The Foundry Theater in Huntington hosted a free screening of the new film “Valley of the Shadow” as well as a post-screening Q&A with director Tom Whitus along with other key cast and crew members Sunday, Jan. 18.
Despite the fact the film is set in 1877 Colorado, it was shot entirely using locations in West Virginia. The main location used in filming was Jackson’s Mill in Weston, though some scenes were filmed on a farm in Buckhannon.
“I don’t think I could’ve gotten the same vibe in Colorado,” film director Tom Whitus said. “If I hadn’t told you we shot it in West Virginia and we shot it in Colorado, I don’t think you would know the difference. That was what I hoped, anyway.”
The filmmakers had a limited amount of space while filming, with Jackson’s Mill surrounded by an active construction crew and heavy rain during the days they spent filming the movie. They also had a limited amount of time, filming the movie in just twelve days.
The filmmakers remarked how they had to be on the same page before even day one.
“We realized we had a lot of beautiful scenery in West Virginia, of course, but because we had a small crew and a limited budget, we didn’t want to move around too much,” cinematographer Justin Litton said.
The film’s plot follows Jason Collier, an 1877 frontiersman played by Nathan Todaro, as he hunts down the man who murdered his family, a serial killer who calls himself “The Reverend.” Jason meets and saves the life of a young man named Vernon Pollard, played by Logan Vance, after The Reverend kills Vernon’s parents and leaves the boy for dead. After a few days of Jason nursing him back to health and grieving his mother and father, Vernon decides to accompany the older man on his vengeful journey.
Whitus is most known for films like “Lockbox,” “How to Pay for a Hillbilly Funeral” and “What Will Lucy Do Next?” The film is his first in the western genre. The film will also be Todaro’s first western as he said on Instagram after wrapping up filming.
When asked at the after-screening Q&A about where the movie will be available in the future, Whitus said, “We’re screening it on the 29th of this month in Los Angeles for some distributors. We will know a lot more after that. It might get into some theaters; it might get into Amazon Prime or Netflix and the like. We just don’t know at this point.”
Caitlyn Thompson can be contacted at [email protected].
