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Beyond Dream's Door

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Not to be confused with Beyond the Door (1974 film).
Beyond Dream's Door
VHS artwork
Directed byJay Woelfel
Written byJay Woelfel
Produced byDyrk Ashton
Starring
  • Nick Baldasare
  • Rick Kesler
  • Susan Pinsky
  • Norm Singer
CinematographyScott Spears
Edited by
  • Randy Spears
  • Susan Resatka
Music byJay Woelfel
Production
company
Panorama Entertainment
Distributed byVidAmerica
Release date
  • 7 April 1989 (1989-04-07)
Running time
86 minutes (original edit)
80 minutes (director's cut)
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$40,000[1]

Beyond Dream's Door is a 1989 American supernatural horror film written, directed, and scored by Jay Woelfel (in his feature film debut), and starring Nick Baldasare, Rick Kesler, Susan Pinsky, and Norm Singer. The plot follows a college student who desperately tries to unravel the meanings behind his horrific nightmares as they begin to intrude upon reality and endanger those around him. Since its release, the film has garnered a cult following.[2][3][4]

Plot

[edit]

In 1988, Benjamin "Ben" Dobbs is an American college student who has been experiencing a series of increasingly surreal and disturbing nightmares. These dreams consistently feature a number of recurring images and figures: a red balloon, a crazed janitor with hook hands, a non-existent younger brother named Ricky, a sensuous woman who routinely exposes her breasts, and most prominently, a large, fleshy, red monster that resembles a cross between a demon and a werewolf.

Seeking answers, Ben gives a leaflet describing his most recent dream to his psychology teacher, Professor Noxx, and asks him to read it. He then attends a session with Noxx’s assistant, Julie Oxel, who has been running a dream research experiment. She gives Ben a sleeping pill and records him dreaming as part of the study.

That night, Ben receives a phone call from Noxx, asking him to come to his home to discuss the dreams. Noxx reveals that Ben's experiences resemble those of a case from 20 years earlier involving D.F. White—an otherwise ordinary young man who began having vivid, violent nightmares before falling into a coma and dying. Noxx and Ben visit the college library to research the case, where Ben sees a vision of White’s ghost. The ghost warns Ben that “it” will take everyone he turns to for help and "hide them" within his dreams. Moments later, Ben witnesses Noxx being brutally murdered by the monster from his nightmares and flees in terror.

The next day, Ben returns to the library and retrieves the same book he and Noxx had been reading. However, the pages detailing White’s case have mysteriously vanished, as though they never existed. Ben then approaches Eric Baxter, Noxx’s other assistant, and describes a recurring dream location with large, concrete trapdoors. Eric recognizes the place as an old, unused room in the college and takes Ben there. Ben speculates that the monster may have come from beneath the trapdoors.

Later, Eric receives a call from Julie, who informs him that Noxx’s phone number has been disconnected and his name has been erased from the college register. Meanwhile, Ben discovers that Noxx’s entire house has inexplicably disappeared.

That night, after reviewing the tampered recording of Ben’s dream, Eric and Julie head to their respective homes. Eric examines a pair of animal-like teeth he had found earlier in the trapdoor room. While reading a transcript of one of Ben’s dreams, Eric and Ben simultaneously have a vision of Julie in danger. They rush to her house, only to find she has been decapitated.

Unable to return to his own home, Ben takes refuge with Eric. But when they arrive, they find Eric’s house in disarray—Ben’s leaflet shredded and the strange teeth missing. Ben concludes that the monster is trying to eliminate all evidence of its existence and will now target both him and Eric.

Having recovered one of the missing pages about White’s case earlier, Ben devises a plan: he will use the page to lure the monster back beneath the trapdoors, believing this will banish it from reality. That night, he and Eric break into the college and set up a crane mechanism to hold the trapdoors open. During the process, Eric is killed by the monster. In a final effort, Ben uses the page to bait the creature into the pit beneath the trapdoors and then releases the mechanism, slamming them shut -— his fate left unknown.

Cast

[edit]
  • Nick Baldasare as Benjamin Dobbs
  • Rick Kesler as Eric Baxter
  • Susan Pinsky as Julie Oxel
  • Norm Singer as Professor Noxx
  • Daniel White as D.F. White
  • John Dunleavy as The Janitor
  • Darby Vasbinder as Dream Seductress
  • Marge Whitney as Mrs. Oxel
  • Lucas Simpson as Ricky

Production

[edit]

Short Film

[edit]

Beyond Dream's Door originated as a 21-minute shot-on-video short film created by Jay Woelfel in 1983 while he was a student in Ohio State University’s now-defunct Cinema Department.[5] Woelfel drew inspiration from H. P. Lovecraft’s The Shadow Out of Time,[6][7][8][9] but chose not to adapt it directly, believing it was not yet in the public domain.[10] An ex-girlfriend's father once remarked to Woelfel that he didn't dream,[11] which was a catalyst for the concept.

The script was developed around the trapdoor room,[12] which was being used as a storage space on the second floor of the now-demolished Haskett Hall at Ohio State University.[13] The trapdoors were not hinged and had originally been used for structural engineering tests.[14][15][8] The style and tone was intentionally artistic to appeal to Woelfel's instructor.[16][17] After being exposed to "video poetry pieces" in class that used pre-existing poems,[18] Woelfel decided to include a poem written specifically for the film,[19] reasoning that the dream "wouldn't speak like you and me," but rather through poetry.[20][21]

The role of Ben Dobbs was played by Rick Kesler, whom Woelfel had met while working as a crew member on another film.[22] Kesler, in turn, recruited Nick Baldasare—his co-star in a regional stage production of Deathtrap[23]—to play the role of Eric Baxter.[24] [25] The short was entered into a contest at California State University, Fullerton, where it won first place.[5]

Development and Pre-Production

[edit]

Woelfel graduated in 1985,[26] and was seeking a way to break into show business. His friend Scott Spears encouraged him to expand the Beyond Dream's Door script into a feature film.[27] Around that time, A Nightmare on Elm Street had just been released to tremendous success, and the franchise would continue to grow in popularity, proving the commercial viability of horror films centered around dreams.[28][29] The first draft of the script was written in two weeks,[30] and introduced two characters: Julie, who had originally been conceived for the short but was cut before filming, and Professor Noxx, a newly created role.[31] The second draft included additional material to expand the runtime, notably a scene in which Ben speaks with his future self.[32]

He met with a prospective producer who expressed interest in the project,[33] and shortly afterward, Woelfel was invited to attend the Cannes Film Festival, where he screened his short film Distance Between Two Points,[34] which also starred Baldasare.[35][36] While at Cannes, he connected with exploitation filmmakers Lloyd Kaufman and Stephen C. Apostolof, who expressed interest in distributing the feature.[37]

Upon returning home, both the original investor and a second prospective backer withdrew their support.[38] In response, Woelfel began experimenting to see how cheaply he could produce a film on his own,[39] directing three shorts on film: two adaptations of Nathaniel Hawthorne stories, the Emmy-winning[40][41] The Birthmark[42] and Come to Me Softly,[43][44] as well as Guy de Maupassant’s Lui ? (retitled HE![45]). In the summer of 1987, he served as director of photography on the feature-length film Road Meat,[46][47] which ultimately went unreleased, but reinforced his belief that a full-length production could be mounted independently in Ohio,[48] using many of the same collaborators from these projects.

