Knight, a graduate of the New England School of Broadcasting who lives in Winn, north of Lincoln, had always enjoyed writing scary short stories. A few years ago he decided to attempt a novel, but when he learned how easy it was to access public cable, he and friend frank Welch - then a student at Mattawamkeag Academy - hatched the idea of making a TV show out of Knight's material instead.
With the help of more than two dozen friends and community members, Knight directed and Welch starred in the first episode of DARK CURRENTS. They had no budget worth mentioning, and changed the story line whenever they couldn't afford to do what they had planned. Shooting took place all over Mattawamkeag - on stretches of the Interstate and in neighbors' houses. The completed program was shown on the Mattawamkeag Cable System.
Though clearly made on a shoestring, even DARK CURRENTS' most inept moments can charm. Knight makes no secret of his debt to David Lynch - he fills the series with music taken directly from TWIN PEAKS. As for the acting...well, there isn't much of it, though a couple of the stars seem almost natural on screen. Knight says that it was the most reluctant of his friends who gave the best performances: "The ones you have to convince to do it end up being your best actors."
The series features a town called Hawks Landing, where weird things keep happening. A mental patient escapes; a couple of small-time hoodlums look for treasure; a young man tries to solve the riddle of his father's disappearance. One can play spot-the-reference as Knight sprinkles the story with devices like pentagrams, mysteriously bloodstained shirts and chewed-out eyeballs.
Most of the locals reacted positively to DARK CURRENTS. The only real objections came from the church community, which cared little for an occasionally gross drama featuring satanic symbols. "I guess we were the subject of a few sermons," Knight said. He's been thinking about doing a story about a church.
DARK CURRENTS ran for several episodes. Frank Welch split writing and directing duties with Knight while continuing to act. Since he was running his own video store at the time, Knight decided to put the show on tape and shop it around to other rental outlets, with promotional help from Bruce Flemming in nearby Medway. More than 70 stores agreed to stock the series. A while back, Knight called Videoport in Portland to see if it still had DARK CURRENTS on the shelves; he was told there was a waiting list.
This bolsters Knight's belief that making horror films is a good way to break into the movie business. A scary video has a built-in market: "Even if it's bad, people will watch it."
Knight closed his store last year. "It was juggling act, between [making films] and the store. I want to do this more full-time." he still has his job at Maine Public Broadcasting, producing such uncreepy programs as TRUE NORTH. Knight can now dedicate more hours to his creative outlet, Edge Productions, which boasts its own website.
But Edge's first priority is TWISTED TALES, a new anthology of horrific short films. In the first completed segment, "Frostbite", two old pals are trapped in a plane that has crashed in the frozen north. They have eaten all the other passengers, and now one friend is beginning to ogle the other a little too hungrily. "Yuh, life don't get much better than this," deadpans the guy being eyed.
Knight plans to shop "Frostbite" around at movie fests like the Chicago Underground Festival. "I go for the low-end ones. The distributors and scouts are there." Two more TWISTED TALES will be made by Knight and his collaborators, and then he will jion the tales together in a feature-length a la CREEPSHOW.
A quiet-seeming guy not quick to blow his own horn, Lucas Knight decribes his adventures in moviemaking as a learning process. If he had a million-dollar budget, he said, he would make "one solid feature, an action thriller" - or perhaps even a sci-fi film - but right now he's content to "practice on video.... we've learned so much just doing these things."
Certainly he's learned the value of thrift and how to use imagination instead of special effects. "The money never comes through, so we say, 'Let's do it this way. Let's make papier-mache walls." And he's dedicated: while getting a bird's-eye shot for FROSTBITE, he fell right out of tree, camera in hand.
This filmmaker who dreams of blood sacrifice and cannibalism between friends is not the least bit frightening in person: Knight speaks politely and goes out of his way to be helpful. But he preferred not to be photographed: "I like the mystery aspect," he said. Fair enough; it's always scarier when we can't see who's trying to frighten us.
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