TALES FROM THE 4TH FLOOR

When filmmaker Ryan Cavalline was 12 years old, he and several friends had a late night Halloween get together behind his house in the woods. They brought along some candles and an Ouija board in hopes of talking to the dead.

After playing with the witchboard for quite some time, it appeared the group had failed at making any contact. No spiritual gateway had opened. None of them had been possessed by evil demonic entities. They couldn’t even get the damn thing to answer a single question. But then things got spooky. One of Cavalline’s friends spotted some eyes in the distance. Everyone assumed he was fooling around, but when a second friend also saw the watcher in the woods, they knew something was up.

“We were all scared to death and ready to run,” said Cavalline. “Two of us walked up to the darkness of the woods and shined the light around. All of a sudden two dogs came running up and started jumping around. They were friendly little guys. So, we basically scared ourselves to the point where we could have pissed our pants, but it turned out to be just some lost dogs wondering around.”

Today Cavalline doesn’t scare as easy. In fact, the 30-year-old tries his best to shock the hell out of everyone else through his production company 4th Floor Pictures - the home of serial killers, freaks and demons - and SRS Underground, which is a division he heads at Sub Rosa Studios. Cavalline has produced, written and directed eight horror films with titles like “Serial Killer,” “House of Carnage,” “Demon Slaughter” and “Day of the Ax.” His most recent productions are the third installment in his “Dead Boy Man” series and the excellent “Aspiring Psychopath.”

So when Cavalline sits down for a good horror DVD to help celebrate Halloween, what does he grab for? Considering his childhood trauma, it shouldn’t be a surprise that Sam Raimi’s cabin in the woods cult hit “Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn” tops Cavalline’s list of recommended films to watch this month. The 1987 film stars Bruce Campbell as the one-handed, chainsaw-wielding hero Ash trying to fight off flesh-possessing spirits that have accidentally been conjured up with the Book of the Dead.“It’s just a fun movie from start to finish,” Cavalline said. “You can’t help but to enjoy this film.”

“Cabin Fever,” which was partly inspired by the “Evil Dead” trilogy also makes it way on to Cavalline’s list. The politically incorrect 2002 film about a horrifying flesh-eating virus helped jump start Elli Roth’s career and featured Giuseppe Andrews’ hilarious character Deputy Winston. “It’s a fun film that was simple,” Cavalline said. “It had tons of gore, nudity and a fresh storyline that hadn’t been seen yet.”

Cavalline is also big on hillbilly horror movies. Tobe Hooper’s “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre,” which was made in 1974, and Rob Zombie’s seventies homage “The Devil’s Rejects” make the cut. “I love the feel of the seventies and a movie where you are always hoping the bad guys do something really bad,” Cavalline said. “Personally, I enjoy every one of the Texas chainsaw films, but the original film felt so real. I like films that could actually happen, plus it was the birth of Leatherface.”

Aside from Leatherface, Cavalline said other horror icons he loves are Michael Myers and Pinhead. The original 1978 slasher “Halloween” and Tony Randel’s evil fairy tale “Hellbound: Hellraiser 2” from 1988 being his favorite films featuring the characters created by John Carpenter and Clive Barker.

Rounding out Cavalline’s evil batch of cinematic goodies include horror anthologies and films about serial killers, zombies, puppets and a haunted house. Cavalline said Jan Svankmajer’s 1994 version of “Faust” made him scared of puppets, while the 2000 movie “American Psycho,” which was based on a novel by Bret Easton Ellis and starred Christian Bale as fictitious murderer Patrick Bateman, brought a new spin to serial killer films. Tom Savini’s 1990 remake of “Night of the Living Dead” also gets a thumbs up from Cavalline because it “made zombies fun again and helped to bring back the rest of George Romero’s films.”

For something a little on the creepy side, Cavalline says watch “Satan’s Little Helper,” one of his favorite indie films. The 2004 Jeff Lieberman film delivers laughs and scares about a killer dressed as Satan on Halloween. For those that want to something that will bring a smile to their face, both “Creepshow” and its sequel get nods from Cavalline. The 1982 “Creepshow” and the 1987’s “Creepshow 2” were both inspired by the E.C. comics of the 1950s. Romero brought five of tales of terror penned by Stephen King to the screen in the first film and his protégé Michael Gornick delivered three in part two.

The “Creepshow” anthologies take Cavalline back to a simpler time he says. Back to a time when being “attacked” by puppies on Halloween night was enough to make him have to change his pants. Stuart Rosenberg’s 1979 film “The Amityville Horror” and its 1982 prequel “Amityville II: The Possession” do the trick as well. “Those scared the hell out of me when I was a kid,” Cavalline said.

- CCF, October 2007