You can’t run from what’s already inside you.

The Dead Place is the tragic story of Isaac Stecker, a young man burdened with the gift of seeing beings that remain hidden from most eyes. Some of the specters that plague Isaac are of an insidious and menacing nature. As a result, Isaac is alienated from his family and is an outcast amongst his peers, most of whom believe that he suffers from psychotic delusions. Isaac’s peculiar nature and despondent demeanor earns the scorn of the school bullies, whose taunts grow progressively violent. He only has one friend, Katherine, a fellow outcast who holds a fascination for the supernatural. As the story progresses, the evil that haunts Isaac escalates from the spectral to the physical and invades his life in ways that have tragic consequences for everyone around him. Isaac is in a fight for his sanity and his soul as the demons attempt to push him to release his darker impulses on those who have bullied, taunted, and mocked him. If Isaac fails to overcome these forces, he risks unleashing a bloodbath and becoming a tool for the very evil he desperately fights against.

Welcome to The Dead Place; my passion project almost 15 years in the making. I was a singer/lyricist for a Metal band in 2007 when I explored a “haunted” asylum and had the most deeply frightening experience of my life. This gave me an idea for a story that would completely consume me as an artist and continues to haunt me to this day. So much so that I quit music and devoted my life to filmmaking. For the past 15 years, I have concentrated on fine-tuning the script and teaching myself filmmaking. I knew I needed tons of experience if I was going to direct my script myself, so I read every filmmaking book I could get my hands on, learned from other professionals, worked on several projects for free, and created my own short films, music videos, a successful horror variety series, and my first feature film “Pay Up” to prepare myself for The Dead Place. Thanks to several years of experience in the horror genre and an immensely talented team I have assembled throughout my career, I am finally ready to make The Dead Place a reality. I couldn’t be more excited to finally bring it to the world and to make fellow horror fans a part of the process.

THE DEAD PLACE takes inspiration from films such as; In the Mouth of Madness (1994), Santa Sangre (1989), The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974), Session 9 (2001), The Evil Dead (1981), Sixth Sense (1999), The Children (2008), Ginger Snaps (2000), Pontypool (2008), 1408 (2007), Plague Town (2008), The Conjuring 2 (2016), Frontier(s) (2007), Murder Party (2007), Death Sentence (2007), Sinister (2012), Hereditary (2018), The Dark and the Wicked (2020).

As an inspired beginner in 2008, I took The Dead Place story far beyond the capabilities of a low budget indie filmmaker. As I developed my craft over the years, I learned that the scope of the story was too large for one film and had 3 entirely different tones and themes. That’s when I decided to split it into a trilogy, so I could explore each of those themes more effectively. Expect parts 2 & 3 to follow the characters we love but shift in tone and scope with each chapter while ratcheting up the tension leading to an explosion of supernatural slasher mayhem in the conclusion. We made this a crowdfunded film almost exclusively because we wanted horror fans to come along with us on the ride and feel like a part of it because ultimately, I’m doing it for them.

The funds we aim to raise will go directly to our production costs.  They will be divided and allocated to all the various, necessary, and oftentimes expensive duties and obligations that come with production, including but not limited to payment to the cast, payment to the crew, camera and lighting gear purchases and rentals, securing locations, securing transportation, ensuring quality catering and craft services are provided, locking in insurance, providing set safety, and procuring wardrobe.

And while we are grateful for your support in handling these areas of the production, this amount still means that we will be asking a lot of favors from our friends and film community. It also doesn’t take into account our post-production costs.  Which brings us to…

STRETCH GOAL #1 – $40,000
If we secure this first stretch goal, we will retroactively create a development budget to pay back the efforts of our hardworking team of producers and creators who helped to bring “The Dead Place” to life.  Not only that, but we will create a TRILOGY OF INTRODUCTORY SHORTS featuring moody imagery and narration that fleshes out the world and mythology of “The Dead Place,” available exclusively to our Indiegogo backers!

We realize that not everyone is in a position to donate financially to our project.  However, this isn’t the only way that you can help us to bring The Dead Place to life!  It would be tremendously appreciated if you simply followed us on Indiegogo.  Also, we would love it for you to connect with us on social media and like, comment, and share our posts so that we can break through that dreaded algorithm and make our work more visible to the public.