The Monsterfest Report

Thanks to everyone who came out for the screening of NIGHTMARES at Monsterfest on Saturday! It was great to see so many friends from M2 Pictures, New Dominion Pictures, Dr. Madblood, Scary Monsters Magazine and The House Between. I arrived early and chatted with Rob Floyd and Jim Blanton, founders and directors of Monsterfest, and Craig Eckrich, who provided “special security” (I won’t ask…). This was the sixth year of Monsterfest, and they had a pretty good turnout.

Right away, my old friend Dr. Madblood pulled me aside for an interview that will appear in his upcoming Halloween special. I met the infamous mad doctor of Pungo back in 2004, when I was working at a production company in Norfolk. I had just published “Nightmares in Red, White and Blue,” which gave me the confidence to approach Jerry Harrell (the man behind the wig) and introduce myself. We had a long conversation about how we each got interested in horror films, and Jerry offered a succinct explanation of why he had first donned the wig. Quite simply, he wanted to reassure kids that it was okay to be different. He’s been a personal hero of mine ever since. Soon after that, I started showing up for weekly tapings of the Madblood series and met the rest of the cast and crew – a fantastic group of people, who are just as funny off-screen as on. They put me to work on a few episodes as the “Brain-wrangler” (if you’ve seen the show, you know what I mean), and treated me like family. I am grateful to Monsterfest for providing a chance to catch up with Jerry and several of his cohorts: Kristen Harrell, Craig T. Adams, Debra Burrell, Carter Perry and Bill Davidson.

The Virginia premiere of NIGHTMARES IN RED, WHITE AND BLUE followed a lineup of short films including an all-puppet version of PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE (!), and we had a lively Q&A afterwards. Director Andrew Monument and I also sat for a lengthy interview with Jason Bayless, Josh Browning and Paul Casper (who composed the score for NIGHTMARES), which will appear on their internet radio program – Zombie Popcorn – later this month.

NIGHTMARES was followed by the world premiere of the documentary VIRGINIA CREEPERS. I bought a DVD copy of the “special Monsterfest edition” of the doc – which I assume is a bit longer than the final version will be. At 2 hours, it offers an exhaustive overview of horror show hosts from the Old Dominion. Particular focus is given to The Bowman Body, Count Gore de Vol, and Dr. Madblood, but I was especially excited to learn more about some of their lesser-known predecessors (Jonathan, Ghoulda, Ronald the Ghoul, and Hazel Witch) and their internet successors. Documentarian Sean Kotz clearly loves his subject, and the lower-third titles throughout the film prove that his sense of humor is as biting as the creepers.

By the end of the day, nearly the entire cast of THE HOUSE BETWEEN had gathered for the all-night movie marathon. Tony Mercer and Lee Hansen were on hand for a panel discussion on the history of Godzilla movies… and these guys know their stuff. They had so much to say that they only managed to get up to GODZILLA VS. MEGALON (1973) before running out of time. There is already some speculation about continuing the conversation at the Fantasci convention in the spring. (In the meantime, I think they should write the book.) Until next year…

Monsterfest VI

Festival founder Rob "Wolfman" Floyd and the monsters from his closet

MADBLOOD director Carter Perry and a recently-returned veteran of the Iraq War (no kidding)

Dr. Madblood and Me

NIGHTMARES director Andrew Monument with Ro-Man

The director's son, in disguise

The cast of BUBBA HO-TEP 2?

Attending cast members of The House Between… minus Phyllis Floyd, who somehow managed to avoid the camera but who must be acknowledged because, well, Phyllis is awesome. From left to right: Craig T. Adams, Lee Hansen, Craig Eckrich, Kim Breeding, Tony Mercer, Rob Floyd, and Jim Blanton.

SECRET CODA OF THE HOUSE BETWEEN, PART III: The End is the Beginning

The House Between pulls its characters from different times and places near the dawn of the Information Age. According to Mark Booth, this is a time that will eventually be dominated by one particular fear: “We can imagine computers which will be able to simulate worlds perhaps even as complicated as the one we think we’re living in. This raises the philosophical question: could we ourselves be in such a simulation and could what we think is the universe be some sort of vault of heaven rather than the real thing? In a sense we could ourselves be the creations within that simulation.” Such is the case in the universe created by John Muir.

Bill Clark is the draftsman of the simulator, known as “smart house technology” – he adopts a role similar to that of the Architect in The Matrix series. Astrid is a replicant, a “creation within that simulation,” pulled from Ward 6 (a correlation to Nexus 6 in the fiction of Philip K. Dick?) of the U.S. government’s smart house project by the love-sick draftsman. The question, posed in RESOLVED, is which happened first. Paradoxically, Astrid is both an unwitting parent and a child of the smart house project. So which came first? Mind or matter?

Bill undoes the quantum entanglement he caused by offering the following explanation in RESOLVED: “Cause need not precede effect. Reality isn’t that simple.” There is no past and no future, he explains, only “a million iterations of now.” Reality in this universe – in all universes that can ever be imagined – is literally what we make of it.

Of course, not everyone thinks that such unlimited freedom is a good thing. According to Sam Clark (in EXPOSED), the government wants to use the smart house technology to make people more machine-like, in an effort to control them. Arlo gets a brief taste of this ugly possible future, in which even his friends have become mindless zombies. Therefore, in what is arguably the most Whedon-esque of all THB episodes, John Muir casts our denizens in the role of freedom fighters and pits them against a proposed New World Order (represented by the character of Nora Pearce) so that “everything you believe exists… can exist.” The series ends on an overwhelmingly poignant note: The drama that we have watched unfold over the course of three seasons will now unfold in countless smart houses with countless denizens. In a sense, we’re right back where we started – at the beginning of the first season. And what about our heroes?


The final scene seems to place them on Roanoke Island, off the coast of North Carolina in the late 16th century, where Arlo’s inscription on a distinctive tree (“CRO”) will eventually be interpreted as a message from “The Lost Colony.” What happens to them there is as much a mystery to us as the disappearance of Sir Walter Raleigh’s settlers. But after everything that’s happened to these characters, I have a hard time believing that they could simply live out their lives in ease and comfort. By the end of Season Three, the denizens of The House Between are initiates into a greater mission. Their goal, as a secret society, is to lead the evolution of human consciousness.

