when I decided I was going
to take on this project was I
watched a lot of horror,” recalled Spaltro. “I watched a lot
of what’s coming out now and
a lot of my own personal favorNewJerseyStage.com
ites. The first few seasons of the
X-Files were well done, creepy,
contained stories. I knew going
into this we’d have some money, but it’s never enough. So
we needed to make the scares
count and go with suspense and
creepiness, which I’ve always felt
was more effective. Once you
show something or if you show
it immediately, it sort of loses its
power or has diminished returns.
But if you build up the suspense,
it draws people into something
that they may be engaged in
or which could happen to them
in their own lives. And it’s a lot
easier to maintain that scary momentum.”
Spaltro thinks paranormal stories are fascinating to people on
a primal level. He points out the
strange dichotomy of science
moving further and further into
debunking things, yet leaving
so many great mysteries still unsolved.
2016 - ISSUE 1
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