Black Star Canyon is getting ready for its Hollywood closeup.
The spooky spot known for mysterious pentagrams, dumped bodies and all sorts of things that go bump in the black night seems made for a horror flick, which is what OC-based independent filmmaker Greg Beville figured for his project Blackstar Canyon.
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Make that “projects”; Beville is also creating a graphic novel Tales From Blackstar that is to be released along with his movie. Both the film and print projects, which he's seeking funding to complete, are “loosely based on some misadventures I have had from 2003-2006 in the haunted canyon.”
The flick's press notes provide more details:
The script is based on true events that have occurred in Blackstar Canyon. In March 2004, screenwriter Greg Beville went to the “haunted area” initially a skeptic. Beville intended to shoot a demo reel for an audition contest. MTV network was casting for “ghost hunters” to appear on a new supernatural investigation television series at that time. Beville travelled east of Lake Forest, CA to debunk the multitude of occult rumors surrounding the urban legend infested area. Rumors including sightings of strange bonfire rituals, and violent disfigured ranchers. After having a Mossberg shotgun held to his nose by a rancher within ten minutes of exploring an abandoned farm, Greg quickly became a believer that the stories about Blackstar Canyon had some validity. Beville‟s previous employment at one of the last major coin-operated arcades informs the secondary story thread.
When Beville mentions to me he'll appear on a SciFi expo panel on werewolves in films, I hope for the sake of you canyonites that's not among the misadventures one encounters up there. The panel during Stan Lee's Comikaze Expo at the Los Angeles Convention Center Nov. 1-3 will be moderated by Rob Burnett, the producer of 2009's The Hills Run Red.
Speaking of horror-movie pedigree, Blackstar Canyon is said to include in its cast Tippi Hedren (best known for Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds and Marnie) and Belinda Balaski (Piranha and The Howling).
Some Blackstar Canyon footage will be shot in Super 16mm film but, ironically, Beville tells me “insurance problems” will prevent his movie from bring shot in Black Star Canyon. Chatsworth and Santa Clarita will mostly host the picture's forest exteriors.
But OC is not totally cut out of his project, which he vows will include scenes shot in Lake Forest, Aliso Viejo, Laguna Beach and Huntington Beach. (Night of the Living Bro, anyone? … Hello?)
See the Blackstar Canyon poster on the next page …
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OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.