We resumed shooting last weekend (July 16th). I picked up Anju and Alison in Manhattan and drove them out Thursday night. Arriving in Wellsboro PA where Mark Polonia lives we stopped at a convenience store for gas and were greeted by a sight right out of a horror movie: swarms of moths, millions of them, so dense they blocked the windows of the store so you couldn't see in. When I went inside to pay the floor was littered with dead months.

We arrived at the location around midnight but still managed to get a few hours shooting in. The next day we shot for nearly nineteen ours and cranked out a butt load of footage. That night the moths were back, covering the windows of the cabin and getting in our clothes. They were naturally attracted to the lights and when I adjusted the lighting they were all over me. I felt like Ken Foree in FROM BEYOND. At one point I heard absolutely blood-curdling screams coming from the cabin. It sounded serious so I ran inside to find two of the actresses running around screaming in terror. The moth had brought out the bats. The bats, of course, were harmless, but the way those girls screamed you'd have thought they were bloodsucking demons.

We managed to finish all the reshoots necessitated by the defection of our two "actors" (whom I had been referring to as the Asshole Brothers but whom the rest of the crew have taken to calling the Barker Boys --- weren't they some doofus crooks in the old Walt Disney comics?) and get a chunk of new footage done as well. The Barkers, by the way, were replaced by my nephew Ian, currently stationed at Dover AFB in Delaware, and his roommate Jared. The other replacement was supposed to have been Ben Kanes from BACTERIUM but for some reason as the shoot approached Ben went incommunicado, answering neither e-mails nor phone calls. I still haven't heard from him. As a kid Ian had helped out with a bunch of my earlier films, including doubling for Ethan Krasnoo in the flooded basement sequence of DRAINIAC. He and Jared drove up for the shoot and more than one person remarked how much happier and smoother things went with them as opposed to the previous would-be thespians. As Anju put it, "Can't you feel how much better the energy is with these guys?" Oh yeah.

Our leading ladies had to be returned to the Big City Saturday (on the way back through NJ, by the way, we stopped off in Blairstown and checked out the locations where much of Friday the 13th was shot. Small world, huh?). We'd planned to spend the rest of the weekend working with Ian, Jared, and our remaining actress Danielle, but Jared got a phone call taking him away for most of Saturday and although the guys were willing to come back for Sunday it hardly seemed worth the hundreds of miles they'd have to drive so we called it a weekend. It'll be mid August before we get everyone back together again but we've got plenty to keep us busy in the meantime. Last Friday night we shot a couple of scenes with Mark and Bob Denis doing their hilarious yokel characters (and Ken Van Sant as their leader) and getting the first real footage of the title character. Buzz Heavy, who played the melting scientist in the opening scene of Bacterium, gets back from a Ukulele Festival in England this week and he's coming down to do a cameo. In between shoots I've got a stop motion monster to build. They fun never stops!