Waverly Hills

I honestly believe that May 2004 had to be the most exciting month that I can ever remember at Waverly Hill. Award winning Directors Shane Dax Taylor, Philip adrian Booth and Producer Christopher Saint have chosen Waverly Hills to shoot on location a movie. This movie will be called "Death Tunnel", and is scheduled to be released on October of 2005.

For exciting detailed information about this movie...Visit the official site for "Death Tunnel" by clicking on the link below.

Still Shots of the Movie

I have taken some still shots from the movie set in the building for your viewing pleasure on this site. Although I personally took these photos with my own camera....it is with the courtesy of Dax Productions and Twintalk films that I am allowed to post them on this site.

On the left, Sarah Tilford, who is one of our Waverly Security members plays the part of a nurse. When the movie is released, she will be a ghost and have translucency in her appearance. The right side photo shows the crew coordinating a scene on the second floor. This scene shows one of the beautiful college girls taking a bath in the bathroom on the right side. I won't tell you the details of the shot, as the movie needs to stay fresh and exciting to view when it comes out in 2005.

The equipment that they use for making a movie is awsome too! Large 12-20,000 watt spotlights are were used at night. Notice the spotlight out front shining against the window. When in the laboratory room with a window shade drawn down, that spotlight created the effect of the sun being outside on a bright clear day. A scene in the lab room is being rehearsed prior to shooting to make sure everything comes out as planned.

Quality Assurance

Philip Adrian Booth(operating the camera), and Shane Taylor are making sure the camera is adjusted at the proper angle to obtain the desired effect for the scene they are shooting. The scene they were shooting here was of the young college girl who was found frozen to death by one of her surviving friends. In the photo to the right, Christopher Saint and James have been looking over the scene in the Sony Monitor to see how it will look when played back. It takes a tremendous amount of preparation, and quality workmanship to produce and direct a movie that will be stunning in visual and sound effects, have a good theme, and be appealing to watch!

And, besides the actors and the costume designers and the producers and directors......there were crew members who worked very hard "behind the scenes" so as to say, such as Matt Ware(in the dark blue hat) and one of his co-workers who set up the electrical lighting for all the sets in the building, and outside too. These guys deserve a show of applause also. My hats off to them!

This is a scene where one of the college girls discovers the sinister looking laboratory room, with all its chemicals and god only knows what else in jars and on the table. Matt Ware(to the left corner of the photo) is on stand by just in case they need him to make any adjustments in lighting effects. The left side photo shows Matt preping the room with alot of fog for the eerie effect.

Jason Lasater is new talent in the film industry. He has had appearances on the Soap Days of Our Lives and other films too. In the Movie Death Tunnel, he plays a character named Richie. I had a chance to meet Jason and talk with him some while he took his smoke breaks. He is a very respectful, outgoing, and witty man with a good sense of humor. I was elated to recieve an autograph from him on a sheet of still shots of the movie I had printed out .

And.....Don't forget to check out the site about the Documentary Spooked. It is supposed to come out January of 2005 if all goes well. Click the link below for more information about it.

In reality, this tunnel was originally a supply tunnel and was also a good way for employees to get up and down the hill during the winter time and keep warm at the same time. Transporting the bodies of deceased tuberculosis patients was only ONE of the uses of the tunnel. During the peak years of tuberculosis there were alot of deaths at the sanatorium, and the staff realized that it would be very discouraging for patients to look out the windows and see hearses pulling up and taking away people who had died. Try to imagine yourself being administered to the sanatorium with a diagnosis of having TB. It is the late 1920's, and antibiotics have not been invented yet. So, you realize that you have a chance to get cured and live, but...you could die too if the treatments they gave you didn't work well enough. Now, imagine how discouraged you would feel if you looked out from your assigned room, and when you pull the curtains back...you see people who have died being picked up with a hearse. And to make matters worse...you see that perhaps many times throughout a day. It would be so emotionally depressing to you that you might give up the fight to live. Then ....your bodies defenses dwindle. It is a known fact that if a person gets very depressed emotionally....it can affect their bodies defense system to the point that it may not fight off a disease as well as if the person is in good spirits. So, that is the reason why the staff at Waverly would sneak the bodies down through this tunnel!

We're about to go into the tunnel so that you can see what the interior appearance is like. Since there is no electricity in the tunnel....it is pitch dark once you get about thirty feet down inside. Good strong flash lights are needed. The accoustics are interesting too....there is a strong echo when you talk.

I think you can get a good idea just how dark it is down inside this tunnel from the left and right side photos. The light only shines down or up so far, and then it goes into total darkness...which I might say adds to the spookiness of the tunnel. Studying the photos closely, you can see that there was steps on one side, and a smooth slab on the other. At one time, many years ago...there was rails on the smooth side, very similar to a coal mine. They had gurney tables with wheels which rode on those tracks. A motorized winch system would gradually lower the bodies of deceased patients down the tunnel. The tunnel is approximately 500 feet long. It has vent shafts the stick up above the ground about every 100 feet. These shafts let in some light and fresh air.

This is one of the vent shafts from above ground. It was evening when I took these pictures. It is a natural inclination to want to peek down into the shaft....so I took a photo from that perspective also. And, you can see the steps on one side and the smooth slab on the other by looking down into the shaft.