Short Film: Summon by Brock Otterbacher

Now that October has come and gone, and we here have recovered from a very hectic and fulfilling Halloween season. We know as well as anyone that the horror must go on! So we are bringing you something different to kick off this months features. We  love to be able to showcase different horror related talent here on the site when the opportunity arises, as may you have seen with our Halloween art show. Today we are happy to be able to share a short film by writer/director Brock Otterbacher entitled "SUMMON"

On the night he's planning to propose to his girlfriend, Joseph and his friend Derek decide instead to play with a mysterious spirit board. Little do they know that there's something waiting for them, with a proposal of its own...

Shot in 2012 (pre-Ouija movie), we're pleased to FINALLY be able to present our 1st short film- SUMMON! Inspired by stories we used to watch on shows like Tales from the Darkside and Monsters, this is best experienced with the resolution high, sound up, and of course, the lights off!

watch it full screen here SUMMON

We also are pleased to share an unused, one sheet styled teaser image we here at TrueHorror.net created for the short utilizing art of the really creepy spirits seen in the film by Ivan Ehllers.

Finally we have a short yet informative interview with the writer/director of Summon, Brock Otterbacher to provide a little more insight into the process of creating an independent short film.

1. What was your inspiration for Summon?

My love for old school ghost stories and movies, as well as shows like Tales from the Darkside, Tales from the Crypt, and Monsters. I wanted to do a spooky tale, with a little bit of goofiness, which those old shows were so great at balancing.

In addition to this, at the time I wrote it in 2011, the projected budget for the Ouija movie was $100 million. Like a lot of people, I thought “why? You could make something like this for next to nothing!” Of course, so did the studio, as they eventually went with a $5 million version that’s in theaters now.

2. How long did it take to complete from concept to final cut?

It was just under 3 years, which is way too long for a short film! But after we shot it in 2012, we put it aside for about a year and a half, as we were pulled in on several other projects.

3. What was the toughest part of making your own film?

While the production itself was pretty grueling, with several 18 plus hour days, as most filmmakers will say- the movie doesn’t really find itself until editing. Many MANY hours were spent with my partner Danny Reams (who also was the DP and Editor of the film) cutting, adding, cutting again, with passionate arguments back and forth as to why or why not a change should be made. It was all very positive, though, because if one of us felt something different than the other about a particular shot, take, etc., you had to back your shit up, and have a strong and intelligent reason for it.

4. What aspect of Summon are you most proud of?

On a technical level, two things- 1) when the title of the film comes up, that’s not a graphic or CG. That’s a 7 foot long title we built, lit and filmed. 2) the 2 minute and change oner we do, that leads to our 1st scare. For what seems like something simple- a guy walking through a few rooms- actually had a lot of technical challenges to it, as a lot of little things needed to happen within the shot. It took about 11 takes to nail. But it was worth it, just to see people jump at the end of it!

On an over-all level, it was just the fact that so many talented people came on board to be a part of it, with no other motivation than making a fun little ghost story.

5. The ghosts in the film are really creepy, can you detail their creation a bit?

I have a list of things I don’t find scary about ghosts and the like in films. So it was really about going in the opposite direction of those. To me, it’s that dark thing in the corner of your room you notice as you’re falling asleep. Is it just a shadow? You blink your eyes once, and now it’s closer. It’s not the movement of the thing that’s scary. Simply the fact that it moved when you weren’t looking.

With that idea in mind, I never wanted to show our spirits moving. The idea of these things moving kills the fear, for me. Actors lumbering around in heavy robes, tripping, and such.

Our spirits aren’t really ghosts, in the traditional sense. After the 1st spirit appears, any other spirit that appears after has the face of the character that has just disappeared. I never wanted to explain the mechanics of how exactly they work in the actual film, as there just wasn’t the time. But you can kind of pick up on it, even if it’s only subconsciously.

The original idea was just to have the actors put on robes, and then we’d put some make-up on their faces. But in order to save time, one of the guys came up with the idea of their faces being made up of fabric, which added an extra eeriness to them, as if they couldn’t quite imitate the person they just took. Or maybe it’s some sort of mockery.

Once we had that idea, we made castings of the actors’ faces, and then molded fabric around castings, using starch. From there, they were dyed black, and bleach was used to pull out the detail. Kind of painting in reverse.

Fun fact: while 3 of the spirits used the faces of the actors they “took”, the 1st spirit is actually the face of Nick Nolte, used from a casting our fx guys had laying around.

6. Have you ever actually used a spirit board and if so any stories come from that?

I’ve never used one, in a serious sense. Despite my interests in the supernatural, especially in film, I’m a non-believer.

That said, the owner of the house we filmed in claimed to have used one there, and said he experienced strange occurrences. I had him tell the story to the actors before we started shooting, to set the mood. Throughout the shoot, lights in the house would go on and off by themselves, and people reported hearing strange noises from the house that were supposed to be empty. And while I knew the reason and the sources for each of these occurrences, I kept them to myself, so as to not spoil the mood.

7. What projects can people look forward to from you in the future?

We’re currently putting together a feature length version of Summon. It’ll be quite a bit different than the short, but will have some of the basic ideas in it. The short was always intended as “hey, look what we can do for no money. Now let us show you what we can do with a little bit of money!” In addition to that, we have a reality/adventure show on the market, a surreal live action/animated puppet show (sort of) for kids, a short documentary, a feature-length documentary, and another feature film, which is a sci-fi romantic comedy, without the sci-fi. Makes sense when you know the premise, I swear.