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Barrington 9-year-old writes, directs horror flick
Barrington nine-year-old Carson Pazdan says he is obsessed with the horror genre. He reads and watches horror movies to form his own filmmaking chops. | Joe Cyganowski~For Sun-Times Media
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Updated: November 26, 2012 6:21AM
BARRINGTON — Things that go bump in the night don’t frighten Barrington nine-year-old Carson Pazdan.
He enjoys the spooky chills and thrills so much that he aspires to be a horror-fiction novelist and filmmaker.
Pazdan took his first stab at writing and directing this summer, producing a 13-minute homemade flick “Extreme Creep.”
The third-grader used a story he wrote in class at Countryside Elementary School as the premise of the script.
He then recruited relatives to star as scary creatures in the video, filmed during the Fourth of July weekend during a family reunion in Ohio.
“For all of us to do this fun project together under Carson’s direction was a ball,” said mother Alyssa Pazdan.
The plot centers on a monster-hunting duo— played by Carson Pazdan and his 13-year-old cousin Camryn Fetzer — and their encounter with an evil woman who stirs up trouble in the neighborhood.
Pazdan cast his grandma as a witch and mom as a swamp monster. Everyone else transformed into zombies, including Pazdan’s sisters Lucciana, 4, and Francesca, 2.
Alyssa Pazdan said while she personally isn’t a horror-flick fan, “when you see your kids have an interest, you do anything to encourage and foster that.”
Which sometimes involves dressing in gauze and jumping into a lake filled with water snakes.
“Those are the things you do for your kids, I suppose,” she said.
In a slow-motion scene when the lead stars fend off a zombie attack, Fetzer does a back flip before assailing her monster-like mom.
“They had an excuse to beat up their parents,” Alyssa Pazdan said. “Everybody got a kick out of that.”
Upon the family’s return home, Carson Pazdan took a movie-making class at the Deer Park Apple store to learn tips for putting together a film.
He spent two weeks editing the video with his mom; adding music, sound and video effects, and the credits.
They uploaded the movie online to share with family and friends. Pazdan said he plans to shoot a sequel at the family’s next reunion.
But for now, he’s concentrating on learning from the pros of his favorite genre. He reads the children’s horror fiction series “Goosebumps,” and “Van Helsing” and the original “Dracula” are his favorite movies.
“I like reading and watching them so much because they give me inspiration to write and come up with movie ideas,” Pazdan said.
