Loose Leaf Notes

I hadn’t been to a horror movie since my teenager days watching B movie axe murders at the Weymouth Drive-in in Massachusetts.   But this movie, the House of Good and Evil, was filmed in Floyd and a friend of ours had a key role. 

It was showing at the historic Grandin Theater, next to Local Roots, a farm-to-table restaurant we’d been wanting to check out.  

So it was a date. I was relieved when a friend on Facebook, who had seen the movie when it aired at Floyd’s Chantilly Farm, said “think Hitchcock.” 

The creamy, smooth Irish stout on draught got us off on the right foot, and we got introduced to the movie screenwriter (who is married to a Floydian), by Floyd Chamber of Commerce directer, Melodie Pogue, who later sold movie memorabilia at the theater.   The fettuccine with a hen’s egg, savoy spinach, parsnip crème and fines herbs was also a big hit, and it was fun to catch up with our friend and Local Roots sous chef, Alex, also a Floydian.   

There was an axe in the movie, but the film was more of a physiological thriller, thankfully, than typical horror fare, not so much a ‘who done it?’ but more of a ‘what did they do and when?’ in the spirit of Rosemary’s Baby, Gaslight or Sixth Sense. 

I did enjoy the mystery, as tense as it was, and the challenge of trying to figure it out.  I was glad the story tied up in the climatic end.

The movie’s writer and producer, Blu de Golyer (center), and the two local professional actors, Rob Neukirch (left) and Bo Keister (right), took questions from the largely Floyd audience at the end of the showing.

It was fun to hear some of the ins and outs, meet some of the locals who worked on the film and the owner of the house featured in the film (which was a character in itself and was at one time a school).

Joe and I did have a question, after the fact.  We wondered why our friend Rob was sneezing so much in his first scene. Was it integral to the story?  “Knowing Rob and his sense of humor, he probably just wanted to play it in red nose,” I said to Joe.

Post note: Watch a trailer of the movie HERE. And a clip about the movie and the filmmaker’s future plans from Daytime Blue Ridge HERE.