-Hi, I'm -Eric Ford for Made Here -a spooky treat premieres -on Halloween this year.

-John Campopianos -documentary -about a horror film -that was never made, -snapper was an unfinished -early 1990s horror movie -starring a man eating turtle -that wreaks -havoc on a lakeside -community in New England.

-John's film provides -a window -into the local Boston -special effects, -makeup and horror -communities of the 80s -and 90s.

-You can watch snapper, -the man eating turtle movie -that never got made, -and other great made here -films -streaming on our website -and through the PBS app.

-Enjoy the film -and thanks for watching.

-Hey, wanna shut that off?

-give us a hand with it.

-When I say go ahead, -that means turn it.

- Okay, ready?

- And go ahead.

-Hey, you bring the nose -down to the creature.

-Hey, that's where -you want to go through.

-Have the -eyes sink in a little Jim -pull out mechanism -without moving the eyes, -and we're all ready.

-It was an ordinary summer -in the beautiful community -of Lost Lake.

-But below -the surface lurks a creature -so menacing, so terrifying -that you may never swim -in the lake again.

-Snapper!

When the dead start -popping up, an innocent outcast, is blamed -his only ally.

-A beautiful woman -pursued by an overzealous -cop.

-Together -they must stop the terror -before it stops them.

-Snap!

-A gripping horror -guaranteed to attract -audiences with phenomenal -special effects.

-By Mass FX.

-Snapper -coming soon to a theater -near you.

-(Screaming) -(Screaming) -Influences.

-Friday the 13th, Halloween.

-We were both Evil Dead fans -when that came out.

-I was influenced young.

-I went to a movie as a kid -called Mark of the devil.

-(Screaming) -and this is a movie where -they pulled -the tongue off of somebody -and they gave you a barf bag -when you walked -into the theater.

-The prisoner has been -sentenced -to have his head cut off -according to the law -of the land.

-Now, I was underage, -but we all went.

-And every kid that went to -this movie had nightmares.

-And I will never forget -the moms were all talking.

-What movie did they go see?

-Mark of the devil!

-Im Mike Savino, -I was producer and director -and screenwriter of Snapper.

-Mark Vo, co-screenwriter -and producer, 1989.

-I love the project, -I do too, I still do.

-I remember Mark and -we were in a computer class, -and I was in the back, -and Mark was fresh -out of basic training, -you know, that was at, -Worcester State College.

-From the moment -I think that Mark and I met, -we've just been instant -collaborators.

-Mike was running the TV -department.

-I was running -the radio station.

-So there was that instant -media connection.

That's where it started.

- And we just, developed this love of screenwriting.

-We combined -those two loves to, -a common place, -which is, you know, -media house films -or media house productions.

-We were always going around -our apartment shooting -moldy bread, -anything -that caught our eye, -we would either meet -at his house - or my apartment.

- Yeah, at the time.

- And then he moved away.

- And then we would meet -halfway in a hotel -lobby to.

Right?

Right.

-We would show up every week, -and we didn't stay there.

-We would just -sit at the lobby.

-We would sit there -for three, three, four hours -and just write -and have some food.

-And and we did that -weekly for many, many years.

-how did we -come up with Snapper?

-I'm trying to place it.

-It was certainly after -attack of the Killer -Refrigerator.

I mean, I can tell you -how we thought of attack of the killer refrigerator -because it actually flipped -on one night -and sounded like a tank -rolling down a hill.

-Miss?

-Miss?

Are you okay.

-We had a -little bit of success -with the fridge, -but we never really -capitalized on it -even to this day.

-People will kill the fridge.

-You know?

-It's the worst movie -I've ever seen.

-The production value stinks.

-Yeah, but I'm like, for $25, -you go do it.

-You know, here -I am, trying to make a movie -and I'm getting reviewed on -projects -that we did in college.

-It was an ordinary summer -in the beautiful community -of Lost Lake, below -the surface lurks a creature -so menacing, so terrifying -that you may never swim -in the lake again.

-Snapper!

-I don't recall running into -any snapping turtles -that made us say, hey, -this would be a great movie.

