KC’s Horrible Premiere

Oh the horror. A horrendous fire literally baking a father and son. Blood dripping down from trees and over rocks. A weird clicking noise and then people disappear. A giant prehistoric spider stalking its human prey.

Woah. Wait a sec. Not talking about scenes from the glamorous red carpet treatment or the spider chic outfits or paparazzi buzzing around Midland Theater on Tuesday, September 8 for the premiere of a movie shot in Kansas City featuring Kansas Citian celebrity, Rob Riggle. 

The horror was up there big, really big, and loud, really loud, premiering on Midland’s 40-foot silver screen—the movie “Don’t Move.”

It’s a gruesome relentless creature feature where a giant spider finds a group of campers and tracks them down through the vibrations they make and then… well, no spoilers here, horror seekers. You have to see the movie for yourself when it goes national—on over 500 screens nationwide—September 11.

Here we are again, Kansas Citians. Another Hollywood movie premiere (remember the “Boris is Dead” premiere June 28?) of a film shot in and around Kansas City, much of it in Minor Park in south KC. It’s something that has become less of a novelty and more of a payoff for the city’s thriving film production industry.

True to this genre, you’ll see sneaky monster attacks. Uncomfortably funny moments. Consumed humans. An unlikely hero winning the day. But does the monster really die? Hmm…

The movie’s unsettling premise: What if evolution had somehow skipped over a certain area of the country and creatures had continued to evolve as they had millions of years ago?

“Don’t Move” is the first movie by James Murray, writer of nine published horror novels who is also the creator of the TV series “Impractical Jokers” now in its 16^th year. Murray has appeared in 324 episodes of that series. 

The screenplay for “Don’t Move” is adapted from one of his books he wrote six years ago. “I have loved horror just as much as comedy my entire life,” Murray told KCM. “The hope was always that eventually one of the books would become a movie.” The movie is actually better than the book, he says. “It’s not creepy crawley, it’s just a great action horror comedy that asks how would you outthink the creature.”

Riggle, a Shawnee Mission South and KU grad doing his first horror film, brought a bit of humor to the movie during his short screen time. “I had to trust a fellow comedian,” he told KCM. “My character has goofball tendencies and I like playing those kinds of characters. And I got to show off Kansas City.”

The movie was completely shot in just 17 days, an amazing feat for a feature film. “It was absolutely so daunting,” director and co-writer Maclain Nelson told KCM. “We really were so aspirational with this, and we tried for the moon.”

“Don’t Move” is a great date night horror movie, Murray says. “It’s got a lot of comedy levity and a lot of heart to it. So I think it’s kind of a layered movie that works on multiple levels. You’ll laugh, you’ll scream, you’ll feel tear-eyed at points too. And I love movies where people make smart decisions, and sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t. That’s what life is like, right?”

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