Jack: You've made two movies--I guess they're basically horror movies--at this point. Is this a genre in which you want to continue working?

Stefan: Well, I mean, I like horror movies, there's no question. I enjoy watching them. When I did Last Broadcast, you know, when we got done with that, it was not my intention to do another horror movie, and I'm actually in development on an action flick--but the operative words are "in development," and in Hollywood that can go on forever. In fact, most movies never get out of development. I mean, a very small percentage of them do, and an even smaller percentage of those actually get made, so hundreds and hundreds of movies are in "development." So, as we were doing that, we were watching our finances dwindle (, and that was really the impetus for making another horror movie. My [ . . . ] affiliates overseas said that if I made another one, they could sell it on my name and the success of The Last Broadcast, so we decided to do that. I hope not to get pigeonholed into "horror director," though I'm having a feeling that's going to happen for a while because the next movie is probably going to be a horror movie also. But with this one now being fairly successful overseas, I can hopefully do one with a decent budget, meaning over a million bucks. And make it where money is that much--isn't as much--of an issue as it had been. Actually, the first film I ever made--feature film that I made--was an action thrilled called The Game. That wasn't really a horror movie.

Jack: I apologize for [not mentioning] that.

Stefan: Nah, that's fine.

Jack: With The Last Broadcast, you really pushed some boundaries. I'm familiar with the movie, to say the least; living about twenty minutes outside of the Pine Barrens--

Stefan: laughs

Jack: --you know, it struck home. You really pushed boundaries with that in terms of execution, I mean, the actual movie itself, and in the way you presented it. Are you looking to do more of the same with Ghosts, and if so, how?

Stefan: Well, in terms of pushing the boundaries, when we made The Last Broadcast, Lance [Weiler, co-director] and I at the time were right at the beginning of a new wave. In some ways, we helped in initiate that wave of digital filmmaking on a sort of very small scale. Now, of course, everybody's doing it, so there's nothing innovative about that any more. Pushing the special effects you can do on a desktop computer; I think this movie [Ghosts of Edendale] really does push that. The end of our movie really does have some pretty serious special effects, which you'd imagine seeing only in a larger budget movie or bigger budget television show.

Jack: Right.

Stefan: Also in terms of the sound, and it's kind of funny because people who aren't in the business might not really see why this is a big deal, but we did this movie in surround sound--5.1 surround, which now with DVDs and home theaters, a lot more people will be able to listen to it that way. But making post that way has always been an incredibly sensitive process, and we were able to do that also in our studios; we really took advantage of that. The sounds really flies all around you--it's a pretty aggressive track, and we're really proud of that. But beyond that, it's a pretty straightforward narrative; it's not really taking any big leaps from a straightforward person-telling-a-story. It's not a pseudodocumentary or anything like that [ . . .] . I guess we're trying to make a movie that flies, you know, the same way that most other movies do, but for a very low budget. That's really the only thing, but it's not necessarily innovative.

Jack: Well, there is a risk of repeating yourself; you wouldn't want to do another pseudodocumentary for your followup.

Stefan: Yeah, you don't want to be a one-trick horse.

Jack: One of my other questions was "Where do you see desktop filmmaking going in the future," but I think you've pretty much answered that.

Stefan: Yeah, it's here to stay. I think the next step, the next sort of revolution, and, again, it's here now, is that hi-def is really, finally . . . This movie that we did, The Ghosts, is not hi-def. [. . .] But now, that's come down in price in the last few months even, that's come down to a range where even ordinary people can go buy hi-def camcorders. And what that means in terms of picture quality is that we're starting to talk about picture that's very close to 35mm quality. So you're going to start seeing desktop movies that look like a regular Hollywood feature. That's gonna happen, and that line will continue to blur, and that's exciting. The one problem is that when you get to the big time, it's always the actors you pay the most for. And certainly [ . . .] big-name actors. So we'll see how that goes. Hopefully, people will figure out a good way to distribute them cheaply, to the masses.

Jack: There is a difference here between technology and talent, and as far as--I mean, you can make a movie on a desktop, but nobody's going to see it unless it's worth seeing. And you've achieved, certainly, some measure of success in that area. More generally speaking, which movies have inspired you--just a really general question, there--to become a filmmaker, in your choice of movies . . .