The script for Beyond Dream's Door was finalized in November 1987.[49] Unable to secure funding, Spears enlisted the help of Ohio State film professor Richard Long, who allowed students to work on the film for class credit.[50][51][52][8] This arrangement provided access to campus locations and university-owned film equipment.[53][54][55]

The crew consisted of the film students,[56] and the cast was composed of Woelfel’s friends and local theatre actors from Columbus.[57][52][58] To give his leading men something different to play, Woelfel reversed the roles of Kesler and Baldasare.[52][8][59] Woelfel and his leads had previously worked with Norm Singer,[60][61][62] who was cast as Professor Noxx, janitor John Dunleavey,[63][64] and Marge Whitney,[65][66] who played Julie's mother. For the role of Julie, Baldasare suggested Susan Pinsky, who had impressed him in a local stage production.[25][67] Pinsky was only available for a limited time, as she was scheduled to depart for Los Angeles to begin her doctoral internship.[68][69]

Principal Photography

[edit]

Principal photography began on April 1, 1988,[70] and continued through early July,[71] spanning a total of 38 non-consecutive shooting days.[13] 13 hours of footage was shot, 1600 edits were made to the final cut, and the film was delivered to the distributor in October.[13]

Filming locations included the Ohio State University campus,[72][73] the personal residences of Rick Kesler and Norm Singer,[74][75] sewer tunnels provided by a city crew,[76][77] and a condemned house used without official permission.[78]

Woelfel deliberately chose not to replicate the original short film,[79] and instructed most of the cast to underplay their performances to avoid theatrical overacting—common among local stage actors[80]— though elder cast member Norm Singer was largely left to direct himself.[81]

Production was plagued by a variety of technical and logistical setbacks, though the crew's enthusiasm remained consistently high.[82][83] On the first day of filming, the crew experienced a major camera failure,[84] and several scenes had to be discarded due to light leaks.[85] Among the destroyed footage were scenes of Eric walking to and from Julie's house. Immediately after he wrapped, Rick Kesler shaved his head to portray Daddy Warbucks in a stage production of Annie. Anticipating potential reshoots, Kesler saved several long strands in a plastic bag. When it was later discovered that the walking scenes needed to be reshot, the production team awkwardly glued the saved hair back onto his scalp. Due to the limited amount of hair, the reconstruction was only sufficient for front-facing shots.[86][87]

Additional complications arose throughout production, including practical mishaps,[88] the presence of ticks on location,[89] challenges with the film's special effects,[90][91] and weather-related delays.[82]

The majority of the budget was allocated to film stock and processing,[92][93] leading the filmmakers to focus on maximizing the movie’s visual appeal.[94] To achieve this, they used a homemade camera dolly and crane for dynamic, sweeping shots,[95][96] employed creative low-budget tricks,[97][90] and even isolated the characters[98] and switched out wall art between scenes to subtly unsettle viewers.[99]

While the film was still in production, the crew attempted to generate interest by inviting local press for coverage and placing a listing in Variety under its “New Film Starts” section. The notice attracted attention from two distributors, including Panorama Entertainment, before filming had even concluded.[100]

Post-Production

[edit]

When the completed film was delivered to Panorama Entertainment, they expressed dissatisfaction with the short running time and insisted on the inclusion of nudity.[101][5][13] Woelfel responded by writing new scenes featuring the "Dream Seductress," a manifestation of the film's monster, to bloat the film's length and replace earlier bedroom sequences with the puppet. Though casting proved difficult due to the nudity requirement,[102] five women auditioned,[103] and model/dancer Darby Vasbinder ultimately won the role.[104] Woelfel retained the slate from the final day of reshoots, dated September 1, 1988.[105]

To further extend the runtime, Woelfel inserted his short film Come to Me Softly into the feature.[106][5] This short starred Kesler[44] and appeared in its entirety[107] as a dream sequence after Eric laid down in bed. It was removed from the director's cut and included as a bonus feature on the DVD and Blu-ray releases.

The original sound mix was completed under tight constraints,[108] and Woelfel had just over two days to record the entire score.[109] Although the schedule was limited, he reused themes composed for the original short film and had developed additional material during the shoot.[110][111]

Release

[edit]

The film was first released in the United States on VHS by VidAmerica on April 7, 1989,[4][8] with a retail price of $79.98.[112] Although one of the VidAmerica posters displays an R rating,[113] the film was never submitted to the MPAA for classification, as it was released directly to video.[114] The original VHS cover stated that the movie was not rated.[70] The film’s distributor failed to pay the filmmakers what they were owed, prompting a lawsuit that ultimately awarded them more than they were originally due. [115][116]

In Japan, the movie was released by TCC Video[117] on October 21, 1989,[118] under the English title Beyond the Dream's Door and the Japanese title ヘルビヨンド, which translates to "Hell Beyond."

On December 5, 2006, Cinema Epoch debuted the shorter director's cut on DVD. This edition includes several special features, such as two audio commentary tracks, two of Woelfel's short films (the original 1983 Beyond Dream's Door and Come to Me Softly), an isolated score, deleted scenes, alternate takes, and behind-the-scenes footage.[4][119]

Lo-Fi Video re-released the director's cut on both VHS and DVD, including some of the Cinema Epoch bonus features, and the video debut of the short film At the Door of Darkness.[120]

On April 27, 2021, the independent label Vinegar Syndrome released the 80-minute director’s cut of the film on Blu-ray for the first time, as part of their Home Grown Horrors: Volume 1 box set, which also includes the films Winterbeast (1992) and Fatal Exam (1990).[121] This edition features a 2K restoration that was "painstakingly reconstructed shot by shot from its original, unedited 16mm camera negative."[122][123] However, approximately five minutes of footage were sourced from a master tape due to the loss of several rolls of the original negative.[58] The Vinegar Syndrome release also includes most of the bonus features from the Cinema Epoch DVD, in addition to two new commentary tracks and a newly produced making-of documentary.[124] Several features from the earlier Cinema Epoch release—including a photo gallery, a short-to-feature comparison, behind-the-scenes footage from the making of Heartland of Darkness, and an acceptance speech Woelfel recorded after winning an award for the short film—were not carried over.