How? In addition to the human/Lar hybrid, Theresa and Arlo have also – in a sense – recreated Bill and Astrid, our representatives of 20th century science and religion. Accordingly, Bill and Astrid must redefine their terms. At the end of the second season episode SEPARATED, Astrid tells Bill about the teachings of Paul the Apostle, who said that the perfect community Christ intended will be created through the action of three main virtues: faith, hope and love. Mark Booth writes that the secret societies offer quasi-scientific re-interpretations of these same three virtues:

(1) intuition – “transformed intellect that perceives spiritual beings as real”
(2) wonder – “transformed feeling that has become aware of the spiritual workings of the cosmos but is not overwhelmed by them”
(3) conscience – “transformed will – when by the exercise of thought and imagination, faith and hope, we begin to transform the will that lives beneath the threshold of consciousness.”

The Secret History of the World offers a rather unsettling look several thousand years into the future. It prophesies a time when we will “reenter the sacred wood” and commune with spirits, good and evil. It also prophesies a catastrophic war, which will transform the entire surface of the earth into a spiritual wasteland – in line with the prophecies of the Book of Revelation. In a twist that reminds me of the equally prophetic writings of William Blake (allegedly an initiate), Mark Booth adds that only America will be spared this horrible fate.

Taking this as a possible truth, perhaps it’s no coincidence that the denizens of The House Between have ended up on Roanoke Island, where they will be inextricably linked with the colonization of America. Perhaps Astrid, Arlo, Bill, Theresa, Travis and Brick will become founders of their own “secret society” – a group of storytellers who were miraculously brought together to spread a message about the future.

SECRET CODA OF THE HOUSE BETWEEN, PART II: The Religion of Art

In The Secret History of the World, Mark Booth essentially blames organized religion for covering up the truth about mankind’s origins. He refers to the age of the Roman Empire as The Age of Disenchantment, and argues that the violent (animalistic) culture of that time and place threatened to forever cut off mankind from the spirit world. Enter Jesus Christ, a savior produced by the imagination of God in collaboration with the imagination of man. Booth explains: “The life of Jesus as it has come down to us might look like a patchwork of events in the lives of those who came before him: born to a Virgin, like Krishna: born on December 25, like Mithras; heralded by a star in the east, like Horus; walking on water and feeding the five thousand from a small basket, like Buddha; performing healing miracles, like Pythagoras; raising from the dead, like Elisha; executed on a tree, like Adonis; ascending to heaven, like Hercules, Enoch and Elijah… It is hard to find any act or saying ascribed to the Jesus of the Gospels that had not been foreshadowed in some way. Anyone minded to think corrosively will decide to see this as evidence that his life was a fiction. But in the secret history this is a universal movement of convergence as the whole cosmos strained to give birth to the new Sun god.”

Christ’s mission, he says, was to plant a seed for the future. That seed was a “sense of the importance of the individual, of the sanctity of individual life, the transcendental power of one’s individual freely chosen love for another.” Through Christ, people were able to see – for the first time – their own personal histories and futures in relation to the past and future of the larger world. Admittedly, it’s a bold statement: Christ taught the individual to see himself (or herself) in context. This produced unhealthy effects as well as healthy ones. Take, for example, the character of Astrid in The House Between. Her upbringing in the Christian Church has made her feel isolated, guilty, and often self-loathing… to the point that she fantasizes about self-annihilation.

Why does she feel this way? Maybe it’s because she instinctively knows that her own, personal nature is at odds with the traditional teachings of the organized Church. Over the course of the series we learn that Astrid is a psychic medium. Perhaps she was born that way, or perhaps her father Ethan did something to her that made her that way. It’s sometimes said that mediums gain their powers through a trauma in their childhood that causes a tear in the membrane between the physical and spirit worlds. Whatever the cause, Astrid is unable to understand and accept her apparently supernatural powers. She represses them, and in the process causes death and destruction (particularly in the episode RUINED). It is only in the third season that she finally escapes this cycle (with a little genetic-reshuffling help from Arlo) and overcomes her religion-based fears.

It’s worth noting here that the character of Theresa, who represents Eastern religion, is often just as self-centered and self-defeating as Astrid. She has a sometimes-instinctive, sometimes-intellectual understanding of the inter-connectedness of all living things, but she lacks emotional depth, from which springs human love. In the third season, she finally evolves through her love for Arlo.

According to the secret history, the Church isn’t the only system that can hold people back. Reductive science also prevents mankind’s evolution by killing off our sense of wonder. Booth explains: “Modern science tries to enforce a narrow, reductive view of our consciousness. It tries to convince us of the unreality of elements, even quite persistent elements in experience, that it cannot explain. These include the shadowy power of prayer, premonitions, the feeling of being stared at, the evidence for mind-reading, out-of-body experiences, meaningful coincidences and other things swept under the carpet by modern science. And much, much more importantly, science in this reductive mood denies the universal experience that life has a meaning. Some scientists even deny that the question of whether or not life has a meaning is worth asking.”

Bill Clark’s frequent bull headedness (often coming in response to Theresa’s new age mysticism) illustrates this idea perfectly. He is ultra-rational to the point that he becomes self-defeating. Significantly, we the viewers are bound to Bill as our stereotypical sci-fi “hero” because series creator John Muir, a professed atheist, is bound to him as the only fixed point in the story. The character of Bill grounds us in consensus “reality” – an admittedly important function in a series full of lofty, confusing ideas. Throughout the second season, Bill refuses to accept “unscientific” ideas about the possibilities of alternative consciousness. In combination with Astrid’s shortcomings, this leads to disaster in RUINED. In the third season, Bill finally evolves to become a true hero. In ADDICTED, the close-minded scientist exists (or, rather, subsists) within a closed loop. On the surface, the individual has everything he wants, but Bill knows that his life lacks a larger meaning and context. In this episode, he finally realizes that he must go beyond scientific observation – must embrace hope and wonder – in order to live a good life.

