Rochester Local Films “Fear No Evil” In North Country Locations The Fall of 1979

In its 120+ years in various states of construction and ruin, Boldt Castle‘s only sojourn into motion pictures has been 1981’s Fear No Evil, a horror film written and directed by Rochester’s Frank LaLoggia. LaLoggia, an upstart 25-year-old who had won several short film awards, would make his feature debut with the low-budget chiller. Like many low-to-no-budget films in its genre, the story was conceived not from an idea but rather from a location.

Charles LaLoggia, Frank’s cousin and a local stock-market analyst, traveled to the 1000 Islands in 1978 and found the decrepit, unfinished Boldt Castle, which had just been conveyed to the Thousand Island Bridge Authority a year before, the perfect place to film a horror movie. Loosely based on the Book of Revelation, the production would turn Heart Island and all its romanticism inside out with a tale of archangels, the antichrist, and the rise of the dead—complete with zombie makeup made from painted cornflakes.

Initially titled “Antichrist” and then “Mark of the Beast,” Fear No Evil was filmed mostly in the Rochester area with Hollywood actors and film crew, including—believe it or not—effects people who worked on Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back and Star Trek films. Locals would play extras in Rochester scenes, mostly shot in Webster and Spry Middle School, and scenes filmed in Northern New York, including around Clayton, Heart Island, and Depauville, where the exterior church scenes were filmed at the United Methodist Church. Because the film was self-financed without a distributor yet attached, the sentiment on set amongst the cast was often cited as “Fear No Pay.”

In a September 18, 1979 article, “Movie Demon, Ghosts Set To Possess Boldt Castle,” the Watertown Daily Times reported—

“We were so impressed with it, we wrote the story around the castle,” Charles LaLoggia said.

Frank LaLoggia’s imagination soared at the sight of the castle shell located off Alexandria Bay. Creative juices flowing, he returned home to write the entire film.

With a cast from Hollywood and some upstate talent, LaLoggia Productions began filming three weeks ago in Rochester. Now the crew is ready to film its Thousand Islands scenes.

For the next four weeks, demons will be stalking local churches and cemeteries and the corridors and caverns of Boldt Castle.

Don’t be alarmed at an occasional shriek in the night.

While it’s no spoiler alert to say that Fear No Evil isn’t a particularly good film, it does have a sense of atmosphere, much of it due to Boldt Castle and its shamble-state as of 1979. Broken windows, crumbling stones, and an overgrown island flora are captured on film, giving viewers a sense of time and place much drearier than today’s much touted tourist attraction.

And, of course, filming on an island during a North Country fall and its unpredictable weather proved to be a horror unto itself. As The Times reported in “Boldt Castle Comes ‘Alive’ As Horror Film Raises Dead,” in its October 19th edition—

The setting is perfect for a horror flick, film creative consultant Raul DaSilva said. But the island proves to come with some drawbacks.

Set call is 5:30 p.m., and crew and cast work through the cool night hours. People, props and equipment must all be shuttled to the island by houseboat, barge and runabouts.

Meals are shuttled from Anzalone’s Scenic Inn. Dinner at 11, with a soup break later on.

It has rained, snowed, hailed making the short boat trip to the village close to impossible at times.

One of the most difficult hardships to face is the cold. Hollywood actors not accustomed to North County autumns have added long underwear and wool socks to their wardrobe. When not working, they may be found clutching a cup of coffee in the castle’s dining room heated by gas stoves, or in houseboats moored at the front dock.

It’s not too often that houseboats just off-set are used for wardrobe changes and make-up. Yet, anything will do when making your first feature film that also happens to be low-budget. The cold and wet weather had the crew looking forward to shooting in Watertown, where it was rumored a scene was to be filmed “at a large apartment house in the Clinton and Mullin Streets area.” One might suspect the Emma Flower Taylor Mansion, but no credit was ever given, nor was the scene later reported or discerned from the final cut.

By the beginning of December, post-production work had begun in New York City, hoping to finish a rough film cut within six weeks. The Watertown Daily Times reported on December 1—

Armed with a rough cut, Mr. LaLoggia is counting on acquiring a distribution company so he can spend more money on the final print. 

