The Amazing Kreskin stars in Dante Tomaselli's upcoming film Horror

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Now, Tomaselli has completed principal photography on his newest film - the appropriately titled Horror. Shot in January 2001 in upstate New York on a $250,000 budget, Horror is about "a group of runaway teens that escape from a drug rehab and encounter demonic forces in a rural farmhouse." Luck (Danny Lopes, who also starred in Desecration) is the leader of the group. He receives a promise of salvation from Reverend Salo Jr. (Vincent Lamberti), but that promise may be hiding something else. The teens go to the Reverend's farmhouse and meet his family, including Reverend Salo Sr., who is played by famed "mentalist" The Amazing Kreskin. What happens next should be kept a secret, but the film's press kit mentions "a chamber of horrors and murderous attacks by demonic manifestation in the forms of a satanic goat and an army of zombies." If you're a horror fan and that doesn't make you want to see this movie, I don't know what will.

Because some final touches are still being put on the film, I was unable to see Horror in its entirety (although I can't wait to). In the meantime, Tomaselli was kind enough to send me a 5-minute preview disc of the movie. What I saw was visually stunning - a nightmarish montage of disturbing images. Some of the camerawork pays homage to Sam Raimi's Evil Dead, but there's also a lot of Tomaselli's original vision in there as well. And that goat is pretty creepy.

The movie obviously has dark subject matter. I wondered what the origin of the story was. Says Tomaselli: "Well, this is definitely a 'millennium' film if there ever was one. I wrote Horror at the end of 1999 and throughout 2000, and I shot it in January 2001. �a unique period in history I think, with all the paranoia surrounding 'the end of the world' and religious groups going wild. I harnessed a lot of that energy and funnelled it into the spirit of the film." He adds that "at the core, Horror concerns the betrayal of faith and religion. It's really about evil cloaked in religion. It's also about drug addiction, family sickness and the supernatural."

Those are tough subjects for a movie. One of the things that makes Tomaselli an interesting filmmaker is that he's not interested in exploitation. He uses the horror genre to explore themes that are important to him. A childhood filled with recurring nightmares and lucid dreams fueled his interest in fright films. His fascination with the macabre didn't always sit well at home. "I had a very bad relationship with my father," Tomaselli remembers. "For some reason, he was really against me writing and directing horror films. I remember he thought my interest in it was bringing the house bad luck. He died of a fatal heart attack when I was 17."

To make what he calls "a more accessible, energetic film" than Desecration, the director says that planning was crucial. "I designed Horror the way an astrologer would create an astrology chart. Visually and conceptually, I tried to make it mathematical; I can draw a really elaborate maze. I always could. You'll feel like you're inside a cube or a never-ending cell. Horror's meant to be a puzzle with many solutions." Tomaselli would like each viewer to have a different reaction to the film, noting that it's "like a psychic sponge. It absorbs whatever the viewer brings to it."

Of course, one of the most compelling things about this new film is the appearance of The Amazing Kreskin. The mentalist has long earned both the admiration and the skepticism of audiences. In other words, what he does seems impossible, yet there is no obvious explanation for it. Interestingly, Kreskin asked to audition for the movie. "We met and hit it off instantly," the director says. "As you can imagine, he was a real trip to have on the set. There was this old-time celebrity aura about him that was so refreshing and fun...the cast and crew were entranced."

I couldn't help but wonder if Kreskin demonstrated any of his powers on the set. Tomaselli assures me that he did. "There are two specific sequences in which he makes characters sway and fall to the ground. And there is one scene where he makes a character as stiff as a board. The catch is that all of this was for real�what I was filming wasn't pretend. And I have the behind-the-scenes footage to prove it, with testimonials from actors. Using his mind magic, Kreskin conditioned actors before shooting. So when it came time to do the scenes, at his command, their muscles would freeze and they would drop to floor. It was an exhilarating day of filming, because what I captured was real - a form of mass hypnosis."

Dante Tomaselli on the set

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The skills of Kreskin helped to ease what was an otherwise complicated shoot for its maker. "Overall, the production was a grim, unpleasant experience. I shot Horror in 18 days. Below-freezing shooting conditions. 15-hour days. There was so much pressure to get it right within such a small amount of time. It's kind of like going to war. I remember one day - we had 24 different camera set-ups�that's inhuman. I'm sure I'll change my tune when my budgets go up, but until then I can tell you that it's pretty torturous." Even so, Tomaselli feels the effort was worth it. He says Horror is "a much better, more focused film than Desecration."

Surprisingly, Tomaselli sees horror movies as more than entertainment. He sees a psychological value to them as well. "You can work out taboos, things that push psychological buttons. People will always love horror films. There will always be devoted followers of the genre. It's so primal. I was drawn to scary films at an early age because they represented a safety valve to work out some of my fears. I could put myself in the most dreaded situations and then realize that my life wasn't so bad after all. Horror films, surprisingly, gave me hope."

Horror will be submitted to distributors in the coming months, and Tomaselli hopes it will give viewers some scares - and some hope - in theaters next year.