REUNION MASSACRE: Behind The Mask

Nebraska-shot INVITATION TO DIE was recently released wide in USA/Canada by Wild Eye Releasing, with a new splash of paint and the new moniker REUNION MASSACRE.

In 2014 frequent collaborator Dustin Ferguson had plans to pump out a slew of lil’ cinematic cheapies, and threw an idea at me for something called INVITATION TO DEATH… soon to be called INVITATION TO DIE when I reminded him we had just made a movie called CHEERLEADER CAMP TO THE DEATH. Slasher flicks aren’t known for particularly flowery titles but hey, we both know the world isn’t ready for say, ELIAS MONTAGUE’S BODY IN THE TRASH (don’t make me write that someday).

The prolific indie director had some rough sketches of ideas… a young woman invited to a high school reunion, only to instead become trapped in a dilapidated building while a masked killer plays cat and mouse with her. My mind was set afire by the possibilities – instead of slaying a large cast, we could concentrate on mostly a solitary two characters. I imagined long stretches of scenes where the woman explores the decayed building, a metaphor for the death of her younger, high school innocence. This could be an intentionally sedate, meditative affair – the rare character-based slasher flick.

Before I even started writing it, something unusual happened. Ferguson was visiting a theme park and wanted to take the actress, Breana Mitchell and film some scenes to get some free production value. There was a Zoltar fortune-teller machine he wanted to integrate. That’s pretty much all I knew. So I was asked to write a short scene involving a premonition which could come into play later. Cut to a few days later and I was watching the completed dallies from the trip.

From there I drafted a story about sorrow, desolation and loss of love. About becoming lost in your memories and figuring out if you can trust again. A bit cerebral for a slasher flick, I know – but I really latched onto the idea and ran with it. I had a killer, called The Judgement, who was intricately tied to the heroine and in what would have been another rarity in the subgenre: he was to have an extremely valid motive for seeking revenge – one that would be revealed in the final scene. I didn’t want to justify his actions but rather show they were an inevitable end to the secret transgression. See, it always bothers me in these flicks where the motivations are so shallow, or over the top, essentially excuses for psychopathic behaviour. In this our one, I wanted it to make sense how two characters could be capable of both cruelty and compassion. The ending twist is one I’ve never revealed online – but I’ve gotten a lot of mileage out of it at parties. It’s a doozy, and I’m hanging onto it for now.

The movie itself didn’t quite turn out as planned. I have to keep reminding myself, slasher films exist for a reason. They can be quickly pumped out. Crafting an intricate narrative is not the reason they exist. That’s not good or bad, that’s just reality in the business. If I was peeved at anything it was myself, for not being as involved as I’d have liked during the pre-production process due to juggling several projects at once. They took the broad beats of the storyline and adapted it into something more compact and transitory. The material in the abandoned building – supposed to comprise the majority of the film – now took up a scant 20 minutes with added padding on the back end. The new third act took place back in civilization, functioning almost as a sequel to the original concept. When that still wasn’t enough to fill the runtime minimum, they added Elvira-style host segments to get it over the finish line.

At the time, I felt the padding betrayed the initial concept that got us all excited in the first place. But you get perspective as time passes. After a year or two I watched it with fresh eyes, and it charmed me. It works in weird, random, kitchen-sink kind of way. The sense of mundanity in the heroine learning to be single again via sitting in silence with her dinner. The dread and isolation of the deserted building. The bizarre story swerves. The skeezy, low budget vibe of the whole thing. Forget the digital video, it could’ve been ripped straight out of the early 1980s. The kind of flick Don Gronquist could have made.

The truth is this: I was essentially a “hired gun”. Every writer goes through this. The productions skip stuff, or slim it down, and it comes out different on the other end. You could call it a meatgrinder, but I like to say that scripts aren’t blueprints, they’re road maps – and if you’re a road trip kind of guy like I am you know the beauty is in the side detours. Getting there is half the fun. So the other side of that is, they may add neat things you never planned for. The final film has an additional surprise murder. Some choice classic film clips playing on TV in one scene adds subtext to the character’s journey. On-point body language by Jarad Allen, who accurately portrays the killer as a stiff, not-quite-sane fellow trapped in the past in a way that only a machete can solve, apparently.

All in all, the bare outlines of the story are there on screen. It’s a tense little potboiler in parts. The final product would feel right at home on late night cable TV you accidentally stumble onto and wonder who made it and did they ever work in the industry again. The answer to that one is yes. We all did.

Distribution for this one has been hopping over the years. We initially released it through my label, Retrosploitation very quickly after it was completed. That had to have been some kind of record of project moving from conception to filmed to released. Eventually it was picked up by legendary low-budget genre company Troma where it received a streaming release on their Troma Now platform. Then it toured a few indie stables, in some cases chopped up into anthologies and double features.

And now it’s with Wild Eye Releasing who have given it a brand new title and spiffy cover art. Works for me – I always intended the movie to be a spiritual successor to the 70’s flick CLASS REUNION MASSACRE. It’s now widely available in retail stores and major streaming platforms.