The reel deal.

• Author: Lamme, Robert
• Position: Financial problems of North Carolina's independent filmmakers

It can be a raw one for home-grown filmmakers, who have to resort to making sick flicks to make ends meet.

"I am going to slice off bite-sized pieces of your body," the psychopath in the movie Killer says to his victim, "and I'm going to eat them - sometimes raw, sometimes cooked - until you're completely consumed."

If you love horror films, you may be disappointed that our twisted hero meets his own bloody demise before chow time. But if cannibalism isn't your cup of tea, you might be wondering what's wrong with the guy who put this stuff on film. Even director and co-producer Tony Elwood isn't sure. "Ever since I was a little kid, I've made movies about vampires and serial killers," he says with a shrug. "I guess I've got these demons inside me that I need to exorcise."

Now 33, the Kannapolis native is still turning his nightmares into low-budget, blood-spattered movies with titles such as Bloody Bones, Road Kill and, of course, Killer, his most successful work. It's about a serial slayer who takes a high-school girl hostage, then has to fend off her adolescent rescuers. Since its release in 1990, Killer has appeared on the Movie Channel, Cinemax and Showtime and landed Elwood an overseas distribution deal. So far, it's made $170,000 in video and cable-TV contracts - not bad for a movie that cost $9,500 to make.

"The independent filmmakers are the real North Carolina film industry," says Bill Arnold, director of the state Film Office. "In 1994, we had nine independent films made in North Carolina. The year before there were only three. The growth of independents is a whole different thing than we've seen before."

And it's a world apart from the big-buck deal making that goes on in Hollywood. For truly Tar Heel movie makers like Elwood - home-grown directors/producers who make low-budget flicks with money from local investors - the industry is far less glamorous and far more tacky than most folks know. Forget the cliche about beautiful people cutting million-dollar deals over expensive lunches. Independents have to scrounge money from friends and family to make movies that go straight to video.

And they are bit players in the North Carolina movie business, which ranks second only to California's in TV and film production. In 1993, 33 feature films and 149 TV productions were shot here in places such as Wilmington's Carolco Studios. The Film Office estimates that the industry pumped about $505 million into the state's economy in 1993, up from $391 million in 1992. Sure, these productions use Tar Heel film crews - gaffers, grips and the like - but California actors are the stars and West Coast investors provide the cash.

"In comparison to what's going on at Carolco, I'm in the Stone Age, just trying to survive," says Elwood, who writes scripts, promotes his films and runs a distribution and computer-graphics company out of his house in Charlotte. To pay the rent, Elwood free-lances as a set designer and makeup artist.

Despite the challenges and meager financial returns, a growing number of independent filmmakers are taking the plunge. Recent Carolina graduates Walt Bast and Steve White are putting the finishing touches on Immortal. Bast calls it a "rock 'n' roll vampire movie" but won't reveal how much it cost to make. Burlington native Dean Jones is also tapping the vampire craze with his low-budget Dead Inn, which completed production last year. Since his success with Killer, Elwood has completed filming Road Kill for $18,000 - "It's your basic serial-killer road film," he says - and is now trying to raise enough money to jump into the big time with Bloody Bones, a murderer-comes-back-from-grave-seeking-vengeance movie with a budget of $1.5 million.

Elwood admits to being two parts salesman and one part artist, an essential combination for any businessperson who wants to cash in on a dream. Like most entrepreneurs, he's begged for start-up capital, calculated razor-thin profit margins to cut costs, given himself crash courses in marketing and worked months without a...