-I do know -we were discussing, -us as kids at times, -swimming in lakes -and feeling fish, -but you like, -oh my goodness, -what is that?

That's right.

-I remember, you know, -and that may have been -the start of the story -where we were just -discussing what -some of the creepy things -in our lives.

-And one of them for us, -was always -like swimming in a lake.

-We took that idea -and then added -in the concept -of the turtle growing -to huge proportions through -waste disposals and, you -know, crazy experiments -gone wrong in small town.

-Not not exactly an original -impetus on how -something can grow that big.

-Obviously, -I think it's been used -in every Godzilla movie, -but hey, it works.

-But with snapper, -it was and it's, you know, -do something jaws ish.

-But we needed -to differentiate.

-And the differentiation -was the animal -we chose, -which was a snapping turtle, -which can be very dangerous, -very vicious, little.

-Oh, the story was -what was the original?

-Basically, -an outcast is blamed -for murders in a small town -that he didn't commit.

-We can go further -into the corrupt politicians -that are, trying to skirt -the Environmental -Protection Agency -because they know that this -biotech lab -is leaking bad stuff -into the town's lifeblood, -which is its lake.

-Now they have a problem -on their hands.

-All these murders -start showing up.

-Fred -being the outcast in town, -he starts to get blamed -for these things -until there's a mutiny -at one point -where they literally come -after him with, like, the old pitchfork.

- But the good thing about it is that -differentiated it from -jaws is the shark -couldn't -come and knock on your door -as much as Saturday Night -Live had the Landshark -Telegram.

-Oh, telegram.

-Just a moment.

-We, knew that a snapping -turtle could.

-And when you have one -that's 10 to 15ft long, -that it's -going to create some havoc.

-So we thought, -there's an idea for a movie.

-And not only do -we come up with a concept, -we have a completed -screenplay.

-We worked on the writing -of it for quite a while.

-We flipped the title -from below -the surface to snapper.

-We registered -with the Writers Guild -because it was just a -had more meat, so to speak.

-I think the ending -was the turtle -obviously surfaces -and everybody sees -that it's the turtle -and then I kill you -gets killed by Fred, right?

-Does he run over -with his truck?

-Yeah, -I think he runs over it -when he smashes into it -in his truck.

-We sort of tied -the beginning -because he almost hits -a turtle.

Turtle?

At the beginning.

- There's a little baby turtle crossing the road.

-So there's -some foreshadowing.

Yeah.

-He kills it with kills -and becomes the hero.

-Of course, you know.

-And then the town, -celebrates.

-We're going gonna put any, -you know, -air tanks and have him eat -it and shoot it with a rifle.

-That was already done when -we finished that script.

- We were.

- So we really loved it.

-I mean, like any movie, -you see it in your head, -like any script, -you see it in your head, -you see the characters, -you feel it.

-You see the -the wonderful horror -that it could bring out.

-So getting off on -a day one, it's a matter of, -okay, we got these pages, -what do we do?

-How do we raise the money?

-What are we going to do?

-Well, back then -you went to the library.

-You research people -that you could reach out to.

-You either drove to New York -or you flew to California -to try to meet people.

-So what our approach was, -if we had something to show, -we said, okay, -let's make a trailer.

-And I remember having -a script that was just Vince -that we were going to shoot, -and then we just planned it.

-And just by film -as we needed it.

-Snapper, -we shot all on film.

-We didn't want to skimp -going to video -like we did -with all our other projects -because of cost.

-And we said, geez, -we want to be serious.

-We want to be looked at, -right?

-That we can use film, -that we can get the look.

-It was 400 bucks for a roll.

-never forget that.

-Each roll was $400.

-And then we had to send it -off to get transferred - and developed.

- And that was another $400.

-So every 11 minutes of film -was $800 -or oh, wait, a movie or -over this, like, okay, on.

-Me okay.

-All the house we -basically pulled up this one -everybody -that we could ever get -that worked with us -on a project.

-We reached out to.

-I grabbed -Gerry back to Sarah, -and he owned a 16 -millimeter camera.

