Demons Of Dark Entry Forest

* * *

As with every good folk legend, there are a dozen different versions of the story of Dudleytown. The most common starts with Edmund Dudley, a onetime chancellor of the exchequer of England who was put to death in 1510, purportedly as a scapegoat for the economic failures of England. His grandson, Robert Dudley, the Earl of Leicester, emigrates from England; his heirs are the founders of Dudleytown.

Maxing out at 26 families, it hardly rated as a town and relied on Cornwall for its church, stores and meetinghouses. What it never lacked, say true believers, was carnage. There's Gershom Hollister, murdered at the home of William Tanner. (Soon after, Tanner goes insane.) A family is scalped by Indians. The children of John Patrick Brophy vanish. Women commit suicide. You get the idea. By 1900 the place is deserted.

The writers recruited by the Kirkpatricks steeped themselves in this legend, but their collaboration yielded nothing. A group that seemed motivated and smart turned listless.

"You drop five or six kids into a house that's two miles from a purported hypercenter of paranormal activity and then you give them serious work to do," Douglas Kirkpatrick says. "It's like telling scary stories around a fire."

The writers have a different take. Almost as soon as they settled in, they say, the brothers started issuing contradictory instructions. The plot changed constantly; characters were ordered into existence, then out of existence. The writers waited for Douglas and David to decide on a single story, and until then, all effort seemed pointless. Far from battling the willies, the writers were bored.

Ultimately, the Kirkpatricks were unable to find common ground, and in September they ended their partnership, citing "spiritual differences," as it said in a Good News press release. David Kirkpatrick did not return calls for this story.

Like children in a noisy divorce, the writers gradually realized that they were in the middle of a fight that they were powerless to stop. That, they say, is why they left.

Today, each Kirkpatrick says he is in the preproduction phase of a Dudleytown movie, "Dudleytown Curse -- the 49th Key" (Douglas) and "Dudleytown" (David). Whether either will ever reach the cineplex isn't clear. Neither has started filming, and "The 49th Key" lacks a cast or funding.

"We're in a race against time," says Douglas, "because we'd like to start filming in New England before the leaves start falling."

Neither production, of course, will film anywhere close to the actual Dudleytown. An attorney for Dark Entry sent a letter to Good News in March threatening a defamation suit if the company so much as mentions Dudleytown in its film. Several Dark Entry shareholders contacted for this story declined to comment, apparently for fear that any publicity would elevate the films' profile and tempt financial backers.