Hot Springs Horror Festival to screen ‘The Unwilling’
The fifth annual Hot Springs International Horror Film Festival is set for today through Sunday at the Historic Central Theater, 1008 Central Ave.
One of the films set to screen during the festival is “The Unwilling,” set to be shown at 10:30 p.m. Saturday.
In the film, six family members arrive for the reading of the will of a wealthy patriarch. All are shocked when an antique wooden box arrives instead. The instructions are simple: one by one, the six in attendance must prick their fingers on steel pins which appear from the box to open it and receive their rewards. Once their blood is drawn, however, events take a turn for the worse as they release a sinister evil no one may leave alive.
“The story of David and his family really began with the concept of a damaged man who has created a cage for himself. David’s problems were generated by terrible abuse and years of feeling isolated and unsafe. Once we created this fragile character it became obvious that confronting him and his relatives with their terrors would yield a perfect storm of increasing intensity,” said Jonathan Heap, the film’s Academy Award-nominated director, in a news release.
Heap has worked in Hollywood as a film director and producer for the past 25 years. He received an Oscar nomination for his short film “12:01 P.M.” when he was 28 years old and was a producer of the full-length feature that it inspired.
From there, he developed scripts at RKO and Warner Bros until he directed his first feature, “Benefit of the Doubt,” for Miramax in 1993. “Benefit of the Doubt” starred Donald Sutherland and Amy Irving and set him on a path that embraced suspense and action. He went on to direct three features, the next one for NUmage with Eric Roberts and two HBO premieres with Rob Lowe, Tom Skerritt and Stephen Baldwin.
He has shot and produced numerous satirical shorts, several of which have gone on to “Funny or Die” fame, the release said. He recently finished “Plan B,” one of several shorts he directed and produced with a grant from the Albert R. Broccoli Foundation. “Plan B” is a comedic romp about a control freak starring John Michael Higgins.
Heap founded the nonprofit company Primary Purpose Productions with his partner Lowell Cauffiel to produce these shorts and create issue oriented and educational films to help those with substance abuse and recovery.