Traptom's actor, Ted Drake, is officially considered missing; the police just phoned us asking if we've seen him, which we have not. He boarded his flight to the shooting location at 4:00 A.M.- his wife saw him board and saw him looking out the window right before the plane lifted. When it landed, he was not on board. They have searched everywhere on the plane he could have been to no avail. No passengers they could contact saw any doors open or recalled seeing anything strange- most didn't even recognize the description of him at all. It's as if he was never on board.
We'll continue filming the scenes without the character for now, but we're keeping an eye out for Drake. I've tried to contact him several times to no avail; if he doesn't show up by the time our scenes without him are filmed we'll probably have a full blown manhunt, with ads on Television asking about him.
The only reason I'm not too worried now is because this kinda thing HAS happened before. Drake once passed out in his hotel room, woke up, saw it was an hour before the shoot, and went back to sleep, not to wake until the next morning. Poor bastard thought he'd was only off by an hour- he didn't realize the 7:00 on his clock was A.M., not P.M.
I'm not too worried. I am curious on how the hell he disappeared from a plane, though. That bit's kinda impressive.
Tuesday, December 29, 2015
Monday, December 28, 2015
Welcome to my Nightmare
Or, actually, my blog.
Hi, this is Matthew Lofries. You may have seen my name in some hollywood credits; I wrote the screenplays for the Traptom Saga. In case you haven't seen these, I'll write about them a little bit.
The first movie, my throwback of Universal's old 30s movies called "House of Darkness" was a pretty basic movie. I was just attempting to nod the hat to some of the earlier horror films, as I felt they deserved more respect from modern Hollywood; I didn't want this movie to become a joke like others from the era had, so I wished to remind audiences of how good these are. I filmed this one in black and white, used text cards for dialogue, etc... Well, it became an unexpected hit, mostly because of the way I portrayed the villain. Richard Traptom was written as a regular dude who happened to be left-handed, but because of the specific beliefs of his family, he was locked in the attic for being "a slave of the devil", and given small portions of food every day. His family spoke to him about sin and evil and how the world is going to burn for hours on a day until he believed that all humanity was disgusting. Their mistake, however, was telling him he was a "demon" for his hand. He came to believe all of humanity are sinners, and since he is one of darkness, it is his job to bring punishment to them. It wouldn't be a sin for him to punish them if he's not even human, would it? Anyways, aside from that the movie was pretty basic (houseguests the family is luring in to kill unwillingly let him out when they hear a noise from the attic, he kills the family as they get away).
Paramount immediately signed a contract for me to write three more. The second in the saga, "House of Fire", was much more popular from the first- I was throwing back to the 50s-60s with this one, and was provided with 16mm film to do so. A hotel opens up in England, between two towns. The owner, a man named Bartolomew Mason, has one room specifically rigged- at night, when the amount of guests in the hotel is low, Traptom, who's made an alliance with Mason, swings open a painting in the wall and takes the guest. Mason then takes their belongings and sells them at a market nearby. Traptom is taking the victims in an attempt to arrange a mass sacrifice to summon one he calls "his higher-up". One of the victims, however, convinces him that Mason's taking advantage of him for the money, and that Mason plans on destroying his sacrificial plans and betraying him for reward money. Traptom releases this person as a thanks and goes after Mason, as this person goes about trying to release other captives until the hotel caves in when Traptom lights the gas stove on fire.
The third one in the saga, "House of Fear", is a pretty basic 70s-80s esque slasher movie. Traptom, wounded, scarred, and presumed dead, goes into hiding for 20 years in a small hut he built under the ground, only climbing out to get food and water occasionally for his stockpile. Well, wouldn't you know it, architects build a house right above that specific spot. He continues coming out for food and water every few weeks, killing any of the architects he encounters, until the house is completed. The new homeowners, a young couple in their 20s, throw a big party on the first day they're there, and Traptom decides he doesn't like that. Not at all. He climbs out of the ground into the house through a small hatch in the laundry room and kills someone who goes to the bathroom. Of course, the couple is in a panic, so they make everyone leave. The police are called, a memorial service is held, and life moves on. Over the next several months, they occasionally hear things and see things in places they haven't left them, but nothing much happens. However, when they leave the house to go on a vacation, Traptom kills the person taking care of it. When his girlfriend comes to the house to see what's happened, he kills her as well. The new homeowners return (with two of their friends) to two dead bodies strung up in the dining room, doors and windows that have been rigged to not open, and one very angry killer. After three of them have been killed off, the fourth finally manages to shimmy out a fire escape and calls the police, who arrive and take Traptom as he's running to the woods.
