WV filmmaker poised to release ‘Project Butterfly: Flatwoods’ this fall
By Matthew Young, RealWV
“I’ve always loved West Virginia history, and my plan for the early part of my career is to have all of my films tie into West Virginia.”
That’s what filmmaker Samuel Felinton told RealWV last week, regarding the inspiration behind his new feature-length film, “Project Butterfly: Flatwoods.” As a native of Huntington and current student at WVU, Samuel’s connection to the Mountain State spans the entirety of his young life.
“I’ve always been obsessed with cryptids,” Samuel added. “And I’ve also wanted to do a horror movie, so all this lines up perfectly with it. And one of the film’s writers, Koltin Davis, is obsessed with the Flatwoods Monster, which is the main monster in our film.”
Along with Samuel and Koltin Davis, rounding out the film’s team of student-writers is Damien Dennis, Elizabeth Felinton, and Declan Mungovan. Samuel also serves as the director of “Project Butterfly: Flatwoods.”
The cast and crew, Samuel noted, is made up entirely of students from both Huntington High School, and West Virginia University, ensuring that everyone involved in the film’s production has ties to West Virginia.
“We have three main actors who will appear throughout the full film,” Samuel explained. “We’ll also be using puppeteers, so we can have real monsters as opposed to special effects.”
The film will utilize five separate puppeteers, Samuel further explained, and “a whole bunch of extras.” The film also features six secondary characters.
FULL FILM SYNOPSIS:
In 2004, during a rare full lunar eclipse, three college friends head into the West Virginia hills to film a school project — but their cameras capture far more than they bargained for. As they interview locals and set up camp, strange glitches, ominous warnings, and impossible events lead them to an underground bunker teeming with West Virginia’s most feared cryptids — the Flatwoods Monster, Veggie Man, Indrid Cold, and more. Trapped in a looping maze of tunnels and shifting woods, the friends must navigate cults, creatures, and time itself in a desperate fight to survive — all told through immersive, time-stamped found footage.
“Project Butterfly: Flatwoods” centers around a journalism student named Zachary, his best friend Jacob, and Jacob’s younger sister, Elise. The majority of the film, Samuel said, is being shot at WVU’s Morgantown campus.
“A few other (filming) locations are in Huntington, and Sutton, in Braxton County – right next to Flatwoods,” Samuel noted.
Although the third feature-length film Samuel has worked on thus far in his brief career, “Project Butterfly: Flatwoods” is the first fully fictional story.
“My first film was a documentary, “As the Sunflower Whispers,” Samuel said. “It was in collaboration with MUkraine, which is a podcast hosted by Marshall University professors that give a platform to untold stories of Ukrainians in the Russian-Ukraine war. The film is a documentary on those stories.”
Samuel’s third project, one in which he worked on with current collaborators Damien Dennis and Declan Mungovan, was significantly more ambitious.
“It’s the second-longest film ever, called ‘The Death of Film,’” Samuel noted. “It’s basically AI’s (artificial intelligence’s) interpretation of nature, which sits at 35 days and 16 hours.”
The Swedish experimental-film “Logistics,” which holds the current world record for the longest film ever made, comes in just one hour longer than Samuel’s “The Death of Film.”
With this current project being the first piece of fiction on Samuel’s resume, there were several notable differences in the filmmaking process.
“‘Project Butterfly: Flatwoods’ is very story-based,” Samuel said. “We made the story, and we made the concept of what these characters are going through. The documentary was going through clips and interviewing people, and ‘The Death of Film’ was basically just working with AI.”
“This is my first time making a full-length project within the drama field,” Samuel added. “It’s working with a lot more actors and a bigger cast, and a bigger crew. The creativity behind it is where I find the biggest differences.”
The film features Xander Alvarez in the role of Zachary, Catherine Pallay in the role of Elise, and Charlie Mattingly in the role of Jacob. Rounding out the full cast is Madeline Dalesio, Kailea Goff, Silas Fry, Royce Montana, Greyson Grimmett, and Porter Bertman. The film’s technical crew includes Damien Dennis, Charles Felinton, Grant Nuzum, with Dylan Burmeister, Declan Mungovan, Xavier Lassandro serving as puppeteers.
Serving alongside Samuel, Koltin, Damien, and Declan as producer is Sally Miltinberger. However it is the film’s executive producers, Gary Seiden and Harold Felinton, who are funding the project – Samuel’s uncle and grandfather, respectively.
“They’ve been invested in my films, and wanted to support my first feature-length drama film,” Samuel said.
For future films, Samuel told us, he hopes to turn “Project Butterfly” into a full-fledged series.
“Our next stop could be ‘Project Butterfly: Grafton,’ or ‘Project Butterfly: Pendleton with the Snallygaster,” Samuel noted. “It sets it up for us to expand out.”
While locations have not yet been set, the team behind “Project Butterfly: Flatwoods” is planning a “red carpet” premiere for Morgantown on Nov. 8, with a screening in Huntington the following week. From there, Samuel plans to present the film during festival season.
