Horror and Thriller Movies in Illinois

This week I started researching horror and thriller films set in Illinois and directed by Illinois filmmakers for our 2017 Embarras Valley Film Festival. This festival showcases filmmakers and folks in the film business from Central and Southern Illinois primarily. And our 2017 theme is thriller/horror films that will be shown the weekend before Halloween.

We co-sponsored Stay the Sweet by Quincy Joyner several years ago, so I knew we could begin with that one. But I know other local filmmakers have directed independent horror films, some of them set at the Ashmore Estates pictured above. Michael Savinsky directed Rag Doll back in 2011, for example, with one of my film students, Tyson Kroening, assisting and acting as a corpse. 

I plan to explore more thrillers and horror films set in Illinois. For now, though, I have a short list of Illinois directors of more professional horror and thriller films:

Manny Velazquez, Savage High (2015)/I Recorded a Murder! (2016)
David Ayer, Suicide Squad (2016)
John Carl Butler?
William Friedken, The Exorcist. Bug. Killer Joe
Reginald Hudlin, Marshall, Django Unchained
Mark Romanek, Never Let Me Go
Lee Sholem, The Doomsday Machine
 Robert Zemeckis, Monster House, Death Becomes Her
 Edward Zwick, Jack Reacher: Never Go Back
Gregg Toland (cinematographer)/William Wyler (director), Dead End?