Estimated read time: 2-3 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
Carole Mikita ReportingHalloween may have come and gone, but a festival of horror films is opening today throughout the country and at a theater complex near you.
One film is from two Utahns who shot on location in Salt Lake.
Four medical students discover something eerie about a cadaver in the new horror film "Unrest."
This is familiar territory for one of the filmmakers. Both Utahns, they each made big career shifts. James Huntsman was very successful in the chemical industry. Jason Ipson was a surgeon.
But this was something they both dreamed of for years.
James Huntsman/ Producer, "Unrest": "It started when I was about nine years old, and I went to see the film 'Raiders of the Lost Ark.' Ever since that point, I have always wanted to do something with film."
Jason Ipson/ Writer and Director, "Unrest": "I knew the first day of medical school I had a problem, because I started thinking about the diseases and thinking, 'Wow, this would make a great movie,' and was writing screenplays by my first year of medical school."
Ipson was working on Unrest when he joined forces with Huntsman. They have five other projects.
James Huntsman: "'Unrest,' medical thriller. 'Everybody Wants to be Italian,' romantic comedy. 'Together Again for the First Time,' which we shot in Provo, it's a family holiday film. 'Afghanistan,' political thriller."
They are based in California but came home to film inside the VA hospital. Ipson walked the underground corridors in med school.
Jason Ipson/ Writer and Director, "Unrest": "There's nobody down there. You can feel the spirit, you can feel the spirits of the people that are in the hospital. It's a haunted hospital and I say that in a positive way."
Unrest opens on 500 screens nationwide and marks the largest release for Utah independent filmmakers ever.
Unrest, as part of Horror Fest 2006, has screenings at six theater complexes throughout the valley starting today and running through Nov. 21st.
