The Beacon Captures Top Prize at Paranoia Fest
Steve Barton
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The first (hopefully) annual Paranoia Film Festival on the illustrious Queen Mary has come and gone, so of course people have been wondering which film won the Best Feature award.
We recently got word from the winner himself, Michael Stokes, that the entry he wrote and directed, The Beacon, took top honors for the weekend. Strange that we haven’t heard much about this film, but that seems about to change thanks to the kudos handed out during Paranoia Fest. The Beacon’s leading lady, Teri Polo (pictured below), was also honored, winning the award for Best Actress.
A bit of plot has been provided by the filmmakers as follows: While trying to get their lives back on track after the loss of their four-year-old son, Bryn (Polo) and Paul Shaw (David Rees Snell) move to the charming old Beacon Apartments. Bryn begins seeing a ghostly little boy skulking around the building. With the help of an eccentric young professor and a tough old beat cop, Bryn tries to uncover the details of the boy’s death. She hopes that freeing the child will allow him to carry a message to her son. Too late she realizes a second malevolent entity stalks the halls of the Beacon: one that doesn’t want the boy to escape.
The film was produced by Sally Helppie’s Sabbatical Pictures, which is fielding several offers for distribution, and co-stars Michael Ironside, Ken Howard, and Elaine Hendrix. Stokes, meanwhile, has two new scripts already being cast in Hollywood, including a bloody vampire tale called Nightfall, which is being prepped by Frank Mancuso, Jr., producer of Species, Stigmata, and numerous other genre projects.
Keep it here for more on The Beacon — and Nightfall (yes, I still get excited about new vampire projects) — as it comes.
– Debi Moore
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