Seacoast Native Wins Top Award at Lovecraft Film Festival

[Thanks to Jeff Palmer for sending this info along.]

Jeff Palmer, a Dover, New Hampshire native and filmmaker, has reason to be shocked. His feature-length screenplay "The Sleeping Deep" took Top Honors at this year's H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival, a festival devoted to the works and fans of the late great Gothic horror writer Howard Phillips Lovecraft.

Nearly four years of on-and-off again writing culminated into what has been described as a "nightmare parade" says festival director, Andrew Migliore. "It rose to the top..." of the submissions and garnered the prestigious First Place among stiff competition.

While a total deviation from his 2001 independent mill-town film "On the Fringe" (www.onthefringemovie.com) that was shot in Dover and the seacoast area, Palmer's new script still takes place in New England, but not his hometown or home state.

"Most of the script takes place in Maine. Even though we've been in California for five years now, I still can't get New England out of my blood. I guess I consider the northeast my muse." Palmer confides. "It was home for Lovecraft and it's home for me."

The script, a whopper of a read, is not an adaptation of Lovecraft's works but more of a "nod to one of the masters of macabre" Palmer explains. "I wanted to write something totally different from my last feature, something way, way out there in terms of scope and content."

Part supernatural thriller, part murder mystery, part old-fashioned B-movie fun, "The Sleeping Deep" promises to keep an audience guessing and, with any luck, show up on a producer's radar.

"In no way does this set me up for big Hollywood meetings," Palmer admits. "But it may just open a few doors... doors to an unknown and terrifying land..."

The H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival takes place Oct. 3-5 in Portland, Oregon where Palmer and his wife Rebecca will attend the festivities and mingle with fellow fans of the Lovecraft following.

"I'd be lying if I told you I wasn't shocked. But in a good way." Palmer adds.

More information can be found at http://www.hplfilmfestival.com and http://www.thesleepingdeep.com.