Sanford native brings horror movie production to hometown
By Trevor Sochocki, James Paxson
Click here for updates on this story
SANFORD, Michigan (WNEM) — A mid-Michigan actor moved back home during the pandemic to continue following his dreams to create an apocalyptic film of his own.
Last spring after dams failed causing historic flooding in his hometown, the filmmaker thought the new landscapes could be a perfect setting for his film.
The script for the zombie movie “Followers” had been bouncing around Chris Krause’s head for years.
“I just wanted to start exploring this feeling of when you no longer feel you know the people you love. You know, when there’s friends and family and you realize they’re willing to support certain things that you just can’t support,” Krause said.
The Sanford native was an actor in New York.
“This career is already very unstable, and you know, it’s tough, it is really really hard and all of the sudden it shut down in a way that you’re like, when is this coming back, when is this going to happen,” Krause said.
Krause came back home, finalized the admittedly low budget script, and got his friend to agree to direct it. He said the horror film works with the current racial tensions in the country and twists some of the common zombie tropes.
“And of course, you know unfortunately Sanford provides a good backdrop for something that looks like it’s a post-apocalyptic world so we’re going to be filming around there. And you know I kind of want to just jump on too and use it as a way to bring awareness to what happened to the town,” Krause said.
Krause is currently casting the film and still working on funding. After trying to push it through middlemen, he’s proud to bet on himself.
“It’s kind of every artist’s dream really if you can, if you can get do your art, if you can get to tell some stories and it also has the benefit of maybe actually helping people in real life beyond just telling them a cool story that makes them think, then that’d be awesome,” Krause said.
Please note: This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform.
