The fog-shrouded stone expanses of the Shawangunks have become an increasingly popular haunt for filmmakers. Just ask actor Taylor Seupel, one of the many local creatives contributing to the horror-comedy film Bloody Axe Wound.

The film is about a teenage girl weighing the pros and cons of joining the family business – filming real murders and selling the tapes to customers at the family’s video store. Leathery face masks, rusty weaponry, and teen angst are highly visible, but the film zooms in on comedy and slapstick gore rather than real scares. Abbie’s father, Roger, is a gruff antagonist with a face only a Fangoria Magazine reader could love.

It was written and directed by Matthew John Lawrence, who’s been making low-budget horror films and shorts for almost 20 years.

Local talent is mixed in along with Hollywood household names. It was produced by Mary Stuart Masterson at the now-closed Upriver Studios in Saugerties. Jeffrey Dean Morgan (Walking Dead), Molly Brown (Dexter: Original Sin), Sari Arambulo (A.P. Bio), and Billy Burke (The Twilight Saga) combine talents.

“The film is really terrific,” Seupel reports.

Taylor Seupel, a Rondout Valley resident, is no stranger to dark comedies. He lives a few miles from the Rosendale sets and this nationwide limited release seems to match his past dramatic interests.

After a few successful auditions and local plays in high school, he soon branched out into cinema with a short film of his own entitled Suicide Eyes.

“Something I made, shot locally,” he says. The story is about a down-and-out man “visited by a specter who hangs out with him.”

Seupel auditioned for Bloody Axe Wound’s comic relief character, Billy, and beat out veteran actors from the city and California. He compares the role to Sean Penn’s Jeff Spicoli in Fast Times at Ridgemont High. Billy, he says, is a “nice guy” gracing the final third of the story with a jovial high-on-life approach.

The movie was shot in 2023, and locations in Rosendale, Kingston, and Saugerties were combined to create the fictional town of Clover Falls. Rosendale buildings, in particular, are very visible in this project. A dry cleaner in Rosendale Plaza “peters into the story” according to Seupel, and a former liquor store space nearby becoming the video store.

Seupel found the experience extremely rewarding.

“We were sort of under the gun,” he says. “The crew really came together.”

There’s more to the production than just a fun horror movie, according to Seupel.

“Film has been making its way to the Hudson Valley,” he says. “Local crews have grown and the tax credit has been making it easier to shoot a film here.”

Horror productions seem to be drawn to the chilly wood and old towns. Seupel remembers watching the production team from 2018’s A Quiet Place as they shot an unforgeable scene on the New Paltz Rail Trail trestle – a mere five years and six miles down the road from where he’d be starring in Bloody Axe Wound.

Expect a fun mix of coming-of-age comedy tropes along with the slasher film splendor of the VHS glory days. And, yes, there’s gore.

“I can promise you that there’s some false body parts,” Seupel says.

Bloody Axe Wound is playing at select theaters, and will soon be on the Shudder app and on available for purchase on VOD services like Amazon Prime and Apple Movies.