by Mike Watt

A group of seven friends sit in a half circle of couches, laughing with one another, enjoying each others’ company, feeling carefree, happy, untouchable. From across the room, in a pool of hard shadow, a woman watches them, her eyes filled with cold hate. Her gaze knifes through the good-natured warmth created by the friends, and soon, each one feels a chill. The woman’s name is Jane Toppan, she’s dangerous, and she has decided to utterly destroy these seven friends by making them face their fears.

That, in a nutshell, sums up the story of the upcoming film American Nightmare, written and directed by first-time filmmaker Jon Keeyes, starring Brandy Little, Johnny Sneed and B-Movie diva Debbie Rochon. And while it would be easy, even tempting, to dismiss American Nightmare as just another slasher pic, such an assessment couldn’t be farther from the truth.

At first glance, American Nightmare summons to mind the such quintessential stalk-and-kill fests as Halloween and Prom Night, the types of films that can be considered "safe" for a filmmaker to undertake on his first time out. But this is clever deception on Keeyes’ part, for what he has done is taken a psychological thriller, as darkly disturbing as Seven, and wrapped it in a seemingly familiar costume, resulting in a film that whips the rug out from under the viewer over and over again, playing with the expectations of the audience. In short, like the seven main protagonists, audience members are forced to face their fears.

"Essentially, people live in two worlds," says Keeyes. "They live in their own little happy safe world, which is their house and their car and their group of friends, it’s their own private, safe world, and they never expect anyone to intrude upon that world, or they hope not. And then you have this outside world, and though most people won’t admit it, it’s a very scary world. There’s a lot of people who are scared to go out, they’re scared of strangers, they’re scared of large groups of people. But the character of Jane Toppan has no happy, safe world. She’s seductive, she’s attractive, she’s cold, she’s sick, she’s twisted, she’s very inconsistent. She represents change, and she represents a lot of repressed anger and a lot of dysfunctionality. To me Jane represents a lot of things that scare people in this world."

Jane targets the friends through an inadvertent accomplice: the pirate radio disc jockey who goes by the name of "Caligari", the host of the radio show from which the film takes its name. On Halloween night, Caligari tells his listeners to call in, to tell him their greatest fears. And when the friends make their confessions on the air, they open themselves up to Jane’s brutal psychological attacks.

These two elements coming together, and Keeyes’ deft manipulation of these elements, are what set American Nightmare apart from other psychological thrillers. As portrayed by Debbie Rochon, Jane Toppan comes on like a freight train, devoid of morality and motivation. While the pirate radio host, whose voice pervades the scenes, lingers in the air like an invisible force itself, a silent observer, or even participant, in the terrors to come.

"I first started writing the script almost three years ago," says Keeyes. "And the original incarnation of it was me just sitting down and wanting to do two different types of movies, one being a slasher film, and the other being a movie about a pirate radio show. I loved Pump Up the Volume and I love the idea of pirate radio. Just jotting down notes for the two stories, and looking at them thinking, I should really find a way to merge these two together. I realize that slasher films are always going to be a genre unto themselves, but that doesn’t mean that you’re going to gain much recognition because of it. So many people are putting out slasher film after slasher film. So I decided to change it and give it something unique and ended up creating four or five little substories, or subplots that could all filter into the main story."

It was the script that attracted so many of the actors to the project. "The overall story is not only tight, it’s adventurous," says Brandy Little, who plays Jesse, the central character in this circle of friends. "It’s not just, there’s a killer who kills via this method throughout the whole movie, [her methods] are customized to fit each person, which is even more disturbing. Which is, I think, just a cool – I wouldn’t say "twist", because every story can be reformed and put out in a different light. This is, original at least to me; I haven’t seen anything like it. And I’m excited about the psychological-thriller aspect of it, as opposed to it being a horror-slasher flick. I enjoyed the fact that it’s for an intelligent audience. I go to the movies and I love seeing a movie that doesn’t spoon-feed me, and lets me think for myself, and lets me follow along on the adventure with the characters. And he’s also allowed for a lot of character-development within the story, which is part of the fun."