The film was originally edited on videotape,[125] which made it unsuitable for theatrical screenings; however, Vinegar Syndrome's restoration produced a Digital Cinema Package that was made available for bookings through the American Genre Film Archive.[126]

Reception

[edit]

As a low-budget, direct-to-video release,[114] the film did not receive widespread critical attention,[127] but the reviews it received were generally positive, with greater acclaim emerging after its blu-ray release.[128]

The most widely circulated review came from Joe Bob Briggs, who awarded the film three stars and called it "one of the strangest movies I've ever seen."[52][129] He added, "I've seen Yvonne De Carlo eating human toes, so this is a very high compliment."[130] Briggs later printed a letter from director Jay Woelfel and joked, "I know you've heard this many times before, but I repeat: It's the finest movie about the Ohio State Psychology Department ever made."[131]

John Thonen of Cinefantastique criticized the film’s story and budgetary limitations but ultimately described it as "impressive," calling it "the most auspicious ultra-low-budget debut since Sam Raimi’s The Evil Dead."[132] The article was published under the headline "Elm Street clone provides for an impressive directing debut," a comparison Thonen later disavowed. According to Woelfel, Thonen contacted him to clarify that the headline was not his and that he did not view the film as derivative of the A Nightmare on Elm Street franchise.[133]

Phantom of the Movies awarded the film 3 1/2 stars, deducting half a star for "the pic's ultimate narrative decline and ultra-cheesy effects," but concluded, "we wouldn't hesitate to recommend [the film] to viewers with a yen for offbeat fright fare."[134]

Writing for DVD Talk, Bill Gibron praised the film as "an experience that's refreshingly smart and weighty." He noted its originality and ambition, writing, "It avoids clichés and formulas to bring the stunningly surreal world of nightmares into painful perspective. As a result, instead of the same old craven crap, we are privileged to see one of the late '80s best independent fright films."[135]

B&S About Movies praised its high concept and sleek appearance, describing it as "slick as hell" and likening it to Phantasm, concluding that the film was "exactly as great as you’d hope."[136]

Mondo Digital noted "a strong Empire Films vibe... with the mixture of novice actors, Lovecraftian monsters, and shaggy plotting," and praised the Vinegar Syndrome release for its visual quality, stating it "looks great and even manages to make the SD inserts relatively painless when they hit."[137]

Mondo Bizarro's Alec Pridgen observed, "If you like a more straightforward story, this won't sell you. If you're willing to go along for the ride, check this one out."[138]

In contrast, Jeremy G. Butler of CHUD was less enthusiastic, describing it as "a student film with a lot of ambition." He added, "I’ve decided that I liked it, but the problem is that it took four viewings and a lot of mental sifting to come to that conclusion, and I don’t think that casual viewers are going to give it that many chances to prove itself."[139]

Legacy

[edit]

After the movie was completed, Woelfel relocated to Los Angeles—just as the video market was collapsing—and struggled to find steady work.[140] Following more than a decade of floundering in Hollywood, he reunited with various cast and crew members to collaborate on the independent films Unseen Evil,[141][142] Ghost Lake,[143][144] Horatio's Hamlet,[145][146][147] Closed for the Season,[148][149][150] and Asylum of Darkness.[151][152]

Both Ghost Lake and Asylum of Darkness were originally conceived as follow-ups to Beyond Dream's Door;[153][154] the latter starred Baldasare and has been described as a "spiritual sequel."[155][156]

Many of the collaborators have remained close over the years, with Kesler officiating Woelfel’s wedding and Baldasare serving as his best man.[157][158]

In 2025, Garch the Great expanded the poem featured in the film into a full-length song and accompanying music video,[159] which was designed to evoke the feeling of a vintage promotional clip.[160] He obtained authorization from Woelfel and several crew members prior to releasing the song on YouTube.[160]

