"Lovecraft's Pillow"
Faculty film to screen at Cannes
A short horror film directed by Mark Steensland, a member of the media production faculty at Penn State Erie, The Behrend College, will be shown at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, the prestigious ten-day European film showcase held each May in the south of France.
The plot of "Lovecraft’s Pillow" was conceived by Steensland at the suggestion of horror icon Stephen King. “In the introduction to French writer Michel Houellebecq’s book H. P. Lovecraft: Against the World, Against Life, King relates how he once thought of a story about a writer who finds Lovecraft’s pillow in a pawn shop,” Steensland said. “He was so scared, he never finished it. Instead, he offers the idea to any writer who would dare try. So I did.”
Steensland shot "Lovecraft’s Pillow" last summer from a screenplay written by veteran horror author Rick Hautala. In Steensland’s and Hautala’s interpretation, a would-be writer desperate for inspiration (Shannon Solo) trades his laptop computer for the pillow over the objections of his shrewish wife (Christine Mangone). The pillow unleashes an unanticipated terror, which, in the story’s final twist, turns out to be the inspiration he needs to finally get published.
Steensland was able to shoot the movie near his Erie home using digital cameras and local talent. Solo is a radio and television host; Mangone is a member of the Penn State Erie theatre faculty. Also in the cast are local actor Scott Frisina, who plays the owner of the pawn shop, and musician Greg Ropp, who is cast as a doctor.
Ropp also is president and director of the Eerie Horror Film Festival held in Erie each October; Steensland is vice president.
"Lovecraft’s Pillow" debuted last September at FantasyCon XXX in Nottingham, England, and has since been shown at the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival in Portland, Ore.; the Stephen King Short Films Festival in Buenos Aries, Argentina; the World Horror Convention in Toronto, Ontario; A Night of Horror in Sydney, Australia; and, after Cannes, will screen at festivals in Belgium and Spain.
Because of its prestige and location, the Cannes Short Film Corner is a particularly important screening. “Unlike in the United States, there is a robust commercial market for short films abroad,” Steensland said. “It’s not unusual to go to a movie in Europe and watch forty-five minutes of shorts before the feature, or to see short films and documentaries on television. Buyers come to Cannes with their checkbooks.”
A native of California, Steensland joined the faculty of Penn State Erie’s School of Humanities and Social Sciences in 2005 to teach introductory and advanced audio and video production, mass communication and telecommunication theory and technology, media effects, cinema art, and screenwriting. He holds an M.F.A. in screenwriting from Chapman University, and has directed two feature films, the crime drama "The Last Way Out" and the documentary "The Gospel According to Philip K. Dick."
Steensland has already started shooting his next project, a short-film adaptation of the Josh Howard graphic novel Dead@17. “By continuing to work in the field as I teach, I stay current. This is a big advantage for my Behrend students, because I’m actually doing what I’m teaching.”