American Nightmare is a balancing act. Unusual for any low-budget film to be so top-heavy with characters, it sets each character up as unique, and each of the actors portraying the seven friends get their moment to shine throughout the film. There are no "throw-away" characters here; each of the friends is an individual, and each of them have their own private terror to battle.

On the other hand, behind the scenes, behind the horror, the actors themselves had a blast. The rigorous fifteen-day shooting schedule required the cast and crew to work for sometimes fourteen or fifteen hours at a stretch. Oddly enough, there was very little grumbling to be heard during these long nights. (Another unusual aspect of the production.) Quite the contrary, laughter was often heard at six o’clock in the morning, much as it was ten hours before.

The cast is a good mix of seasoned veterans and new-comers. Heather Haase, who plays "Melanie", has only been "seriously acting" since January of this year, and is an attorney by day. "--but I’m not that kind of attorney!" she says. "I only work part time, helping other lawyers. I have to qualify that."

Like the other actors portraying the circle of friends, Heather auditioned for American Nightmare, but did not receive a call back until a couple of months later.

"The audition was very comfortable," agrees Rebecca Stacey ("Misty"). "I was so surprised. I’ve been in auditions that were just horrific, and you’re just terrified. I walked in [to the American Nightmare audition] and it was instant comfort level. It was smiling faces and "you’re doing great". And the good thing was that Jon gave direction. It wasn’t like "just do it". It was "this is what you’re thinking, this is what you’re doing." And that really helped us and made it very comfortable."

A Houston native, Rebecca is the only actor in the group of friends who was not familiar with her co-stars. The others are actors in the Fort Worth/Dallas talen scene, having worked together in student films, industrials and commercials. Robert and Kristin McCollum, who play the married couple Tony and Cindy, are both improv comedians in the Neopolitan Syndicate comedy troupe, and had performed with fellow co-star Johnny Sneed ("Wayne").

Like many of the other details, the casting choices were conscious and specific. "When I was casting them, I was looking for people who would actually have compatible personalities, so that friendships would form. And they did. And I think that adds a lot to that group of friends as far as believing that they’ve been friends for a long time. We spent a lot of time before production began, hanging out, having rehearsals then going to dinner as a group. [The actors] learned some of each others’ quirks, the personalities of each other. We wrote back histories on the entire group of friends. When each of them met, how they met each other, life histories for each of them. All of the actors grabbed onto that, to the point of very subtly bringing things in that they knew about the back history of the relationships. Melanie and Bruce, in the back history, had dated at one time, and it never gets mentioned in the movie, but there’s something about the way their two characters interact on the screen that kind of alludes to that. The fact that Bruce’s character is very arrogant, very cocky – very different from the rest of the group, yet… the casual observer would wonder why he would even be a part of this group of friends. Until you see the other characters interacting with him. And there’s certain things that they do, certain gestures that they make, that are all subliminal, but they add to the believability of this entire group. The actors really, really fleshed out the feeling of long friendships."

Heather Haase agrees. "It’s a great cast. We knew each other from seeing each other around, but I don’t think any of us were really good friends before this, but I think the reason we all got cast is because we all hit it off at that first call back. He had us do the coffee scene together, and you know what? It was almost like the way it is now, all joking and happy. We have new friends now."

"We have a nice group chemistry like the movie group is supposed to have," says Robert McCollum. "We give each other a hard time when the cameras are off so it’s easier to do that when the cameras are on. And [Kristin] is being nice to me, because that’s part of her character, so that’s worked out real well for me."

That the cast and crew got along so well is a good thing, considering the amount of time they put in on shooting days -- the average shoot lasted from five pm to eight or nine am the next morning.