References

[edit]
  1. ^ Beyond Dream's Door (1989) - Director's Commentary Track (audio). Cinema Epoch. 2006. I was told at the time to say that the movie was made for less than a million dollars. It was actually done for less than $100,000. We told them that we made the movie for 60, and it was really made for 40.
  2. ^ "BEYOND DREAM'S DOOR Defunct Drive-In". Retrieved 2025-06-26. Beyond Dream's Door has garnered something of a small cult following.
  3. ^ "Home Grown Horrors: V1 (Beyond Dream's Door / Winterbeast / Fatal Exam) [BluRay]". Retrieved 2025-06-26. Sadly relegated direct-to-video, BEYOND DREAM'S DOOR has earned a sizable cult following.
  4. ^ a b c "BEYOND DREAM'S DOOR | The Bedlam Files". Retrieved 2023-09-10.
  5. ^ a b c d Behind Dream's Door (DVD featurette). Cinema Epoch. 2003. Retrieved 2025-06-12.
  6. ^ Jay Woelfel (2021). Where Horror Lies: The Making of Beyond Dream's Door (motion picture). Vinegar Syndrome. When I started college, I went in to buy books at the student bookstore, and there was a collection of H.P. Lovecraft stories edited by Robert Bloch. I read the last story, The Shadow Out of Time first… There's a lot of influence of Lovecraft in this movie.
  7. ^ Jay Woelfel (2021). Where Horror Lies: The Making of Beyond Dream's Door (motion picture). Vinegar Syndrome. I couldn't adapt any Lovecraft story directly, so I used the idea of Shadow Out of Time, [which] deals with a previous race that's essentially now all subterranean.
  8. ^ a b c d e "MAKING BEYOND DREAM'S DOOR". www.linkedin.com. Retrieved 2023-09-10.
  9. ^ "Beyond Dream's Door Production Notes". Retrieved 2025-06-26. I had just recently become acquainted with H.P. LOVECRAFT, and bought a book called THE BEST OF H.P. LOVECRAFT: BLOODCURDLING TALES OF HORROR AND THE MACABRE. The first story I read was "The Shadow Out Of Time." From these readings, I pulled the basic idea.
  10. ^ Jay Woelfel (2021). Where Horror Lies: The Making of Beyond Dream's Door (motion picture). Vinegar Syndrome. At the time we made this movie, it was my understanding that Lovecraft was not public domain, so we couldn't afford to make The Shadow Out of Time.
  11. ^ Jay Woelfel (2021). Where Horror Lies: The Making of Beyond Dream's Door (motion picture). Vinegar Syndrome. A previous girlfriend of mine's father (who I believed was kind of crazy and subsequent things have proved me correct) had said to me one day, "I don't have dreams." That was a key. Sometimes you make movies based on people who are no longer in your life, but it starts your mind working.
  12. ^ Beyond Dream's Door (1983) - Director's Commentary Track (audio). Cinema Epoch. 2006. We were encouraged in these classes, this particular 3-week production class, to write around a location... a location you could actually get. I was like, 'Hey, let's set it right here in the department and use it as a big weird room.'
  13. ^ a b c d Beyond Dream's Door - Brand New Group Commentary Track (audio). Vinegar Syndrome. 2021.
  14. ^ Beyond Dream's Door (1989) - Director's Commentary Track (audio). Cinema Epoch. 2006. These things aren't really doors. They lift completely off, and you can bring heavy equipment in and out of it. There's no hinges on them in reality.
  15. ^ Scott Spears (2021). Beyond Dream's Door - Brand New Group Commentary Track (audio). Vinegar Syndrome. The building was originally a structural engineering test building. They opened the doors and craned up giant girders or something, and then dropped things on them to test it. So they just needed very big, sturdy-ass doors.
  16. ^ Beyond Dream's Door (1983) - Director's Commentary Track (audio). Cinema Epoch. 2006. You sort of make films for whoever your producers are, and in film school, your producers are professors [who] want you to do something arty -- or at least, they did at Ohio State.
  17. ^ "Beyond Dream's Door Production Notes". Retrieved 2025-06-26. I was not too proud to write to my audience, meaning the instructor, Clay Lowe – so I wrote a very arty and experimental psychological horror script.
  18. ^ Beyond Dream's Door (1989) - Director's Commentary Track (audio). Cinema Epoch. 2006. I was exposed to a number of poetry pieces in school, a lot of video pieces done in the '80s, but I didn't think they worked because the poetry wasn't written for the piece.
  19. ^ Jay Woelfel (2021). Beyond Dream's Door - Brand New Group Commentary Track (audio). Vinegar Syndrome. A few people think that poem's terrible. I wrote it, so that's why.
  20. ^ Jay Woelfel (2021). Beyond Dream's Door - Brand New Group Commentary Track (audio). Vinegar Syndrome. We were shown video poetry pieces, and I didn't think most of them worked, but I wanted the dream to be able to speak, and I didn't think it would speak like you and me, so I thought it would speak in poetry.
  21. ^ Jay Woelfel (2021). Where Horror Lies: The Making of Beyond Dream's Door (motion picture). Vinegar Syndrome. In order to direct something I wrote, I knew I had to get artsy with it, and having a poetry piece was part of making it artsy, but it also made it different.
  22. ^ Jay Woelfel (2006). Beyond Dream's Door (1989) - Cast & Crew Commentary Track (audio). Cinema Epoch. I ran sound on [The Hunger Artist], which Rick was in. I basically thought Rick was the only good actor in the production – well, him and John Dunleavy, who's in this film later, too.
  23. ^ Conroy, Catherine (1983-04-23). "Columbus Scene". Mansfield, Ohio News Journal. 2C.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: location (link)
  24. ^ Jay Woelfel (2021). Where Horror Lies: The Making of Beyond Dream's Door (motion picture). Vinegar Syndrome. Rick, on the original short Beyond Dream's Door, brought me Nick. I believe at the time they were doing a production of Deathtrap together.
  25. ^ a b Nick Baldasare (2006). Beyond Dream's Door (1989) - Cast & Crew Commentary Track (audio). Cinema Epoch. Rick initially met Jay and had worked with Jay on some earlier films, and then Rick introduced me to Jay, and we did the early first version of [Beyond Dream's Door]. And then, subsequently, we brought in a lot of our friends who we knew from local theatre into [the feature film] production.
  26. ^ "Beyond Dream's Door Production Notes". Retrieved 2025-06-26.
  27. ^ Jay Woelfel (2021). Where Horror Lies: The Making of Beyond Dream's Door (motion picture). Vinegar Syndrome. Scott Spears, who was actually the D.P. on the feature, said, "Hey, Beyond Dream's Door, as a short, has a lot of ideas. Why don't you try to expand that into a feature?"
  28. ^ Jay Woelfel (2021). Where Horror Lies: The Making of Beyond Dream's Door (motion picture). Vinegar Syndrome. Before I did the feature, luckily A Nightmare on Elm Street came out, so suddenly nightmares were hot. So when the movie eventually came out in '89, people were like, "Oh, this is based on A Nightmare on Elm Street," and it really wasn't. But that made the idea commercial, because it might have been fringe and weird.
  29. ^ Jay Woelfel (2006). Beyond Dream's Door (1989) - Director's Commentary Track (audio). Cinema Epoch. The short version [was] actually written before A Nightmare on Elm Street was ever made, but by the time we made this movie, that movie had been made, and it was almost a matter of avoiding things that they did. It made the concept much more commercial, 'cause people could hang their hat on a dream/nightmare movie.
