The year is 1989. Among the long line of moviegoers who stand in front of the Orpheum theater to see Batman-the biggest blockbuster of the year, is six-year-old Nate Ragon, whose life, as the lights dim and the opening score begins to play, is about to be changed forever.
“That was the first movie I saw in a theater,” Ragon said, “and the first movie that made me want to go back to theaters and watch as many movies as I could.”
Indeed, many more movies would follow, each one shaping Ragon’s taste for the dark and fantastic and eventually leading up to yet another cinematic milestone in his life, with a film that would help shape what he wanted to do with it.
And it’s from that love for those classic horror films that ultimately paved a unique path for the Clarion native; from prop collector and actor, creative consultant and producer, to now with Ragon’s newest venture; Stop the Killer Games.
Stop the Killer Games, LLC. which makes board games and books “based on scary movies,” started after Ragon and his business partner, Anthony Masi, were thinking of merchandising ideas for some friends behind one of the most controversial films of the 1980s, “Silent Night, Deadly Night.”
“We were in contact with (the producers) of that film and they were doing all this merchandising stuff for it and we started thinking fans might want something different besides a T-shirt,” Ragon explained, “So Anthony said, how about a board game? I thought, ‘Well, it’s definitely something I’d want from that movie when I was kid. But I didn’t know anything about making board games.”
Ragon said Masi designed the initial layout of the game in about a week, drawing it out on a whiteboard and cobbling pieces from other games to get a general concept of what they wanted.
“Since we were already friends with the people who own the rights to the movie it seemed like the perfect one to start with, because you didn’t have to track anyone down,” Ragon added, “Right from the get-go we wanted fans to feel like this is what a ‘Silent Night, Deadly Night’ game would be like if it came out in the 1980s. We wanted it to have that retro feel.”
And when it came time to capture that nostalgia, they recruited friends from Fright-Rags; a popular horror apparel company based in Rochester, New York, to create the artwork.
“They obviously have a whole team of artists that do these amazing shirts and so we asked Ben, the CEO, if he’d want to be a part of it, too,” Ragon said,
“But then we quickly realized how expensive it was actually going to be to produce a board game. It’s not cheap. So that’s why we decided to use Kickstarter.”
Ragon added that after they setup the board game idea on the popular fundraising platform, the response was overwhelming,
“The campaign did four times what we were originally asking.”
The pair knew they were on to something big.
“The next game we wanted to do was ‘My Bloody Valentine.’ Anthony already knew the director so he reached out to him first, and then went to the producer who owned the rights to the film. We got a deal with them and launched it again on Kickstarter, and that raised even more money than ‘Silent Night, Deadly Night’ did.”
Released in 1981, “My Bloody Valentine” tells the story about crazed miner Harry Warden who unleashes havoc on a small Nova Scotia town after its residents reinstate their Valentine’s Day festivities-something crazy Harry forbids. In the board game version, the rules are simple; players have to stop Harry from reaching the Valentine’s Day dance before he kills off the characters one-by-one, hence-to “stop the killer.”
In addition to the games, the company also offers a series of hex deck card games, as well as companion novels of the films.
“When we were coming up with ideas for the ‘Silent Night,’ merchandise, one idea we had was coming out with a novelization of the movie. We knew people still collected those old paperback movie novels because that’s what it was like back in the day-you watch the movie and then go buy the novel because you didn’t know when you’d see the film again. People love novelizations and nostalgia is huge right now.”
Ragon said they currently have one writer, Los Angeles-based Armando Munoz, who has authored their novels, a few of which have garnered high praise within the horror community. “Armando’s insane, he’ll just lock himself in a room for two months and turn out a book,” Ragon joked.
But the biggest challenge so far, Ragon explained, is tracking down the appropriate person in order to get licensing permissions; a hurdle the team faced on their third release.
“Anthony wanted to do ‘Halloween II,’ his favorite horror movie, but we knew that was going to be big because it’s owned by Universal Pictures. The rights for the other movies we did are owned by the original producers so we were just dealing with them directly, but with Universal, you’re dealing with the entire studio. We knew it was going to be very different.”
Ragon added though the process of dealing with the studio system wasn’t difficult, it was much more specific in what was allowed or not allowed-specifically, when it came to using the likeness of the actors.
“This news came after we already had the artwork for the characters, so we had to keep changing it until it was approved by the studio. They had to approve everything and if they didn’t, we had to go back and do it again. It was a long process.”
Ragon added he faced similar challenges when attempting to secure the gaming rights for the “Scream” franchise, which is owned by Paramount.
“I was told there was already a ‘Scream’ game coming out so I said to Anthony, let’s just do ‘Ghostface,’ because (the character) is owned by Fun World and we already had those connections.”
Releasing this month, the careful measures the team took for ‘Ghostface the Game,’ not to violate Paramount’s rights actually opened it up for its own creative freedom, including the location of the story.
“Usually when we make these games there’s already a story we can follow, but with ‘Ghostface’ we had to come up with our own,” Ragon said, “So I said, let’s just set it in Clarion-a fictional version of Clarion. Anthony came up with a great story to go with it, there are multiple killers instead of just one. There’s even a fake little Clarion newspaper to go with it.”
And for a simple idea started by movie fans to rapidly grow into a company for movie fans, it’s probably not surprising for Hollywood itself to inevitably take notice, with famed horror filmmaker Eli Roth (most notably known for “Cabin Fever” and the “Hostel” films) recruiting the company for his latest film, “Thanksgiving.”
“The day they started filming, a friend of Eli’s brought our ‘Silent Night, Deadly Night’ game to the set and the cast and crew played it,” Ragon explained, “So after the movie came out, Anthony had given (Eli Roth) a gift bag with a few of our games and novels and then literally that day, Eli had called Anthony and told him “I want you guys to do the official ‘Thanksgiving’ game, but I want it out by this Thanksgiving.”
Ragon added that through several Zoom meetings, Roth has worked closely with the team, from the game’s design and artwork to the storyline.
“Eli’s been great. He sent us every asset from the movie. Files, behind-the-scene photos, anything we need. It’s been such a crazy experience.” Preorders for “Thanksgiving: John Carver’s Carving Board Game” are now available.
Anyone interested in learning more about Stop the Killer Games can visit the website at www.stopthekiller.com.