The Awakened @ Elvira's Horror Hunt Festival

[Douglas Villalba]

The Awakened - MOVIE TRAILER HD 2012 on Vimeo

The Awakened, has been selected to be screened at the 2012 Elvira's Horror Hunt Film Festival. The festival is part of HorrorHound Weekend in Indianapolis, Indiana, and takes place September 7th through the 9th. The horror convention has more than 12,000 attendees every year.
This year, the convention will feature guests from the Terminator and Alien franchises, including: Michael Biehn, Linda Hamilton, Lance Henriksen, and many more. “We are so honored to be one of only seven feature films to have been chosen to be screened,” said Producer Juan F. Gonzalez of Blue Nile Pictures.
The film was shot during the Halloween season in a private home in Miami, and was done with what is considered a micro-budget by Hollywood’s standards. “It’s about five friends who have a hurricane party at a house only to find that they are trapped inside with an evil spirit,” explained Writer/Producer/Co-Director Lou Simon.
The five friends are played by Stephanie Rae Pitts, Nikolas Holmes, Jonathan “Legacy” Perez (of Season 6 of “So You Think You Can Dance”), John Thomassen, and Nancy Sayegh (of the CW’s “The Catalina”). The supporting cast is made up of Miami actors Julie Kendall, Harry Marsh, Wil Jackson, Saphie Gonzalez, and radio personality Paul Castronovo of The Paul and Young Ron Show.
The crew was mostly from Miami as well, including Director/Editor/Cinematographer Douglas Villalba and Composer Michael Damon. “This was a labor of love for all of us. That is the reason why we were able to complete the entire film for such a low budget and on time,” said Executive Producer, Andrew M. Feldman.
Despite their limitations, however, the filmmakers were able to produce a film that is already garnering some recognition. Jason Hignite, of HorrorHound Magazine, called The Awakened a “fresh story” and commented that “[t]he evil manifested among the cast cannot be fought, making it hold-on-to-your-seat scary.” The audiences at this year’s HorrorHound Weekend will be the first to be able to judge the finished film for themselves.