PA’s B. Harrison Smith talks about realizing his filmmaking dreams
Two decades ago, filmmaker — and Stroudsburg native — B. Harrison Smith was at his lowest ebb.
After flunking out of Penn State, he moved to Los Angeles and landed a job at Universal Studios. But instead of his career flourishing, it took a nose-dive and he was forced to return home.
With few options, Smith went back to the Stroud Mall where, prior to his tenure in Tinseltown, he’d worked as an usher at the Loews Theater.
Even though he was rehired and promoted to assistant manager, it was quite a comedown for the ambitious Smith who longed to become a screenwriter and director. “I was back where I started: the movie theater I worked in as a kid,” recalls Smith. “I was an assistant manager but, by that time, my fellow high school classmates were graduating college, starting families, furthering military careers, and I was this adrift frat boy-kinda guy thinking there was still opportunity to make movies.”
One night at the theater, Smith ran into a former high-school teacher who’d always been encouraging of his writing talent.
“He was such a major influence on me,” recalls Smith. “His name was Michael Steen and he was merciless on my writing in school and one of the reasons why I got where I am. However, at that time, I was running the movie theater in the local mall.
“While he did not make me feel a failure in any way, I felt like I had let him down. I imagined in my mind that when he left, he was thinking ‘I really hoped he woulda gone further...’ Again, he gave no hint whatsoever of thinking that but it’s what I thought.”
Despite constant discouragements, Smith never gave up on his dreams of making movies. And now “Death House,” his sixth feature film, opening March 2 at some 100 theaters across the country, including the very same Stroud Mall cinema where he worked all those years ago.
“This debut and playing at this theater is best described as validation, “says Smith, who now resides in Lancaster. “I wasted a lot of time in my life. ‘Death House’ is hopefully not the last stop. I hope I still have time.”
Populated with scores of horror icons including Dee Wallace (“Cujo”), Tony Todd (“Candyman”), Kane Hodder (“Friday the 13th), Barbara Crampton (“Re-Animator”) and Adrienne Barbeau (“The Fog”), “Death House” is set in a secret prison during a public relations tour. But the P.R. stunt goes awry after a power outage. Cue the release of dangerous inmates and the discovery of a secret facility beneath the prison.
“Death House,” which was largely shot at Holmesburg Prison in Philadelphia, began with the late actor Gunnar Hansen, who’s best known for playing Leatherface in the original “Texas Chainsaw Massacre.”
Smith, who was invited onto the project by producers Rick Finkelstein and Steven Chase, instantly saw great potential in Hansen’s screenplay and novel set-up.
“The scariest horror, for me, is social horror,” says Smith. “The idea of evil people thinking they are good, and doing evil in the name of good is far scarier than sharks, monsters or serial killers.”
Even though Hansen passed away before the film went into production, he was happy with the changes Smith made to the screenplay.
“Gunnar was emphatic about the concept of good and evil and what defines both. I think we achieved that and he gave the script his blessing before he died.
“I made sure to have strong female characters both good and evil. All of my films have featured strong females not the falling-down-and-running blondes.”
After working with Hansen on the script, Smith had a relatively easy time getting the movie financed and filmed. But there have been some challenges along the way.
“[This isn’t] ‘The Expendables of Horror,’ ” he says. “[That tag]… puts out the false idea that this is some kind of horror mashup where characters from previous films will fight each other.
“First off, that’s “Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein”-gimmick filmmaking and not anything I wanted to do. Making the film was easy. Getting people to understand this is a whole new film with these actors playing all new characters was harder.”