"Which is kind of a pain in the ass for the average Joe who has a job during the day," says Kenyon Holmes ("Bruce"). "Not such a pain in the ass that you can’t do it, it’s just that you don’t feel that you’re at your freshest, and that you won’t perform as well as you might. I’ve gotten kinda bitchy, I guess, sitting around and waiting – hurry up and waiting and being tired and whatnot. But it’s been a pretty good experience."

Kristin McCollum agrees: "It gets hard sometimes because you’re up so late and people get kind of punchy, you can tell when to leave people alone because they kinda glare at you. But for the most part people have been really upbeat. Jon – I don’t believe him. It’s like seven o’clock in the morning and we’ve been going all night and he’s still going going going. He’s still jumping up and down and telling people ‘Keep your energy up!’, and I’m just ‘I want what you’re on!’ "

Jon Keeyes, it would seem, is the heart of the project. While most people, ignorant of the vast filmmaking machine, feel that the director is the driving force behind a project, on American Nightmare, the conception is actually true.

Testimony from Heather Haase: "Seriously, I’ve never seen him get stressed out. I saw him get a little nervous right before we started shooting, but ever since he’s just been Mr. Calm Cool and Collected. We joke about it, actually."

Praise from Brandy Little: "I love working with Jon. He’s very giving, very encouraging. And I think that he has put together a phenomenal cast and an incredible crew. It’s been a lot of fun. A lot of fun. I love getting to play."

Backup from Johnny Sneed: "There was a great collaborative atmosphere on the set. Jon had his vision for what he wanted the movie to be as a whole as well as how specific scenes were to be shot, but he was very open to ideas from us actors. He would incorporate our ideas if they worked, and if not, he would politely tell us: ‘No. Now shut up and hit your mark. You're just a talking prop and you can replaced.’"

Keeyes, however, refuses to take the credit, and defers to his crew, most of which are personal friends of his, filling in the roles of producers, production managers, art directors, script supervisors, carpenters and grips. "Three-quarters of us have all been friends for at least seven or eight years. And we all do everything together, and whenever any of us has a project, we all get together to help out. So this time it was my turn for a project and they all jumped right in. And it eventually became – at first it was, "We’re giving Jon a hand to make his dream come true", and then realizing wow, this is all [everybody’s] dream, and gave it their 110% percent." Keeyes shakes his head in amazement and with his signature easy-going laugh. "You know, since three-quarters of the crew were working for free, I expected a lot of people to just drop out, but they all held out until the very end, because they all believed in the project. Everyone had very defined roles of what their duty was, [but] when they weren’t performing that job, they jumped right in and did whatever it took to keep things going. Grabbing lights and pulling cords and getting people into costume, the whole deal. We had a lot of blessings with people coming along at the last moment, people who just walked in and said "Hey, I’m looking to get some credits and some experience, you mind if I work for free", and took up their own roles."

In case anyone out there thinks that Keeyes is full of something other than enthusiasm, the McCollums back him up: "There’s really a whole group-effort mindset to this whole group, with everybody lending a hand – and you’ll see the cast helping, cleaning up and moving tables to get the food ready," says Robert. "Everybody seems to be working really hard. And that’s what you really want on an independent: a group-effort, "everybody’s pitching-in" kind of mentality."

"Yeah, there are no prima donnas here," says Kristen, "except for Johnny."

"But that’s just Sneed," Robert explains, deadpan. "He’s always been like that."

[I make a mental note to stop talking to the improv actors.]

There is one other element that adds to the unusual nature of American Nightmare, one that almost breaks through the "family affair" demeanor of the cast and crew. A dark shadow, one might say, running the risk of putting too fine a point on things, that serves as a reminder that this happy-go-lucky band of brothers and sisters are making a horror movie. Their villain, Jane Toppan, is a relentless killer, a force that will shred the lives of seven friends for reasons known only to herself. Jane Toppan is a strong, complex character, one of the strongest to be seen in an American film in some time, and she is portrayed Debbie Rochon, best known to fans as the pierced and tattooed lesbian nurse in Tromeo and Juliet. Having studied at the Lee Strasberg Institute, as well as the Michael Chekhov Studio and the Herbert Berghof Studio, Rochon has a background in method acting, and she utilized this background to the nth degree by playing Jane Toppan.

