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October 30, 2007

Sara Jane Road legend makes it to movie

Hometown tale becomes homemade horror

By Amy Moore

The News staff writer

PORT NECHES — The ghostly tales of Sara Jane and her baby have been passed down for years to residents of Southeast Texas. The legends of a hidden baby and murdered mother on the dark street in Port Neches intrigued two local filmmakers who have taken the tales to the big screen.

Joe Ganann and Derek Womack enjoy a good scare. When the opportunity arose for the pair to give their friends a fright on Halloween, the idea of using Sara Jane Road seemed the best plan.

“We had a local TV show called “The Garage” that would showcase local musicians,” Womack, 27, said. “We planned to do a Halloween special but after we started planning it, the show was canceled.”

Instead of trashing their well thought out plans, the friends pushed forward and rounded up the show’s crew to help. The ideas developed from a Halloween scare to a video focused around Sara Jane Road and the fright it gives those who know the legends.

“We shot a 45 minute short that we put online that was basically a good-bye to all of our fans from the TV show,” Ganann, 24, said. “We decided that it wasn’t enough though so we restructured the plot and came up with the movie.”

With no script, just a simple outline, the group of movie making friends improved their story and gathered background information for people who might not know the legend. A Port Neches native, Womack said he talked to locals who knew more about the Sara Jane stories.

“I heard their legends and experiences on the road but it’s all basically the same story with different twists and endings,” he said. “Basically we took the most violent elements of all the stories and put them together in a Blair Witch Project type of movie.”

Ganann said the movie, “Curse of Sara Jane” is what he likes to call a no budget film.

“There are low budget movies, but sometimes when we were filming we had to choose between buying tapes for the camera or gas for the car. This really was a no budget film,” he said.

Despite the lack of budget, filming in the darkness of night gave several crew members chills.

“I don’t doubt there’s a creepiness to the street,” Womack said. “Our camera guy got really scared one night because he said he could hear someone whispering to him. We brought the film back and you can definitely hear something but we can’t make out what it is.”

The friends agreed that some sounds could be linked to the many wild cats living in the woods and other explainable situations.

After several years of filming and more time spent editing, the movie “Curse of Sara Jane” was completed. Although the men cannot legally give the movie a rating, they said it is certainly not G-rated. Scary movie fanatics have not shied away the film and are supporting the local horror flick.

“The Internet response has been positive and the rental store says the movie is flying off the shelves. We’re hoping for a more broad release later, but this is good for now, kind of like a test audience,” Womack said.

The hope is just to see “Curse of Sara Jane” on the big screen. The filmmakers plan to enter the film in Indie film festivals to see the response.

“We just want to re-ignite the interest in Sara Jane Road,” Ganann said. “So much of the fun type of scary has been taken out of Halloween and we just want to bring that back.”

“Curse of Sara Jane” can be rented at Movie Land on Nall Street in Port Neches.

“The legend is from here, so if there’s a market for the movie, it’s here,” Womack said.

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Alexis Werner of Port Neches dances with the Lamar University Dance Team during their Wednesday night basketball game against Northwestern State University.

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