FORT KENT, Maine — An indie horror film made by a group of passionate northern Mainers is about to celebrate its 10-year anniversary.
“Quintuplets,” a psychological thriller set in a spooky St. Agatha house, will once again be shown on the big screen at the Fort Kent Cinema at 8 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 4.
The film was written, directed and co-produced by Fort Kent Community High School educator Doug Clapp, who directs the school’s theater program. It was co-produced by Fort Kent resident Chaz Pelletier, who initially pitched the idea of turning a school play into a film.
Pelletier had experience creating videos for the school and community through his work at the town’s non-profit broadcast organization, WFKTV4. He said he’d filmed Clapp’s plays in the past and thought his play “Quintuplets” might work as a film.
Pelletier at first thought it would be a 10- or 20-minute short film, but the first cut of the film ended up being feature length at 110 minutes. Clapp joked that he never remembered Pelletier using the word “short” in his pitch.
They had an 80-page screenplay, but they still needed a location. Clapp and Pelletier contacted Roger Morneault of St. Agatha, who knew a handful of abandoned houses they could use.
They gave Morneault a copy of the screenplay, which he ended up reading in one sitting.
“I was like, ‘Dude, I got three houses for you,’” Morneault said. “‘But when I show you the first one, you’re not even going to want to look at the other two.’”
The house, located on Flat Mountain Road, is owned by a friend of Morneault’s who moved out of town about a decade prior to shooting. And just as Morneault predicted, they immediately settled on the location.
The final cast included former students, family members, and a few others from further out in Portland and New Hampshire. The non-local actors and their families all took vacation time to participate, which tightened the shooting schedule. Clapp’s nephew, who works in Massachusetts filming sports and news, lent Clapp two professional-grade Blackmagic cameras. This gave the crew a tight shooting window of three weeks in July of 2015.
Actors stayed up late every night, many of them balancing work and school, to ensure the film was shot.
“They were working day jobs, coming up here at 7 o’clock and working until 3 or 4 in the morning,” Clapp said. “And on the last night of shooting, we went until the sun came up.”
The film’s cast includes five quintuplet children and five young adults on their way to a concert. The concert-goers end up getting trapped at the St. Agatha house after a tree falls on their car. Clapp’s son, Nicholas Clapp, plays “Eli Baskin,” one of the five adults trapped in the house.
“He was a psychologist, and he was very inquisitive and curious,” Nicholas Clapp said of his character.
Nicholas said he’s always loved working with his father and that they’ve worked on school plays in the past. During filming, he recalled working all day and then coming to the set and acting all night, but added that it was worth it.
“I had a blast,” he said. “It was a good time for sure.”
Clapp’s daughter-in-law, Kelsey Clapp, who was then credited as Kelsey Dubois, plays Allison, another one of the five teens. She described her character as the fifth wheel of the friend group, with an independent and sassy attitude.
“I was happy to be a part of it,” she said. “Even though the schedule was demanding and tiring, we were all in it together, and that was my favorite part. We were definitely close-knit for those three weeks; it felt like we were a true cast and crew.”
Lea Freeman played Hannah, one of the five quintuplets. Like the other idiosyncratic quintuplets, her character had one heightened sense. Her performance involved tilting her head and a lot of close listening.
“I would follow the action with my ears,” Freeman said. “I had to make sure to be unfocused, or not looking at anything that was happening around me.”
Because nearly every aspect of the film was the result of people volunteering their time and resources, its final budget was under $10,000. Clapp said they were not able to get it screened at any local film festivals, so they instead opted for self-promotion. It played first to a nearly sold-out crowd at the Fort Kent Cinema, known then as the Century Theater, in 2016. Actors signed posters at the door, and several T-shirts were sold.
A couple of years later, Frenchville native Justin Taggett, who has spent time working on film productions in Los Angeles, created a 90-minute edit of the film with improved color grading. This new edit was also screened in Fort Kent and later printed to DVD. Clapp distributed them at various locations across Maine such as Bull Moose. Hundreds of copies have since been sold.
Everyone involved is proud of their work and excited to show the film once again in early November.
“It’s the perfect spooky time of year to come check out a flick like this,” Nicholas Clapp said, “especially if you’re into indie films.”
Freeman said the film is the culmination of a lot of talented people in northern Maine.
“If you want to see all of that talent come together and what people from this area can do, this is a perfect demonstration of that,” Freeman said.
