My filmmaking career began in 2005 with my first film, the critically-acclaimed, award-winning "The Monster of Phantom Lake." But to really understand my films and their reasons for being, you must first attempt to understand a little something about my late father, George Mihm. My father would tell these great stories of spending cold, small-town Minnesota winters in the relative warmth of his local movie house, taking in double features of trashy, B-grade science fiction and horror flicks. For a quarter he'd see double bills with such classics as "Village of the Damned" ("The eyes..." he'd tell me.) and "Them!" ("Giant ants!" he would exclaim.)
When I was a kid, my dad would rent these movies repeatedly. We would frequently watch them together for a little father/son bonding. However, at the time, I could never quite figure out just what it was my dad saw in these (often) low-grade, barely frightening (by my standards) films.
At age 51, in the year 2000, my father died of stomach cancer. Since then, I've revisited many of these old movies and realized, they're just not the same without him there. I miss the stories... like the one about the time he went to the movies against his mother's wishes and saw something so scary he couldn't sleep for a week -- AND got in trouble for it!
I have wanted to make a movie for as long as I can remember. Seeing those old movies again, I began to truly fall in love with them, not only for the memories of my dad but for how wonderful they really are in their own special way. I enjoyed their often poorly written dialogue, sometimes (but not always!) wooden acting, stilted camera work and marginal special effects. It was during one of these marathon movie-watching sessions I had an epiphany: "What would happen if I stopped thinking about it and actually made a movie? And not just ANY movie but THIS kind of movie, one that a ten year old version of my dad would approve of?"
That thought soon took over and my obsession began. I parked myself in front of my laptop and "The Monster of Phantom Lake" was born. With only an "experimenting-with-public-access-television's" amount of filmmaking experience and having been friends with actor/co-producer Josh Craig for many years, I enlisted his help to get things moving. Soon we were holding auditions and then amazingly, we were shooting!
"The Monster of Phantom Lake" was completed in late 2005 and finally released in March 2006 to highly receptive crowds. It has since played at numerous film festivals and screenings across the world. An award-winning sequel, "It Came From Another World!," followed in May 2007 and a third, "Cave Women on Mars" in April 2008. "Terror from Beneath the Earth" was released in late May of 2009 and went on to win awards at multiple events. In 2010, I produced "Destination: Outer Space," a rip-roaring space adventure that followed the adventures of Captain Mike Jackson, a character originally introduced in "Cave Women on Mars."
Next: "Attack of the Moon Zombies" -- a return to my true cinematic love: monster movies! The film held its sold-out premiere on May 25th, 2011 and has been racking up great reviews ever since!
I'm currently in post-production for my next film, which is sheduled to be released in 2012. Entitled, "House of Ghosts," it is my cinematic tribute to the films of classic horror master, William Castle!
