Don't Haunt Me Because I'm Beautiful: Filmmaker Stephanie Michel is taking her chances trying to make a feature film about the curse of Santa Cruz.
The Ghost Stays In the Picture
One woman's screenplay ties together the many legends of a Santa Cruz curse
STEPHANIE MICHEL has the kind of looks--pearly teeth, blonde hair, tanned skin--you'd expect from a model/actress who's done commercials for Diet Coke and rock videos for the Scorpions and the Stray Cats. And, of course, she has.
But Michel, who also does standup comedy and has written a sitcom, left all that behind when she moved to Santa Cruz to embark on a weird and wonderful quest: tracking the curse of Santa Cruz..
She also lets slip that Santa Cruz' status in the 1970s as the "murder capital of the world" is linked in the screenplay to the curse, as are many of the area's turn-of-the-century ghost stories.
"But I'd like Lost Boys director Joel Schumacher, as well as Kiefer Sutherland, to take a look and give us footage from the Lost Boys set, on which lots of freak things happened." She laughs, then gets serious. "I'd rather have my blood sucked and stay up all night for eternity than have my entire heritage taken. Greed far surpasses the evil of fangs and blood sucking."
Do you know where Lost Boys was filmed Dog? Pogonip. Oh sure this may be all bullshit. But that would mean I probably have a better screenplay than this chick. Do you know why it is it was lost boys and not girls? Certainly was not a gay thing. How many boys disappeared on Empire Grade just up the Grade from the college? Some of them were my friends.
Why BoyPuppy? That's the way we would follow them around on acid. Beyond that, I am just sorting it out. Are you familiar with the Upper Meadows in the Pogonip near the quarry rocks where they performed Satanic rituals? I'll show you when I get better.
I know where these legends started. I was hanging out with them. Thanks for not believing me. You know it's true. I'm sorry about your family relationship to Richard Helms but he is dead now Dog. Tell me the truth. Are you a spook? It's OK. I'm a little spooky too. Same reason you are. They got to me.
During the House Select Committee on CIA/Mafia Assassination plots, Helms admitted in 1979, under oath, that Clay Shaw worked for the CIA, a claim Shaw initially denied. Shaw was a suspected conspirator in John Kennedy's assassination.
Remember Dog. I need your help on this one. I have known you too long for you to back up from the truth.
Click the picture Dog. Small area. It is all I have to show you
Click this picture. Killer of young men. The Clown Man. Were you ever there? I don't know if he was a kook or a spook but he picked me up hitchhiking once. Up the Grade from the college.
He knew these guys. All of them. How about you? I know the legends. I know them all. Even you my friend. No accident we know each other is it.
Did you think it all stopped? We were too close to the source Dog. What about now?
Just be careful up there would you Little Charlie? I mean it.
