Vegas screenwriter gives fairy tale a gruesome revamp

The classic children's story "Little Red Riding Hood" gets a makeover in a new local film, but possibly not the kind most women desire.

The film is a horror/thriller complete with werewolves terrorizing a town. The sinister new take on the classic fairytale, dubbed "Little Dead Rotting Hood," comes from The Asylum and stars Bianca A. Santos, Eric Balfour, Romeo Miller (aka Lil' Romeo), Patrick Muldoon, Heather Tom and Marina Sirtis.

The film was released on DVD and Digital HD Jan. 5 via Cinedigm and The Asylum.

Screenwriter and producer Gabriel Campisi, a Summerlin South resident, said the idea to put a twist to the fairy tale led to working with a New York artist to lay out the scenes before he'd even written one word. It took about a year for it all to come together and get the green light.

In a world with plenty of vampire/zombie/werewolf movies, how did he make his script stand out?

"It's very much set in present day, and the characters, they are essential to the storyline," he said. "A lot of people write to get scares. I made sure it had heart, a lot of characterization. It's essentially a love story."

The plot from the promotional piece: For years, the old woman in the woods has secretly kept the wolves of the forest at bay. But when the woman dies, the creatures suddenly attack the residents of a nearby small town. As more and more people turn up dead, the townsfolk discover something far more sinister than wolves lurking in the backwoods and fight to save their home from evil by waging a bloody battle against the ruthless creatures. But as the wolves begin to overpower the town, only the woman's granddaughter may have the key to stopping the bloodbath before it's too late.

Campisi is partners with filmmaker Jared Cohn at Traplight Media, which is based out of Los Angeles. He recently produced the movies "Buddy Hutchins," starring Jamie Kennedy and Sally Kirkland; "Wishing For A Dream," starring Sara Malakul Lane; "School's Out (aka Street Smart)," featuring Eric Roberts, Jason London, David Chokachi, Nick Swardson, Ron Jeremy and Kayden Kross; "The Horde," an action-horror film featuring Bill Moseley, Costas Mandylor, Vernon Wells, Matt Willig, Nestor Serrano and Paul Logan; and "Blue Line," starring Tom Sizemore.

Making "Little Dead Rotting Hood" meant putting in plenty of 12- to 15-hour days, Campisi said.

"But not the actors. If you go over 12, you're paying overtime," he said. "Me, I'm in my element when I'm making a film. I could go 24 hours and be happy — OK, not really, but I can go longer (than others)."

The film was shot last summer, mostly in Los Angeles and the surrounding area.

"The script is fun," said actress Heather Tom in the behind-the-scenes trailer the crew made. "I get to play a den mother. How often do you get to do that?"

Cohn, contacted in Bangkok via phone, has more than 12 years in the business, working on films in a variety of genres, including sci-fi, thriller and comedy. He also worked on a movie for Lifetime. He said making "Little Dead Rotting Hood" was a challenge because the time frame was tight.

"Normally on a movie, you get at least a month to prep, and the shoot takes three to four weeks," Cohn said. "With that one, I had a couple weeks to prep, and it was shot in a couple weeks. To make the movie, we were working in hyper drive ... it's not a studio (-backed project) with a $100 million budget."

He said without the caliber of the actors they'd lined up, it would have been difficult. To ensure he got everything for post-production, Cohn did a number of takes. What don't most people understand about movie-making?

"A lot of things; mostly that it's harder than it may seem," Cohn said. "You need to have a very, very clear idea of what you're doing and know how to communicate (that) with your people; how to manage a lot of creative people, to speak the same language."

As for Campisi, he said the toughest part was working with real wolves.

"Jared and I and the line producer looked at each other and said, 'How are we going to get them to do this (on cue)?' We thought about using CGI (computer-generated images) and doing it with computers. We thought about getting a dog. We thought about puppets. ... I mean, we had (scenes with) wolves attacking people. These are dangerous animals."

They ended up using the animals for general scenes and close-ups of them snarling but had to utilize a "stunt double" for close-ups with the actors.

Post-production work — which involves choosing the scenes, interlacing them, adding special effects and the music score, ensuring the audio is correct and color balancing the scenes — took even longer than filming the movie.

"When it all comes together, that's probably the biggest excitement," Campisi said. "You know it's really working. When you're shooting, you go, 'We think we're doing good,' but you can't tell until it all ... gets edited. There's nothing more exciting than seeing something in your mind and then seeing it come to life."

Campisi grew up in Las Vegas, graduating from Las Vegas High School in 1986 and attending UNLV. He is often required to be in Los Angeles for work or is flying to New York for meetings.

Here in Las Vegas, he and his wife, Anje, a comptroller, have four children, ages 17 and 15 and twins who are 8.

He said he has three of four other movies in the works, but none have set start dates. Visit gabrielcampisi.com.

— To reach Summerlin Area View reporter Jan Hogan, email jhogan@viewnews.com or call 702-387-2949.