'Rough cut' of locally filmed horror flick premieres
Maxim Entertainment gave insiders a first look at its inaugural feature film Thursday night at the Carmike Cinema. Shot entirely in Acadiana, mostly in Opelousas, Macumba is studded less by stars and more by local unknowns, several of whom double as lurch-footed zombies in the movie and labored as production technicians during the filming last year. The main players in Macumba burn brightest in the firmament of Mexican television: Adriana Cataño, Roberto Montesinos, Monika Muñoz, and the one-named Khotan, who spends most of the movie tramping around as a zombie with a bullet hole in his forehead and a burning desire to choke anyone he can get his hands on.
Macumba was written and directed by Ricardo Islas, an auteur of Spanish-language horror flicks. English and Spanish versions of the movie were shot simultaneously, and when Macumba premieres for the public this spring, both versions will be shown.
Thursday night's debut, following a lengthy red-carpet launch, got off to a rough start for a mostly packed house, due mainly to production errors that delayed the start of the movie. But producer Blane McManus acknowledged before the lights went down that what the audience was about to see was a "rough cut." McManus also suggested Macumba is more or less an "icebreaker" for feature film production in the Lafayette area, and even quipped before the movie began that last year’s production "turned out to be the most heinous film-making experience I’ve ever had."
The crowd appreciated his humor, and his candor.
City-Parish President Joey Durel, tourism chief Gerald Breaux, and LCG entertainment liaison Marcus Brown were among those who turned out to support the movie. Maxim Entertainment, meantime, is getting ready to partner with a New Orleans studio for a feature film titled Fight Game, which will be shot on location in the Crescent City.
David Calhoun and Elizabeth “EB” Brooks are the first two employees of Lafayette Central Park Inc., the nonprofit charged with turning Lafayette Consolidated Government’s 100-acre Johnston Street Horse Farm property into a passive public park. Calhoun was named executive director, and Brooks is director of planning and design.
There will soon be a whole lot of shakin’ going on at Benny’s Sportshack Supplement Depot, a new concept by Opelousas native Benny Nele. Located at 2002 Johnston St., the supplement shop, smoothie bar and café, featuring hot off the press paninis and wraps, plans to open in late May.
This year’s Cool Town issue is all about people who are not native to South Louisiana but made a conscious decision to be here, to be among us, to participate in our culture and contribute to it.
A shelved ordinance transferring $200,000 from a northside drainage project to a south Lafayette development may not break any laws, but it stinks to high heaven.
An effort to restore a shuttered dancehall and document other vacant or razed honky-tonks could serve as a model for saving an endangered species of entertainment.
Lafayette’s gene pool has been host to a long line of eccentric characters who have blurred the lines between crazy, genius, disturbed and curiously entertaining.
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