Prison of the Psychotic Dead

The prison is now abandoned, but once upon a time it was home to criminally insane mental patients and even crazier doctors who performed horrible experiments on them. Now, decades after the shutdown of the hospital and their deaths, they haunt the not-so-hallowed halls.

When urban archeologist and award-winning documentarian Rayna Bloom (actress/filmmaker Susie Adriensen) and her four-person crew decide to make a movie and spend the night, it's hell to pay.

Adriensen says, "Bloom runs her life, and others' lives, like a Nazi. But secretly, she has a vulnerable side that she tries not to show.  Boy, do I have background notes for that character!" She admits that sometimes paying Bloom wasn’t such a stretch, "I can be as obsessive as Bloom and I can have her temper too; I have thrown and crushed a phone before! Yes, it's true!, but I'm a lot nicer and I love doing comedy. Really… It's true!"

Director/editor D.W. Kann takes his time setting up the story and letting the viewer get to know the characters (in various states undress for some of them…). Conversely, D.W. himself hardly had time to get to know anyone before jumping into the project with both feet. "Actually, when I came on to replace the previous director," he says, "I only had two weeks before we started shooting so the whole cast had already been assembled. I was excited to hear [that] Melantha [Blackthorne had been cast,] since I've been a closet fan for years."

Blackthorne was excited about the project, too. She really liked her character, Kansas, whom she describes as "A deeply troubled spoiled rich kid who thinks the world owes her something. She’s as tough as nails on the outside but drives her feelings deep inside, and then cuts herself to let them seep out. She is also very talented and smart but throws that all away because of her fear of failure and rejection.

"Kansas has supernatural abilities that she never comes to terms with making her the skeptic of the ghost-hunting group. She is probably the most complicated character I’ve ever played…very different from myself in almost every way. I had to completely transform for this role!"

Her foil throughout most of the movie is Jim Vaughn, who makes his acting debut in the movie as Jason, the smart-mouthed, goofy camera man. "I'm actually not to far from Jason," Jim reveals. "I'm all about jokes and having fun so it wasn't to hard at all to

bring some of my own personality into Jason and even create some new gags and jokes that weren't in the original script."

One of the most striking and original things about Prison of the Psychotic Dead is its super-spooky, totally authentic location. David R. Williams, the writer/producer of the movie says, "I first discovered the Buffalo Central Terminal back in the late 80s and it has fascinated me ever since.

"I have a lifelong fascination, you might even say obsession, with abandoned old buildings. So all these things came together to form the basis for Prison of the Psychotic Dead."

Blackthorne says the place was downright "creepy" to shoot in. "The Gothic architecture is phenomenal, and the fact that it’s falling to pieces definitely added to look and feel of the film. It is without a doubt the perfect location for a horror movie." And, she adds, "There are definitely ghosts floating around that decrepit old building and it wasn’t just me who felt their presence. Chills, unexplained noises, cries and whispers…. you name it we experienced it. The ‘supernatural’ has always been of interest to me so spending eight days and sometimes nights in the Buffalo terminal was more of an intrigue than a scare."

Prison of the Psychotic Dead, which also stars Demona Bast and features some of her original music, is now available on DVD.

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By Staci Layne Wilson