Mr. LaLoggia already turned down one distribution offer that eliminated him from working on preliminary editing. “Frank wants control of his film through final production,” Miss (Katherine) Gibney (of LaLoggia Productions.) 

In April 1980, the production company hoped to negotiate a contract with a distributor, allowing LaLoggia to oversee final editing financed by the company. According to The Times, this would anticipate three months of work incorporating optical effects, soundtracks, and a movie score written by LaLoggia. The film was still known under its working title, “Mark of the Beast,” but that was about to change.

Come mid-year, Fear No Evil was the new title with an anticipated completion date of October. This allowed it to be viewed at the Milan Film Festival with foreign distribution before being released nationally the following May by Avco-Embassy Pictures. Avco-Embassy also released John Carpenter’s follow-up to Halloween, The Fog, and other classics such as The Graduate and Watership Down. The Laloggias hoped to have the nationwide premier in Rochester. 

Released to several markets in early 1981, Fear No Evil, estimated to cost $850,000 – $900,000 to complete, was said to be “doing well” at the box office despite mixed reviews (edit: Frank LaLoggia says $840,000 to make, and it grossed $8,000,000.) It reached the sixth spot on Variety’s national gross sales chart for the week ending Feb. 11. The North Country would have to wait a little longer to see it, but not as long as initially anticipated, with an initial release date of May 22.

Instead, it debuted the second week of April, before the start of the summer box office season in May. As The Times reported in their April 9 article, “Chiller Filmed At Boldt Castle Opens Friday,”—

Members of the Hollywood film industry were very impressed with the settings used in “Fear No Evil,” Mr. (Charles) LaLoggia Sad.

“We were asked, ‘Where did you find that castle and island?’,” he said.

“We couldn’t have done it without the help of the Thousand Islands Bridge Authority,” Mr. LaLoggia said, giving special thanks to Russell Wilcox, TIBA executive secretary; Vincent Dee, owner of McCormick’s Restaurant, Clayton, and Town of Clayton Supervisor Gordon Cerow.

“These people didn’t have to say ‘yes,’ but they trusted us. We really appreciate everything people up there did for us.

“We hope they are proud of it (the film),” Mr. LaLoggia said.

Below: The official Fear No Evil Trailer from The Matinee Project’s YouTube channel.

A premier party was held at Studio 1 on Factory Street in Watertown, while an estimated 400 moviegoers attended the first two showings at Interstate’s Watertown Cinema Centre at Stateway Plaza. There, The Times reported—

Enthusiastic shouts of “Weedo!” and “Spider!” for local “actors” Steven Weed and Keith W. Smith Jr. reverberated in Cinema II as moviegoers spotted the Watertown men among the “army of the living dead” emerging from the depths of Boldt Castle and Heart Island. 

The feature editor of the newspaper, however, didn’t care about it, stating the movie “lacked identity,” urging moviegoers to see the Star Wars re-release instead. Siskel & Ebert gave it two thumbs down, calling it a “mishmash.” After grossing $3 million at the box office, Fear No Evil debuted on cable’s Showtime in December 1981.

Frank LaLoggia’s next feature came in 1988 with Lady in White. Based partly on Rochester’s story of a woman who searches for her lost daughter in Durand-Eastman Park and combined with ghost story, mystery, and serial killer elements, the movie, starring a young Lukas Haas, was better received by critics and has a cult status despite earning less than Fear No Evil.

Lady in White was filmed at Hancock Airport in Syracuse (its opening scene), with the town of Lyons, about 30 miles east of Rochester, as the setting for the film’s fictional Willowpoint Falls. Unlike Fear No Evil, Roger Ebert gave it a thumbs up and ⭐️⭐️⭐️, stating it “tells a classic ghost story in such an everyday way that the ghost is almost believable, and the story is actually scarier than it might have been with a more gruesome approach.”

Below: the official trailer for Lady in White from ScreamfactoryTV’s YouTube channel.

As for the legacy of the two films, they’ve both earned a mixture of praise and criticism for the ambitious LaLoggia, who, aside from writing, directing, and producing, managed to score both. He’s directed one feature film since: 1995’s Mother. Whether one likes his movies or not, to quote The Daily Times, “When all is said and done . . . we don’t know about you, but a trip to Boldt Castle will never be quite the same.”