Currently making waves on the festival circuit is IT’S IN THE BLOOD, a new psychological horror flick starring Fango fave Lance Henriksen. Keep reading for exclusive stills and comments from one of the movie’s creators.

The Texas-lensed BLOOD tells the gritty story of an estranged father (Russell, played by Henriksen) and son (October, portrayed by Sean Elliot, who also co-wrote the film with director Scooter Downey) who find themselves stranded after their car breaks down. Alone in the woods, the two soon discover they have to deal with not only each other and the demons of their past, but an evil that lurks in the wilderness. Possibly even more unnerving for Elliot than the latter, however, was the prospect of acting opposite a legend of Henriksen’s caliber. “Lance has been in some 250 films over his expansive career,” the actor/writer tells Fango. “He has worked with some of the biggest directors in cinematic history, including James Cameron and Steven Spielberg. You bet your ass I was intimated—I was downright terrified!

“But the thing about Lance is, regardless of his innumerable successes, he is one of the most down-to-earth and kind-hearted people you will ever meet. We were very fortunate in that Lance’s schedule permitted him to fly into Austin a week before we were scheduled to begin shooting. This allowed us to get a lot of rehearsal time in, and before we even stepped on set, we had already developed a hell of a rapport.”

Though the filmmakers had a few actors in mind for the role of Russell, Elliot says it didn’t take long for Henriksen to shoot to the top of the list. “We considered a number of incredibly talented actors, including Will Patton, Ed Harris and Robert Patrick. However, of all the people who read the script, Lance was the first who really got what we were trying to do. The material immediately resonated with him on a deeply personal level, and he ultimately brought an enormous amount of sensitivity, warmth and depth that had not been written into the original character. In addition, there are few actors who can challenge Lance for the crown of horror king. He seemed like a very natural fit for this film, and now that all is said and done, we couldn’t be happier with our decision.”

Landing Henriksen turned out to be surprisingly easy, compared to figuring out what genre to tackle in the first place. “From a producer’s standpoint, Scooter and I did an enormous amount of research to determine what type of movie we could make that would give us the most bang for our buck,” Elliot recalls. “We knew we wanted to create a film whose production value would rival that of any studio picture, and would not leave the viewer feeling gypped when they left the theater. After much deliberation, we eventually concluded that a horror movie—a creature feature, to be precise—would allow us to achieve the highest production-value-to-price ratio.”

The filmmakers also knew that with their limited time and money, finding the right balance between psychological study and supernatural horror was a must. “Naturally, when you’re working with a shoestring budget, you’re greatly limited in all aspects of the filmmaking process. As a result, there were certain limitations we placed upon ourselves before we even wrote the script: few locations, few actors, etc. With so many restrictions working against us, it was always imperative that we maintain a supernatural presence in the script in order to create a film that was part horror, and not just a psychological thriller/drama. We knew we wanted to explore guilt as an underlying theme. However, guilt is an incredibly nebulous concept, both in terms of how you visualize it and how you resolve it. The question, ‘How do you move on with your life, when all you have left is what if?’ was constantly looming over our heads as we endeavored to write this script. Ultimately, it became apparent that, in order for our characters to face their internal demons throughout the course of their ordeal, we would need to create a physical manifestation of said demons for them to confront and overcome.”

One thing the filmmakers certainly aren’t guilty of is cutting back on the bloodletting. There’s plenty of gore, as well as solid creature FX handled by FEAST’s Mike Mosher. Elliot says that Mosher did great work for being on such short notice. “Due to scheduling conflicts during preproduction, none of the practical effects, including the creature, were developed until the very last minute. It wasn’t until five days before we were scheduled to start shooting that we finally managed to secure a special effects artist who could do the job.  As soon as the contracts were signed, Mike went into overdrive to develop all the gore/creature effects the script called for. Considering the enormous challenges he had to overcome, it’s still amazing to us how great it all turned out.”

With IT’S IN THE BLOOD continuing to spread out into the world, Elliot says he and Downey have no shortage of follow-up concepts. “Scooter and I have roughly 60 ideas on our movie-script spreadsheet, and the list keeps growing all the time. Currently, we’re developing a number of projects that include two comedies, one of which is a political satire, and a number of horror films. The one we are most excited about is titled EXISTENTIAL MUSINGS OF A ZOMBIE, another psyche-saga horror film told from the undead perspective. We’re still developing the script right now, but we hope to be done with it in the next few months. As soon as we sell IT’S IN THE BLOOD, we plan to immediately begin production on the next film.” See IT’S IN THE BLOOD’s trailer below, and check out the official website and Facebook page. 

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