Vancouver – Insight Film Studios wants to expand its client base and is hoping an ogre will help them do it. The Vancouver company is moving on from its recent spate of MOWs for Lifetime (Mind Games, Family in Hiding) to shoot a monster project for the Sci Fi Channel.

‘We wanted to get another cable in the States, so this summer we started to put together a slate for Sci Fi. It’s a genre we want to move into,’ says CEO and executive producer Kirk Shaw, though he’ll continue to work with Lifetime.

The company pitched the horror MOW Ogre and started shooting last month, putting a 3D monster alongside stars John Schneider (Smallville, The Dukes of Hazzard) and Ryan Kennedy (Scream).

The $2.5-million project tells the tale of a bloodthirsty monster that terrorizes a remote hamlet, eating a sacrificial villager every year as part of a deal that spares the rest of the town. What happens when the population dwindles? Two unsuspecting backpackers stumble in just in time for the Ogre’s yearly meal. Steve Munroe directs. David Barkes and Geoff Anderson are doing the CG effects.

Sci Fi recommended Schneider for his face recognition. ‘I read it on the Internet and I said yes right away,’ says the actor. ‘It’s Wicker Man meets The Village meets Brigadoon.’

Schneider was recently killed off on Smallville, but is glad to be working in B.C. again.

‘There’s a sensibility, an appreciation for the work and craft here that’s been lost in L.A. People are glad to have a job here; they’re enjoying the work,’ he says.

Shaw hopes the MOW could springboard to a series, noting it has ‘all the parts to go that way if audiences like it.’

Ogre wraps in December and airs in early 2007 on an unspecified Alliance Atlantis channel and Sun TV. A Sci Fi airdate has not been set.