Five Horrific Questions for Rocky Karlage of ‘The Ghost Walk Saga’

Title card for Rocky Karlage's horror film, 'The Farm'

‘Tis the season for monsters and mayhem, and the Midwest is no stranger to horror movies or horror filmmakers. George Romero, Wes Craven and Sam Raimi all call the Midwest home.

To celebrate all those things that go bump in the night, we’ve reached out to more than a dozen filmmakers who are either from the Midwest or shot their scary movie here. We asked each filmmaker the same five horrific questions. Just the thing to get you in the mood.

First up is Rocky Karlage, writer and producer of The Ghost Walk Saga. Born and raised in Amelia, Ohio, Karlage had no intention of becoming a filmmaker.

“I created a story sequence named The Ghost Walk Saga, which I planned to be a photo book with local model and my future partner at Ghost Walk Studios, Victoria Vardon,” explains Karlage. “I hoped the story would catch the imagination of a filmmaker.”

After meeting Steve Olander and striking up a friendship with the director, Karlage attended a film seminar and soon found himself producing the first film in the series, Ghost Walk: The Farm, which is loosely based on Karlage’s my own paranormal experiences. Karlage is in the midst of production on the second film in the series, Ghost Walk: The Dawson War.

Horrific Question No. 1: What’s makes a horror movie scary?

Karlage: Finding the unexpected or something disturbing infringing upon real life - or both.

Horrific Question No. 2: What’s the scariest movie you ever saw?

Karlage: The Shining

Horrific Question No. 3: Who is your horror inspiration?

Karlage: Dean Koontz

Horrific Question No. 4: Why do we like to be scared?

Karlage: We can experience something exciting and dangerous at the same time, but have the assurance in a movie that it is not real.

Horrific Question No. 5: What movie would you like to turn into a horror movie? And how would you do it?

Karlage: Tough question, because I'm already tired of seeing some of the classics turned into zombie stories. I think it would be fun to turn The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly into a horror film. I would write it as a showdown of different types of monsters. Then recruit fun and excellent actors.

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