  30. ^ "Beyond Dream's Door Production Notes". Retrieved 2025-06-26. I did a rough scene list to expand it to feature length, and then sat down at a typewriter to see if I really could write a feature film in two weeks.
  31. ^ "Beyond Dream's Door Production Notes". Retrieved 2025-06-26. The first thing was to add two characters. Julie, the teaching assistant, had existed in the short version as originally scripted, but the role had been written out before production. A new character, Professor Noxx, was added.
  32. ^ Jay Woelfel (2006). Beyond Dream's Door (1989) - Director's Commentary Track (audio). Cinema Epoch. This scene with Ben Dobbs meeting Ben Dobbs was one of the first things I added. After I did the first draft of the script, it was a little short, so I went back and added Ben talking to Ben.
  33. ^ "Beyond Dream's Door Production Notes". Retrieved 2025-06-26. Enter Bad Guy Number One: he had money behind him to do production ideas of his own. I showed him my script, and it turned out his investors would be interested in something like that. Great.
  34. ^ Jay Woelfel Credits
  35. ^ YouTube – Distance Between Two Points
  36. ^ IMDb: Distance Between Two Points (1986)
  37. ^ Where Horror Lies: The Making of Beyond Dream's Door (motion picture). Vinegar Syndrome. 2021.
  38. ^ "Beyond Dream's Door Production Notes". Retrieved 2025-06-26. I showed the budget to Bad Guy Number Two, and he nodded his head. He promised me that if he wanted to back out of the project, he would let me know immediately; he wouldn't lead me on. Then he proceeded to do just that with polished skill.
  39. ^ Jay Woelfel (2006). Come to Me Softly (1988) - Director's Commentary Track (audio). Cinema Epoch. It was done as an experiment to see how cheaply we could make a movie.
  40. ^ "WOSU-TV 34 receives awards, nominations for local programs". The Delaware Gazette. Pacer Magazine, p. 2. June 1, 1993. "Birthmark," a remake of Nathaniel Hawthorne's short story shot over a 10-day period in Columbus and Wellsville, N.Y., by WOSU-TV staff, has received two regional Emmy nominations.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: location (link)
  41. ^ "JAY WOELFEL: Director, Writer, Composer". Retrieved 2025-06-26. In 1993 he won an OBIE and two EMMY awards for his production of Nathiel Hawthorne's The Birthmark. (The Birthmark has aired nationally on PBS since the award).
  42. ^ The Birthmark (1987) at IMDb
  43. ^ Come to Me Softly (1988) at IMDb
  44. ^ a b YouTube: Come to Me Softly, a short film by Jay Woelfel, from Nathaniel Hawthorne idea
  45. ^ HE! (1988) at IMDb
  46. ^ YouTube: Road Meat (1989)
  47. ^ Road Meat (1988) at IMDb
  48. ^ "Beyond Dream's Door Production Notes". Retrieved 2025-06-26. In the summer of 1987, I worked as director of photography on a feature shot locally called ROAD MEAT. At the date of this writing, the film has not yet been completed. Working on ROAD MEAT made me more confident that we could make a film locally.
  49. ^ "Beyond Dream's Door Production Notes". Retrieved 2025-06-26. I revised my script one more time, polishing up dialogue and clarifying some thins I felt needed more work. It was November 24, 1987, and the script was at ninety-eight pages.
  50. ^ Dyrk Ashton (2021). Where Horror Lies: The Making of Beyond Dream's Door (motion picture). Vinegar Syndrome. I did it as part of my master's program while I was at Ohio State University, and it was the main project I used for my graduation.
  51. ^ Dyrk Ashton (2006). Behind Dream's Door (documentary). Epoch Cinema. We got the film department at Ohio State to give us an independent study so that students could earn credit while working on the project.
  52. ^ a b c d "It Came From the Videostore!!!". www.univdistcol.com. Retrieved 2023-08-31.
  53. ^ Scott Spears (2021). Beyond Dream's Door - Brand New Group Commentary Track (audio). Vinegar Syndrome. Jay and I had been trying to get some kind of feature going, and eventually, I discovered there was an advanced production class offered at OSU, so I went to Rico Long, and said, 'Can we do this movie?' He said yes, so we had access to free equipment and free crew, which saved us a ton of money.
  54. ^ Scott Spears (2006). Behind Dream's Door (documentary). Epoch Cinema. I got back into film school so we could get access to film equipment and free crew, etc.
  55. ^ Scott Spears (2021). Where Horror Lies: The Making of Beyond Dream's Door (motion picture). Vinegar Syndrome. There was a class called 659 Advanced Cinema Production. I went to Richard Long, and I said, "Rico, could we do a feature in this class?" And he said, "Why not?" So we sat around and figured out our plan, formed an S corporation, sold shares, so it was all official, and we raised money and made a feature film – which was crazy talk for Midwest Columbus, Ohio, but we got it made.
  56. ^ Dyrk Ashton (2021). Where Horror Lies: The Making of Beyond Dream's Door (motion picture). Vinegar Syndrome. It was crewed entirely by film students at OSU.
  57. ^ Jay Woelfel (2021). Where Horror Lies: The Making of Beyond Dream's Door (motion picture). Vinegar Syndrome. In Ohio, to get actors, you could use your roommates, which is always a disaster, or there was a lot of theatre going on.
  58. ^ a b "Sleep, Those Little Slices of Death: Beyond Dream's Door". consideringstories. 2021-05-26. Retrieved 2023-09-10.
  59. ^ "Beyond Dream's Door (1989)". Retrieved 2023-09-10.
  60. ^ Nick Baldasare (2006). Beyond Dream's Door (1989) - Cast & Crew Commentary Track (audio). Cinema Epoch. Norm was brought in by Rick or I, because I think we both knew Norm.
  61. ^ Jay Woelfel (2006). Beyond Dream's Door (1989) - Cast & Crew Commentary Track (audio). Cinema Epoch. Rick, you knew Norm and brought him in when we did Room at the Top.
  62. ^ Rick Kesler (2006). Beyond Dream's Door (1989) - Cast & Crew Commentary Track (audio). Cinema Epoch. I knew Norm from community theatre, we've done theatre together – a lot of shows, actually.
  63. ^ Jay Woelfel (2021). Beyond Dream's Door - Brand New Group Commentary Track (audio). Vinegar Syndrome. I met John Dunleavy on a production with Rick, which was this disastrously long shoot. I was not directing this, let me hasten to add.
  64. ^ Rick Kesler (2021). Beyond Dream's Door - Brand New Group Commentary Track (audio). Vinegar Syndrome. I did a lot of acting with John at Ohio State University, and I was so glad he agreed to do this part, because he always brought this otherworld, 'Where am I from?' aura to what he played.
  65. ^ Beyond Dream's Door (1989) - Director's Commentary Track (audio). Cinema Epoch. 2006. I had shot a film called Road Meat, which Nick was in, that has never been released, and Marge Whitney was in that movie. I liked her and brought her back to play the mom.
  66. ^ Nick Baldasare (2021). Beyond Dream's Door - Brand New Group Commentary Track (audio). Vinegar Syndrome. Marge was a local theatre person. I did two films with her. The previous film that I did, Road Meat, she was in that.
  67. ^ Jay Woelfel (2021). Where Horror Lies: The Making of Beyond Dream's Door (motion picture). Vinegar Syndrome. Nick actually brought us Susan Pinsky, a med student, who was about to come out and intern in California. Unlike her usual period, she had enough time to come out and shoot this before she left Ohio for good. She had done theatre and Nick had seen her.