-He was an old, mentor -type to us in many respects.

-He was in his 70s, -and we were in our 30s -or early, late 20s.

-And he sort of told us -all of his war -stories of film -back in the day.

-And he shot a film called -invasion of the pie people, -and he was really proud -of that.

-The whole project -kind of almost hinged on what Scott was able to do, -because if we didn't have the big turtle head, -we would didn't -really have any.

-A whole lot to show.

-You could say he's -the master -monster -maker of Massachusetts.

-Scott Andrews -has made quite a name -for himself in New England -by creating -scores of horrific creatures -guaranteed to put some bite -into your Halloween.

-I always loved -sculpting with my hands, -and I, got into special -effects makeup, -which had -a lot of sculpting, learn -how to do prosthetics, -make Halloween masks.

-And that led to Mike Savino, -because I never forget -going to his workshop -and looking at some of -the stuff that he made, -the masks and, -the miniatures and, just -incredible work -for a guy in Douglas -flew me away and we became -friends instantly.

-We did everything -out of my, shop.

-It was in Douglas, mass.

-Out of my house, -which I'm -still at the same house -where I did a lot of, -commercials with Mike.

-We made, a bunch of money -flying out of a chimney -once.

-for com gas.

-Your furnace works hard day -after day, year after year.

-But after time, -it takes more -and more of your hard -earned money -to produce the energy -that it once produced.

-He turned a lady into a -fish, which was great.

-She had gills -and everything, -and it was a thing -for the business expo -that they had coming on -in town.

Don't flounder -in a sea of missed business opportunities.

-Tackle your own catch -at the Business Expo -this October 17th, -18th and 19th.

-There was nothing -around here for makeup.

They weren't even really -filming on this coast back then.

-You know, -you didn't have like -the productions -they do nowadays, -which they started to -at the end of the 90s.

-They started to come in, -but it was all, -independent films.

-There was 3 -or 4 different groups -that were producing content -at that time.

You're like, oh, -you want me to pan down -and not just leave them sort of straight up -like that?

-And so we're -going to pull back.

-I want to swing by.

-The community itself -was very small.

-We all knew each other.

-We all helped on each -other's projects.

-I mean, half of my early -career was helping other -people make their films, -but the community itself in -a whole -was active, exciting.

-And it wasn't Hollywood -whose central mass -we thought back then -we could build anything.

-You know, -we would have built -the Empire State Building -if we wanted it.

-It was a time of filmmaking -when you just did it -for love, you know, -whatever the cost was, -we just tried to make it.

-Mike asked -if we could do movie props, -and I had a friend of mine -and we said, -of course we can.

-So we started -fabricating turtle pieces -and we did research on -snapping turtles.

-We I mean, we really wanted -to hear that -it would take your hand -off if it needed to.

-They are the most unique -little turtles -you can ever see.

-They look so menacing.

-We started with drawings, -start down -looking at snapping turtles, -and we wanted to stay -pretty much to the true -look of a turtle.

-We didn't want to -mutate them other than size.

-It was a matter of -we're not going to be able -to build a full size one -okay with the shell.

-So we narrowed -it down to the big head.

-And the -little guy, the cable -controlled, it was five -feet long, six feet long, -and it had a total jointed -head, all cable controlled.

-It was, foam latex, -fiberglass and -resin eyes had the eyes sink -and a little Jim -pull that mechanism -without moving the eyes.

-All right, -let's think about the head.

-A little motion to it.

-Give it a pull right -now, Jim.

-I want to see what it does.

-Yeah, that looks good.

- Go in and out.

Kind of.

- Yeah.

Wait a second.

-I gotta put these back.

-yeah.

That was -the first piece we got.

-Oh good.

Ready?

-Action, -mouth.

-So the big head could do -anything.

-Bite, look back and forth, -up and down.

-Come in and out.

-just didn't have a shell, -so I figured that -any of the shots I would do -would be the head going -in, grabbing and biting POV -from behind the head.

-Would been -nice to have the shell, but -we just couldn't afford it -for the whole turtle.

-We figured -we'd go the miniature -to save money and get better -shots and ready.

