‘Dark Harvest’ Begins Filming, Dustin Ceithamer is Sawtooth!
MGM’s feature film adaptation of Norman Partridge’s Halloween horror novel Dark Harvest begins filming in Canada this month, and we have learned that Dustin Ceithamer has joined the cast as (the soon to be iconic) Sawtooth.
Ceithamer confirmed his casting on an Instagram post, stating, “SOOOO- I’m heading to Canada in a few days to shoot a feature film with MGM!! (living my best Mickey Rooney / Judy Garland life!) Bringing this iconic character to life is gonna be IT folks! Thank you @mgmstudios and @david_a_slade for this sinister opportunity. @emyricrutchfield @justcaseylikes Let’s do this!! #darkharvest #mgm #sawtooth #hacksawjack #octoberboy”
He was mostly recently seen on screen as the Smiling Man in The New Mutants.
We’ve also learned that special effects makeup artist Vincent Van Dyke, who worked on both Halloween 2018 and Halloween Kills, is serving as prosthetic creature effects designer for the film(!).
As previously reported, Casey Likes (The Birch) and E’myri Crutchfield (Fargo) star in the film, which has been in development at MGM for years, and right after we reported it would film in Canada this summer, it was announced last week that Amazon is buying MGM for $8.45 billion. Now it looks like Dark Harvest will be one of the first productions from the new Amazon-owned MGM.
Likes and Ceithamer have made posts on social media indicating that they arrived on set this week. Shooting is scheduled to begin on August 30 and run through October 21.
David Slade (30 Days of Night, Black Mirror: Bandersnatch) will direct the movie adaptation of Norman Partridge’s 2006 novel from a script by Michael Gilio, who co-wrote Paramount’s forthcoming Dungeons & Dragons film. Matt Tolmach and David Manpearl are producers through Matt Tolmach Productions, which is currently hot off the success of the last two Jumanji movies and Venom, which combined have grossed over $2.6 billion.
The book is set during Halloween of 1963 in a small Midwestern town where teenage boys eagerly square off with the butcher knife wielding October Boy, aka Ol’ Hacksaw Face aka Sawtooth Jack. Both the hunter and the hunted, the October Boy is the prize in an annual rite of life and death. One teen, Pete McCormick, knows that killing the October Boy is his one chance to escape a dead-end future in the one-horse town. But before the night is over, Pete will look into the saw-toothed face of horror – and discover the terrifying true secret of the October Boy.
The film’s official synopsis: Every fall in a small Midwestern town, a supernatural specter rises from the cornfields and makes its way toward the town’s Church, where violent gangs of teenage boys hungrily await their chance to confront the legendary nightmare in an annual harvest rite of life and death. Richie Shepard lives in the shadow of his big brother who won last year’s Run and earned his ticket out of town. To prove himself and join his brother, Richie pairs up with Kelly Haines, a restless dreamer who will do whatever it takes to escape this dead-end town. Against the rules and the odds, Richie and Kelly decide to hunt down the legendary nightmare to win the Run and their freedom, together.
Dark Harvest is scheduled to arrive in theaters on September 9, 2022, through MGM’s joint distribution company, United Artists Releasing.
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