"Debbie blew me away. Debbie took Jane to levels and depths that I’d never imagined for that character," says Keeyes. "I gave Debbie a lot of free reign – like I did with most of the actors. I had a very good idea of who Jane was, what Jane was going to be like, and Debbie and I spent several months talking about Jane. And we had forensic psychologists create profiles for Jane, and created a back-story for Jane. And Jane herself is based on a real serial killer also. And all of those things over four or five months of preparing and planning, I finally let Debbie loose with that character. Once she knew where I needed Jane to be in the story, she just kept digging deeper and deeper and going further and further into Jane’s head and understanding who Jane was. And she spent months studying serial killers – especially female serial killers because they’re so rare – until I think she brought Jane to an all-time high."

Prior to production, Debbie Rochon made a decision that would allow her to create the strongest and believable character possible: for the length of the shoot, Debbie Rochon became Jane Toppan.

This is not to imply that Debbie went around butchering the cast and crew, leaving a trail of slaughtered grips in her wake. She did, however, go into that place inside her own mind that was similar to the one in which Jane’s character lived, cutting herself off from the bulk of the cast, preferring solitude and separation from the actors portraying Jane’s targets in the film.

Keeyes explains: "She and I had shared stories, and talked about William Friedkin, during The Exorcist, spent a lot of time off the set and during shooting keeping the actors on edge. Including randomly firing guns in the air. And a lot of the actors even now will say that a lot of what comes across on screen is because of [his actions]. Debbie knew in order for Jane to come off as real as possible, she couldn’t be friends [with the other actors]. Even though Debbie the actress wanted to be, Jane couldn’t be. She also knew that if she could unnerve the actors beforehand, that emotion would come across even stronger on the screen. So when she showed up, she became Jane. And the only time she wasn’t Jane in some fashion was when she was by herself."

"You can do a lot of reading on a person or type of person. It’s interesting and it’s helpful," Rochon says. "But I think really, if you just… I think we all have every type of person inside ourself, and if you have the ability to tap into that, then that’s where it’s at. Just all the emotions that she was feeling… I don’t want to say I didn’t have a problem, but it was enjoyable to go there for me. To go to the really messed-up, rage-filled parts of my psyche, my very anti-social self. I enjoyed very much doing it. If you do anything well it takes a lot of concentration. And I was definitely very concentrated the entire time. And I just hope that within everything that I was doing will come across on film. If it does, then boy that would be heaven. Regardless I had an amazing, amazing time doing it."

While this rationale may be difficult for the non-actor to comprehend, and may even sound a little ridiculous, but it was just one more instance – perhaps the pinnacle example – of how far people were willing to go to ensure that American Nightmare was the best movie it could possibly be. Which is not to say that it didn’t freak out the other cast members.

"[Debbie] scared us!" says Heather Haase. "You want to hear something funny? Brandy who plays Jesse, she’s really scared, because Debbie’s been really laying it on her, staying in character. Which is good, because Brandy’s been really freaked out. So Brandy was telling us, before I’d even seen Debbie at the shoot --" Heather pauses to look around over her shoulder, then leans in a little closer [I am not making this up.] "Brandy was telling me how scary Debbie was being, so I wanted to play along. And I went past her at one point and kind of snubbed her. And she goes "What’s your problem?" And I just thought "Oh, shit!" So I don’t think we started off on a very good foot – which might be a good thing for the movie."