Mark Booth continues to trace the history of the world to the Renaissance and the Romantic Revolution, a period in which imagination – through a process like alchemy – can recreate reality. The root impulse of the Renaissance, the author explains, was a sexual one: “Let us be clear about the outrageous thing we are saying here – that the whole of human conscious was transformed and moved to another level of evolution just because a few people performed the sexual act in a new way.” Nearly all art that has come since tells us that all magic is a power of mind over matter.

This philosophy is embodied by Arlo, an imaginative character who has the innate ability to utilize the smart house technology as it was meant to be utilized: he can manifest physical objects simply by picturing them. Of course, it is only gradually – over the course of the series – that Arlo learns to control this power, which is equally capable of creation and destruction. The volatility of his character in the first season is slowly brought under control by the influence of Theresa, with whom he falls in love. Arlo and Theresa’s tantric union in the third season (in the episode SCARED) is a prime example of imagination producing material results and, in RESOLVED, all of the denizens realize that Theresa’s unborn child is their “hope for the future.” This act of creation has produced an evolutionary step forward for mankind: a human/Lar hybrid, the sci-fi equivalent of the Greco-Roman demigods, children of one mortal parent (Theresa) and one immortal one (Cronus).

Artists are created the same way – through union with disembodied spirits. They do not create; they “channel” and co-create. Art results from a mysterious combination of individual psyche and cosmos, and functions as a kind of mediator between the two for others. Gothic literature, for example, suggests complicity between psyche and cosmos in a fearful way. Science fiction usually suggests complicity between psyche and cosmos in a more hopeful, accepting way.

Booth illustrates the function of art and storytelling as follows: “On one level novels are all about egotism. A novel always involves seeing the world from other people’s points of view. Reading a novel, therefore, lessens egotism… the failings of characters in novels are often to do with egotism, either in terms of self-interest or, more usually, more particularly, the failure to empathize.” This has been true of The House Between since day one. It has always been a story about different people learning to understand and accept each other, and to live and work together. It has also been a story about the ability of art to reconcile religion and science, and trigger a new form of human consciousness.

This brings us up to the present in our “secret history of the world.” Now comes the big question that any good science fiction series must ask: What does the future have in store for us?

(more to come)

SECRET CODA OF THE HOUSE BETWEEN, PART I: Myths and Mysteries

Fair Warning: Spoilers Ahead!

John Muir’s web series The House Between has ended with quite a few questions remaining. Not just questions about plot details (like who orchestrated the attack at 3:15… and when the hell was 3:15?), but the kind of question that only a dedicated viewer can answer by engaging with the series on their own terms. The biggest question of all is “What does this story ultimately mean?” No doubt each viewer has a different answer. I have mine, which began to take shape unexpectedly a few weeks before the airing of the final episode, when a friend gave me a copy of a 2008 book called The Secret History of the World by “Mark Booth” (in keeping with the secretive nature of the book, the author has used a pseudonym).

The Secret History of the World begins with the oldest of philosophical questions: What came first – mind or matter? In The House Between, Bill T. Clark – a 20th century scientist – argues the case for matter. Astrid and Theresa – the former a follower of Western religious tradition, the latter a follower of Eastern religious traditions – argue the case for mind. Travis – a lawyer and outspoken capitalist – clearly falls on the side of materialism, while Arlo represents idealism. Over the course of three seasons, these characters struggle to work out this age-old quandary. Their story, in its own oblique way, tells the secret history of the world.

Mark Booth tells us that the world began when “an impulse squeezed out of another dimension into this one.” Gradually, humans began to think of this “other dimension” as the mind of God, and of our universe as the creation of God’s imagination. This is hardly an endorsement of creationism. Booth proposes that animal life evolved from vegetable life, which prompted the explanatory myths of the ancient fertility cults (which later morphed into the Christian myth of the Fisher King – see James George Frazer’s famous anthropological work, The Golden Bough).

One of the most outrageous aspects of this book is its constant reference to “proto-humans.” I find it particularly outrageous because I can’t stop picturing James Arness – the bloodsucking alien vegetable-man – in The Thing from Another World. In all fairness, let me just say that Booth makes no allegations that proto-humans drank blood. Rather, they got their nourishment from the sun, through photosynthesis. It follows that they worshiped the “Sun God” as the source of life.

Booth’s secret history goes onto say that the vegetable bodies of proto-humans functioned as portals between the physical world and the spirit world. The “organs” of their bodies were the seven chakras of ancient Eastern philosophy, often used as a point of reference in traditional meditation practices like those Theresa employs in The House Between. Legend says that one of these organs – the crown chakra – was once visible as a “third eye” or “lamp light” emanating from the forehead. Again, my only frame of reference for such a thing comes from a horror movie (which I admit probably says more about me than about the ideas in the book) – in this case, Stuart Gordon’s adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft, From Beyond. Lovecraft’s proto-humans existed in a world of awesome gods called “the Ancient Ones.”

During this ancient period in man’s existence, Booth says that the faculty of imagination was much stronger than the faculty for thought. Gods and monsters, spirits and demons were real because people believed in them without reservation. Modern physics bears out the theory of subject-object coalescence – the idea that reality is partly formed by our perception of it. John Muir’s smart houses are designed to implement exactly this phenomenon. In The House Between, man is returning to his roots – a different kind of consciousness.

As man evolved into animal life, the chakras became clogged and man lost his natural connection to the spirit world. In the process, he lost certain natural healing powers as well. At that point, it became necessary for man to adopt religious practices in order to reestablish the connection at will. The symbolism of the Biblical account in Genesis, according to the secret history, illustrates that the evolution of man from vegetable to animal introduced thought and sex and death to his life. Unlike plants, which reproduce by parthenogenesis and (in a sense) never die, animals suffer, desire and fear. The result: Humans became more conscious, more violent, more close-minded… and secret societies were formed to preserve the ancient way of interacting with the world.

In the first season of The House Between, the character of Theresa is introduced as a “new variable” in an ongoing social experiment. She has been trained to use ancient Eastern meditation techniques to communicate with disembodied spirits (called “discarnates” in the episode DISTRESSED). It is her abilities – time and time again over the course of the first two seasons – that allow the denizens to escape death and ultimately provide them an opportunity to evolve as characters. The first step in this process is helping them to conquer their fears through altered states of consciousness – because, as Theresa says in the episode CAGED, “the beginning of wisdom is fear.”

