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Contributed photo/Brody, a 1,300-pound Alaskan grizzly, stars in “Grizzly Park”

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Horror flick filmed locally premiers in Abingdon

By ROBERT CAHILL/Correspondent

Lights… camera… action. Friday evening a touch of Hollywood came to the area as the movie “Grizzly Park” premiered at the Abingdon Cinemall.
The movie was filmed primarily in Smyth and Washington counties. Backbone Rock outside Damascus, Hungry Mother State Park and the Lutheran Church’s retreat near Hungry Mother served as locations.
Filming began in the fall of 2006 and finished in November of that year. In the horror genre, the flick has all the elements needed for a good scary tale including eight teen-aged miscreants who were sentenced to perform community service for their various misdeeds. Tom Skull, a young, up-and-coming talent, wrote and directed the movie. Belle Avery and Jeanne Stack produced it.
At a cost to make of $2.2 million, this movie is considered low budget by today’s film standards. However, it brought a windfall of about $600,000 to the local economy, according to Avery. The only two known actors in the cast were two veteran character actors, Glen Morshower, most recently with a recurring role in the hit TV series 24, and Rance Howard, father of award-winning actor-director Ron “Opie Taylor” Howard and his brother, actor Clint Howard. Another name star in the film is Brody, the 1,300-pound Alaskan grizzly.
However, these two are not the only recognizable faces in this film, at least not for local folks. Washington County Board of Supervisors member Jack McCready, a friend of Avery and her husband, plays a small role in the movie as does Washington County Sheriff Fred Newman.
Avery has a vested interest in bringing movie production to this area. She and her husband, Tim Risch, a cameraman, live in the Alvarado community and are the owners of the old Alvarado Depot, a deli/refreshment stop along the Virginia Creeper Trail. “We were here (locally) from Oct. 9 through Dec. 8 of 2006,” Avery said. “That meant that I got to stay home for two whole months. That was a luxury for me, I have to travel so much for my work.”
“There’s a lot to be said for this area as a film location,” Avery said. “For example, in Smyth County, Sheriff David Bradley and his staff were so helpful. Movie crews don’t find that everywhere.”
“I hope people will realize this was something of a low-budget film,” Avery said. “But it is made more along the lines of the horror movies of the ‘70s. It has some of the same scary-funny bits in it that those films had. We opted for good acting and scary action rather than lots of really gory computer graphics.”
I hope people will turn out and support this film,” Avery continued. “That would, hopefully, help bring more film work to this area. The whole area is fantastic for filming sites and locations. The problem is the infrastructure staff is not here. Things like wardrobe people, set-builders. All those had to be brought in. But with more work in the area, we’d soon have local people that would develop the skills we need. The film industry could bring a lot of money to the area economy.”
Avery has a long résumé including roles as an actress, writer and producer. Along with the premier of this movie, Avery has a second movie, for which she was the executive producer, out at the moment. “Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead” is a somewhat higher budget crime movie starring Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Ethan Hawke along with Marisa Tomei and Albert Finney.
With all that going, Avery is hard at work on her next project, the high-budget horror film “MEG” about a Carcharodon Megalodon, a 40-ton, 70-foot long, prehistoric ancestor of the great white shark.
Grizzly Park started Friday at the Abingdon Cinemall and runs through May 1. For more information, visit http://www.cinemall.com.