"Debbie has given me lots of little gifts, behind the scenes and on camera," says Brandy Little, smiling and nodding. "When I say "gifts", I mean that she’s Jane sometimes behind the scenes and given me some wonderful emotional stuff to play off of. It’s just an additional thing to take with me that further deepens the whole character interaction. The first time I saw "Jane" outside of rehearsals, we were sitting in the coffee house, and she’d been asleep, and I could feel her – I could feel someone staring at me. And when I turned, she was peeking around a box, eating, with this look that pierced me and flipped my stomach, I couldn’t look at her the rest of the time! I held my hand up and was hiding, kind of tipping my head, trying not to look at her. To me, I was like, absorb that feeling, because that’s Jane over there. Totally messing with you right now. And I literally reveled in the rest of the time allowing Jesse to be frightened by her. Because when you’re on the set, you have to be your character. And when I saw her leering at me, from dark corners, there’s no escaping that, and I think that’s incredibly giving. That’s wonderful. And I hope she picked up on the discomfort that she’s created in me and that she’s receiving the same gift. That it’s powering her up. And now I have this nice place from which to explode when I finally confront her."

Keeyes’ grin is almost audible over the phone as he talks about "Jane". "She would do things like take Polaroids from the set photographer, and make sure the other actors knew she was walking around with them. She would sit in the shadows, and when people would walk in the room she would lean forward just enough to let them know she was watching them, and then go back into the shadows. She would walk around playing with her knife. And did a lot of things to really unnerve the actors. Which was really brilliant, in [aiding] their being able to relate to Jane when they confronted her onscreen. This wasn’t a person… Debbie and I both agree that audiences pick up on stuff subliminally. I think that if she had been best friends and best buddies with the actors before we started shooting, that would have registered in the audiences’ minds, that these people were friends, and we’ve just removed some of the believability of it. So having them already unnerved – hell, there were a couple of actresses on the set who would not walk into a room alone with Debbie. And it had nothing to do with Debbie. It was all about Jane.

"I remember the first night that "Jane" showed up on the set. Becky (Stacey) could not [be alone] with her, and here she had to go back to the house and share a room with Debbie!"

Becky’s eyes widen when I ask her about her roommate. "It’s been very… she and I talked about it. And when we’re on set, she’s "Jane". She loves me, but stay away. When we’re at the house, she’s Debbie and that’s cool. Matter of fact tonight I’m assisting her, making sure she’s ready, she’s fed and comfortable. So we’ve talked about it. But yeah, her first night here she totally tripped me out, she was in total Jane mode. And she just scared the shit out of me – I couldn’t even be in the same room with her. And she would be sitting there just half asleep and half-awake, and we’d be sitting there in a group, or me and Brandy would be sitting on a couch and [Debbie] would just peer with these little beady eyes around it. And just stare at you, very uncomfortably, until you were just going "Euuuuaah!" And then she’d pull her head back. And when we were doing photo shoots, she would just come and stare at us. And she when she’d walk by she’d brush us very harshly. It’s just funny to see her – well, not funny, scary – to see her walking around in character. And this one day she walked in when Heather and I were getting our makeup done, and she goes, like under her breath, "there goes those two little bitches now. I think there’s going to be two less bitches by the end of this." WHOA! Thank you!"

"There were a lot of actors that Debbie as "Jane" kept her distance from them," explains Keeyes, "until we hit a point in the shooting where she did not have to interact with them anymore, and she would open up to them as Debbie. And I think that was very effective, and I think that really comes across on screen. She just blew my mind. I’ve never seen – either through experience or through journalism – an actress who so completely devoted herself to a character, and so thoroughly delved into a character. I always knew that Debbie could pull off Jane. I just never realized how well she would be able to pull this off. She really created a three-dimentional character that is very dysfunctional that will unnerve the audience. Her eyes alone were putting people on edge on the set. Just through her eyes. I think a lot of this movie’s success is going to be because of Debbie’s portrayal of Jane."