My contract is almost over, and I don't want anyone else to write with this character and screw him up, so I'm writing the fourth to be the final one in the saga. Traptom (subtitled Opener of the Book) epilogues the saga in a 90s psychological style. It will begin with Traptom having attempted a prison breakout, only to be shot dead when he tries to attack a guard. The guard in question finds a journal filled with writings by Traptom hidden under his mattress and reads it. He soon begins to have nightmares and see visions of Traptom back from the other side, threatening and taunting him. At this same time, murders begin happening all around the area.
That's all I'll say about the new one, as I don't wanna spoil anything. Anyways, thanks for reading! I'll probably put some updates on the production here as well as Twitter, so keep an eye out!
Hi, this is Matthew Lofries. You may have seen my name in some hollywood credits; I wrote the screenplays for the Traptom Saga. In case you haven't seen these, I'll write about them a little bit.
The first movie, my throwback of Universal's old 30s movies called "House of Darkness" was a pretty basic movie. I was just attempting to nod the hat to some of the earlier horror films, as I felt they deserved more respect from modern Hollywood; I didn't want this movie to become a joke like others from the era had, so I wished to remind audiences of how good these are. I filmed this one in black and white, used text cards for dialogue, etc... Well, it became an unexpected hit, mostly because of the way I portrayed the villain. Richard Traptom was written as a regular dude who happened to be left-handed, but because of the specific beliefs of his family, he was locked in the attic for being "a slave of the devil", and given small portions of food every day. His family spoke to him about sin and evil and how the world is going to burn for hours on a day until he believed that all humanity was disgusting. Their mistake, however, was telling him he was a "demon" for his hand. He came to believe all of humanity are sinners, and since he is one of darkness, it is his job to bring punishment to them. It wouldn't be a sin for him to punish them if he's not even human, would it? Anyways, aside from that the movie was pretty basic (houseguests the family is luring in to kill unwillingly let him out when they hear a noise from the attic, he kills the family as they get away).
Paramount immediately signed a contract for me to write three more. The second in the saga, "House of Fire", was much more popular from the first- I was throwing back to the 50s-60s with this one, and was provided with 16mm film to do so. A hotel opens up in England, between two towns. The owner, a man named Bartolomew Mason, has one room specifically rigged- at night, when the amount of guests in the hotel is low, Traptom, who's made an alliance with Mason, swings open a painting in the wall and takes the guest. Mason then takes their belongings and sells them at a market nearby. Traptom is taking the victims in an attempt to arrange a mass sacrifice to summon one he calls "his higher-up". One of the victims, however, convinces him that Mason's taking advantage of him for the money, and that Mason plans on destroying his sacrificial plans and betraying him for reward money. Traptom releases this person as a thanks and goes after Mason, as this person goes about trying to release other captives until the hotel caves in when Traptom lights the gas stove on fire.
The third one in the saga, "House of Fear", is a pretty basic 70s-80s esque slasher movie. Traptom, wounded, scarred, and presumed dead, goes into hiding for 20 years in a small hut he built under the ground, only climbing out to get food and water occasionally for his stockpile. Well, wouldn't you know it, architects build a house right above that specific spot. He continues coming out for food and water every few weeks, killing any of the architects he encounters, until the house is completed. The new homeowners, a young couple in their 20s, throw a big party on the first day they're there, and Traptom decides he doesn't like that. Not at all. He climbs out of the ground into the house through a small hatch in the laundry room and kills someone who goes to the bathroom. Of course, the couple is in a panic, so they make everyone leave. The police are called, a memorial service is held, and life moves on. Over the next several months, they occasionally hear things and see things in places they haven't left them, but nothing much happens. However, when they leave the house to go on a vacation, Traptom kills the person taking care of it. When his girlfriend comes to the house to see what's happened, he kills her as well. The new homeowners return (with two of their friends) to two dead bodies strung up in the dining room, doors and windows that have been rigged to not open, and one very angry killer. After three of them have been killed off, the fourth finally manages to shimmy out a fire escape and calls the police, who arrive and take Traptom as he's running to the woods.
My contract is almost over, and I don't want anyone else to write with this character and screw him up, so I'm writing the fourth to be the final one in the saga. Traptom (subtitled Opener of the Book) epilogues the saga in a 90s psychological style. It will begin with Traptom having attempted a prison breakout, only to be shot dead when he tries to attack a guard. The guard in question finds a journal filled with writings by Traptom hidden under his mattress and reads it. He soon begins to have nightmares and see visions of Traptom back from the other side, threatening and taunting him. At this same time, murders begin happening all around the area.
That's all I'll say about the new one, as I don't wanna spoil anything. Anyways, thanks for reading! I'll probably put some updates on the production here as well as Twitter, so keep an eye out!
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