Low budget horror film director teams with American Green in Nipton
What evil lurks in the shadows of Hotel Nipton? None that we've ever experienced - though it may be haunted by friendlier ghosts. We do know, however, of a very real and dangerous poltergeist attack that happened in one of the homes in Nipton.
American Green, Inc., the publicly traded marijuana company that purchased the historic town of Nipton in the east Mojave, has announced it has entered into a Memorandum of Understanding to form American Green Films, LLC, to produce commercial movies utilizing Nipton as its base.
David Gwyther,CEO, stated in a news release, “American Green intends to maximize the potential uses of Nipton, along with the adjacent Mojave National Preserve, the New York Mountains and the entire Ivanpah Valley to make great films that will add to Nipton’s growing revenue base, further diversifying American Green and increasing shareholder value.”
To that end, we are creating American Green Films, LLC in cooperation with Vito Trabucco," Gwyther said. "Vito will spearhead the initial series of films, focusing, at first, on films that can return a profit from relatively low budgets. Mr. Trabucco has successfully produced and directed multiple films that sell well in foreign markets.”
Trabucco has directed numerous low budget horror productions, ranging from Bloody Bloody Bible Camp (a sequel is in pre-production, according to Trabucco's IMDB filmography), and Holidays of Horror, to a web TV series, Watch the Pretty Girls Suffer, Never Open the Door, Slices, and Psycho a Go-Go (currently being filmed). But Trabucco also works outside the horror genre. He is currently in post production on a documentary, Henchman: The Al Leong Story.
The productions Trabucco directs are as campy as they are gory. Bloody Bloody Bible Camp, from 2012, as an example, features teenagers massacred by Sister Mary Chopper at the Happy Day Bible Camp. The film features a transvestite nun, and porn star Ron Jeremy as Jesus. Let the chopping begin!
Trabucco stated, “Nipton, and the surrounding environs provide an ideal backdrop for multiple genres. From western, post-apocalyptic, and horror, to nature and documentary. The Mojave National Preserve provides myriad opportunities for filming along with the motel, trading post, and other facilities in Nipton itself. With Las Vegas less than an hour away, attracting cast and crew will be relatively easy. The video game, Fallout: New Vegas utilized both Nipton and nearby Searchlight, Nevada as locations and a general store and motel among other buildings in its fictionalized version of Nipton. We own the real motel, trading post, and scary abandoned buildings featured in the game, and we intend to use them to make the best movies possible.”
It is unclear whether Trabucco and Gwyther are familiar with the National Park Service's fairly restrictive permitting process for filming, including a total ban on the use of drones, but there certainly are incredible locations for filming within an easy distance of Nipton, which has been one of our favorite desert towns for years. The Hotel Nipton is a rare historic treasure, and comes with great stories and perhaps a ghost or two of its own.
It's also a bit unclear as to what shooting low budget horror films has to do with the marijuana industry, but it does sound fun, so we can't wait to see what Trabucco comes up with out in the east Mojave.
The Hotel Nipton is purported to be haunted, but in a gentle way. The hotel was once frequented by "The It Girl," Clara Bow, who personified the Roaring Twenties, along with her husband, actor (mostly westerns), Rex Bell. We stayed in the Clara Bow Room in the hotel, but only experienced very loud trains passing in the night (which sometimes get robbed, but that's another story).
Perhaps the next "It Girl" and western star will ride out from Nipton.