"Piper's playing Father Melluzzo, who is this priest who is like crazy and super violent. He has an M-60 machine gun and he fights a robot, he fights a girl, then he comes back as a zombie and gets a baseball lodged in his head, and then he gets chain-sawed in half," said Andrew Gernhard, co-founder of SCI. "And Jeremy London - because he always plays the cute, sweet guy in all his television shows - he plays the really bad guy, he's like the sleazeball who's kind of working everybody against everybody else."
A simple plot synopsis tells the story of a woman who has been caught cheating by her husband, and so her mother kills the husband.
"As they're figuring out what to do," continues John Randall, a grip in the film, "an alien crash lands on the garage [where] the body is located. So the mother-in-law wanted to get insurance, because now they can claim an alien killed him, but they can't get to the body, so they offer $100,000 to anybody that can kill the alien and bring back the body."
The movie, which is SCI's best one so far, according to Gernhard, has had some weather issues. Shoots were washed out a few times because of bad weather, but Gernhard said filming has only fallen behind three or four days.
"Shooting [will probably be finished] by next week because really, it's only two more nights and then one scene in the strip club," Gernhard said. "And that's really it, the rest is like a shot here and there. [The production will] probably be done by, say, November."
The film is being shot locally, using an old foundry building in Rocky Hill, and Pandolfe's Auto Scrap Yard in Berlin.
"We were driving around, and we just happened to see that foundry building down there and thought it looked really cool for a movie set," Gernahrd said. "Then we showed Colin, the director, and he liked it a lot too, so we've been shooting there for like, five days, but the bulk of it is at Pandolfe's."
Gernhard said he didn't think the crew would get permission to shoot at the foundry once he found out it wasn't owned by the town.
"Some properties firm out of New York owns it," Gernhard said. "But it's represented by the building right next door to us. Jim Ripper's the lawyer who represents this New York firm."
"When he answered, he sounded pretty stern," Gernhard said, "but then I told him it was about an alien that kills hillbillies, and he was kind of like, excited about it."
Gernhard said Ripper didn't care that they shot there as long as they didn't make it look bad or point out anything bad about it, and also as long as they had liability insurance.
"He seemed like an enthusiastic young fellow," said Ripper. "And I knew that they had met with the economic director of the town, and I think the town was supportive of it, and they were enthusiastic about it, so we didn't want to be the ones to be in the way."
Ripper said Riverfront Future Partners is the firm in New York City that owns the property.
Gernhard said after permission had been granted and they began shooting, he noticed workers hired by the town coming to the site.
"They cleared out some stuff and they're doing some sample tests and stuff," he said.
Ray Carpentino, director of economic development at Rocky Hill, said the timing of the town's testing and drilling was coincidental to that of SCI's filming. (The town is attempting to aquire the property, through eminent domain if necessary).
"We have to conduct phase three environmental assessments to determine the extent of contamination on the property," Carpentino said. "We have to do things at a certain speed in order to get enough information."
Gernhard said this film is better than the previous ones because technology has improved and more people have become involved.
"It's been a [good] experience in the sense that it's the first time we've worked with stars and the first time we've had a decent crew together," he said.