Polybius filmmakers talk about working with actor Tom Atkins and creating their new sci-fi / horror short film.

Jimmy Kelly, Jennifer Kelly, Michael Tuite, Tom Atkins, and Stephen Thomas Shore

The short film Polybius is just a few days away from its world premiere screening at HorrorHound Film Festival and to honor this achievement let’s take a closer look at what went into the creation of this sci-fi / horror short film. If you haven’t gotten a chance to see the Polybius trailer, be sure to check it out now. You will love it! You can also take a look at my previous article that dove into the origin of what the Polybius urban legend is that this film is inspired by. In short, Polybius was an arcade game in the 1980’s said to be controlled by the government as a part of a psychology experiment to control people's minds using game programming.

Bringing this sci-fi / horror short film to life are two brilliant filmmakers from Long Island, NY; Jimmy Kelly (Director / Writer / Producer) and Michael Tuite (Writer / Producer). The two have proven to be an incredible team. You can’t sit down with these two gentlemen without quickly seeing the passion that they have for their craft and this project. It's because of this passion that Polybius has even won one award already. It won Best Unproduced Short at the New York City Horror Film Festival in 2016.

With roughly a 15 minute run time, Polybius is a short film inspired by an urban legend. It is not a documentary. It doesn’t look to prove or disprove the urban legend but instead share a story that could have happened during that time. While sharing some non-spoiler details on the film, Jimmy Kelly stated,

“Our young boy is found dead. They think it’s a routine suicide and his sister claims otherwise.”

Michael Tuite added,

“His behavior has changed over the week. She’s trying to convince this sheriff that the game had something to do with her brother’s death.”

Kelly continued describing the film by saying,

“It’s one of those types of stories where we kind of looked at it from the perspective of fans who believe that it’s true. So we try to make a story that could have happened. We don’t say whether it did or didn’t, we quite simply just say that this is what could have happened. The game could have been there for a week or so. This is how it would affect the people that played the game. We don’t prove or disprove it. We simply show a story that could have happened.”

Writer and producer Michael Tuite is a huge fan of the Halloween series and admits that Polybius pulls some inspiration from Halloween III: Season of the Witch. It was because of his fondness for this film that he named the male lead after Tom Atkins from Halloween III. The sheriff in the film is named Sheriff Atkins. They settled on this name because they were looking for a “Tom Atkins type” actor. Tom Atkins has played a sheriff in many of his films and a cop even more times. At the time, they didn’t know if they would be able to get him for Polybius or even if they would have the nerve to reach out to him about the film. However, listening to Tom Atkins speak at a panel at the New York City Horror Film Festival and hearing him say to the crowd that he is chooses very carefully but willing to do short films, they knew they had a chance. After a quick search of his IMBD and seeing that he had done a short film recently, it was the perfect window to reach out to him. After planning everything out, Atkins’ was reached and to Kelly and Tuite’s surprise he was happy and willing to come on board. However, there was still the little business about the character being named after him. Tuite was not sure how this would go over with the veteran actor but in the end, the name stayed.

“There’s a chance he may say, ‘Hey, you know what, can we just change the character’s name because that’s kind of tacky.’ But he didn’t say anything. He thought it was cool. So in the movie he’s Sheriff Atkins. It’s great.”

With Tom Atkins signed on, everything was progressing well. For the pair of filmmakers, it was a dream come true to be working with him. Tuite described Atkins as a very down to Earth guy and a real pleasure to work with. It actually turns out that Atkins had prior knowledge of the Polybius urban legend as his son is a big fan of it. 

When hiring talent for your project, you can only hope that your cast and crew have positive experiences on set. After all was said and done, it was clear that Atkins enjoyed his time with the production. Kelly and Tuite pleasantly recalled a moment on Memorial Day, just after shooting, where Atkins sent Tuite a text wishing them a great Memorial Day and even signed off as “Sheriff Atkins”. It was the perfect stamp of approval. The pair then spoke about how when Atkins wasn’t filming he was hanging out with everyone on set, talking, and telling stories. He always made sure to say bye to everyone on set and happily took pictures with everybody. One thing that impressed both Kelly and Tuite was that he not only remembered everybody’s names on the cast but the crew as well. He took a genuine interest to get to know the people around him. Listening to the stories about Atkins, it is clear that this is an actor that they admire and look up to. There was no doubt about it.

Tom Atkins and Stephen Thomas Shore

When it comes to casting, there is no doubt that Atkins was the right choice. Atkins came to the production ready to go. When he arrived, his script was highlighted and full of notes. After discussions with Atkins, Kelly and Tuite even edited and added shots because from a production stand point the points brought up made perfect sense. When working with Jennifer Kelly, the female lead in the short film, Atkins mentored her in between takes, giving her advice and pointers that made her feel more comfortable working alongside the veteran actor and allowed her to grow as an actress herself. Atkins clearly brought a level of detail and experience to the production that was invaluable.

