New update - Check out the trailer/promo for Beneath the Darknesss. It may give a little too much of the movie away…but I am excited to see it!

Ask most people and they’ll tell you that dying in a plane crash is the  most frightening death they can imagine. Director Martin Guigui laughs,  looks us all in the eye and says, “Want to bet?”

Guigui is a director (My Ex-girlfriend’s Wedding) who usually makes  us laugh. But in “Beneath the Darkness,” he explores the psychotic world  of a small town mortician who enjoys burying people alive. In Bruce  Wilkinson’s screen play, the victim is thrown in a coffin screaming for  mercy.  There is none.  Well, almost none.  “Want company,” the  mortician asks with a grin?  He throws a flashlight into the coffin and  slams it shut!

Guigui has apparently been studying terror movies that work. “What  ever happened to Baby Jane?” “Kill Bill 2” and certainly, “Psycho!”   There’s a touch of all three thrown in with a little “Nancy Drew.”  But  there’s freshness in the way Guigui pieces together a story that keeps  us guessing and sensing that we’re going to see something even worse.
Guigui is also market conscious.   The movie is a perfect  summer-recession distraction aimed principally at an audience sure to  come back to be scared again and again; teenagers.  The hero of the  movie is one of their own; rebellious, distracted and a loner, yet brave  enough to confront and expose the evil in his town.

It just happens to be Eli, the mortician, a psychopath monster.  Veteran actor Dennis Quaid plays the douchebag, asshole, nut-ball with  perfection.   According to executive producer Scott Mednick, Quaid has  never, until now, played a villain.  Okay, we won’t count his role as  Doc Holliday in “Tombstone” In any event, Quaid is so menacing, (watch  his eyes and twitching mouth) that he only has to raise his hand and you  expect to see an axe in it.  In fact, Quaid is so wacky that one isn’t  sure whether Guigui is satirizing horror movies or just letting Quaid  have fun.
Travis (Tony Oller) is our teenage geek hero. He is tormented by the  memory of helplessly standing by and watching his younger sister die.   That gives him a sort of “I don’t give a shit attitude,” especially  about school and the track team.  But he becomes curious about seeing  two eerie silhouettes dancing in Eli’s upper floor bedroom.  He should  have minded his own business.

Abby (Aimee Teegarden) is Travis’s perky but nosey girl friend who  goads Travis into taking a closer look.  The plot would work well enough  without her sexy teasing, but Travis has to find his groove somehow and  lets Abby talk him into breaking into Eli’s house—at night.  Not a  very good idea.  Soon both find themselves at the mercy of Eli who plans  to bury both of them.

Bravo to Geoff Zanelli for his nail biting musical score.  It  faithfully accompanies every emotion of fear and terror the audience  feels or is it the music and not the scene?

I must warn you. The opening scene of “Beneath the Darkness” is so  terrifying and so disturbing that you’ll want to get up and walk out.  I  mean, who need this?   But you’ll be glad you stayed, to let director  Martin Guigui take you to the edge time and time again.  And you never  know?  You might meet a new friend, the guy or gal you’ve been grabbing  next to you.

*Update – I began filming on Nov. 23rd. I will finish my part on Dec. 8th. It has been such a great experience. I know it sounds cliché when people say – “oh, everyone is so nice and the cast and crew are wonderful”, but it’s the truth! I am having a great time on set. Meredith, who does my special effects, has been incredible. Check out more of her work here. Tony Oller, Aimee Teegarden, Stephen Lunsford and Devon Werkheiser are ones to watch!

(Previous Post) I just got the most exciting news! I just booked my first feature film role opposite Dennis Quaid! I can’t give too much away but I will play his wife, Rosemary. Martin Guigui is directing.  I cannot wait to begin filming! Stay tuned for updates on the project.

Check out the IMDB page for the film here.