  68. ^ Jay Woelfel (2021). Beyond Dream's Door - Brand New Group Commentary Track (audio). Vinegar Syndrome. She came out to Los Angeles to do the internship part of her med degree. She's a doctor now, Dr. Susan Pinsky. We had to shoot her out by a certain date because she was leaving.
  69. ^ Jay Woelfel (2021). Beyond Dream's Door - Brand New Group Commentary Track (audio). Vinegar Syndrome. She was in Los Angeles by the time we were doing audio work on the movie, and there's a scene where she's on the phone, which was actually recorded in Los Angeles with her over her phone.
  70. ^ a b Jay Woelfel X Tweet
  71. ^ Thonen, John (March 1990). "Beyond Dream's Door: Shooting low-budget horror in Ohio". Cinefantastique. Frederick S. Clarke. [The film] began production on April 1, 1988. The filming continued, irregularly, from April until early July.
  72. ^ "It Came From the Videostore!!! CAMPUS AND UNIVERSITY DISTRICT LOCATIONS SEEN IN THE FILM". www.univdistcol.com. Retrieved 2023-08-31.
  73. ^ Nick Baldasare (2006). Beyond Dream's Door (1989) - Cast & Crew Commentary Track (audio). Cinema Epoch. Most of the movie was shot in or around Ohio State [University].
  74. ^ Jay Woelfel (2006). Beyond Dream's Door (1989) - Director's Commentary Track (audio). Cinema Epoch. This is Norm's own house. Rick Kesler as Eric and Norm as Professor Noxx, I just felt the actors would be more at home in their homes, and [it would] give us some sort of relevant atmosphere and personality.
  75. ^ Rick Kesler (2021). Beyond Dream's Door - Brand New Group Commentary Track (audio). Vinegar Syndrome. I had transformative experiences over and over again in this apartment.
  76. ^ Jay Woelfel (2006). Beyond Dream's Door (1989) - Director's Commentary Track (audio). Cinema Epoch. The associate producer, Sue Resatka, went out with a city crew, and they showed her a number of underground tunnels to pick from. This was a huge, multi-leveled thing, it went down three or four levels.
  77. ^ Nick Baldasare (2021). Where Horror Lies: The Making of Beyond Dream's Door (motion picture). Vinegar Syndrome. Running through the sewers downtown was great fun! Movies give you the opportunity to do things that you normally would not get to do, and see things that you normally would not see, smell things that you normally wouldn't smell.
  78. ^ Jay Woelfel (2021). Beyond Dream's Door - Brand New Group Commentary Track (audio). Vinegar Syndrome. We did not have permission to shoot at this house.
  79. ^ Jay Woelfel (2006). Beyond Dream's Door (1989) - Director's Commentary Track (audio). Cinema Epoch. None of these locations were the same. I didn't want to reuse locations which we'd used in the short. We do revisit a few places, but we use them as different locales in this version.
  80. ^ Jay Woelfel (2006). Beyond Dream's Door (1989) - Director's Commentary Track (audio). Cinema Epoch. I was so concerned about people overacting, because all the films I saw in Columbus were all theatre actors, and they all overacted, so I was always going the other direction, trying to get people to be low-key and underplay. Some complaints about the stiff acting in this movie, I'll take the heat for.
  81. ^ Jay Woelfel (2006). Beyond Dream's Door (1989) - Director's Commentary Track (audio). Cinema Epoch. Norm had done a great job for me in two short films I shot before this, so I sort of left him on his own in this movie, [but] he was much better in the other films. That's kind of his fault and my fault.
  82. ^ a b Dyrk Ashton (2021). Where Horror Lies: The Making of Beyond Dream's Door (motion picture). Vinegar Syndrome. Working on this project [was] a real joy. We had delays, we had problems, we had special effects issues, we had weather issues -- everything that happens with a big feature, let alone a really, really small feature like we were doing – but the people were what made it the most fun.
  83. ^ Nick Baldasare (2021). Where Horror Lies: The Making of Beyond Dream's Door (motion picture). Vinegar Syndrome. It was a real pleasure to work on this set, and a big part of that was Jay.
  84. ^ Jay Woelfel (2006). Beyond Dream's Door (1989) - Director's Commentary Track (audio). Cinema Epoch. This was our first day of shooting. This was a really, really long day. We broke a bunch of cameras. While the DP and most of the other crew was in the other room, trying desperately to get the original camera working, I was in there suddenly shooting my directorial feature an hour into the shoot.
  85. ^ Scott Spears (2021). Where Horror Lies: The Making of Beyond Dream's Door (motion picture). Vinegar Syndrome. The film was shot on film. We shot with an Arri BL, kind of a venerable camera. It was a great little camera. There were some technical issues with it – there was a strange light leak in it that caused some overexposure in a couple of scenes – but otherwise, it was a tank.
  86. ^ Rick Kesler (2021). Beyond Dream's Door - Brand New Group Commentary Track (audio). Vinegar Syndrome. Well, Mr. Kesler was rehearsing the role of Daddy Warbucks in Annie, when he wasn't shooting Beyond Dream's Door, in the spring of 1988. I agreed to have my head shaved to play Warbucks. Our thoughtful director, Jay, made sure that I saved a bunch of my hair, and my sister-in-law was doing the haircut, so she cut off long pieces of hair first, and we kept them in a bag. We kept the hair just for this occasion, in case we needed to do a reshoot. And sun of a gun, it was that one scene, walking to and from the house, that we needed to glue the hair on my head. There wasn't enough hair to cover my head, we just created it for the shot from the front.
  87. ^ "Beyond Dream's Door Production Notes". Retrieved 2025-06-26. By the time we discovered that we'd lost scenes, one of our main actors was bald – he (Rick Kesler) was playing Daddy Warbucks in a production of ANNIE. We had him save his hair in a bag in case of an emergency, which this certainly was. That's right – we glued his hair back onto his head to reshoot footage we couldn't replace in any other way.
  88. ^ Scott Spears (2021). Where Horror Lies: The Making of Beyond Dream's Door (motion picture). Vinegar Syndrome. They were pulling the dolly, and it veered sideways ever so slightly as the shot went. Somebody's literally running, not full speed but pretty quickly, pulling this dolly. They couldn't see. It hit a door frame, and the dolly stopped, like WHAMMO! Well, inertia took place – I did not stop moving, I slid backwards on the dolly, flipped head over heels, but instinctively wrapped my arms around the camera so it would not be hurt. I ricocheted off the ground, and everything's fine, but I did have a very bad bruise on my posterior.
  89. ^ Nick Baldasare (2021). Beyond Dream's Door - Brand New Group Commentary Track (audio). Vinegar Syndrome. This tree was full of ticks.
  90. ^ a b Jay Woelfel (2006). Beyond Dream's Door (1989) - Cast & Crew Commentary Track (audio). Cinema Epoch. We used a fan to blow those book pages. Worked great inside. Later, we tried to do it outside, that proved to be less great.