When it got down to business, filming went extremely well for this pair of filmmakers. Shot over four days, filming went on for 12 hours each day but thanks to an amazing cast and crew, good script, and a well thought out plan, everything ran smoothly and got done just how it needed to.  It helped a lot that both Kelly and Tuite were on sync with each other from the very beginning. When they were going through the process of selecting their director of photography, Kelly watched through three different reels and then brought them over to Tuite so that he could see them as well. At this point Kelly already knew who he had in mind to pick. After watching the reels Tuite had a clear choice in mind as well and when he informed Kelly of his choice, Kelly revealed that he had chosen the same candidate. They landed on cinematographer Sam Schmitz. Being on the same wavelength on decisions like this is what make Kelly and Tuite such a great team. It was clearly a great choice as Sam had a great eye on set. On a day where it looked like filming may potentially run long, he was able to set up a single take that would be filmed from three different angles. Tricks like these were an amazing time saver. 

When it came to the inanimate star of the film, the Polybius arcade, a working arcade was found by production designer Chris Rowen. The team skinned it down so that Polybius graphics could be put on. Then a video game designer was brought on to create the gameplay footage for the arcade. Finally, to tie things all together, Joshua M. Benash stepped in to create the music of the film making sure to give it a video game feel. He accomplished this by sampling sounds made an Atari video game system to fill in his score for the film. This isn’t the first time that Kelly and Tuite have worked with Benash. The three originally met at the New York City Horror Film Festival and worked on a short together titled “Return to South Havin” in 2018.

More than just the creative team of Jimmy Kelly and Michael Tuite working well together, Kelly was both surprised and very thankful on how well the entire cast and crew worked together. He spoke about everyone on set gelling together faster than he has ever seen on a set before. Everyone got along and trusted each other. Several people even stepped up and took on multiple jobs aside from their main role on set. Glenn McBride Jr., the first assistant director, took time to film incredible behind the scenes footage. Helping further on set, various people helped move equipment, set up craft services, crew helped by standing in as extras in scenes, actors stepped up to be a production assistant for a scene, ect. Thanks to a flexible cast and crew, this film came together to get become the best that it could be.

Cast and crew have a table read.

Michael Tuite made a special note of an experience from set that stood out to him that made him feel like a “real writer”. A moment that he’ll surely always remember. Kelly and Tuite wanted to shoot a small side narration piece that would be used for the Polybius trailer. However, because of busy schedules Tuite hadn’t been able to write the piece right away. The night before it was supposed to be shot Kelly handed Tuite a paper with a couple of rough lines and bullet points of what they wanted to accomplish. Tuite got to work.

“In the background, over the course of the day, I took like 10 minutes about an hour before we shot the piece and secluded myself in the makeup area. I set up my laptop, I looked at what he wrote, and I’m like, ‘Alright, write something.’ So I hammered out this four to five sentence thing and I’m like, ‘I think this works. I like it.’ So I go to Jimmy and tell him I have something I want to talk to him about when he has a second. So I pull him away for a minute, I show it to him, and he’s like ‘Yeah. I like it. We’re gonna shoot that.’ and I’m like, ‘Cool!’ Just like that it was done. I wrote this thing in 10 minutes and by the end of the night we were showing Tom so that he could record the audio for it. It made me feel like a real writer. I just wrote something on set an hour before we were going to film it, handed it to the director and he says, ‘I like it. Let’s shoot it’. No time to over think it and it worked.”

This was just another example of their great team work. Kelly drew up some notes and without a big discussion Tuite knew exactly what was wanted and what the film needed. The two repeatedly commented on how nice it was to be on the same page and how it helped make this film go so smoothly.

Michael Tuite and Jimmy Kelly

As our interview winded down, the two launched into an excited conversation about the future of the short film and ideas they had for it. The pair made a conscious decision to apply to larger film festivals first where studios have been sending a lot of acquisition reps who are looking for up and coming filmmakers. From there, they plan to look to enter genre specific festivals where their core audience will be in attendance. Then, they will look at various streaming avenues that have worked well for other short films and lastly they will try to coordinate convention appearances with Tom Atkins to cross promote each other. They also have potential ideas on how to create a feature length film that could serve as a sequel to Polybius. I can’t reveal specific details on how the sequel would unfold but the team has some pretty fun ideas on how bring Polybius to a modern setting.

Keep an eye on this short film. There is no doubt that it, and its creators, will be going places. 

To keep up to date on all of Polybius' news be sure to follow it on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and IMDB.

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