For Milford Horror, anywhere can become a movie theater

Last year, Adrian Elder waited until midnight dreary, packed up his laptop, trekked alone through a dark wood and watched the found-footage story of film students who lost their way while making a documentary about a small town myth.

Elder wanted to re-experience “The Blair Witch Project,” a movie he hadn’t found particularly scary the first time he watched it. But unlike the students, he didn’t encounter strange piles of rocks, find effigies in the trees or hear children laughing in the night.

“The final three minutes had a little bit of frisson. It felt a little bit fresh, just for a moment. And the hike back was fun,” Elder said, with a wry laugh.

He departed the woods at Mount Higby in Middletown with a new appreciation for the movie and with an idea.

After that trip to the woods last year, Elder started a group called Milford Horror that gathers about once a month to watch horror movies in unlikely places, such as a church or the woods. The first showing of “The Blair Witch Project” last summer at a wooded Milford park drew nearly 100 people.

And the project, which just celebrated its one-year anniversary, has only grown from there.

Elder has since shown “Evil Dead II” and “The Witch” in the woods at Eisenhower Park in Milford. He’s also organized a viewing of “The Exorcist” at a church in Milford. In the winter, he shows older, more niche horror movies at his local library, all aiming to build up a community of people who love horror.

Participants get a radio headset to tune into the sound, and he projects the film on a large screen. Without the headphones, it’s a group of people in camping chairs and on picnic blankets, silently watching a screen in the woods.

He’s looking at more locations — maybe watching “Jaws” in the water, “Intruder” in a grocery store or “The Thing” in an ice rink.

The first viewing of Blair Witch sold 100 tickets in two days.

“Everybody was like, ‘Oh, this is cool,’” Elder said. “I’m like, ‘yeah, I don’t have enough time to, like, buy more equipment.’”

Numbers have expanded since then.

A showing of “Evil Dead II” this summer had close to 200 people, and “The Exorcist” sold out all the seats available in the church.

Elder, whose conversation is sprinkled with obscure horror cinema references, said much of his relationship with the genre sprung from a cycle of overcoming fear.

“I feel like the pattern for me as a child, and as I grew up, was always a back-and-forth thing of, ‘Oh, there’s something that scares me, I have to avoid it,’” Elder said. “And then, I can’t stop thinking about it. And so now I’d have to go confront it. And then it’s not so bad. And then I’d have to repeat that process over and over.”

Once he learned the genre, he said, the highlight was the camp that the movies contain.

“There’s something really perfect about someone aiming at being serious or aiming at being shocking, but instead missing by just a little bit and being hilarious,” he said. “I think that’s wildly entertaining.”

Research suggests that people love horror in part because it builds a sense of safety. It puts boundaries on what scares us, fences it into the confines of the screen. It exposes viewers to new experiences and incites a thrill that can feel similar to riding a roller coaster — building tension, an adrenaline-filled journey and relief when you make it through the experience safely.

Mike Falcigno, owner of Grindhouse Gallery Tattoo in Milford , designed the logo for Milford Horror as well as a themed soup bowl and T-shirts. He’s a horror buff himself and co-hosts “ Don’t Open This Podcast ,” a bimonthly podcast dedicated to explaining horror, science fiction and fantasy genres to listeners.

“When people gravitate toward something on the fringe, it’s usually because they feel they’re an outsider,” Falcigno said, of the genre. “If I look at the years that I have been steeped in this culture, the type of person that gravitates towards it is so insanely varied. It’s such a beacon to so many types of people.”

The genre also offers social and political commentary, he said. It often plays on what society views as particularly frightening at the moment.

“They’re taking something that really would scare you, and they’re heightening it to where it’s a controlled environment and taking it to the same nervousness that sometimes makes people laugh during standup comedy,” Falcigno said.

Elder said it’s also one of few cinematic genres that is still accessible to beginners without piles of cash. He pointed to “ The Witch ,” a 2015 indie film with a small budget and a debut director that rapidly rose to popularity.

He’s been interested in horror since he was younger and watched old movies with his dad.

“When he was a kid, we watched the original ‘The Thing,’” his father, Bruce Elder, said. “And I think he was really intrigued by that movie as a younger kid. He’s always had an affinity for scary things.”

“He’s very self-motivated,” he added. “We homeschooled Adrian, and you know it was very much unschooling. We didn’t do the real rigid curriculum and all that with the testing. We just kind of made things that he was interested in available to him.”

His family worked on a project to adopt out animals in Bridgeport shelters, which Adrian Elder said made him want to do more projects and helped inspire the genesis of Milford Horror .

He thinks of the movie showings as a hobby. Ticket prices cover the cost of equipment and other fees associated with showing a movie. The best he can hope for is breaking even, he said.

And at the end of the day, he wants to create a shared experience, Elder and others involved with Milford Horror said.

Last year, Elder attended the Salem Horror Fest in Massachusetts and was reminded of the value of interacting in person with other people, particularly those with shared interests.

At the showing of “Evil Dead II,” that community of shared interests came to light at a pivotal scene in the film. The main character, Ash, attaches a chainsaw to his severed left hand, which he uses to saw off the end of a shotgun. As he stows the shotgun in a holder on his back and revs the chainsaw, he delivers his iconic one-liner about the new setup for fighting off Soul Eaters:

“Groovy.”

At that, the Milford crowd erupted into applause.

Elder said typically people are either enthusiastic about watching a horror movie in the woods, or it’s the last thing they’d want to do.

“There’s also this hilarious interaction online that happens with all the woods ones, where someone will be like, ‘Hey, friend, let’s go do this,’” Elder said. “And then they’ll either be a response of, ‘Oh, hell yeah,’ or a response of, ‘Are you kidding? I don’t want to get murdered in the woods.’”

Since the first showing, he’s added interactive activities to some of the showings. He’s done themed activity books, and for “The Exorcist,” participants could play a video game in which they controlled the character Regan and pressed a button to make her vomit on hovering priests.

His 9-year-old son designed the game and has helped set up for most of the events, although he doesn’t typically stay to watch. He’s just getting into horror, and mostly through some of the lighter, short films.

“The Exorcist” was also the first showing he did at an indoor venue other than the library.

The Rev. Stephen Scovell, of the United Presbyterian Church of Milford , said he’d like to have more events at the church. He and Elder are friends and discussed the idea as an enhanced moviegoing experience.

Scovell also wanted it to be a way to make the church welcoming to more people. He wanted to offer the opportunity for people who may have had negative or traumatic experiences associated with the church to just have fun and be in community.

“It was a special event, I think, bringing people back into a space that was maybe not always the best for them in their life, but kind of redeeming that space a little bit, and just having a good time being together and watching a movie,” Scovell said.

Milford Horror will next show “Friday the 13th Part 2” in Eisenhower Park in Milford on Sept. 13 and “The Omen” on Oct. 11 at the church.