  91. ^ Jay Woelfel (2006). Beyond Dream's Door (1989) - Director's Commentary Track (audio). Cinema Epoch. This is the baby monster. There are two versions of monsters, and we did reshoot a lot of this footage, slimy and non-slimy.
  92. ^ Dyrk Ashton (2021). Where Horror Lies: The Making of Beyond Dream's Door (motion picture). Vinegar Syndrome. The biggest expense we had was, of course, film, and of course, the more film you shoot, the more film you have to buy, the more you have to pay for processing.
  93. ^ Dyrk Ashton (2021). Where Horror Lies: The Making of Beyond Dream's Door (motion picture). Vinegar Syndrome. I remember every day, it was like, "Can we do another take? Can we afford to do another take?" We did a lot of one, two, three takes. I mean, one and two takes was about all we could handle for our film shooting ratio.
  94. ^ Scott Spears (2006). Behind Dream's Door (documentary). Epoch Cinema. We tried to give it a much better look than what our budget was. We had pennies to spend, so we were trying to create this look of a movie that was costing three or four times the budget.
  95. ^ Scott Spears (2021). Where Horror Lies: The Making of Beyond Dream's Door (motion picture). Vinegar Syndrome. One of my assistants was a guy named Tim Hower, and he built this giant camera crane entirely out of lumber and giant bolts. Some of the cool camera moves that we did were a lot of fun, where we'd swoop in and swoop back.
  96. ^ Jay Woelfel (2006). Beyond Dream's Door (1989) - Cast & Crew Commentary Track (audio). Cinema Epoch. The floor was really smooth, we could do all these dolly things. We tried to dolly our butts off whenever possible to make the budget look bigger.
  97. ^ Jay Woelfel (2006). Beyond Dream's Door (1989) - Cast & Crew Commentary Track (audio). Cinema Epoch. [The flickering light effects were achieved by] different people put on different lights, literally just flapping their arms around in the air.
  98. ^ Jay Woelfel (2021). Beyond Dream's Door - Brand New Group Commentary Track (audio). Vinegar Syndrome. Most of this movie only has as many people as you absolutely need. I remember hearing that one of the guidelines on The Avengers series was that you only saw the people that you needed in the show, so when they're outside, usually it's just empty streets, which gave that show a real eerie feeling. So that's what I was doing in this movie.
  99. ^ Jay Woelfel (2006). Beyond Dream's Door (1989) - Director's Commentary Track (audio). Cinema Epoch. This picture on the back wall is different in each scene. Here's an empty church, in the other scene, it's a boy sleeping.
  100. ^ Jay Woelfel (2021). Where Horror Lies: The Making of Beyond Dream's Door (motion picture). Vinegar Syndrome. We listed the movie in Variety, which had a "film starts" thing. We were underway in production, but we were not done yet. So we had two distributors come to us while we were still shooting, being interested in the movie, just based on that listing.
  101. ^ Dyrk Ashton (2021). Where Horror Lies: The Making of Beyond Dream's Door (motion picture). Vinegar Syndrome. When it was picked up for distribution, they asked for some extra stuff to be put in, so we had to go off and do some more casting and some more shooting.
  102. ^ Beyond Dream's Door (1989) - Director's Commentary Track (audio). Cinema Epoch. 2006. We did a casting call for a naked actress to be in this movie, which in Columbus, Ohio, was rarely done, and which some people said we couldn't do – it wouldn't happen, and no agency in town would help us.
  103. ^ Jay Woelfel (2021). Beyond Dream's Door - Brand New Group Commentary Track (audio). Vinegar Syndrome. We went and did an audition process. 5 people read for the part, but 4 read there. Some people were happy to get naked, but couldn't act their way out of a paper bag, some people acted just fine until they [were nude and] couldn't concentrate on anything.
  104. ^ Jay Woelfel (2021). Beyond Dream's Door - Brand New Group Commentary Track (audio). Vinegar Syndrome. She was listed as a model, so she'd done that aspect of it. She was also a dancer. That was all on her resume. But she was not a theatre person.
  105. ^ Beyond Dream's Door, final production slate
  106. ^ Beyond Dream's Door (1989) - Alternate Versions
  107. ^ Rick Kesler (2003). Behind Dream's Door (DVD featurette). Cinema Epoch. Retrieved 2025-06-12. One of the funniest things about Come to Me Softly is that during various parts of Beyond Dream's Doors life, it appeared as part of the movie. I didn't know that it was going to be there in its entirety the first time I saw a viewing of Beyond Dream's Door.
  108. ^ Dyrk Ashton (2006). Behind Dream's Door (documentary). Epoch Cinema. The post sound is always the thing that gets shortchanged with a fast post-production schedule. In my apartment, my roommate at the time was doing the post sound.
  109. ^ Jay Woelfel (2006). Beyond Dream's Door (1989) - Director's Commentary Track (audio). Cinema Epoch. Our post-production schedule was such that I had to score the movie in what amounted to two days. The first day, I spent about half a day, then I went in at, like, 10 in the morning, and then didn't get up until like 4 the following morning, when I just couldn't play any more without making a mistake. So I came back the next day to finish it up. And then Steve Albany mixed the tracks without me there, in a real professional studio – so I think the sound of the music holds up quite well, despite how old these synthesizers are.
  110. ^ Jay Woelfel (2006). Beyond Dream's Door (1989) - Director's Commentary Track (audio). Cinema Epoch. I came up with these themes for the short version of the movie, and then when we did the long version, I had the general themes worked out.
  111. ^ Jay Woelfel (2021). Beyond Dream's Door - Brand New Group Commentary Track (audio). Vinegar Syndrome. Some of the themes came from the original film, the 20-minute short. The rare times that I was at home during the shoot, I would noodle around on the piano, so after a day's shooting, I might have something in my head, and sit down and mess with it. So I was messing around while we shot.
  112. ^ VidAmerica - Beyond Dream's Door advertisement
  113. ^ Beyond Dream's Door VidAmerica Poster
  114. ^ a b "Beyond Dream's Door Production Notes". Retrieved 2025-06-26. Since the film was released straight to video, some reviews said it was a "video feature" which implies it was shot on videotape. This is not true. We went to extra time, trouble, and expense to shoot it on film.
  115. ^ Jay Woelfel (2021). Where Horror Lies: The Making of Beyond Dream's Door (motion picture). Vinegar Syndrome. The distributor we went with, we ended up suing. They settled out of court years later. We made money for making the movie due to that. They ended up paying us way more than if they had just paid us the way they should have. We could've all made a little money and been happy.
  116. ^ "Beyond Dream's Door Production Notes". Retrieved 2025-06-26. Although Beyond Dream's Door did make money, the now long and mercifully gone Panorama Entertainment decided it was money they should keep for themselves. We did not agree. We sued them. The case was settled out of court in our favor, and we were paid more than what we would have deserved to get if Panorama had followed the terms of their own contract.
