When a young girl is sent to a mental asylum by her parents, her and her police escort begin to realize that nothing is what it seems. Co-written and directed by Ryan Spindell, Kirksdale stars Gregory Thompson (Dark Remains) as a sinister doctor who has other plans for all who enter the Kirksdale Hospital. Check out FEARnet?s interview with Ryan Spindell below.

How did you come up with the concept for Kirksdale?

"I think the basic idea was I wanted to tell a story about a mental hospital where the patients not only escape but they actually assume the role of the staff and are actually running the hospital. That?s sort of the idea but it was obviously narrowed down because of how short it was. Basically the one patient who is assuming the role but I think the main thing we were going for was to try to sort of go against some of the stereotypes that are associated with the genre. I?m a huge fan of the genre but I?m also picky about which films I like and which films I don?t. I think we were trying to do sort of a artsy horror film. It?s still more horror than I envisioned. We shot it in the daytime and the music was a big thing we wanted to have. Instead of having a lot of creepy horror music we wanted it to have a lot of beautiful music to set up the tone and the period."

You mention that you are a fan of the genre. Do you have a favorite style or subgenre?

"I can definitely say that for the first 13 years of my life I absolutely hated horror movies because I don?t like it when other people scare me. I like to scare people I just don?t like it reversed. Same thing with haunted houses. The first movie though, when I saw Evil Dead 2 I said not only do I love this genre I also want to make these movies. That was a real pivitol movie for me. Then from there I wanted to find the goriest most ridiculous movies ever like some old Peter Jackson stuff like Brain Dead. But now I sort of have an overall love for all of it. Now I really like the horror comedy like Shawn of the Dead but I really love the serious horror and supernatural which I haven?t done but I?d really like to do one day."

Do you think you?ll stick with horror, sci-fi, thriller filmmaking or branch out to other genres?

?To be honest I like anything weird and dark. It doesn?t necessarily have to be horror I just like things that are different. The stranger the better for me.?

The whole idea of reconfiguring and rehabilitating the patients in sort of surreal and completely unconventional way gave the film a much more artsy approach.

?You know, one of the most important things for the film is to figure out what this fake doctor was going to be about we didn?t want to portray the patients of the asylum as the typical crazy. If this one guy was going to do terrible things we wanted him to have a real reason for it with a deeper meaning behind it all. We wanted to portray that he sees what he?s doing is wrong in a way.?

If Kirksdale were to be a feature length film do you think you?d explore the character of the young girl, the cop, or the doctor?

"I think that as of right now if I was going to do a feature version I?d have the cop as the main character. But I?d probably have it be about all three characters in three separate stories and have them sort of come together. You know, building them up beforehand and then having them collide. I?d like to have more of the doctor. Initially the thought was to do it that way but because of time and money it didn?t turn out that way. There?s also a lot of things that happened to the girl, she short of pops up here and there."

Any plans for turning it into a feature length film?

?I was toying with the idea. It was originally written just to be a 20 minute short. But so many people have asked me that I sort of played with the notion. I?m just waiting for that one strike of inspiration.?

In such a short amount of time what was involved in the special and physical effects?

?There were a lot of different things involved. We worked with a special effects guy from Orlando and he come up and did some things. About 50% of our budget went towards special effects. For all the time and effort we put into the effects, in the end I don?t think that much comes across on screen. The leg break was probably the most complex since we had to have a prosthetic leg with tubing and it was so involved even though it was only on screen for about a second. When I watched the screening with my parents was the first time I realized how bloody it really is. The idea was to go with more of a Hitchcock style and try not to show much but then when the leg breaks its like whoa I didn?t think he was going to go there. If you watch it you realize there really isn?t a lot of violence.?

What is your biggest fear?

"My parents are doctors so every film I have seems to have a needle or some sort of medical aspect in it. I guess I have so many fears! I guess there?s something extra creepy about anything medical to me."