By MARK WAITE

PVT

Locals had a chance this summer to view a pair of movies filmed in Pahrump a couple years ago.

“Vegas: Based on a True Story,” which aired last year at the CineVegas festival at the Palms Resort in Las Vegas and “Dark Moon Rising,” which was renamed “Wolf Moon,” were both shown at the International High Desert Shorts Film Festival at the Pahrump Nugget Casino over Memorial Day weekend.

“Vegas: Based on a True Story” was directed by Amir Naderi of Alphaville Films at a few locations in Pahrump in early 2007.

The plot revolves around a poor couple and their quest to get rich. The husband, played by lead actor Mark Greenfield, works at a tire store. The wife, played by lead actress Nancy LaScala, works as a waitress at Mom’s Diner.

Naderi focuses artfully on the close-up special effects: the hissing of the tires being changed to reflect the drudgery of the work; the dinging of the slot machine; the eerie wind chimes blowing at their trailer on East Street, now vacant, right down the street from Irene’s Casino.

The son tries to keep the couple together as he tries to enjoy a boy’s life.

Some locals are seen in different episodes. Cathy Leach is a fellow waitress at Mom’s Diner. Walt Turner plays the part of a military veteran who tells the couple there was buried treasure on their property. Rick Garza has a bit role as a co-worker at the tire shop. Joe Hendricks is a patron at Mom’s Diner, and Phil Huff showed the husband research about the so-called buried loot at the Pahrump Valley Museum, while Claudia Knight is seen along with other churchgoers in a scene outside Pahrump Valley United Methodist Church.

The report of buried loot leads the husband to dig for it in his back yard, at one point hiring a Bobcat in his quest to get rich. The yard and trailer get totally trashed.

Scenes of Pahrump abound. Besides Mom’s Diner, Pahrump residents will recognize the tire shop, which used to exist on Highway 160. The sign showing Terrible’s Town Casino is in full view. Actors pull into the Rebel Station on Highway 160.

The film is interspersed with a scene of the Las Vegas skyline, to make it look like the movie was based in Las Vegas, which can seem disjointed to a Pahrump resident familiar with the scenes.

After viewers wait all that time to find out what happens with the attempt to dig up the buried loot, the movie leaves everybody hanging at the end. The only sure thing is the breakup of the couple.

Greenfield told attendees at the festival the film will be aired in September by Indiepix, a small film company. It will be shown mainly in art theaters and will be available on DVD, he said.

“There’s aspects of the American dream that are not fair,” Greenfield said of the moral to the story, “that somehow it’s going to make you rich and solve all your problems.”

Wolf Moon

Dana Mennie and Ian Cook wrote the script for “Wolf Moon,” which was originally titled “Dark Moon Rising.” Mennie directed the film, which was filmed in Pahrump and Beatty a year later than the other movie, in 2008. The crew worked for Lightning Strikes Production. This movie is being distributed through the more well known Lionsgate films and previews before the movie highlight well-known actors and actresses.

The plot revolves around a young man working at an auto shop named Dan, played by actor Chris Divecchio, who falls in love with a young woman, Amy, played by Ginny Weirick. Dan tries to prevent Amy from getting hurt when he turns into a werewolf at night.

Dan evokes the rage of a local livestock owner after killing his horse and a dog. Amy’s protective father, played by actor Chris Mulkey, gives Dan a stern warning not to hang around with his daughter.

A psychic sees a vision of the werewolf behind Dan and says he inherited bad blood. Eventually, Dan finds his long lost father, played by actor Max Ryan, who is a much more dangerous werewolf and has a taste for human blood.

Maria Conchita Alonso plays the role of Sam, a female sheriff’s deputy driving a Nye County Sheriff’s Department pickup truck, who is on the hunt for the werewolves.

Eventually werewolf father meets werewolf son and unsuccessfully tries to convince his son of the benefits of being a werewolf. Near the end, a posse sets out to find the father.

“Wolf Moon” doesn’t show as many locals in the movie. Rich and Linda Uhl have a brief scene, in which they are driving a pickup at night and look up at a werewolf prancing on the hood.

Sheriff Tony DeMeo is pictured for an instant at a desk directing people to a room to talk to the female deputy working the case.

Local Realtor Trish Rippie is listed on the credits as Amy’s boss, and local classic car owner Curtis Watson is also on the credits.

The film cuts away occasionally to a panorama of the Spring Mountains. The young couple enjoy their romance living in a desert town, driving a souped-up 1968 AMX on lonely, two-lane desert roads like Highway 160 in Johnnie, even taking a swim in Bowman’s Pond.

Otherwise, scenes of Pahrump aren’t as visible as Naderi’s movie.

The director liked the western flair of Pahrump, with many of the performers dressed in cowboy hats. Amy lived in a southwestern-style home, some of the scenes were shot at the western-style Waterrock Station on Simkins Road and Highway 160, while the log-cabin type exterior of the Around The World Lodge is shown in a scene where the father werewolf walks into a brothel and after some love-making kills two prostitutes.

A note to any family viewers — there is brief nudity, cursing and violence.

Movie viewers watch Dan transformed from a human being into a werewolf right before their eyes in some good special effects, although the werewolf outfits look obviously like costumes.

In one corny scene after the father and son meet, the father werewolf sings a line from Warren Zevon’s song “Werewolves of London.”

It seems almost like a cross between “Romeo and Juliet” and “I Was a Teenage Werewolf.”

Whether a local moviegoer enjoys the films or not, the attraction of Pahrump as a setting for film companies can be good for business.