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Good May Come From 'Live Evil' Film

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By GEOFF FOX

The Tampa Tribune

Published: September 24, 2008

Some vampires have pale skin, pointed teeth and prominent widow's peaks.

"Ours look more like crack addicts," said Mark Terry, producer of "Live Evil," a feature-length action-horror movie completed last year.

The 2001 Saint Leo University graduate and Clearwater native said the film "about a guy chasing a group of vampires, trying to kill them off" will be shown Thursday at the 2008 Valley Film Festival in North Hollywood, Calif., followed by an Oct. 17 screening at the University of Tampa's Reeves Theater.

It also will be shown Oct. 18 at the Freak-show Horror Film Festival in Orlando.

In 2005, Terry's movie "Night Demons," a 14-minute film shot in San Antonio marshland, earned a best short film award from the Florida Motion Picture and Television Association. The movie is about three U.S. soldiers who get lost in a Vietnamese jungle after their squad is massacred in a Viet Cong ambush.

"'Night Demons' was a $3,000 to $4,000 movie," said Terry, 29, who lives in Playa del Rey, Calif. "This one is a half-million. I met a guy out here who's a real estate investor. We became friends, and he asked how he could get involved with the movie; 85 percent of it is his money.

"For this one, we got Screen Actors Guild actors and everything. It's really cool."

Terry's other projects include 2005's "Hooligan's Valley," an homage to 1950s and '60s B-movie characters; "B-Movie," a 2002 "mockumentary" that spoofs a farmhouse massacre movie; and "Homeland Security," an intensely violent, silent black-and-white film produced in 2003.

"Live Evil" is being shown at festivals to stir interest among potential distributors.

Terry said the film's vampires look like junkies because of all the impure stuff in human blood: alcohol, drugs, sexually transmitted diseases.

"All of these things that run through our blood have made the vampires look weak," he said. "The last few remaining vampires are fighting over pure blood, and some of them have mutated."

The movie also features "lots of stunts and car chases and people on fire," he said.

It stars Ken Foree, a main character in 1978's "Dawn of the Dead" and last year's Rob Zombie movie, "Halloween."

"My grandmother might not know who Ken Foree is, but the horror fans will go crazy," Terry said. "He's like the William Shatner of horror movies."

The film also stars Tim Thomerson, who had a role in the 1976 cult movie "Car Wash" and 1987 horror flick "Near Dark." He also appeared in television series such as "Laverne & Shirley," "Hill Street Blues" and "Murder, She Wrote."

Dirk Budd, a retired Saint Leo professor who directed Terry in the college's theatrical version of "Psycho," in which Terry played Norman Bates, said he isn't surprised his former student has pursued a film career with gusto.

"As a theater student, I don't know if I found anybody more hard-working," Budd said. "He has sent me some of his short films. They're very well-done - for horror films. That's his genre.

"I remember he did a student play called 'The Basement,' where he was holding people captive with a knife."

For now, Terry said, he is intent on promoting "Live Evil" and getting it to the right distributor.

"Eventually, I'd love to get a studio job or produce another film," he said.

'LIVE EVIL'

For information about Mark Terry's movie "Live Evil," go to www.liveevilthe movie.com.

A stunt scene from the movie can be viewed at www.you tube.com/watch?v=lO9

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Reporter Geoff Fox can be reached at (813) 779-4613 or gfox@tampatrib.com.

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