Step aside Spike Lee and Quentin Tarantino. There are some new kids in the world of movie making.

Chris Bennett, Anders Runestad, and Jesse Howard have been making movies as a hobby for the past five years using only a camcorder and their friends for the productions.

“We started making movies in high school,” Runestad, a graduate student in English, said.

“A lot of our youth was wasted renting bad horror movies,” Bennett, a senior in political science, added.

After watching several horror movies, using such film greats as Ed Wood, William Bodine, and movies Night of the Leapest and Silent Night, Deadly Night as inspiration, the three decided to write a script and make a horror film parody.

“We watched every horror movie and we wanted to do something as cool as these,” Howard, a sophomore in elementary education, said.

They decided to form their own production studio called Chessedick Productions and went to work on their first film, Staying Alive: The Spurting.

The plot revolves around the son of a circus clown who gets his body taken over by a possessed hat. The hat then forces him to go on a killing spree.

“Basically, the scenes where people get whacked, they are sort of like parodies of things you have seen in other horror movies,” Runestad said.

Such killing sprees include a person getting killed by strangulation by a video game cord and another killed by a turkey baster shoved though their head.

The idea for the movie came from the ’70s movie Staying Alive with John Travolta Bennett said.

“We thought that Staying Alive would be a good title for a horror movie because in horror movies, that’s what people try to do,” Bennett said.

They even used the opening theme song from the movie for their production.

“We all thought disco was cool before it was cool to like disco,” Runestad said.

Using a cast of about six people, the filming of the movie began. They used all their friends and themselves for the acting and took turns running the camera.

“We will try to use every friend, acquaintances, girlfriend, anyone we know,” Runestad said.

“Experience shows, the smaller the group of people the better. Even if we have to double up on parts,” Bennett said

While in high school, several obstacles developed and production had to be stopped. It wasn’t until this year that production was started again.

“We were in a creative block,” Howard said.

According to Runestad and Bennett, the process for creating their movie was easy. They used just a camcorder that they borrowed from the university. Production costs were low since they made the movies for fun.

“It’s cheap…the only cost is blank tapes,” Runestad said.

They even use some of the university equipment to do their editing.

“Editing is done here at the university,” Runestad said.

For special effects, the group used cheesy stunts like tying a fishing line to a hat to show it flying, having the actor walk in slow motion to get the effect of slow motion, and using ketchup for blood.

“We’re more stunts than special effects. We would rather do it than fake it,” Bennett said.

“We had to kill off some people, because that is the Chessedick way,” Runestad replied.

Cheesdick Production even dubbed in their own music with the use of a CD player. They used everything from classical music to disco to Bush.

Since they use pre-recorded music for their films, they can’t receive a profit for their movies. They have since decided to create their own musical scores for future movies.

They are currently producing another movie entitled “Games” about a game of Risk that gets out of hand and a television show called “In Your Face” that tackles political and social issues as well as sports. The show was described as “275 percent testosterone.”

Bennett stress the fact that they make films just for fun.

“If you’re not willing to make a fool of yourself, you’re not really right for us,” Bennett said.

Runestad said that if your interested in making movies yourself to go for it and have some sort of story idea and a loose outline.

Also have some friends that are willing to act in it. Howard said that they are willing to use other extras.

“If you’re bored, you can give us a call,” he said. “If we’re taping that day, we’ll kill you off.”