Pittsburgh has a strong connection to horror films. From being featured in George A. Romero's Living Dead movies to Silence of the Lambs, we love a good scare. It makes sense that many indie filmmakers in the city have gravitated toward the horror genre, and Massacre Academy makes one more to add to the list.
Massacre Academy will have its red carpet premiere on Sat., July 31 at the Lamp Theatre in Irwin, Pa. In an email, the film's writer/director Mark Cantu describes it as an '80s slasher comedy. Cantu, who produces films under his Pittsburgh-based independent film production Cineworx, says the film was shot locally during the pandemic. Besides using a local cast and crew, Massacre Academy also features horror heavyweights like Felissa Rose, noted for playing the lead character in the 1983 cult horror film Sleepaway Camp.
Massacre Academy follows Kris McNeil (played by Jess Uhler), one of few survivors of a brutal series of murders by a slasher known as Carnie (Dave Sheridan). The film is set in 1987, two years after the massacre when Carnie is presumed dead. The trailer features a soundbite that says Carnie “sank to the bottom of a lake and drowned” but, as happens in horror films, a new series of killings begins and all signs point to him.
When Kris realizes that Carnie has come to finish the job and kill both her and her younger sister, Maggie, she must choose between running away and fighting back.
A press release says that it was especially important for Cantu and his crew to create a female-led film where the protagonist is "not only dealing with her pain, but deciding not to be defined by her trauma."
"In this regard, Kris McNeil has been written in the same spirit as some of
cinema’s greatest female characters: Ellen Ripley in Aliens; Sarah
Connor in the Terminator series; and Clarice Starling in Silence of the
Lambs," the press release adds.
Carnie is a masked killer very similar in appearance to that of Michael Myers of the Halloween franchise, but distinctive enough to stand on its own. As the monstrous manifestation of a man named Henry Lee Palmer, Carnie is a spectacled Ed Kemper look-alike.
Tickets for the premiere are still available but limited, so get them while they last.
Massacre Academy premiere. 7 p.m. Lamp Theatre. 222 Main St., Irwin. $30. lamptheatre.org
Pittsburgh-shot horror film Massacre Academy set for local premiere
