Premiere provides chills, honours actor (4 photos)

There was a fairly packed house at the Kiwanis Community Theatre Centre on Thursday for the premiere of the locally shot film October 30th: All Hallows Eve.

Director and lead actor Ryan Byrne said he felt it was important to keep this project local.

"We want to make a living . . . dreaming. Obviously that's a big task in this city, but we wanted to make a product that would stand up in the real world. So it was important for us to try that and see what we were made of in this city with people that are from this city. We finished it and we are extemely proud of this premiere tonight," said Byrne.

Byrne went for the concept of a meta-movie, in which the act of filmmaking is part of the experience and part of the narrative.

It was done in a way that sometimes blurred the line between what was reality and what was part of the filming process.

Neither the audience nor the characters knew the ending to their movie.

In the story it was all about improvisation so director Ethan (played by Ryan Byrne) could play out his twisted concept of letting the script write itself, and allowing the characters to find their own demise.

"We went back and looked at the older archetypes for horror, we took a lot from that and tried to do something new with it," said Aaron Alessandrini, sound technician. "Me personally, I'm a huge horror fan so I got to take a lot from movies I love like Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th. Henry Mancini was a big inspiration to me."

One of the leading actors, Adrian Gabrylewicz (who plays the deeply disturbed killer Harry Pearl), passed away after filming at the age of 48.

Gabrylewicz seemed to have a profound affect on all of the cast and crew of October 30th.

"One of the things that I loved about Adrian is that he was so into his character and he wanted it to be so unique," said producer Brendan Garlick.

"I had about four actors come to me saying that they were truly scared Adrian was a murderer and we had to assure them they were safe," joked producer Julie Hryniewicz. "They really did fear him because he was so much into his character. We miss him dearly."

There were positive reactions from the audience; laughs where they were intended to be (and a few times where they weren't), and warm applause at the end of the film.

The ending left some loose ends, especially regarding the ominous 'lady in white', but there is more to come in what Byrne says will be a trilogy, so audiences can expect to see the story come full circle.