The ancient Mysteries cults held rites of initiation in which the initiates were subjected to “the most intense experiences, the wildest fears, blackest horrors and raptures.” In essence, the initiation is a symbolic death and rebirth into a new way of perceiving the world. Theresa’s accident and subsequent NDE (discussed in SETTLED) are her initiation. Astrid’s confrontation with Cronus’s manifestation of her sadistic father Ethan (seen in DEVOURED) is her initiation. Bill’s temptation by “the Sirens” of the Dark Entity (in ADDICTED) is his initiation. Finally, Arlo’s struggle with his own lucid nightmare, Vinnie Coto (in SCARED), is his initiation. Travis is the only character among the original five denizens who does not seem to undergo an initiation during the course of the series, but I certainly wouldn’t exclude him.

Travis is unquestionably part of this group (as he proves, again, in RESOLVED). In the final scene, Astrid says he is “both good and bad,” which is an apt description of any member of a secret society, acknowledging that Good and Evil go hand in hand, and together produce Life. Since he is the only one with a memory of the smart house time loop (Travis is the "constant" in the ongoing experiment), maybe his initiation actually occurred in an earlier version of the smart house? ADDICTED certainly demonstrates that Travis has an unquestioning belief in the powers of the mind, allowing him to teleport himself between dimensions with ease. So in some ways, he is the most “advanced” of all the characters – having already shed the pretensions of religion and science.

(more to come)

THE HOUSE BETWEEN Episode #21: "Resolved"

A few days ago, I was having coffee with a cinematographer friend of mine. We got to talking about the apparent failure of the Internet to foster a revolution in consumer-created entertainment. He said he wasn't surprised, and observed that the frame refresh-rate on a computer screen is exponentially greater than the frame refresh-rate on television (which itself is significantly greater than the frame rate of film). At so many frames per second, he explained, the brain isn't required to work to "fill in the gaps." In other words: When we're looking at the computer screen, our brains are essentially on auto-pilot... even moreso than when we're watching television. No wonder people can't sit through a 30-40 minute dialogue-heavy show.

There's a corollary to this idea in John Muir's final episode of The House Between, and I must say that it's tempting to use it as an explanation for the fact that the series - which I truly believe is one of the most ambitiously intelligent science fiction series that has ever been dreamed up - has not "gone viral" in the last couple of years. Whatever the explanation, this hard truth does nothing to diminish the series -- which now exists in its entirety for future viewers to discover, like a lost artifact of a bygone civilization.

For my part, it has been an honor to be associated with this series and the many talents that brought it to life, onscreen and off. Though I have no reason to expect that the story will continue, I truly believe that The House Between will return in some form, some day. It simply has too much to say. And as Bill Clark continually reminds us, "Anything's possible." For the time being, pop over to John Muir's blog for a beautiful prelude to "Resolved", and then check out the final bow...

THE HOUSE BETWEEN, Episode #20: "Exposed"

During the shooting of THB season two, we had a crisis that forced John Muir to come up with a new script during the overnight hours between grueling 15-hour production days. Somehow, he pulled it off. The resulting episode was the aptly-named "Distressed."

During production of season three, we had a number of smaller crises that ultimately forced Muir to condense and re-think an existing script in order to finish the season. He made some painful cuts and we made short work of an episode entitled "Exposed," with the intention of incorporating those scenes into an extra-long series finale. If you're curious to see just how confusing the shoot became (and to marvel at the ability of the actors to pull off their character arcs while shooting completely out of sequence), here's a production report showing the sequence in which we shot the third season:

DAY 1 – MONDAY w/ partial cast
“DEVOURED” – Scene 2
“ADDICTED” – Scenes 2, 9, 22, 24
“SCARED” – Scenes 3, 4, 5

DAY 2 – TUESDAY
“DEVOURED” – Scenes 1 (part), 3B, 7, 10, 13
“ADDICTED” – Scenes 1 (part), 5, 6, 3, 3B, 18, 23
“DEVOURED” – Scenes 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 8B, 9, 13B

DAY 3 – WEDNESDAY
“SCARED” – Scenes 2, 1, 10, 7, 8, 9, 14, 11 (part), 16, 18, 11, 11B, 6, 12, 13 (insert), 16B, 19, 13, 15, 17

DAY 4 – THURSDAY
“SWITCHED” – Scenes 2, 4 (part), 5, 8, 1, 4 (part), 6, 7, 9
“DEVOURED” – Scenes 5, 8B
“SWITCHED” – Scenes 10 (part), 11, 12, 10 (part), 13

DAY 5 - FRIDAY
“EXPOSED” (original script) – Scenes 7, 11
“RESOLVED” – Scenes 9, 7
“EXPOSED” (original script) – Scene 10 (part)
“SWITCHED” – Scene 15
“EXPOSED” (original script) – Scene 12
“SWITCHED” – Scene 14
“RESOLVED” – Scenes 3, 4, 4B, 3 (part), 5, 1, 6
“EXPOSED” (original script) – Scene 9
“DEVOURED” – Scenes 12, 11, 10

DAY 6 – SATURDAY
“RESOLVED” – Scenes 2, 8, 14, 11, 0, 15, 15B
“EXPOSED” (original script) – Scene 16
“RESOLVED” – Scenes 12, 11, 13
“EXPOSED” (new script) – Scenes 2, 10 (part)
“RESOLVED” – Scene 11
“EXPOSED” (new script) – 3 unnumbered scenes
“RESOLVED” – final scene

PICKUP DAY w/ partial cast
“ADDICTED” – Scenes 1, 2, 3, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34
“DEVOURED” – Scenes 3, 4
“RESOLVED” – Scenes 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34

In the months since the shoot, Muir has had time to re-think the lost episode again. Since he was unable to bring back the full cast for additional shooting, he has reconstructed the episode around the one actor he had constant access to -- himself. The villainous character of Dr. Sam Clark (John's onscreen alter ego) now dominates the penultimate episode of the series, offering us his last (?) testament on what has been and what will come to be...

