How a slasher movie spawned real-life horror

With almost no money, and no cameraman, first-time director Blaine Norris was getting ready to cajole his merry band of actors up Pennsylvania’s Appalachian trail to shoot a movie.

But one cast member wasn’t impressed— Robyn Griggs, the only true acting pro in the bunch.

Dennis Murphy, Dateline correspondent: Robyn, you know very well even independent films, shoe-string budgets  can be expensive. You’ve gotta have some dough to do it.

Robyn Griggs, actress: Right.

Murphy: Where was the money coming from?

Griggs: I have no idea.

And money, or lack of it, wasn’t the only puzzle.  Norris began telling cast members that the demands of making a movie were hurting his relationship with his wife.

Griggs: The weird thing was he was starting to e-mail me about things that didn't have anything to do with the project.  It was, you know, him telling me his wife was accusing him of being with us. It was just really odd.

So Blaine Norris’ swelling list of troubles now included a strained marriage, and that list was getting even longer.  Just as cast and crew were getting ready to hike into the woods, Robyn Griggs broke her arm. Norris’ only marquee name was now out of the picture.

Fortunately, Amber Muncy was waiting in the wings. She’d done some regional theater and had already auditioned for Blaine Norris. But soon, she too, was seeing red flags.

Amber Muncy, actress: Before we started shooting there were grocery bags full of food all spread out in this room and all the equipment and everything, and I did wonder where all the money was coming from.

As it turns out, the movie was being financed on plastic. Norris was racking up huge debts, close to $18,000 on his personal credit cards. It was a chunk of change for a computer tech pulling down about $60,000 a year. But if Norris was sweating bills due, he didn’t show it to his cast and company.

The horror movie in the woods was on. In a “behind-the-scenes” video shot by actor Sean Gaston, one can watch Blaine not as a nervous rookie, but a relaxed, downright randy, first-time director.

In fact, during their five days together shooting, actors say director Blaine Norris never complained about his all too real problems —  money or marriage. Rather, he talked about his love for slash-and-splatter film classics like “Halloween” and “Nightmare on Elm Street.”

Actor Sean Gaston says he learned a bit more about Norris’ fascination with the dark side, so evident in Norris’ script.

Sean Gaston, actor: It was a horror film where the ghost or the killer, if you will, set out with this goal and accomplished it.

Murphy: So the “power of evil,” if that’s what the ghost is, wins?

Gaston: Yeah, he wins in the end, yes.

As filming wrapped, cast members say they had even developed an affection for the nerdy guy they called director.

But back in the routine of everyday life, the seemingly carefree Norris slipped on the tightrope he’d been walking. He announced his marriage was over.

And soon, Norris’ buoyant e-mails to cast members, updating them on the movie’s progress, trickled away.

A busted marriage, ballooning debt, and stalled film: There was no more Hollywood in Norris’ immediate future. He was back to working on computers with Brian Trimble, hanging out with his friend the cameraman who had backed out of his movie at the last minute.

Tracey Thompson worked in the same office at a desk just across from Brian Trimble, and thought he was “strange.”

Tracey Thompson, co-worker of Blaine Norris and Brian Trimble: Blaine still came around. And someone said “Hey how’s the movie going?” And they were like, “Oh, we ran out of money.”

Thompson thought Trimble and Norris made an odd pair. Trimble was subdued, whereas Norris was outspoken. And Trimble didn’t blow through money the way Norris did. He couldn’t — his frugal wife, the one who told him to bail on Blaine’s “stupid movie,” wouldn’t allow it.

Thompson: He really didn’t come out and say that his wife had all the money, but you could tell because he had to borrow money for lunch or he called his wife and asked if he could take money out of the MAC machine to go to lunch with the guys.

Murphy: Did Brian talk about his marriage?

Thompson: All the time

Murphy: What’d he say?

Thompson: He portrayed they had a nice marriage. They went to different cruises, they liked to do ballroom dancing… they had a wonderful marriage.

But the marriage came to a shocking and bloody end on January 10, 2003. A hysterical Brian Trimble called 9-1-1 to tell a dispatcher that he’d just come home to find his wife Randi lying like a bloodied rag doll on the garage floor. There was no doubt Randi Trimble had been murdered. Within minutes, police were at the quiet suburban home.

Chip Dougherty, police detective: There was a body there, a tremendous amount of blood.  And the hair was matted with so much blood, I couldn’t tell if it was male or female...

The young husband who'd dabbled in making horror films suddenly had a very real kind of horror playing out under his own roof. Investigators sensed right away— the crime scene stunk like a bad movie.

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