'Blood Moon' Premiere, Directed By Farnaz & Starring Brandon Beemer & Gil Darnell

SPOTTED: The cast and crew of Blood Moon at its red carpet premiere on the Sony Pictures Studios lot in Culver City, CA.

Directed by Iranian-born Farnaz Samiinia, Blood Moon is a psychological horror short film, starring Brandon Beemer as Luke Parker, a mental hospital psychiatrist and Gil Darnell as William Titus, a serial killer.

In the film, Parker is faced with the daunting task of treating the extremely intelligent but deadly Titus, as the audience finds out that all is not what they seem to be.

The movie was masterfully shot in one weekend and completed on a budget of only $5000 — an immensely impressive accomplishment when you consider the quality of the film and the caliber of actors in the flick.

Beemer plays Owen Knight on the soap The Bold and the Beautiful and Darnell is an Australian actor who played in the long-running British soap, Hollyoaks. Farnaz herself also edited the movie over a two-month period.

A Q&A session followed the movie premiere, emceed by Homeland star Navid Negahban. Farnaz said she came up with the idea for the film after reading a book with a similar story line. “I read the book and liked the characters and story. I optioned the book and was planning to turn that into a short or feature. It didn’t work out, so I took the characters and created my own story around it.”

Brandon Beeme (L), Farnaz, Gil Darnell

James C. Wolf, who co-wrote the script with Farnaz, said, “Farnaz sent me the structure and concept of what she wanted to do if she was to turn it into a feature. She had placeholder dialogue, so I worked on that.”

Darnell was asked how he got the part of a lunatic killer. At first, he laughed. Then he said, “Farnaz said, ‘I have the perfect part for you.’ I said, ‘wow, you think I’m a psycho?'”

The film ends with a fantastic visual effect of a human transforming into a werewolf. When asked about the creature effects for their werewolf, Farnaz said, “it was actually a suit. Howard Berger, who won an Oscar for The Chronicles of Narnia had the suit sitting in his shop. I was bugging him for weeks until he finally said, ‘fine, fine, you can have it.'”

And what can we expect to see happen with Blood Moon? Farnaz said, “I’m trying to turn it into a feature film and franchise it. I’m also going to submit the film to festivals.”