The church windows are boarded-up. Homes and shops bear ‘Closed’ or ‘Out of Business’ signs. An old weather-beaten banner draped across the main street reads, ‘Welcome To Exceptional Vista,’ an isolated, stagnant little North American town forgotten by time. It’s the setting of Upstart Pictures’ first feature film Top Of The Food Chain.

A sci-fi comedy, low-budget feature, Top of the Food Chain, is directed by John Paizs and co-produced by writers Larry Lalonde, Phil Bedard and Upstart president Suzanne Berger. Cinematographer Bill Wong was behind the camera on the June 15 to July 17 shoot.

Campbell Scott (The Spanish Prisoner, Big Night, Dying Young) stars as the mysteriously handsome Dr. Karel Lamonte; Fiona Loewi (Love & Death on Long Island), is Sandy, the local beauty; Tom Everett Scott (American Werewolf in Paris, That Thing You Do) is her odd-ball brother Guy and Nigel Bennett (Forever Night) is the suspicious traveling vacuum salesman.

Aside from the human cast featured in the movie, some animatronic alien creatures from Paul Jones Effects Studio give the audience a good scare in some situations – like when they tear through a human’s body – and a good laugh in others.

The original script which Berger says ‘pokes fun at a lot of sci-fi obsessions,’ came across her desk around four years ago when she was handling submissions for Alliance’s feature film division. Although they passed on it, she couldn’t, and once out on her own made it a top priority.

Described by Berger as funny, irreverent, saucy and irresistable, Top Of The Food Chain is the story of the isolated, vulnerable folks who never left the backwater town of Exceptional Vista and what happens when they start disappearing.

The director’s style

After seeing Paizs’ 1986 indie feature The Big Crimewave, the production trio quickly got him on board to direct as Top Of The Food Chain called for his type of off-the-wall style and black sense of humor.

According to the director, the original plan was to shoot the entire film to look like a technicolor picture re-invented for the 90s, so the colors were not quite as saturated. In order to achieve the look when shooting on location, Paizs needed sun. Instead, he ended up with hot sticky, overcast days which didn’t lend themselves to the look he had originally envisioned.

The majority of the film is being shot at eye level, in what Paizs refers to as a ‘kind of classical Hollywood style.’ He is, for the most part, standing back from the actors and shooting them in frames with the occasional lower high angle or extreme close-up for variety and ‘punch.’

‘When they appear once in a while at dramatically important junctures, they have more effect,’ says Paizs, who feels the same about the use of close-up shots.

On location

The initial three weeks of the shoot took place on location around the main street of Glen Williams, on, a quaint little suburb doubling as Exceptional Vista. The final scenes were lensed on set in a Toronto studio and shot in order with the grand finale coming right before wrap.

Day 20 of the 24 day shoot saw the living room of the Bathgate House slowly deteriorating as Dr. Lamonte and Sandy fought their way through the house, ripping down curtains and knocking things over. Character Chris Marlowe, who was sent to the sleepy little town to monitor the situation, is sucked through the hard wood floor leaving a gaping hole.

With four days left to go before putting it in the can, the actors were giddy and having a hard time getting through a particular scene where Marlowe holds Dr. Lamonte and Sandy at gunpoint and reveals her identity. The dialogue is funny, and while they do their best to motor through with the serious facade called for in the scene, sometimes, it’s just not possible.

‘Laughing happens quite a lot; they’re a pretty happy group of actors. They regularly crack-up,’ says Paizs. ‘We like it. It means they are having a good time and the morale on-set is high.’

And now while Top Of The Food Chain moves into post-production, Berger is starting to look ahead to her next projects, a surrealist drama called Dog’s Night written and directed by Oscar Fenolgio, schedueled for production in November and Slap! a father-son drama written and to be directed by Cosimo Cavallaro in the spring of 1999.