House of Pain is currently in pre-production, casting began on the 24th of February and rehearsals run from the end of March until the shoot date (April 21st and 22nd). The indie short will be shot on location at various tourist attractions around Niagara Falls Famous Clifton Hill … The Midway (arcade), The Sky wheel (ferris wheel) and Nightmares Fear Factory (haunted house).

The story: A group of friends go to Niagara Falls for a Vegas style weekend wedding. While there, they purchase tickets for a haunted/fun house, and quickly discover that it is more than it appears to be.

This is the first project for writer/director/producer Mike West, who has been writing and developing the script for the last 8 months. Having a nearly completed feature length script and dreading entering the crap shoot of screenwriters everywhere; West decided it was a better bet to try to make the movie himself.

“It wasn’t as hard as I thought it was going to be,” said West. “I put an ad on Craig list and found an abundance of hungry film makers such as me and now things are moving at such a fast pace I couldn’t stop the train if I wanted to.”

Without the money to make a feature length version of House of Pain, West and his crew have intend to produce a 15 minute version with the hopes of gaining enough interest to go back and shoot the script as a feature. “There’s so much story in House of Pain that it was hard to decide what to cut. It was sort of like writing a brand new script. In the end, if the feature length does happen, it will be so much better for it.”

There’s a production diary online that chronicles the events prior to shooting and will continue after shooting as West tries to find the support to turn the short into a full length movie. Keep track of it all: House of Pain