  117. ^ Beyond The Dream’s Door VHS Rare Sov Slasher Cult Horror Japanese NTSC
  118. ^ シネマ係長の秘密基地
  119. ^ "DVD REVIEW: BEYOND DREAM'S DOOR | CHUD.com". Retrieved 2023-08-31.
  120. ^ Lo-Fi Video DVD Cover
  121. ^ "Home Grown Horrors: Volume One". Vinegar Syndrome. Retrieved 2023-08-31.
  122. ^ Jay Woelfel (2021). Where Horror Lies: The Making of Beyond Dream's Door (motion picture). Vinegar Syndrome. To do this release, we went back to the original camera negative, and basically the whole movie had to be conformed. I didn't do it, Vinegar Syndrome and Michael Felcher did it. So it was like looking at all these edits again, and checking them back to the way they used to be, making a few fixes, getting rid of dirt and hairs that were in shots which have always been there.
  123. ^ "MAKING BEYOND DREAM'S DOOR". www.linkedin.com. Retrieved 2023-09-10. Beyond Dream's Door was rescanned from its camera negative by Vinegar Syndrome. [They] had to match the new scans to the original video master and then do various dirt and scratch removal, a process that took nearly a year to complete.
  124. ^ Beyond Dream's Door Blu-ray, retrieved 2023-08-31
  125. ^ Dyrk Ashton (2021). Where Horror Lies: The Making of Beyond Dream's Door (motion picture). Vinegar Syndrome. The post was done on video. Video was still up and coming at the time, so we're talking about doing quarter-inch video for the offline editing at that point, and then the mastering later on.
  126. ^ American Genre Film Archive: Beyond Dream's Door
  127. ^ Jay Woelfel (2021). Where Horror Lies: The Making of Beyond Dream's Door (motion picture). Vinegar Syndrome. When we were making it, we couldn't get much [press] coverage because we didn't have a distributor, we were an independent movie. Fangoria Magazine would only take films that had a distribution deal because they had been burned on some other movies they were interested in.
  128. ^ "MAKING BEYOND DREAM'S DOOR". www.linkedin.com. Retrieved 2023-09-10. Upon the release of this new version in April 2021, the film got the best reviews it has ever had from both existing fans who had seen the film on VHS and or DVD, and from people who had never seen it before.
  129. ^ "American Genre Film Archive BEYOND DREAM'S DOOR". www.americangenrefilm.com. Retrieved 2023-08-31.
  130. ^ Joe Bob Briggs review
  131. ^ Joe Bob Goes to the Drive-In: Jay Woelfel letter
  132. ^ Thonen, John (March 1990). "Elm Street clone provides for an impressive directing debut". Cinefantastique. Frederick S. Clarke.
  133. ^ Jay Woelfel (2021). Where Horror Lies: The Making of Beyond Dream's Door (motion picture). Vinegar Syndrome. Cinefantastique wrote a very nice review of it, and the guy who wrote that, John Thonen, who I'd never met, became a really good friend. The headline on the review was "Elm Street Clone makes for impressive debut" or something like that. When it came out, John called me and said, "That was not my title. I don't see the film as being that," and he was all apologetic.
  134. ^ "Phantom Focus". New York Daily News. City Lights, p. 32. 1989-04-16.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: location (link)
  135. ^ "DVD Talk". www.dvdtalk.com. Retrieved 2023-08-31.
  136. ^ "Beyond Dreams Door (1989)". bandsaboutmovies.com. Retrieved 2025-06-26.
  137. ^ "Homegrown Horrors: Volume 1". mondo-digital.com. Retrieved 2025-06-26.
  138. ^ "Shudder Sunday: Beyond Dream's Door". mondobizarrocinema.blogspot.com. Retrieved 2025-06-26.
  139. ^ "DVD REVIEW: BEYOND DREAM'S DOOR". chud.com. Retrieved 2025-06-26.
  140. ^ Jay Woelfel (2021). Where Horror Lies: The Making of Beyond Dream's Door (motion picture). Vinegar Syndrome. By 1990, the horror market and the first video boom was collapsing. When I moved to Los Angeles, people looked at that movie and said, "Man, if you'd have been out here two years ago, you would have got 3-picture deals all over town." I was the last part of the horror boom, and the first part of the video bust. I moved to Los Angeles right when everybody was out of work.
  141. ^ Tubi: Unseen Evil
  142. ^ Unseen Evil (2001) at IMDb
  143. ^ Tubi: Ghost Lake
  144. ^ Ghost Lake (2004) at IMDb
  145. ^ "Horatio's Hamlet Production Notes". Retrieved 2025-06-26. It was created by Nick Baldasare a writer/actor and Columbus Ohio resident. He'd been one of my most trusted actors when I made films in Ohio
  146. ^ HORATIO'S HAMLET (2007) Full Movie Short based on William Shakespeare's Play
  147. ^ Horatio's Hamlet (2007) at IMDb
  148. ^ "Closed for the Season Production Notes". Retrieved 2025-06-26. I'd always wanted to go back to Ohio to do a feature. Could this be the chance?
  149. ^ Tubi: Closed for the Season
  150. ^ Carnival of Fear: Closed for the Season (2010) at IMDb
  151. ^ Tubi: Asylum of Darkness
  152. ^ Asylum of Darkness (2013) at IMDb
  153. ^ "Ghost Lake Production Notes". Retrieved 2025-06-26. This first treatment for this film came about during the last stages of work on my first feature, Beyond Dream's Door. This story is a reaction to that treatment. The principal character in Beyond Dream's Door is an isolated boy/man, the principal character here is a girl/woman. The two stories deal with impending adulthood and the need to deal with childhood demons. The demon in both these cases is really isolation. The characters lack, through their circumstances, the ability to communicate with others. These are both what I'd call existential horror movies.
  154. ^ "Asylum of Darkness Production Notes". Retrieved 2025-06-26. ASYLUM OF DARKNESS originally came about directly from the release of my first feature film, BEYOND DREAM'S DOOR. The sales reps for that film claimed to want to make other films with the team that had made that film. So I embarked on a journey of writing long treatments for film after film for them, I think six at least. One of these was/is ASYLUM OF DARKNESS.
  155. ^ "Letterboxd: Asylum of Darkness (2012)". Retrieved 2025-06-26. [Woelfel] pulled out all the stops for this spiritual sequel to BEYOND DREAM'S DOOR (It even has the same star!), but it got slapped with the lame-ass title ASYLUM OF DARKNESS and given an unrelated cover to capitalize on THE LAST EXORCISM, which led to a mountain of one-star reviews by people disappointed there weren't any sexy crab-walking ladies.
  156. ^ "NDVision EP10: Jay Woelfel". youtube.com. 2023-11-02. Retrieved 2025-06-28. Some people see [Asylum of Darkness] as almost being a spiritual sequel to Beyond Dream's Door. It does have the same lead actor – you could almost say, "Well, this is what happened to that guy." Beyond Dream's Door is not supposed to end this way, but you [can] say, "Well, the guy was just crazy, and he's been in an asylum, and [now] it's 30 years later." People have just kind of connected those dots.
  157. ^ Jay Woelfel (2021). Beyond Dream's Door - Brand New Group Commentary Track (audio). Vinegar Syndrome. Rick married me, and he did sing at my wedding.
  158. ^ "IMDb: Jay Woelfel Biography". Retrieved 2025-06-26. At Woelfel's 2010 wedding, Baldasare was his best man and Kesler officiated the ceremony.
  159. ^ YouTube - Beyond Dream's Door (1989) - Music Video
  160. ^ a b Garch the Great: Beyond Dream's Door (2025) - Trivia
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