By David White
After a career as a writer and artist working in and around the film industry in Hollywood, Christopher “Moonlight” Cooksey has made Kyle his new home as well as the set for a new movie he’s producing called Quantum Terror. It’s a horror film that deals with metaphysics and the occult.
Cooksey chose Kyle for his new venture partly because he didn’t feel like he could do the kind of movie he wanted and the way he wanted in Hollywood. He has worked on several productions doing animation. He recalls his first big gig. It was a kids’ show called Passport to Explore, where he did animations between segments. He also worked on a Ray Bradbury production called Live Forever, which premiered but did not live another episode. He worked on other bit projects, but “I was finding that a lot of the projects I was working on never saw the light of day,” Cooksey said, “so I decided I wanted to start making films myself, but not in Hollywood … Even if you’re only doing a movie for a hundred dollars (in Hollywood), somebody catches wind of it and it’s like, ‘Oh, I’m part of the union, and you need to run this by the union,’ and people want taxes … and you just can’t do anything unless you are in. And if you’re me, they pretty much want to shut you down. You have to do everything on the down-low. Out here (in Kyle), I don’t have to worry about that.”
“I might not make millions of dollars,” Cooksey adds, “but I can do movies like I want to do with social commentary. I can do that without the studio saying, ‘Well, our demographics don’t show that that’s marketable, and a lesbian character could lose some of our demographic audience…’ You have to bargain with them on the story and then you end up with something completely different … Pasteurized is a good word for it.”
Moonlight also takes pride in the fact that they use practical effects as opposed to the computer generated imagery (CGI) that the big movie studios use. His garage is full of cardboard walls that look like real underground tunnels and he uses camera and editing techniques to make it seem like his characters are in an endless labyrinth. He also has use of an animatronic device – on loan from Studio ADI – that controls the tentacles that latch on to the creature’s victims in the film. Cooksey demonstrated how they shot those scenes in reverse to make the tentacles really come to life. Studio ADI is an Oscar-winning effects company that has done effects for movies such as Tremors, Alien 3, Death Becomes Her, and many more.
Moonlight is collaborating with other local artists like Jenna Green, also from Buda. Green has done make-up and artistry for movies, haunted houses, and competed on a show called Face Off on the Syfy channel.
Cooksey hasn’t put the final touches on his film and he’s relying on crowd-funding to help him with the final steps. His goal is $6,000 which, to date, he has raised $3,151. “This money will primarily go towards paying our talented crew, who have agreed to work for way below their normal rates, actors, materials for creating our creatures, miniatures, and sets, a minimal amount of lights & equipment, food, and insurance,” Cooksey says. “If we raise more money, then we will be able to bring in more talent and diversify the visuals and wardrobe.”
The cast of his movie include Kristin Cochell, Paula Marcanero Solinger, Matt Blackwell, Emmy-winner Mike Gassaway and Jordan Michael Brinkman.
The Story
Samantha Carol’s twin sister Silvia has gone missing, without a trace. The only clues that Sam has to go on are notebooks filled with strange quantum physicsequations combined with scribblings about the occult, that have been left behind. Silvia’s ex-boyfriend and fellow college classmate claims he has seen her going into the nearby drainage tunnels that run under the town he lives in, however he himself is a suspect in her disappearance.
Accompanied by Sam’s concerned ex-lover Lucy, with new boyfriend in tow, the now group of four go down into the tunnels where strange alien creatures and alterations of reality, will confront them with their deepest desires and darkest inner truths. Now, the question isn’t just whether they will find Silvia or not, but if it’s even possible for them to ever get out again.