THE HOUSE BETWEEN, Episode #19: "Switched"

How do you make a long-running sci-fi series with a literally nonexistent budget? Well… First, you call in all the favors that your friends and family owe you. Then you spend a lot of time coming up with interesting story ideas that can be told mostly through dialogue… because talk is cheap. John Muir’s stalwart Internet series The House Between may skimp on locations, props, and special effects but it has words aplenty. And for three seasons they’ve been getting the job done. Somehow Mr. Muir keeps coming up with new ways to make six people in an empty room talking to each other seem new and interesting.

In this week’s webisode, the words and faces may be familiar… but there’s some confusion about who’s saying what. In “Switched,” the minds of the characters get magically reshuffled into different bodies. The results: Arlo gets a shotgun, Bill gets pregnant and Travis gets lucky… sort of. It sounds like a farce – and, admittedly, there are some hilarious moments – but this potentially gimmicky idea unfolds in the service of the third season’s elaborate story arc, building on revelations in “Devoured,” Addicted,” and “Scared,” and setting up the final two episodes of the series.

In my opinion, “Switched” also shows how far this series has come in two and a half years. Had this story idea been rolled out during the first season, or even the second season, I don’t think it would have worked. Now, after everything they’ve been through, these characters are so intricately developed and the actors so intimate with the character dynamics that they can channel each other without missing a beat. They know each other’s quirks (not to mention quarks and quazoos) as well as the members of any loving but wildly dysfunctional family… which makes this episode a revelation.

The role reversals are funny, yes, but they’re also poignant and ultimately meaningful to the series. The lessons the characters learn from each other provide another quantum leap for Muir’s overarching space opera, setting the stage for the grand finale. Where will the denizens go from here? If history is any indication, Muir will continue to surprise.

THE HOUSE BETWEEN, Episode #18: "Scared"

In the latest episode of The House Between, the focus shifts to the “next generation,” as Arlo and Theresa are tormented by living nightmares. Quoth John Kenneth Muir, “I don't think it was a coincidence that I decided to marry an Arlo/Theresa story with a rubber-reality horror movie, since these are our two youngest characters on The House Between. Most of the time in rubber reality horrors, it's up to struggling adolescents to defeat evil before they get the chance to grow up and live happily ever after.”

I’m not sure that “happily ever after” is in the cards just yet, but both the characters and the actors (Jim Blanton as Arlo, Alicia A. Wood as Theresa) take big leaps forward in “Scared.” In an insightful review on the Quantum Imprimaturs blog, Lar rightly says that “SCARED is more symbolic than any episode of The House Between so far… It seems on the surface like a horror movie about a scary clown but is actually a more complex reflection of a beloved character and character conflict.” As for the clown… this episode introduces a new villain named Vinnie Coto, who is played by series special effects wizard Rob Floyd. Seen here attacking the director with a mallet...


If you want to get a better look at the new character, you’ll just have to watch the show…

THE HOUSE BETWEEN, Episode #17: "Addicted"

Happy Friday the 13th! How about celebrating with a bit of good fortune, courtesy of a little Internet series called The House Between? Today is the online premiere of episode 3.2, “Addicted,” which I believe is one of the very best episodes of the entire series. In it, three (arguably four, if you include Sgt. Brick’s transformation into a bona fide action hero) of the six main characters are completely re-defined by John Muir’s increasingly complex story. I say “increasingly complex,” but that doesn’t quite do justice to this episode, because while things do get more complicated, the entire mythology of the THB world also comes into focus in this episode in a very big way. Some of this is a result of conscious, calculated storytelling and some of it… well, let’s call it kismet.

One of the crew members has recently said that there is a slightly Buddhist train of thought running through the new episode. That reminds me that, way back in season one, Astrid found the word “samsara” written in lipstick on her closet door. In the simplest terms, one might define samsara as Eastern religion’s version of Hell and Purgatory. Instead of being tormented by an eternity of fire and brimstone, “souls” are tormented by life… the repetition of the same painful life, over and over and over. This is essentially what Travis describes at the end of first season, when he confesses to the others that he has “lived this life a dozen times before.” In “Addicted,” we finally find out why.

The Western version of Hell is more obviously invoked in The House Between. Astrid’s warped religious upbringing has resulted in a life filled with fear, anger and self-doubt. That’s how the denizens ended up where they are – the “Dark Matter Entity” at the end of season two (beginning with “Caged” and continuing in “Ruined”) chose Astrid’s tormented “soul” as a form of energy. All of that fear, anger and doubt destroyed the world our characters knew. Everything seemed lost. But… there’s a flip side to the coin. In “Caged,” Theresa explained that something good can come out of fear. In her words: “The beginning of wisdom is fear.” For Bill Clark, that proves true in this new episode, when his character adopts a new perspective on life and is, in a sense, re-born.

For Astrid, the future is more uncertain. In the first episode of season three (“Devoured”), she finally faces her fears – embodied in a supernatural version of her father – and overcomes them. In “Addicted,” we find out what that leaves… Who is Astrid without the fear and anger that has driven her since the very first episode? What’s left? For her, the end is also a beginning.

Let me just add at this point that the performances from these three actors – Lee Hansen as Travis, Tony Mercer as Bill, and Kim Breeding as Astrid – are among the very best in the entire series. As the characters jumped to the next level, the actors stepped up to the challenge, bringing new depth to each of the now-familiar denizens. I must also praise Mateo Latosa, the series composer, who has written some of his most beautiful pieces of music for "Addicted," including a new series open so exciting that I insisted that John also use it at the end of the episode.

But back to the story. I’m not going to say “If you only see one episode of THB, see this one.” Instead, I’d suggest that loyal viewers and newcomers alike watch the last two episodes of season two (“Caged” and “Ruined”) immediately followed by the first two episodes of season three (“Devoured” and “Addicted”). These four episodes contain a subtle thematic movement that I don’t think even John Muir fully anticipated – I don’t know how to explain it except to say that, in these four episodes combined, I believe you can find the “soul” of The House Between. Now, without further ado...



I should add that I’m confident the best is yet to come… For all the progress made in “Addicted,” the story is far from over. Episode 3.3, “Scared,” premieres in two weeks.

