March 7, 2008 Dante Tomaselli is one of ESplatter's favorite low-budget American horror filmmakers. He's known for making movies that do not compromise. His film "Desecration" is something of an indie horror classic. The latest news is that he's placed his next film, "The Ocean", on hold for financing reasons and is directing "Torture Chamber."

“I’ve shot some of THE OCEAN—a lot of the water sequences—and I’m pleased with what I have so far,” Tomaselli told Fangoria, “but since Feverpitch Pictures wasn’t able to raise all the money, I have to take a break until all the financing falls into place. I know the rest of the film will get made, but in the meantime, I have to direct—I have to continue to work. So Jack Swain, the executive producer of [his first two features] DESECRATION and HORROR, will finance TORTURE CHAMBER with a budget around the same range as those early films. It’s an old-school frightfest devoted to really scaring the audience.”

"Torture Chamber" will be in the vein of "Halloween," "House of Whipcord" and "Friday the 13th". “In terms of outright fear, I want to push the envelope right off the table. The film is set in a small New England town where the residents are disappearing. Abducted and drugged, the victims wake up to find themselves in an underground prison—a medieval torture chamber. It is here, in this remote abandoned castle, within these walls, that they learn who their kidnappers really are: children. Escaped from a youth detention center, these boys and girls are sadistically violent, capable of cruelty beyond comprehension. In DESECRATION, HORROR and SATAN’S PLAYGROUND, the stalking evil was the adult, the parent. It’s the polar opposite here. With TORTURE CHAMBER, I can draw upon the Gothic imagery of crumbling-castle horror movies while really going for the jugular with the scares. This will be my first hardcore horror film.”


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