This Columbus family’s Dead End Drive-In is an unusual trick-or-treating spot. Here’s why
You can go trick-or-treating, watch horror-comedy movies produced by local folks and donate to a cancer charity all at the same location in Columbus on Halloween.
Megan and Andrew Gray invite the public to gather Oct. 31, from 7:30-9:30 p.m., at their house, 5926 Wiltshire Drive, in the Windsor Park subdivision for their third annual Dead End Drive-In.
Admission is free. So are the popcorn, potato chips and candy.
On a 35-foot inflatable screen, the Grays will show a double feature of the movies Andrew filmed on his iPhone: “Go-Go Girls from Mars” and “Manphibian.” The short films run less than 10 minutes each, but they will be shown on a continuous loop.
“Go-Go Girls from Mars” is about thrill-crazed space gals blasting the flesh off humans. “Manphibian” is about a radioactive monster that rises from a lake.
The Grays will debut on Halloween their video series, called “Dead End Drive-In,” on their YouTube and Vimeo channels. They also will show the music video they produced with Jose Velez and Garrett Clement. The music video features characters from the Grays’ movies.
“Our goal is to promote interest and growth in the Columbus film community,” Megan told the Ledger-Enquirer, “as there are many talented and creative people right here in our town.”
Bonding over their love horror movies
Andrew and Megan met in graduate school for speech language pathology at the University of Montevallo, where they graduated in 2013. They first hung out together at a Halloween party and bonded over their love of horror movies.
“The more schlocky, weird and obscure,” Andrew told the L-E, “the better.”
Megan added, “It’s the spirit of it. Horror movies are not mean-spirited. They’re meant to be fun.”
Andrew considers the horror genre a catharsis and a way to safely explore the dark side of the human experience.
“There’s something about looking at the world that’s very scary,” he said. “You look at like what’s going on in Ukraine or what’s going on with COVID. Then I go and watch a movie where a character gets killed by Michael Myers, there’s something safer about that.
“There’s something that allows me to watch it, take it in, maybe contextualize it a little more. If I can watch this person be afraid, if I can watch this person go through something awful, it somehow puts mine into context in a way.”
No wonder Halloween is their favorite day of the year.
They moved to Columbus in 2015 and worked at the Columbus Hearing Center, Muscogee County School District and Encompass Home Health. Now, they work at River Towne Center, where they help patients with cognitive communicative deficits and swallowing disorders.
The Grays have two children: daughter Charlotte, 2, and son Cassidy, 9 months.
From frustration to inspiration
Andrew’s movie scripts have placed in the Academy Nicholl Fellowship screenwriting competition and the Austin Film Festival from 2017-2020, but none were picked up by a producer. During the COVID-19 pandemic, however, he turned his frustration in the movie industry and his fear of the coronavirus into inspiration and decided to produce his own short films.
That commitment came in August 2020 while staying with his newborn daughter in the NICU at Piedmont Columbus Regional as Megan recovered from her delivery at St. Francis Hospital.
“Creative thoughts came back again. … If we get through this, I’m going to make something,” Andrew said. “… The initial idea for the drive-in came in an attempt to combine our love for the holiday and our love of horror movies. … The plan was to make cheap, bad shorts to play at our house during trick-or-treating every year and build my filmmaking skills to eventually produce a ‘serious’ feature-length independent film one day.”
Springer Opera House producing artistic director Paul Pierce asked Andrew if he could see his short films after they met at a local screenwriting group. Pierce was impressed and scheduled them to play at the No Shame Theatre in the Springer.
“They were a big hit,” Andrew said, “and it snowballed from there.”
Pierce told the L-E in an email, “I’ve been trying my best to get to know local indie filmmakers, and I’m convinced that people like Megan and Andrew are the creatives that Columbus can build a vibrant, indigenous film industry with. Columbus is working hard to attract big budget feature films to shoot here, and that’s fantastic. But there is actually a diverse group of very creative local filmmakers who are out there making some amazing films — usually on shoestring budgets.
“I’m working on finding a way to provide grants for these folks who are shooting movies right here with local actors, screenwriters and local crews so that they can take their filmmaking to the next level.”
The Springer is showing the Dead End Drive-In movies before this month’s screenings of “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” as part of the theater’s classic film series. The remaining dates are Oct. 29 at 11 p.m. and Oct. 31 at 8 p.m.
Making good ‘bad’ movies
Andrew takes pride in trying to make a good “bad” movie.
“The fact that Manphibian’s costume is obviously a man in a suit, the fact that that when you see his mask, you can see the person’s eyes through it, I hope people realize those are intentional choices,” he said. “Or the UFOs in ‘Go-Go Girls from Mars,’ I almost had them on strings so that they could be the fakest you could possibly make work. … I can’t make something look like ‘Avengers: Endgame,’ so why not just go fully hardcore the other way? … It’s a lot of tongue-in-cheek, a lot of wink-wink.”
Megan described their approach this way: “We don’t take ourselves seriously at all.”
But they are seriously dedicated to entertaining their audience.
“You wouldn’t imagine the self-doubt when you’re trying to create something that just originated in your head,” Andrew said. “… So, when you feel those things, it’s wonderful to immediately go, ‘No, look what you’ve done. People like this.’ … It just validates you.”
Megan savors seeing the audience laugh or startle as they watch the productions.
“That feels really cool,” she said. “. . . It makes us want to work harder for them.”
Andrew called the positive feedback addicting.
“At first, there’s this like second-guessing of yourself that happens right before,” Andrew said. “Then people start to laugh and start to enjoy, and that’s like the best feeling in the world. . . . All my life I’ve been like, ‘I want to do something like this. I want to get something out there.’ I don’t have this nagging thing like, ‘I’m not doing this anymore.’ Now I’m doing it. I’m a filmmaker.”
Fundraiser motivation
An estimated 150 trick-or-treaters visited their house last year for the Dead End Drive-In. Megan’s grandmother died from lung cancer in 2021, then Andrew’s mother and aunt were diagnosed with ovarian cancer.
“They are thankfully in remission, but it’s still something that impacts our family daily,” Andrew said. “When thinking about causes to raise money for, cancer research and treatment seemed an obvious choice.”
That why the Grays will display a bucket to collect donations for a charity fighting cancer. They hope their horror movies will help defeat a horrible disease.
“It was just so impactful on our family,” Megan said. “So anything we can do to help in that fight means a lot to us.”
LEARN MORE ABOUT DEAD END DRIVE-IN
To follow online the Dead End Drive-In productions of Megan and Andrew Gray, use this link to their social media sites: linktr.ee/deadendrivein.
ACTORS IN CAST OF DEAD END DRIVE-IN MOVIES
“Manphibian”
- Sheriff McClenny: Paula Downs
- Doctor Raimi: Jake Wheeles
- Deputy Dodson: Jonah Hughes
- Liz Bannon: Emily Downs
- Mayor Root: Andrew GrayChad
- Cindy Jonah Hughes and Emily Pair
“Go-Go Girls from Mars”
- Go-Go Sandy: Emily Downs
- Go-Go Sherry: Sydney Daughtry
- The Humans: Caitlyn Cobine, Andrew Gray, Jonah Hughes, Daniel Stanley and Jake Wheeles
- Note: For the showing at the Springer, Chelle Leary stars as Veronica, the head usher of the drive-in.
This story was originally published October 27, 2022 at 10:10 AM.