THE HOUSE BETWEEN, Episode #15: "Ruined"

THE HOUSE BETWEEN, Episode #16: "Devoured"

Be sure to check out the THB fan blog. In a new post, actor Tony Mercer teases the forthcoming episodes of the third and final season:

Addicted was a chance to do something quite different. It’s a type of story we’d long wanted to tell, but when we finally got to do it I found the shape John gave it to be surprising, and intriguing.

If the trailers are any indication, the visual realization of Scared is going to be something very special.

Switched is without a doubt the riskiest, most challenging thing we’ve done. I’m simultaneously excited by it and terrified of it, because there will be no middle ground. It will either be an enormous win, or we’ll fall flat on our faces. But, no matter what, I’m glad we made it.

Resolved. This is the big one, folks. This is some of Muir’s best writing ever. That script recharged my batteries in a big way. I said to John, “This is it. This is why we do it.” And I think we pulled it off. I really do.

THB: MARK 3

When we last checked in on the hapless heroes of The House Between, they were staring death in the face. Three of them had already been spirited away and the remaining three appeared to have only moments to live. Watching the final episode of season two (“Ruined”), I was amazed to find that I was 100% emotionally engaged. Although I have been involved with the production of the series since day one and know the real people behind the characters, I was still completely willing and able to suspend my disbelief. In the final moments of the show, I realized that not only did I believe in these characters… but also that I didn’t want to have to say goodbye to them.

The shooting of season two was so arduous that I think we all wondered if we’d be willing to go another round in the house between. Ultimately, writer/director John Muir was able to amass the troops for a third and final season. What he wasn’t able to wrangle was the old Victorian house where the characters first met. So in the last week of May 2008, we gathered at a new location – a run-down office building in one of North Carolina’s sleepiest old railroad towns. The building dates back to the turn of the 20th century, and was home to the first Belk department store… not that you’ll be able to tell from our footage. In season three, this husk of a building is known only as “the dark place,” and one need only glance at its crumbling walls, chipped-paint ceiling and exposed, skeletal beams to understand that this is a place with a history. It is older than the beloved “house between”… and much less pleasant.


By the end of our first day of Season Three shooting, I realized that I was allergic to something inside our new digs. I began to understand (to a lesser degree) what a few of the actors had gone through in season two when they fell ill during shooting. For me, much of the week’s activity took on a hazy, dream-like quality. I saw it all as through a glass darkly, and by the end of the week I was so bleary-eyed that it seemed no one could look at me without asking, “Are you okay?”

There were other problems too. The delayed arrival of a few actors meant that we fell behind on our very first day and never quite caught up. Out of necessity, we shot wildly out of order, creating a sense of true chaos. Then there were sound issues: Because we were shooting in a town center, we had to plan every take around traffic noises. If a motorcycle came down main street, or someone blew their car horn, or a loud drunk wandered out of the neighborhood bar, we had to scrap the take. Things got significantly worse when, on day three, a group of workers began setting up a sound stage right outside of our window. That night, the otherworldly angst of our time and space-travelers had to compete with a Memorial Day boot scoot boogie.


We waited it out, shot into the wee hours of the morning, and returned a few hours later to find the neighbors setting up for a sidewalk auction. Then there was the heat. Summer had arrived in Monroe, the building wasn’t air conditioned, and our heavy black tarps covering the third-floor windows weren’t helping with the ventilation.

I offer all of these details as explanation for our failure to shoot everything we had on our schedule. Halfway through the penultimate day, we still had big chunks of four episodes to complete. John, who somehow managed to steer the ship with steely resolve under circumstances that would have broken the spirit of a lesser director, stayed up all night to re-write the final script – combining two half-hour episodes into one hour-long finale. (Sleepless nights with his two-year-old son had trained him well for this sort of endurance test.) We managed to shoot all but a handful of scenes involving Tony Mercer and Kim Breeding, who promised to return a few weeks later for a day of pickups. After many trials and tribulations, season three was in the can. The cast and crew had risen to the challenge.

Now that John has emerged from months of editing, I’m looking forward to once again forgetting about the creative process, suspending my disbelief, and getting lost in the world of these characters. Without giving away too much, I can say that a lot of things are going to change. There will be new faces in the series, and some of the old faces will be deceptively familiar. The stories will continue to expand on an already elaborate mythology, wrapping up the three-season storyline.

In a recent blog post, Muir talks about the conception of the new season – citing the influence of Space:1999 writer Johnny Byrne (who he calls the “spiritual godfather” of The House Between), as well as a specific episode of The Outer Limits and a particular scene in Star Trek V: The Final Frontier. I also see shades of A Nightmare on Elm Street, which comes as no surprise since John wrote the definitive book on Wes Craven, and I’m eagerly looking forward to our most horror-heavy episode since first season’s “Visited.”

In the meantime, check out “Devoured,” the first episode of this new incarnation of The House Between. You’ll find the link on the official series website first thing tomorrow morning.

The House Between - Prelude to a Season Finale

A certain person (who shall remain nameless) has insisted that I need to do an introductory post for “The House Between,” the original sci-fi Internet show that I helped produce with John Kenneth Muir. This week, we air the final episode of the second season – the culmination of roughly 7 ½ hours of programming (that’s two and a half solid weeks of shooting and many, many months of editing). Since I have not written a detailed post about THB since the beginning of first season, I thought a little re-cap might be in order...

“The House Between” is the brainchild of John Muir, an avid pop culture enthusiast who one day decided to plop five unique characters into a mysterious house with no windows, no furniture and no exit. As perceptively noted by the series director of photography Rick Coulter, each of the characters reflects some particular concern of their creator. In the broadest terms, they embody Muir's thoughts on religion, science, capitalism, imagination, spirituality and war. But let's not sell the series short. By this point, each of these characters have evolved into very complex human beings - thanks to a very talented and dedicated cast - and it's their complexity that drives the show forward.

Warning: Here there be MAJOR spoilers for many episodes leading up to "Ruined" (episode 2.8)...

The series started with Astrid (Kim Breeding), the feisty musician haunted by a pseudo-Gothic past. In “Settled” (episode 1.2), we learned that she once tried to kill herself, after a failed reconciliation with her manipulative father. Her dysfunctional upbringing is at least one reason for her secretiveness, and it wasn’t until the end of the first season that we learned her true identity: Francis May Haven, a woman with startling psycho-kinetic abilities. Over the course of season two, she has largely repressed those abilities because of her strong religious beliefs, convinced that she deserves to suffer in purgatory rather than be saved.