Back to the McCollums, starting with Kristen: "Jane? I mean – Debbie. She’s been really funny. She’s been spooking the crap out of Brandy, it’s been hysterical. She’ll just stare her down and you can just tell that she’s getting into [Brandy’s] head – it’s just great."

"This is exactly what you want," Robert says, picking up where his wife left off, almost before she left off. "Yeah, she takes it very seriously, and she also has done quite a few of these things and she knows what she’s coming in here for. And just like in the movie, it’s all of them against her. So on the set you have all of us having fun, and she’s over in the corner smoking a cigarette and staring everybody down."

Kristen takes the ball: "Luckily with me, she doesn’t have anything to do with my death, because she drugs him and he stabs me, she’s been pretty cool with me, and hasn’t been trying to freak me out too much. But boy, everybody else, it’s just been wacky."

Back to Robert: "Well she kept trying to make out with me –"

"What?"

"Yeah, well…"

"I thought it was just me."

The question, then, now that the cast has explained how they came to accept Debbie’s choice of motivation, is how it affected the actress herself. Debbie Rochon is known for being friendly, amiable, intelligent and personable. Was this absorption difficult for her?

"It was difficult in the sense that being around people who wanted to socialize, and being around people that didn’t know you. I really had to go into it thinking, "Well they’re either going to understand or they’re not." But my job was not to be popular. My job is to do my ultimate best. And that’s why everybody was there: to make the best movie possible. So regardless of what others’ reactions were, I felt an obligation to do what I felt I had to do to be in the role. It wasn’t hard for me – there were times I felt bad about the degree of anti-social I was in between shooting, in the few hours that I had to sleep and eat and all that. But I think, you know, that people should understand. And if they don’t, well, hopefully, they will look at the project that we’ve all worked so hard on and think that it, "well, I understand in retrospect what she was doing." And hopefully it worked."

And most of the folks on the production would agree that it worked. "When we shot the first scene, the forest scene," says Keeyes, of the opening sequence, "and Debbie does her little delivery [confronting a group of campers], I looked over at Andrew, the gaffer, and the hair was standing up on his arms. She just rocks!"

Production wrapped officially on October 4, many of the cast and crew have moved onto other projects. Debbie Rochon went back to her life as actress and radio producer and personality on eyada.com (and should no longer be considered an immediate threat to the populace). Keeyes has moved swiftly into post-production, and will now spend many hours in the editing room. "We should have a finished 35mm print by the end of the year. We finish post-sound in Novenber, and then go and get the actual print in December. We’re submitting to Sundance and Slamdance, and that’s where I would actually like to see it premiere. So if it gets accepted, then fantastic, that’s where I want to take it. If not, then we’ll take some extra time and start working on South by Southwest, and Los Angeles and some of the spring film festivals. We’ve gotten some invitations from some of the big film companies to show our movie to them, which was pretty exciting to get. We’ve had a few doors open for us, which was nice. I’m going to plug away at getting the film into festivals and get it sold. And in the meantime, hopefully when we hit post-sound, we’re going to take my next script and work on the second draft of that, start honing it and refining it and start the ball rolling and get the second movie going."

No time to relax, no time for "downtime". But Keeyes seems less energized than he did on the set. His first feature film is in the can, achieved in the mind-boggling time of fifteen days. It usually takes longer for dreams to come true. "[This has been] the most incredible experience in my entire life! It’s something I’ve dreamed of since I was four years old. A lot of things you hope you can do, and you spend your whole life dreaming about doing, and you finally do it and then it ends up not being as fulfilling as you’d hoped because you worked it up in your head to such a degree. Actually getting on set and directing for the first time was the most fulfilling experience ever. It was everything I’d hoped it could be, it was more than I hoped it could be. Just the feeling and magic of being on the set, and directing actors, seeing the story come to life and actually put onto film, there’s nothing I will ever be able to compare that to."

Originally published in GC Magazine - Edited by Jon Keeyes.