-Jim.

Yep.

Action.

-Okay, go one more time -with the feet -hold on a second.

- That is.

-Want a small turtle?

- Which was all cable control.

-Also to get the head -to turn legs pumping.

-So there was two actual -hero props made for it.

-The two turtles, a little -turtle and a big turtle.

- This was the actual.

- This one was a cable control one, that this is just -one of the first pulls -out of the mold.

-Surprised It's still here.

-But, this had cable -controls, had a big, -rod coming out of its butt -and all the little, -little legs move -and a little head turned -and twisted quite a bit -for a little guy.

-Me and, another fella, Jim -OJ painted the models, -and it's an airbrush.

-LaTeX.

Airbrush.

-Pretty much like a Halloween -mask.

-Same type of stuff -with the latex.

-And it didn't involve -process back then, was all, -you know, hit -or miss is all right now.

-well do it again, -And then -where do we shoot this?

Right.

Where do we.

We have, you know, -we can't put them in water.

-No, because they'll soak it -up and turn into a sponge.

The minute -you hit the water, -everything changes.

The parts are just fall -apart, you know?

-So now you're after repair.

-Everything that touches -the water, the rubber, wants to sink.

-So there's your first -problem, you know, -how do we create this -water effect?

- We didn't have a studio.

- We didn't have much.

-We had my apartment.

-That was about it.

-So we pulled -the furniture out, -put up all this -black Duva T. -its cousin it -in the smog.

-Figured out a way to smoke -it and add a little bit -of this texture in the air.

-I got in front of that one.

-That's all over the Joe.

-The part we did -the underwater was fun -because it was just a crazy -little.

-We're in a room -that was very small.

-A bunch of guys -trying to make it -look like underwater.

-We sealed off the room -so that the smoke would stay -in it.

-We did our best to shoot -underwater -scenes -using smoke, slow motion -and miniatures -and full size.

-It was tinfoil -on a piece of plywood -and that just rocked.

-There's all crinkled -and the lights -hitting the tinfoil.

-So now you got all these -different rays reflecting.

-Here we go.

Standby.

-I'll give you the action cuz -they were going slow.

-Crank it up -and ready, Jim.

Yep.

-Action.

-Okay, -guard one more time with the -so it -looks like suspended water.

-And then you have the light -shining up from the bottom, -hitting -underneath the turtle -as it was swimming by.

-All of the animatronics -worked that day.

-And that was like -the best day we had -with all the props working -in this little bedroom.

-It was a little beyond -your mouth next -to the regular water -shoot.

All.

-and it came out -really well, you know, -for a low budget effect.

-Film gods were smiling on us -for the brief moment -they did -with this project.

-I want to say we started -at the end of August -and ended October.

-I was going to say I went -from like August to October.

- It was early.

- It was like early October.

-And here we got -people in the water, okay?

-And I'm like, wow, -these were mainly weekends -because we all worked -full time jobs.

-So we -did most of our shooting -weekends or at night too.

-All right.

-Night we were filming -all, Webster, mass.

-Worcester, all the small -towns around a small lake.

- And what was there?

- A couple of lakes, actually.

-We where we could sneak out -and people would yell at us.

-Luckily, -in central Massachusetts, -we have a lot of lakes, -so we use cove ponds.

-The reason we shot -Cove Pond -is because the incline of -the beach was very shallow, -didn't drop off -most of the beaches.

-They sort of dropped off -of it.

-We shot at Webster -Lake Lake, -Chargoggagoggmanchaugga- -goggchaubunagungamaugg -Some people think it means -you fish -on your side of the lake.

-I'll fish on my side and -nobody fishes in the middle.

-But that's kind of -an old wives tale.

-I easily got permission -from the Parks Department -in Worcester, and it's right -along the highway -you drive by.

-You see a film crew there -shooting a horror movie.

-It was kind of funny guy -blood coming out of his open -chest, chest, and we had -a bunch of spectators.

-We also built a couple -of decapitated heads, -one that was used to pull up -out of the water -that looked like -it was eaten -by fish and chewed up, and -and another head that, -a fellow gets pushed -by the turtle into a dock -and it knocks his head off -the boat -we were using to push along.

