Photo | Johnan Mitchell
The Theater Program is to begin shooting “The Beauregard Bottoms,” a student-written thriller film that follows a college freshman named Cameron and her journey away from her family, following her experience with ghosts in a dorm built atop the grounds of a plantation.
Junior Bri DeClue is the screenplay writer, which is set to air on April 8 and 9.
The student screenwriter gathers inspiration for “The Beauregard Bottoms” from a few sources. Namely the horror film “The Others” and the graphic horror novel “The Letter.” She continues, “I love them both, and I wanted those kinds of vibes.”
The film is primarily female-based, with several female leads. “You don’t see that many female-based horror movies nowadays,” DeClue said. She continues, stating that the women will not act stereotypically to the horror genre in her film. “I wanted characters that you would see in real life, rather than the typical ‘oh it’s a girly girl.’”
The screenplay director is an assistant professor of theater and film Frances Roberson at Tech. The film is Roberson’s area of expertise, and she is excited to direct the first entire-length film in Tech’s history.
“We [The theater department] are approaching performance art in more of a hybrid sort of way, where we are still doing our traditional stage theater, but we’re also experimenting more with the digital side of things,” Roberson said.
Roberson offered DeClue an independent study last semester. Roberson chose DeClue because of her talent and wanted to show her strength as a writer. They went through screenwriting together during the fall semester of 2021.
Most of the film will be student-led, with an original soundtrack and student-created effects. “Something I love about the film is that it does give people in different disciplines the ability to showcase their work and talents,” Roberson said.
Tryouts for the film took place on Jan. 25; the 14 members of “The Beauregard Bottoms” consists of Laken Rudelis, Morgan Stringer, Dr. David Eshelman, Professor Frances Roberson, Juan Olivarez, Codi Crowe, Finch Porterfield, Kyndal Adkinson, Rue Recinos, Sarah Pollock, Dean Cass, Madeline Newman, Tristan Britain, and Tim McCoy.