Stefan: The first movies I really saw and watched them, loving them for not being whatever they were, action, and for the stars so much but for the moviemaking [. . .], you know a behind the scenes sort of thing--I was very young, like seven or eight years old, specifically the movie was The Adventures of Robin Hood. Erroll Flynn. I saw that movie, and I wanted to make movies. I didn't want to be Robin Hood or Sir Guy of Gisborne, I wanted to be Michael Curtiz, the director. That was really what set it off. I would say the final nail in the coffin was Raiders of the Lost Ark. When I left the theater after seeing that--I was about eleven or twelve--I left that theater a future filmmaker. There were no ifs, ands, or buts.

Jack: It's a good week for a Raiders fan, too.

Stefan: (laughs) Yeah, right, it's just coming out on DVD. I look forward to buying that. So those were the first movies. From there, once you're in school looking at films, your tastes really open up a lot (you hope) from the American blockbuster-type movies. I like movies by Nicolas Roeg, for instance. But I also still like very American movies. In terms of The Ghosts of Edendale, the movies I was most influenced by, that I was trying to get that same mood--movies like Rosemary's Baby and The Shining, that kind of era of movie. And I'd also seen a movie which, up until last year, I thought was one of the--was the scariest movie I'd ever seen--called The Changeling.

Jack: Yeah, that's one of my favorites, definitely.

Stefan: Yeah, that was the scariest movie I'd seen. And it's not a gory movie; it's all about mood. I was hoping I could do something that would be in the same league as that movie, though I wouldn't expect it to be as scary. And then I saw The Ring this year, that really impressed me. So it was really more about the mood than slashing and blood and guts, 'cause that's kind of passe, to be honest.

Jack: It is. That has definitely been done, pardon me, but, to death. Let's see . . . you've answered another question that I had, so . . . we're rolling right along, here. Actually, I just have one more; let's finish with an obvious one: what's next for you? Promoting the movie, I suppose?

Stefan: The immediate "what's next" is that we're closing deals on this movie, trying to finish the American distribution. So publicity and all that kind of boring stuff [. . .] is in the immediate foreground. I have about four or five different projects I'm working on, and a couple that I've been working on for quite a long time. I have a horror script I'm working on right now, that I'm actually writing right now, and I imagine that will probably be the next one. Again, just because I'm starting to get a reputation for that, and I can hopefully--hopefully, fingers crossed--parlay that into a decent budget where I can finally make the movie I see in my head. Finally show people what I can really do and not be [restricted] by budget.

Jack: Thanks for giving your time to me . . .

Stefan: No, thanks a lot, I appreciate it.

The basic plot of the movie--a haunted place makes a writer go a little nuts while his wife fears for her life--sounds familiar, and indeed, Ghosts owes a bit to The Shining. It also borrows an effective sequence from The Changeling and shows the influence of What Lies Beneath. Hell, the subtext of the film is very The Stepford Wives go to Hollywood.

But Ghosts is its own entity, and it has a lot going for it. For one thing, it follows one of the basic tenets of Horror Filmmaking 101: first, establish the characters' normal reality. The movie begins very comfortably, establishing the characters through good dialogue delivered by the actors in a reasonably natural fashion. Then the first scare hits--and it's a screamer.

From that point on, we know that nothing is sacred; Ghosts develops an atmosphere of tense dread akin to The Ring, but without the safety that film provided by its central conceit. Here, we know that we and the characters can fall victim to the intrusive haunting at any point. Every once in a while, we're hit with a jump, and while none is as unexpected as the first one, they're all pretty good--and all the more impressive when you realize they're all delivered in a one-story house.

Another part of Ghosts' slick success is its special effects, designed by Scott Hale. These computer-generated effects definitely land just short of reality, but Hale and Avalos use that seemingly limiting factor to their advantage. The etherial quality of the effects to is perfect for much of what they're used for in this film: a glimpse of a phantom here, a ghostly face there. The end of the movie relies heavily on special effects, and though some of it doesn't work, much of it does.

The subtext of this movie would have you believe that Hollywood is like Stepford with a global reach, a malignant mecca for the soon-to-be-disenchanted. It's logical that a script based on that idea would emerge from the indie community, whose adherents often admire the attention prevalent in Hollywood while decrying the way it squelches the soul of the artist. It's not a new perception, but it's also one with which I can't disagree. The Ghosts of Edendale is simultaneously a love letter to and a cautionary tale about an industry it both admires and satirizes. Sure, all of that good stuff is in there.

But it might just keep you up at night, too.