Killing Brooke – Some New Stills and a Producer Update

Steve Barton |

Mar 18, 2011

It’s been just about two months since we’ve heard anything from the folks behind Killing Brooke, “an intense thriller that twists the survival horror genre on its head,” but today writer/director Dave Zagorski dropped us an email including five new stills and an update from co-producer/co-star Johnny Donaldson.

Before we get to the goods, however, Zagorski wanted us to let everyone know that in honor of our Indie Horror Month, the Killing Brooke crew are holding a contest on the film’s Facebook page. On March 31st one lucky Killing Brooke Facebook fan will win a copy of the KB script, autographed by the cast!

Synopsis:
Free-spirited party girl Brooke Porter and her wife, Chloe, are celebrating their recent wedding when they meet Vance, a handsome, lady-killing drifter at a bar. But a drunken night of debauchery will lead them all down the road to terror. Pursued by a vicious, psychopathic madman, Brooke is propelled into a struggle for survival, one that will push her to the limits physically and emotionally.

Killing Brooke is the latest feature length presentation from MAD Z Productions. It was shot over a 6-week period between July and August, 2010, mostly in scenic Hatfield, Massachusetts, as well as parts of Easthampton. Alex Fandel, Colin Allen, Ray Hryb, Kt Baldassaro, Dina Baker, and Johnny Donaldson star in this perverse nightmare written and directed by David Zagorski (Road Kill).

Update from Co-Producer/Co-Star Johnny Donaldson:
We at MAD Z Productions are currently deep into editing on our feature film debut Killing Brooke. It’s a long, painstaking process, because Dave (Zagorski, writer/director) is essentially doing it all himself, and we don’t want to simply rush out a poorly put-together, subpar product just so we can have a movie in release. Both Dave and I have seen countless low-budget “films” that seem merely to exist because the filmmakers just wanted to have a movie in release, where the sheer existence of having a film trumps actually making a good film. That’s not what we want to do, so it’s been an arduous process of getting the movie to be just right.

Right now, we have a 40-minute or so rough cut assembled, and so far it looks pretty good. We’re genuinely excited and proud of our film and hope audiences will like it, too, once we get it released. This was a film made with a lot of heart and enthusiasm, and there was a certain electricity on set, a feeling we made something special – and as an indie actor, I can tell you I’ve been on sets where I felt the exact opposite, like “what the hell did I get into?” There’s no time line in terms of release – this isn’t something we can, or want to, rush – but we hope to have it completed by later this year in order to start submitting it to festivals. Our DP, Jared Skolnick, has actually already made the festival rounds with his award-winning, Lovecraft-inspired short film The Music of Erich Zann, so we feel blessed to have him on board with us; he has a great eye, and, if nothing else, Killing Brooke will look great.

The film itself is kind of a cinematic take on the old adage of “being caught between a rock and a hard place”. It’s about a woman who is kind of a free spirit, careless and reckless in her life, and she makes a decision that puts her into a rather ugly situation. We don’t want to give away too much of the plot because we want to keep an element of surprise, but we feel we’ve made at least a fairly unique entry into the rural horror genre – not necessarily groundbreaking, but interesting and original, and not just an “homage” that’s really just a rip-off. To me, as co-producer, that was an important part of the filmmaking process: channeling our influences without resorting to simply mimicking them, which I feel is a big problem on the American indie horror scene.

We have assembled a great cast and crew, and, armed with very few resources, have made (or are still making, technically) what should be a pretty good horror film. And as it comes closer to completion, we’ll of course keep the news flowing, especially once we are ready for release.

In addition to working on the post-production of Killing Brooke, MAD Z Productions is gearing up to film its second feature film this summer. Right now we are keeping mum on the details because Dave has literally just finished the first draft of the screenplay, and we’ll be starting to look for funding very soon. It’s a remake of an older Italian movie currently in the public domain. We have most of the cast of Killing Brooke already attached, and we are hoping to attach a couple of actresses familiar to indie horror audiences to the project. We don’t want to jinx the project so we are playing it close to the vest for now until we can get all the respective elements into place to make a kick-ass, fun, scary splatter film to wow our fellow horror fans.

Sounds like they’re at least trying to head in the right direction! For more info “like” Killing Brooke on Facebook, and visit the Killing Brooke page on the MAD Z Productions website.