Killer Ponies From Hell

Killer Ponies from Hell is a 1995 supernatural horror film, written and directed by Larry Roosevelt.

Plot
The movie begins in the summer of 1990, where a van stops at a beach and two 13-year old kids (Sam and Harry) run out and begin playing merrily, while the other one (Wendy) sunbathes. After playing a bit in the water, the two come back only to find their friend's missing and splotched blood on the sand and Wendy's towel. The two boys then spot a mysterious figure in the driver's seat in the van. The van immediately takes off, leaving the boys behind.

Five years later, Sam and Harry are now grown up. They're spending their summer break, along with their three other friends. Harry notices an abandoned farmhouse and suggests Sam to spend the week in it. Sam agrees and he pulls over to the house. Sam then goes inside to explore the house while the others, (Lucy, Harry, Stephanie and Rose) unpack the van.

While Sam explores the house, he finds dirty stuff and animal carcasses. Entering into a bedroom, he finds a huge blood stain on the carpet that trails up to a closet door. Sam opens the closet, his mood abruptly changes. He finds a rotten corpse of a victim, hanged with a slit throat. He freaks out and flees from the scene. Sam tells his friends about it - but when he tries to show the evidence, the corpse is no longer there.

Later that night, the five college students are seen having dinner. Then the cellar door flies open, which freaks out everyone. Sam and Harry proceed to go investigate. Eventually, they find both a book and a tape recorder. While listening to the tape, the person describes about the backstory of the ponies.

During the translations of the book, Rose tells her friends to turn off the tape, which is then followed by a window smash. The others think it's just her imagination but Rose immediately walks out of the house to investigate.

While out there, she gets attacked by tree branches and flees from the scene. She then complains to Sam that she wants to leave immediately. But, the dead ponies rise from their graves and begin killing the students, one by one. After the four kids get killed, Sam manages to stop the ponies by throwing both the book and tape recorder into the fireplace, thus causing the ponies to rot decay.

After the ponies die, dawn begins to break. Sam trudges outside and heads over to his van to leave. But however, one of the dead ponies (who is now headless) comes back to life and decapitates Sam with an axe, killing him. Then, the corpse walks off with Sam's head still in its hand, silently.

The scene then pans up towards the morning sky, the screen fades out and the credits roll.

Cast
Larry Roosevelt - Sam
 * ??? - young Sam

Mark Davis - Harry


 * ??? - young Harry

Azul Charlotte - Lucy

Stacy Lunam - Stephanie

Betsy Davis - Rose

??? - Sunbathing girl (Wendy)

??? - Driver

Pony Mascots:

Daniel Taper - Moonstone

Lance Gilder - Cotton Candy

Sam Ribera - Buttons

Production
The first scene was shot at Del Mar Beach in 1990 (some bits of the footage were used in the final film), during the summertime when Larry and Mike were on vacation. The other half was filled in with two stand-ins that played the roles of young Sam and Harry.

Larry began working on a screenplay for Killer Ponies in the summer of 1994, when he was almost a senior in high school. The title of the film at the time being: "Untitled My Little Pony Horror Film". Of course, Larry also took some inspiration from The Evil Dead and had to even set up a fundraiser for the movie's budget, since he didn't have any money for his movie (Albeit, he did have a summer job at his local). Near the end of April 1995, he had at least $100,000 for the movie's budget.

The driving scenes were filmed around Texas - while the cabin scenes were filmed in a deserted home somewhere in Northern California.

The original suits for the evil ponies were also too small for the mascots, so Larry ended up having the actors wear the masks and different uniforms. He stained the clothes with fake blood and allowed them to dry out for a day.

Before filming ended when almost every cast and crew member went back home, Larry stayed with Mike. After reviewing all the footage, the two realized they needed to film some pick-ups. For the scene with the headless walking pony corpse, Mike played the role since the original mascot had left.

Editing for the film didn't begin until 2009, when Larry used Final Cut Pro on his Mac. It was supposed to take only 6 months to get editing complete, but it resulted taking a year and a half to complete the editing of all the films. This included mixing in sounds, video corrections and more.

Principal photography
Filming began on June 17th of 1995 (the day after Larry graduated from high school) and concluded on July 4th (Independence Day), while pick-ups were filmed from July 6th to 9th and the road scene was shot somewhere around August. The camera also at the time, Larry used to film the movie was a Minolta Master Pro 8-918 (he bought it using some of the film's budget)

Since the tapes only could hold an hour, the film resulted using 5 tapes for the entire movie.

Make-up and special effects
For the scene with the hanged ponies, they used mannequins, put the costumes over them, then hung all three of them on the tree with pieces of rope, shaped into nooses.

For the blood and gore, it was mostly homemade. The blood was just simply created using corn syrup, red food coloring and corn starch. Since there wasn't enough blood for the violent parts, Larry ended up storing the fake blood in milk gallon tanks. The gore was created from meat products bought at several slaughterhouses

Music
The soundtrack in the film is mainly video game music.

Track #1 - Super Mario Advance 2 - Intro (the van arrives at the beach, the kids head off swimming, etc.)

Track #2 - Snix: The Return - Theme

Track #3 - Super Mario Advance 2 - Koopa Kid Defeated

Track #4 - The Calvanes - Crazy Over You (Radio Source) - (pitched a bit)

Track #5 - SpongeBob SquarePants Production Music - Footsteps of Horror [#11.02] (used in the house exploring scene)

Track #6 - ??? (during the sunset scene)

Track #7 - Earthbound (Mother 2) - Giygas (used for only the tape scene)

Track #8 - Spongebob Squarepants - House of Horror (used during the woods part and when Sam kills possessed Harry)

Track #9 - Secret of Mana - The Oracle (used when the ponies rise from the dead and break into the farmhouse)

Track #10 - Return to Chez Jason - Harry Manfredini (used for one of the killings) (lasts 25 seconds)

Track #11 - Super Mario Land - Boss Battle (used in a scene, where one of the ponies is attacking of the girls)

Track #12 - Super Mario Advance 2 - Fortress Clear (used after Sam manages to kill one of the ponies)

Track #13 - Yoshi's Island - Final Boss (used in the scene where Sam gets cornered by all the ponies)

Track #14 - Sonic CD - Game Over (used in the scene where the ponies rot decay)

Track #15 - Yoshi's Island - Baby Bowser Clear

Track #16 - Super Mario Advance 2 - Princess Peach is Saved (used when Sam trudges over to the van)

Track #17 - Super Mario Advance 2 - Bowser's Castle Emerges (the headless pony comes back to life)

Track #18 - Ginny Visits Villa Jason - Harry Manfredini (the headless pony charges at Sam and decapitates him) (used from 3:54 till 5:32)

Track #19 - Super Mario Advance 2 - End Credits (Part 1) - (used during the ending credits) *NOTE THAT IN SOME INTERNATIONAL RELEASES, THE ENDING TRACK IS CHANGED TO: "Joseph LoDuca - Check on You"*

Sequels
Larry directed three more sequels to Killer Ponies. The second one was finished in 1997, the third one was finished in 2003 and the fourth and final one also finished in 2010. (All these movies didn't seek out a release date until 2013)

Nowadays, you can see all of the movies on the Killer Ponies quadrilogy DVD / Blu-ray combo pack.