Fans of the series commenting on SyFy Boards have recently referred to Astrid as a gateway character – she is the first person we see at the beginning of both seasons, as if Muir is trying to suggest that the significant events in the house somehow depend on her presence. That said, there’s absolutely no denying that it’s the alchemy of all the characters combined that makes things so interesting in the house.

Astrid finds herself drawn to to the character of Bill T. Clark (Tony Mercer), who sometimes goes to great lengths to make himself repellant. Bill is completely unwilling to accept the possibility of a new life in the house. From the beginning, it was clear that he knew more about the house than he was letting on. In “Trashed” (episode 1.6), he finally came clean. After a violent telepath named Sange (Florent Christol) infiltrated the house and tried to murder him (Terminator-style), Bill confessed to his housemates that he himself had designed the house, as part of a top-secret government experiment called Project Habitat. The goal of the experiment was to use quantum physics to create a new reality for the human inhabitants of Earth – providing an alternative to an impending global Holocaust. At the end of the first season, however, he learned that his experiment had actually precipitated the Holocaust. If that doesn’t make a guy feel guilty, nothing will.


Needless to say, Bill entered season two with a bit of extra emotional baggage. Instead of getting out of the smart house he designed, his goal was to “unmake" it. Good intentions or no, Bill undertook his mission in a rather bull-headed fashion, aided by his meglo-maniacal brother Sam Clark (John Muir) and his foot soldier Sgt. Dexter Brick (Craig Eckrich). At the end of “Caged” (episode 2.7), Bill finally admitted that he couldn’t control his creation, and succumbed to the will of the group. (Brick, apparently not one to question authority, followed suit…)


Stuck in the middle of Bill and Astrid’s would-be affair is Travis Crabtree (Lee Hansen), a wise-cracking lawyer with a definite dark side. Through season one, he was the least empathetic inhabitant of the house – always trying to exert his authority over the others. In “Positioned” (episode 1.3), he even took over the kitchen by force and threatened to kill the others unless the women performed certain... favors... for him. Because he’s consistently the rogue, one fan recently compared him to Sawyer on the series “Lost.” And like Sawyer, Travis has proven to be multi-layered. At the end of the first season, we learned that he was the only character who remembered having been in the house before. In fact, he remembered being there dozens of times before – living the same situation over and over again, like Bill Murray in “Groundhog Day.” He confessed to the others that he'd lied, cheated, and even murdered his way through every imaginable scenario. In the process, he fell in love with Astrid.


Over the course of the series, we’ve gradually been introduced to a softer side of Travis. He’s certainly never lost his biting sense of humor, but he’s come through for his new “family” on several occasions. In episode 1.4 (“Visited”), he saved Bill’s life. In episode 2.2. (“Separated”), he rescued Arlo from a quantum limbo. In episode 2.5 (“Populated”), he sacrificed a luxurious fantasy-life to stabilize the smart house. By this point, Travis’s sarcasm had become a thin facade. It's clear that he truly cares about the other denizens of the house – enough to entirely dismiss the possibility of returning home or reconciling with his own friends and family (as seen in "Populated" and "Distressed").

At the beginning of the series, Travis found himself most at odds with Arlo (Jim Blanton), whose youthful innocence and general unpredictability irked him to no end. At the conclusion of “Positioned” (episode 1.3), it seemed that their antagonism had reached crisis point, with Arlo advancing on Travis with a knife. The eruption of violence took an unexpected turn and the two men – faced with the harsh reality of death and the uncertainty of what lies beyond – managed to overcome their differences. For the most part. Arlo was content so long as the others respected his claim to the kitchen and its assortment of tin cans. Despite being largely dismissed by the others as crazy, the ever-imaginative Arlo eventually managed to use those same cans to reveal a secret control panel and awaken Vitality, the spirit of the house. It was only right that he should be the one to do so, since the house was created from Arlo’s own memories of his childhood home, which was mysteriously destroyed by a tornado.


In season two, Arlo has been just as instrumental in unlocking the secrets of the house. Eager to help Bill “unmake” the smart house and thereby prevent the destruction of his own childhood home, Arlo used newfound powers to change the physical constitution of the smart house. So far, he is the only character to actually “escape” the house – though where he ended up in episode 2.2 (“Separated”) isn’t likely to be on anyone’s vacation wish list. Since then, his physical powers have continued to grow – prompting a visit from a mysterious sage-like character named Thomas (Craig T. Adams) in “Populated” (episode 2.5) – and his confidence has allowed him to forge a strong bond with the house’s fifth denizen.

Theresa Melita (Alicia A. Wood), a “psychic astronaut,” was the last member of this wildly dysfunctional crew to arrive in the house between… and the only one to arrive by choice. In “Departed?” (episode 1.7), Travis explained that she was not part of previous “versions” of the house, which may account for some of the differences in the version we've witnessed – first and foremost, Bill’s survival during the attack of the invading Outdwellers in episode 1.4 (“Visited”). Certainly, Theresa brings a sense of calm and spiritual wisdom to the group that would be otherwise lacking. At the end of the first season, it is she who communes with Vitality, opening the door to another world.


At the beginning of season two, Theresa is the one who initiates an investigation into where the group went when they left the house… and why they have come back. In “Estranged” (episode 2.4), while fending off a much larger-scale invasion of Outdwellers, she psychically probes Astrid’s suppressed memories and learns that the quintet were intentionally brought back to the house as part of a second secret experiment. The second experiment, masterminded by Sam Clark, has proven more disastrous than the first. Repeated assaults on the smart house’s structural integrity have left Vitality in a weakened state – vulnerable to the incursion of destructive “dark matter,” and struggling (just like her inhabitants) to survive. In “Caged” (2.7), Theresa proposes to strengthen the house and save her friends by symbiotically joining with Vitality. But, when the moment of truth arrives, Vitality rejects her… choosing Astrid instead.