-The guy was a pontoon boat, -and that -had a lot of people on it, -so it was like a barge.

-The filming was crazy.

-The pontoon boat was used -to propel one of our actors -backwards through the water, -as if the turtle hit them -in the chest, took a bite, -and then propelled him -where he got his head -whacked on the dock.

-This is guerrilla -filmmaking at its finest.

-Because, you know, -I mean, just it's -one of our friends.

-Sit on the seat, -we're going to push you -through the water.

-And then we devised -this little wood thing -that came off the pontoon -boat, -which I think we held down -with sandbags.

-It wasn't -really mounted.

No.

-And then it went down -into the water across -about ten feet to a seat -where -our actor could sit on.

-That was one of the things -that we had a plan -in advance and build -and bring down and hope -it worked on the set -and it did work, -which was funny.

-And we probably almost -killed the actor one time, -going towards the dock -with his head in the frame -and then trying -to stop the boat in time, -it easily -could have gone wrong.

-We don't do water anymore.

-We all think -we're invincible, you know, -and that at that time -we were.

-Because nobody got hurt.

-But you don't think of -people getting hurt.

-Oh, I'm going to jump off -a building on fire.

-Okay, Ed, you just tell us -when you're ready.

-You know?

-we'll wait for you down here -with extinguishers.

-We had the stuntman -who eventually -made his way out to L.A., -but he wanted to do -all these great stunts, -laid himself on fire, -jump off a building, -smashed cars, flip cars.

-The car scene was shot -at a junkyard.

- It was a junkyard.

- The car was not registered, -so we couldn't put it -on the street legally.

-So we had to do it -on private property.

-So we found a junkyard that -would let us do this stunt.

-I think -we left the car there.

-We did.

-I don't think -we had the fire scene, -but he said he could do it.

-We said, oh, that'd be great -for a trailer.

-A guy falling from a -building engulfed in flames.

-Yeah, right there.

-I was very nervous.

-We had no insurance.

-We were just doing.

-We didn't even have -permission -to film -where we were filming.

-We just show up.

-We had thousands of boxes.

-Remember -the big shipping boxes?

-Because the -the stunt man said -he needed the exact same box -so we could build -a big square.

-It was like six foot -tall or something huge.

-And, -so I went over to -this candy store -who happened to be -a friend of mine, -and she's in snapper, -and she owned this, -Heber candies at the time.

-And they would get thousands -and thousands of boxes, -and I'm like, okay, -I want these.

-And I filled up -my front porch with boxes, -and the landlord came over -and screamed at me -to get rid of them -because it was a fire -hazard, -because here I have -thousands of boxes -in my foot.

-We're using it for somebody -to set himself on fire -after.

I.

-Oh.

Oh.

-We put together the trailer.

-I'll be honest, -the more I watched it, -the more -I was a little disappointed -in what I was seeing.

-It didn't have any turtle, -and I looked at it.

-I'm like, -this is not going to do it.

-We didn't have -the big crunch head moment.

-We got the blood shooting -around it, but we don't have -that that money shot.

-We were waiting -on the turtle to be done.

-And when we got the second -version of the -the trailer with the turtle, -I started to feel -a little better.

-We said, okay, -I think it's good enough.

-We package just -a little bit of a letter, -and then we just started -sending it out -to different studios, -independent people.

-These are just full foam -props that we made -for promotion.

-Mike wanted to have -a bunch of little turtles -he could send out to people.

-We were more than confident -that once people saw -the trailer -that we would -get the financing -and you put the money -in, you can see it -on all the shots that it's -very professionally made.

- We're passionate about.

- This is going to do it.

-Boom.

Sent it in -sent it in, sent it in -Nothing.

-It ended up that -Mike couldn't -get the financing.

-So everything stalled.

-We don't even know -if they got the stuff.

- There was no communications.

- It was a small -club.

-If you really are an agent -and getting through -or you were an independent -like us and getting tossed, -you know, no one was in it -for a big payday.

