At the recent Macabre Faire Film Festival on Long Island, where the Texas-lensed horror feature JACOB won multiple awards, Fango spoke to its writer/director/co-star about a new film that teams him with the Six Million Dollar Man himself.

THE LEGEND OF DARKHORSE COUNTY, written and directed by Shawn Welling, is set in the titular town where a serial killer/kidnapper is hunted by Sheriff McElroy, played by veteran actor Lee Majors and JACOB’s Larry Wade Carrell at different ages. “That was so cool for me,” Carrell [pictured below at right with Majors] tells Fango, “because I was the biggest THE SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN fan when I was young. I used to run around, going [mimics Steve Austin’s “bionic” sound effect]. There are these murders going on in Darkhorse County, and McElroy’s on the trail, trying to catch this guy. He’s not really aware of the supernatural force that’s out there, just that these kids keep going missing. As he gets closer to tracking him down, he gets in deeper than he thought he would with the supernatural element.”

Similar to JACOB, which took prizes for Best Director, Best Actress (Grace Powell), Best Cinematgraphy, Best Special FX and the Audience Choice award at Macabre Faire, LEGEND is structured as a lengthy flashback. “It opens with Majors telling the story of Darkhorse County, and when it jumps back to the past, it goes to me playing the same character,” Carrell explains. Although the two therefore don’t share scenes, they did get to work together on the LEGEND set. “We had dinner after I had shot some of the movie already,” Carrell recalls, “and he had watched what I had done and wanted me to give some input. That was great; then he asked for me to be on set so we could run some lines, so I’d play the scene and then he’d play it after I had. It was a real collaboration. We worked very hard to make sure we came off like the same person. I tried to get that eyebrow thing down [laughs].”

McElroy is the latest in a series of lawman characters for Carrell, who also plays a police chief in writer/director Millie Loredo’s currently lensing SORROW. “That’s like CSI meets SILENCE OF THE LAMBS, about three serial killers,” the actor/filmmaker explains. “You know, I was telling Fred ‘The Hammer’ Williamson that I was worried about being typecast, and he said, ‘Don’t be complainin’, son. That means you’re working!’ ” Look for more on JACOB, which arrives on DVD and Blu-ray April 16 from Kino Lorber, at this site soon.

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