TV Talk: Locally made thriller ‘Godless Children’ to stream; ‘The Jinx’ re-animates Durst’s trial
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For their first indie feature film, “Godless Children,” co-writers Kathleen Regan and Simon Barracchini opted for a story that starts like a Lifetime movie and ends, well, in a different genre altogether (no spoilers here).
“We call it a dramatic thriller,” Regan said. “In Hollywood, you have to have two movies to compare it to, and I always said, ‘It’s ‘Seven’ meets ‘Stepmom.’”
“Godless Children” will be available to rent or buy May 7 on Amazon’s Prime Video (it will also be released on DVD; pre-order at moviezyng.com; get a 20% discount with the code Theresa). The film will be released by distributor Leomark Studios after Regan and Barracchini shopped the movie, made for less than $100,000, at the American Film Market in Los Angeles.
Regan stars in “Godless Children” as Theresa Nerez, a woman declared infertile years earlier who is visited by a young woman, Meghan (Jess Uhler), who claims to be her daughter. Their search for answers leads them to encounters with elderly Ms. Hummel (Hazel Carr Leroy), Theresa’s former doctor (Marcus Muzopapa) and a shady nonprofit called Godless Children.
“Godless Children” was filmed at Ruthfred Market, Bethel Park; Virginia Mansion Condominiums, Scott Township; Chrissy’s Cut, Color and Curls, Springdale; inside and outside Kelly O’s in the Strip; LaRoche University; and other locations across Western Pennsylvania.
Regan, who previously worked for PNC Bank and lives in New York, and Barracchini, a 2010 Beaver High School graduate, 2014 LaRoche University grad and currently a producer’s assistant on Pittsburgh-filmed “Mayor of Kingstown,” joined forces with director of photography Adam Paluh to film “Godless Children” on weekends in the fall of 2022.
Regan and Barracchini met when Regan, who’s acted at Little Lake Theatre (“Importance of Being Earnest”) and Pittsburgh Classic Players (“Romeo Juliet”), was creating a reel of her performance work, and Barracchini was brought in to help with the production. The duo found they had similar goal-oriented personalities and decided to collaborate on this film, which was cast with all local actors.
Regan and Barracchini said the plot of “Godless Children” is loosely inspired by things they wondered about.
Barracchini received a letter in a handwritten envelope without a return address.
“As a male, in the back of your mind, you wonder, is there a child out there reaching out to you? Are you going to get some news?” he said. “It turned out it was a Jehovah’s Witness letter, but it started turning in my mind: What if you go to the potential absolute extremes? And then I thought, ‘What if I was a woman and got something like that? Would you still have the same reaction?’ I told that to Kathleen, and she came up with her own personal story.”
“I’m infertile, and I have been since I can remember,” Regan continued. “What if someone came to my door? I took my story of infertility and the pain I’m dealing with and a story of adoption that’s really close to me and merged those ideas together. The question I kept asking was, ‘What could happen?’ What obstacles could be the worst possible outcome?”
Regan and Barracchini said what makes Western Pennsylvania good for professional filmmakers – the varied topography and ability to film stories set just about anywhere (other than a beach) – also benefits smaller, indie filmmakers.
“We are able to, without having to spend a lot of money, find locations in an hour or two-hour drive,” Barracchini said. “That’s crucial to us, especially when you’re trying to keep your costs down, and it adds to the look of your films.”
The pair have a second feature script in the works that Regan calls “speculative fiction,” describing it as “1984” meets “Dead Poets Society.”
‘The Jinx Part Two’
Back in 2015, HBO’s “The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst” became a sensation that helped spark the popularity of docu-series that continues, for better and for worse, to this day.
The ending, which featured Durst saying, “What the hell did I do? Killed them all, of course,” gave viewers chills even though we later learned filmmakers monkeyed around with the timeline for better dramatic effect.
But you can’t keep a good ghoul down – real estate heir/accused murderer Durst died in January 2022 – so filmmaker Andrew Jarecki is back with “The Jinx Part Two” (10 p.m. Sunday, HBO), which picks up with reactions to the original series, particularly its ending, and then follows Durst’s criminal cases from that point forward.
HBO made four (of six) episodes available for review and “The Jinx” remains compelling even as this sequel series covers some of the same ground as the original using the same devices such as re-created scenes, some that are just imaginings and not related in any way to reality. What’s new is learning how many other people were complicit in Durst’s crimes and what they did to assist him.
Episodes three and four cover Durst’s 2020 trial for the murder of Susan Berman, but, again, producers fiddle with the timeline, revealing Durst’s admission about a key piece of evidence in what appears to be in the middle of the trial. It really happened in 2019 in a pre-trial filing.
Jarecki certainly knows how to create drama, and “The Jinx Part Two” continues to provide good entertainment though it remains to be seen if it will again end with a bombshell. Regardless, the series offers examples of smart, pointed lawyering by prosecutors and Durst’s defense team.
Channel surfing
Ashton Altieri, seen as a fill-in forecaster on KDKA-TV, works as senior coordinating producer for weather at CBS News and Stations, delivering forecasts remotely when filling in for local stations, including KDKA. Channel 2 news director Shawn Hoder said the station is “actively pursuing” another full-time meteorologist to fill the position vacated by Falicia Woody. … As expected, CBS ordered a new daytime soap, “The Gates,” to premiere in January, presumably taking the spot of the canceled series “The Talk,” which ends its 15-year run in December. The new soap will follow a Black family who live in a posh, gated community.