-So everybody was behind -like 100%.

-We all wanted to see it -go somewhere, -but we know it was a, -you know, it's a lot of work -to get a movie made.

-But we did the best -we could.

-I would probably say in -the order of probably $8,000 -to do what we did -between food and -other things that we put in.

-And all -put on a credit card -after snapper, -we realized that in order -to get a movie made, -you have to -reduce the locations -reduced to characters right?

-Snapper was big, and that's -when we learned that -in order to make a movie, -you really have to watch -what you can accomplish -for the -money that you can raise.

-Excuse me.

-Sorry.

I uh.

-Can you spare some change?

-I think we moved on to -days before because, -yeah, we did.

-Days -before Christmas, Mark saw -something -that there was a contest -going on for HBO.

oh.

-Hey, we'll get this.

-The Freak had -a Christmas present for him.

-I think we had a month -to get it done -to raise the money, -shoot the, -write the script, shoot it -and get it out to them.

-And we did it.

-You had to be under -ten minutes.

-Days before Christmas -won the Houston -International Film Festival -in its category.

-The 25th annual.

Yeah.

-So we went down to Houston -with that.

-So, you know, -every project will get you -to the next level -in some way, shape or form.

-I got it, I went into -the Halloween end of it.

-I started setting up -spooky World.

-We are here at Spooky World -in Berlin, mass.

-One of the premiere horror -theme parks in the country.

-People are getting -the yellow -scared out of them at Spooky -World in Massachusetts.

-It's really made it spooky.

-Just look up here, Jay.

- Is that spooky or what?

- Oh boy.

-Come on, come on inside.

-Yeah, I at the, -the American Horror Museum, -the last few months, -everybody calls wanting -for their haunted houses -and all this stuff -across the country.

-I even send out.

-I got letters from Germany -and Japan.

-Now I'm -starting to get people know -about me that a calling and, -it's it's real hectic.

-Halloween back in the early -90s was huge.

-It was a big moneymaker.

-So I ended up making props -for haunted houses -and stores.

-It started off as a haunt, -just a haunted hayride.

-It wasn't called Spooky -World at the beginning.

-What was your favorite part?

-The Texas Chainsaw Massacre?

-I was -approached do a mile hayride -through the woods, -and so I ended up setting up -the first hayride -with the props -all the different things -you'd stop -and see on the ride.

-Can you talk a little bit -about other film projects -and other things -that you've worked on?

-The only -movie that ever made it was, -next stop, Wonderland, -that I, built -a puffer fish -that had to swim down -in the Boston Aquarium.

-It was that shoot -and that that started me -in the big budget film, -and that actually -was one of the reasons -I wanted to get out of it, -because it was so chaotic.

-I didn't like how you were -treated on a movie set.

-You would just hurry up -and do it, -and if it didn't work, -you were in trouble.

-It was just -a lot of pressure -that eventually turned -into toys, sculpting, -all different size toys.

-And I used to sculpt the 12 -inch line of Hasbro -Star Wars figures, and -I still sculpt today, but -I don't think that I'll -go away.

-Now, here's the thing -ideas can always be -revisited.

-I definitely think -snapper can come back.

-Mark, what do you think?

-I think so -it's it's a timeless story.

-Perhaps.

You know, -everybody likes that.

-The horror scenes down -by the lake or the water.

-So much has been learned.

-So much has been paved -in our own growth -that I think -we can bring this project -and make it really exciting.

-We still have that kid in us -when it comes to -coming up with story ideas -or working on -certain scenes, -and every time we do -something, -it becomes -better than it was -the last time -that we looked at it.

-But we still get excited -when we call eachother, -and it's every day we talk.

-Very grateful for the -friendship that we've had.

-Snapper can come back.

-It can come back.

Yeah.

No, -definitely.

-I think today -stronger, better than ever.

-Anybody wants it.

There -it is.

It's all done.

-You don't even have -to write it.

-It's already written -and it's good, I think.

-I think so.

-Vermont public, -partnering -with local filmmakers -to bring you -stories made here.

-For more, -visit vermontpublic.org