On the cusp of the final episode of the second season, dark matter has begun to infiltrate the house – threatening to consume all of the energy in the house, and then all of the energy in the bodies of the inhabitants. Astrid now has all the powers of the smart house at her disposal. The question is what she’ll do with that power…

Episode 2.8 – “Ruined” – premieres online this Friday 3/21/08 at www.thehousebetween.com

After that, John will finally be able to take a much-deserved nap… And start dreaming up season three.

The House Between

It’s been over two years since I met John Muir, known to pop culture enthusiasts as John Kenneth Muir – “not because I’m pretentious,” he explains, “although I am pretentious,” but so that people don’t confuse him with the renowned naturalist who shares his name.

John was a featured guest at the inaugural MonsterFest convention, organized by Rob Floyd and Jim Blanton at the Chesapeake (VA) Public Library in October 2004. At that time, he had completed 15 published books on television and film, including critical assessments of John Carpenter and Wes Craven that I read while researching my own book on American horror films (published in April '04).

I would not have introduced myself to John Muir as a writer, because John was a real writer. My book (as one reviewer for Video Watchdog noted) was little more than a college thesis; John was already setting a new standard for pop culture studies. Nevertheless, Jerry Harrell – who was at the convention in full “Dr. Madblood” regalia – did not hesitate to introduce me as a writer... and John and his wife Kathryn could not have responded with more enthusiasm and encouragement for my goal of someday turning a writing hobby into a career. I was thrilled to meet someone so down-to-earth who had managed to do just that.

I was not the only one in awe of John that day. He drew sci-fi and horror genre enthusiasts like a magnet. A year later, he returned to the Chesapeake Public Library with a proposal for his new friends. By then I was working as a producer on the Discovery Channel’s docudrama series “A Haunting,” so he included me in his proposed venture… to produce an original, low-budget science fiction series called The House Between.

The conceit was simple: Five strangers trapped in a house with no way out, and no idea how they got there. He said it was partly inspired by his frustration with the ABC series “Lost” – which was continually resorting to flashbacks, rather than dealing with the present dilemma of its characters - and partly inspired by Jean Paul Sartre's play No Exit. I immediately thought of Night of the Living Dead, the brain-child of ten friends who volunteered their time and money to make a film that transcended its minimal production values.

To his credit, John understood that minimal production values did not necessarily reduce the scope of storytelling possibilities. He was determined to explore questions of physics, psychic phenomenon, mysticism, religious fundamentalism, politics, greed and good old fashioned personality disorders… on 2% of the budget of the famously low-budget Night of the Living Dead. Of course, George Romero will be the first to say that it’s much easier, in the digital age, to create your own movie or television series. The real hurtle is distribution. But John had an answer for that too – he is thoroughly convinced that original Internet productions, “consumer-made television,” are the wave of the future. His friends were more than happy to help him test the theory.

A six-member cast and an eight-member crew converged on Charlotte, North Carolina, in June 2006. For the next week, we would be trapped in an empty house with blacked-out windows, completely oblivious to the “real” world. It was like being thrown into a dream reality, with a very sobering mission: We had seven days to shoot seven (dialogue-heavy) episodes. No easy task. I appointed myself task-master.

From day one, I was amazed by the talent and dedication of everyone involved. It was as if every single person there had been waiting for an opportunity like this, and when the cameras started rolling, they all became consummate – and passionate – professionals. Somehow, John must have known that it would happen like this. The actors learned their lines on the spot. The crew knew exactly how to get around any problem that presented itself. As on any good production, the team simply gelled.

The project quickly became a collaborative effort that relied on everyone there for its continued success. There were times when the production seemed like a house of cards. If any single member of the team hadn’t been fully engaged, the whole thing would have come crashing down. But everyone we needed was there, and giving 110%. By the second day, we were moving forward at full speed. By the fourth day, we were circumventing production problems with relative ease. (Many of the problems stemmed from our lighting equipment, which didn’t weather the 16-hour shoot days quite as well as the actors and crew). By the fifth day, everyone was comfortable enough for wild improvisation – making for a great episode that renewed everyone’s energy for the home stretch. (Truth be told: The lack of sleep was starting to make us all a little loopy.) By the seventh day, our nerves were frayed… but everyone maintained an air of professionalism, and we managed to get the last show in the can just before a summer storm swept into Charlotte, and provided us with some great
moody exterior shots.

Afterwards, we all went to John’s house for a late dinner, and sat around talking into the early hours of the morning. It had been an absolutely grueling week, but nobody wanted it to end. Perhaps it was because we couldn’t quite believe what we had accomplished… It’s an amazing thing to realize that you are capable of more than you ever thought you could be.

So now the big question: How much of this ambition, talent, enthusiasm and labor will show up onscreen? I think that some of us who were involved in the shoot may have a tendency to preface the result with a disclaimer – apologizing for low budget, rushed schedule, and lack of production experience. At the same time, we will be effusive in our praise of the things that work. There are some remarkable achievements in acting, lighting design, videography, special effects, music, and – perhaps most significantly – storytelling.

As I watch the finished episodes, I am consistently amazed by the subtleties of John’s storytelling… hints of longer character arcs and larger conflicts that I somehow overlooked on the page. I think it’s fair to say that there will be plenty of moments in the series that don't work as well as we'd like, but equally fair to say that there is a very strong vision that becomes increasingly apparent with each episode – something that inspired every member of the cast and crew to become engaged with the project on a very personal level.

Before we left Charlotte and returned to our respective “real worlds,” I thought it was important to share my awe of the project: Things like this don’t just happen. Everyone has a story... but John and Kathryn managed to convince a group of people to spend a week of their lives (a week of vacation time, for most of them) in a musty house, testing themselves mentally and physically for 16 hours a day, to bring this story to life. I can think of plenty of vacation alternatives that would be more enticing… but none that would ultimately be more rewarding. John and Kathryn deserve a lot of credit for making the proposal, and the cast and crew deserve a lot of credit for showing up and making it a reality.

I hope that those who view the finished product will be able to share some of this enthusiasm. A few months ago, John wrote on his blog: “I would prefer to sit in a theater and view something new and exciting and different (even if flawed...) rather than something mainstream and uninventive.” I believe that viewers who agree with this perspective will find plenty to love in The House Between.

You can check out John’s trailer for the series on YouTube. The full-length episodes will begin posting in mid-February.  For further updates, see John's blog.