As Rocker, Glenn Hetrick (Saucon Valley ’90) in his film debut struggles with a house parent played by Jeff Sibbach. Hetrick has gone on to achieve national and international fame as a top Hollywood special effects makeup artist and judge on the hit SyFy reality series Faceoff.
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UPDATE: The Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign to support the completion of Masked Mutilator has launched as of Jan. 31, 2017. The goal of the campaign is to raise approximately $80,000 over two months to fund the film’s completion.
n the summer of 1994, former Saucon Valley High School journalism teacher and screenwriter Dale Schneck took on the executive producer role for a low-budget horror film he co-wrote. After 80 percent of the movie Masked Mutilator was shot, the production shut down, and the original footage has remained in cans for over 20 years. Soon that’s about to change.
Disappointed that the film was never completed, Schneck said he began “resurrecting the project” in early 2016. There is now a website and a Facebook page for it.
“We had cast a number of graduates of SVHS whom I knew, and I hated to see the long hours many of them put in during weeks of shooting going to waste,” he said.
Glenn Hetrick, Saucon Valley Class of 1990, made his film debut in Masked Mutilator portraying “Rocker.” Schneck said the film about troubled teens in a group home for juveniles was also Hetrick’s first gig as a special effects makeup artist.
Hetrick and fellow actor Paul Sutt created all the blood-soaked effects for the movie, he added, and both men now have thriving show business careers.
Hetrick has gone on to achieve fame both as a top Hollywood special effects makeup artist and as a judge on the SyFy Channel’s hit reality series “Faceoff.”
Andrew Denzel, Class of 1993, played one of the main supporting roles in the film and SVHS grads Kevin Thode and John Swiatkowski portrayed gang members in a flashback scene.
Saucon Valley graduates John Swiatkowski (third from left) and Kevin Thode (second from right) portray gang members in Masked Mutilator, most of which was filmed in 1994.
“What is particularly unique about our film is that characters who survived the violence in the original footage will reprise their roles while 20 years older, and without the need for special makeup to age them,” Schneck said. “I don’t know of any other feature film that has done that.”
In February 2016, Schneck hired actors and a crew to shoot new footage for a trailer for the film.
Thanks to former Schneck student Chris Kern a fight scene was filmed on location in Beer Mussels Bar & Grille in Hellertown, which Kern owns, Schneck said.
Masked Mutilator cast members do a run-through for scene at Beer Mussels Bar & Grille in Hellertown.
“Finances are always an issue in independent filmmaking,” Schneck added, “so now we are about to launch a crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo and Kickstarter to cover the costs of shooting some new footage to complete the motion picture, as well as cover post-production expenses.”
Schneck expects a rough cut of the original footage shot back in 1994 to be ready by the middle of January. That will be followed by creating special effects for new footage, to commence filming in the Lehigh Valley around April 1.
Watch a preview of Masked Mutilator posted on YouTube (warning: viewer discretion is advised for adult language, nudity and violence):
