26:05 – Welcome to Tape Land! On each episode, I’ll present the audio of a cassette tape or historic material from my personal archives.
This episode is part of a sub-project within Tape Land called “Video Phase 2022”. I recently began transferring a ton of old video tapes to digital, and have been posting selections to YouTube. Here, I’ll be releasing the audio tracks of these videos, as well as linking you to the YouTube videos, and The Internet Archive.
The Evil Farm (January 1987)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cEfCCs-nWFg
In January 1987, in Somerset County, NJ, Frank learns of creepy local urban legends such as “The Pigwoman’s Castle”, “The Glowing Grave”, and “The Devil Tree”. He decides to make up one of his own, “The Evil Farm”, and film a movie about it with a group of local teens. In basements, bowling alleys, shopping centers, fast food restaurants, movie theaters, supermarkets, parking lots, and beyond, the mystery unfolds… and takes a tragic turn…
Frank was on a “Jan Term” break from college, and decided to make a movie. His childhood friend Chris, through the music scene, was friends with a group of teens from the area who would hang out at various locations, and who were more than willing to participate in the filming. The plot involves the group visiting the real “Pigwoman’s Castle” and “Devil Tree”, then the fictional “Evil Farm”. Hugo turns evil and starts murdering people. Charlie then confronts and kills him, ending his murder spree. The real value of the project, though, was documenting these New Jersey teens at their various hangouts.
This version is based on the original released video version – though very few copies were ever distributed. It was originally divided into 21 sections based on tarot cards, each using commercial music clips. I decided to remove these to allow the scenes to seamlessly flow together. Also, the opening titles, end credits, and the horse-riding scene used commercial music, which I replaced with my own “Little Frankie Nora” music, recorded at the same time as the movie. The end credits used strobe lights, which I removed by doing my best to make static frames.
This is the first time it’s been released on video on the Internet, though in 2000, I produced an audio version completely re-conceived from the raw footage. I do plan on releasing an expanded video version at some point, including as much of the raw footage as possible.
There are dozens of people in the movie – but the core group is Chris, Hugo, Charlie, and Pete. These are the four in the signature image, in the field with The Devil Tree.
Notes: [00:00] Opening Titles (song: Sojourn X by Little Frankie Nora) [00:27] Bunch of people, basement hangout, Charlie’s house, Raritan (note: on TV, end of Genesis video Land of Confusion) (key quote: “There’ll be no zooming in”) [00:49] Hanging out at the bowling alley, Somerville Circle (key quote: “Hey baby wanna make some movies?”) (note: video game Express Raider (1986)) [02:35] Talking about The Evil Farm, shopping center, Somerville Circle (key quote: “You hear about what’s goin’ on up at the farm?”) [3:39] Weird sounds, Hess gas station, Rt. 22, Bound Brook [03:45] Evil school bus, behind a high school, Somerville [04:09] Annoying the staff, and talking about The Evil Farm, Burger King, Somerville (note: “smoking area” sign) (key quote: “We should go up to that place, where we heard that scream tonight, that’d be sick”) [05:49] Hijinks, bowling alley bathroom, Somerville Circle [6:26] Mocking religion,
