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The Horror Housewife
While her peers shop for the latest designer handbag and do lunch, Geraldine Winters, a suburban housewife is fulfilling her lifelong dream of writing and producing a feature length horror film. “I waited a long time for my children to become independent and give me the freedom and time I needed to pursue my dream. .I did the classroom mom and chauffeur role for many years while my children grew up. I’ve always loved horror films since seeing Dawn of The Dead when I was a kid.” Making films let alone horror films was something typical moms didn’t do in bedroom communities and Winters didn’t want to embarrass her children so she put her ambitions on hold. She did however, work on her writing skills and became of founding member of New Jersey Screenwriter’
Finally when her youngest was a Junior in high school she made a short film and got a festival award for it in Kentucky’s Fright Night Film Festival. Her husband had gone away for a weekend golf trip so she assembled some actors and crew and went forward. “My sister who was my biggest supporter, had just passed away after a brief illness and it made me realize the urgency of fulfilling my ambitions.” The award was encouraging and she continued pursuing other film projects and writing for other producers with the hope of someday doing her own feature.
Winters feels luck was on her side in producing her current feature horror film called Clownstrophobia. It is based on a universal theme of the fear of clowns. Winters explained “clowns go back to ancient Egypt and Circus Maximus, they are actually dark and not funny at all in some cultures. I thought it would be something everyone could relate to on some level.
Her husband was going on another golf trip so she figured it was a good time to shoot some footage for a short, it turned out to be her biggest project to date. “I was always renting low budget films at a local Blockbuster to analyze the production quality and try to feel out how much it might cost to do a feature. I had talked to one of the clerks about my ambitions and he said his roommate Dan Sleboda was a film student at Fairleigh Dickinson In Madison New Jersey. I was looking for a production assistant so I gave him my number to give to Dan. “ It was a very lucky moment for both Dan and myself and we collaborated on the film that has taken a year to complete. It was a work in progress and much of the film was written as it was being shot. I literally did wardrobe, catering and any and all chores the filming required.” Winters financed the film herself and so far has invested about $35,000 that she hopes to recover by selling it outright to a distributor. “I’m not interested in it being in festivals at this point. I want to quickly move on to a new project and we already have a project under consideration.
I didn’t want the film to be just another rehash of old themes so I embellished it with dark psycho-dramatic sub-text. It also has it’s share of gore and humor for diehard fans of the genre.
Winters is hoping this will lead to an ability to make more films with larger budgets.”I’
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