Lake Villa’s Caboose Park was a favorite childhood playground for independent filmmaker Brian Naydol, who chose the location for the first day of shooing on his fourth feature film, “Tread This Fantasy.”

Naydol, 39, of Antioch, dabbled in acting when he attended Grant High School, but it wasn't until he saw the Quentin Tarantino classic, “Pulp Fiction,” that he became inspired to get behind the camera as a director and producer.

He founded Pulp Productions Films in 1995 and made a short film with his friends called "Tales From The Disco" using nothing more than camcorders and VCRs.

“It was horrible, but it started us,” Naydol said.

Production halted as their lives went in different directions, but ramped up again in 2010 with a web series followed by several short films and feature films including “Victims of Fun” and “The Barlow House.”

Naydol’s third feature film, “Darkness Has Covered My Light,” is in post-production and scheduled for release next month.

On location

“Tread This Fantasy,” a horror film that explores how people use social media to manipulate and take advantage of others and lure them into extremely dangerous situations, began filming Oct. 4 in Lake Villa. Other film locations include Johnsburg, Rockford and Spring Grove.

“A lot of the locations are places from my past that I love, like Caboose Park. Other places I’ve found through friends,” Naydol said.

Joining him for the Lake Villa shoot was director of photography George Bicknell and actors Jessica Trznadel and Abbey Bobzin.

Bicknell has a BA in communications from Marquette University in Milwaukee but is determined to build a career in film after “falling in love” with the visual effects in the science-fiction thriller “Inception,” starring Leonardo DiCaprio.

“I want to keep doing this forever,” he said.

For his visual work on “Tread This Fantasy,” Bicknell is taking influence from David Fincher’s “Seven” and Lars von Trier’s “Antichrist,” according to Pulp Productions’ Facebook page.

Trznadel, another Marquette grad, appeared in Pulp Productions’ “Darkness Has Covered My Light” but takes the lead in “Tread This Fantasy.” In the film, she plays struggling stage actress Lucretia Hamlin, whose bad decisions lead to even worse consequences.

“It’s just fun and I like all the people I get to meet,” Trznadel said of acting, which she hopes to make her profession.

Bobzin, who plays Lucretia’s friend Jackie Colfax in “Tread This Fantasy,” graduated from Carthage College with a BA in theater performance and graphic design. She’s the marketing manager of the Chicago Fringe Festival and also works as a special effects makeup artist for Six Flags Fright Fest. She acts and directs in her spare time.

“I live the dream on the side,” she said.

Bobzin enjoys both film and stage acting, but said preparing for a film scene can be more difficult because they aren’t shot in chronological order. Additionally, actors often have to re-record their dialogue following an outdoor shoot due to background noise interference, and recreating that same emotion takes skill.

“It can be challenging, but it keeps you on your toes,” she said.

“Tread This Fantasy,” Naydol’s second horror film, will also feature actor Jeremy Lindholm, who Naydol met in high school. Lindholm has appeared in the SyFy channel’s “Znation” and is cast in a revamp of David Lynch’s “Twin Peaks” airing on Showtime next year.

Starving artists

Pulp Productions is trying to raise money for special effects makeup for “Tread This Fantasy.”

“You want it to look realistic and this is the first time we’ve gone really gory in a movie,” Naydol said.

With no studio backing and cast and crew often working for little or no pay, Pulp Productions is also seeking donations to upgrade their equipment, particularly the sound equipment.

"With what we have, our abilities are very limited. We are essentially starving artists," Naydol wrote on his Go Fund Me page.

Upcoming projects for Pulp Productions includes “Until the End of Time,” about the sole survivor of a slasher killer, and Naydol’s passion project, “Measure of Devotion,” which tells the story of a 69-year-old man who fought in the Battle of Gettysburg during the Civil War.

Learn more about their films at www.pulpproductionsfilms.com. Support them at www.gofundme.com/HelpPulpProduction.