Ritz to premiere horror film by Vineland teen
Emily DiPrimio was about 4 years old when her dad, Ron, cast her in one of the scary movies he makes in his spare time. She played a little girl who gets to tell a guy he's dead.
Emily DiPrimio was about 4 years old when her dad, Ron, cast her in one of the scary movies he makes in his spare time. She played a little girl who gets to tell a guy he's dead.
"Ever since then, she had the bug," her father said.
On Friday evening, the Vineland 15-year-old will really get to strut her stuff.
Carver, a 1980s-style slasher flick that Emily directed and cowrote with her father, will premiere as the opening feature of the second annual Reel East Film Festival. Emily will be on hand to do a question-and-answer session after the 7:30 p.m. showing at the festival's venue, the Ritz Theatre in Oaklyn.
"I'm really looking forward to this special screening of Carver," said Emily, a homeschooler who loves filmmaking in general and horror in particular. "I'm excited to see my cast and crew again and see what their thoughts are on the movie."
Carver, which runs about 75 minutes, is about a group of teenagers who are haunted by something they did when they were younger that caused the deaths of three people. Now on the anniversary of those deaths, carved pumpkins appear eerily at each of the teens' homes.
Cue the scary music.
The project got going a couple years ago when Emily was recuperating from ankle surgery.
"I was kind of getting depressed because I was working on my web series" - a tale of supernatural vengeance - "and we had to stop," she said.
Her dad, whose day job is in information technology, said he asked her whether she wanted to help him with what became Carver. She ended up writing most of it, he said.
"After we wrote it, I said, 'Can we make it?' " said Emily.
Films cost money, so they launched a Kickstarter campaign with a goal of $25,000. They raised close to $32,000 from more than 500 people.
The film's actors were mostly from New York City and Philadelphia. It was shot in 19 days in locales including Vineland, Estell Manor, Haddonfield and Swedesboro.
Wanting to support local filmmakers was one reason for selecting Carver to open the Reel East festival, which runs from Friday at 7:30 p.m. through Sunday. But it wasn't the only reason, said codirector Irv Slifkin.
"A lot of people who are in horror were talking" about Carver, he said.
Emily is building street cred in the horror world.
Last October, she placed second in horror director Eli Roth's 6 Second Scare contest, a competition of super short films. The contest had celebrity judges including one of Emily favorite directors, Quentin Tarantino.
What is it about horror?
"It's a lot of fun," Emily said. "It's fun getting scared. It's fun getting the adrenaline rush in you."
Psycho may be her all-time favorite, but Halloween and Shaun of the Dead, and the '80s slashers in general are up there, as well as the other work of Alfred Hitchcock.
But horror flicks, as enticing as they seemed from working on set with her father, took some getting used.
When she was 5, she said, her father let her watch Child's Play, figuring a doll couldn't be that scary. Wrong. She said she still can't look at Chucky.
The first horror flick she watched all the way through was Pet Sematary, based on the Stephen King novel. She thinks she was 7 or 8.
"It was that feeling when you're scared, but you keep watching," she said. "Just watching through your fingers."
As much as she's a fan of horror, she'd like to try other genres, too, including comedy and drama. One of her other favorite directors is Ava DuVernay of Selma.
Having grown up working on her father's movies, she thinks she'd like a career in film. She definitely wants to continue directing and writing.
"I like just being in the creative process," she said.
Emily also is showing signs of getting the hang of show biz, too.
Asked, off the record, what was the terrible thing the teens in Carver did to merit those spooky pumpkins foreboding retribution, she answered ever so sweetly:
"You'll have to come watch the movie to find out."
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For more information about the film festival, visit http://reeleastfilm.org/