Feathers fly as ‘Chicken Head’ movie descends on Largo

Smack in the middle of a card table set up in the far corner of the Heritage Village parking lot is a gigantic, fully-feathered chicken head. The head is four feet tall, and it looks angry. It looks like the rooster from hell.

Which is entirely appropriate, because said head is a costume piece for Chicken Head, a horror movie spoof in production on the grounds of the leafy Largo park and open-air history museum. The head’s proud creator guards it like a government secret, and politely asks that it not be photographed by the media – no spoilers, you know.

This, though, can be said about Chicken Head: It’s an independent film written by actor Corin Nemec (I Know My First Name is Steven, Stargate SG-1, Parker Lewis Can’t Lose) and screen scribe Matt Florio. They also play the lead characters, a pair of documentarians named Skip and Todd (of “STD Productions”) who stumble upon the legend of a half man, half chicken who has terrorized a small Florida town for years.

Filmmakers Corin Nemec, left, and Matt Florio.

Their financial benefactor Darryl (David Faustino from Married … With Children) is not pleased that the tale of the “Chicken Head Slayer” has taken the team away from their agreed-upon documentary project, about the high suicide rate among dentists.

Skip and Todd, however, can’t be swayed. They know a good story when they smell it.

“We’re going to go there, we’re going to spend the night in the cabin the Chicken Head was born in,” Nemec explains. “And as we go out to record this documentary, it turns out that the Chicken Head is real.

“It turns out that every July 20 he returns to finish murdering the rest of the townsfolk.”

Actors Kyle Grooms, left, and James Logan.

Chicken Head is a fully-fledged Florida production, top to bottom. Nemec, who moved to Belleair Bluffs from Los Angeles in 2022, has written several scripts with Florio (from Miami and, more recently, Tampa). They’re both producers on the project, with Nemec as director.

Also in the 24-member cast: Jason London (Dazed and Confused), another Pinellas transplant; Keith Coogan (Toy Soldiers, Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead), who lives on Florida’s east coast; and St. Pete acting mainstay Paul Wilson.

Zack Gottsagen (The Peanut Butter Falcon), longtime WWE broadcaster Kayla Becker and Tara Reed (American Pie) also appear.

The film’s quartet of backers includes real estate developer (and former St. Petersburg City Councilmember) Robert Blackmon. He is officially an executive producer.

Nemec describes the movies as “experimental. We crushed a lot of genres together: The horror comedy genre, the mockumentary genre and the found footage drama – the footage that they’re shooting for their documentary becomes the movie.”

Much of Chicken Head is being shot after dark, when the piney woods draped with Spanish moss on Heritage Village’s 21 acres take on the desired spooky vibe.

On this day, however, the crew (most of them are local, too) are filming a brief slate of daylight scenes. Coogan, who’s playing documentary crewmember Gus Jensen, is the center of attention as Nemec directs him “flying” a camera drone (there’s an off-camera drone operator doing the actual joystick work).

“I read this script and in my mind I couldn’t not see it with traditional, master, over-the-shoulder closeup coverage,” Coogan says once the shot is successfully in the can. “We’re doing anything but that. It’s now all security cameras, Go-Pros, drone shots … that visual language we’re used to in reality game shows and sporting stuff. It gives us a lot of leeway to improv.”

Coogan, whose previous horror work was an episode of Tales From the Crypt and the 2000 thriller Python (“130 feet of Terror,” he laughs), is a fan of the genre, and he’s of the mind that “scare pictures” (to use old-time Hollywood parlance) are always best when they’re self-aware, with healthy dollops of humor.

Cue the theme from Chicken Head.

His grandfather was Jackie Coogan, an early child star (he had the title role in Charlie Chaplin’s film The Kid), who’s probably best remembered for his portrayal of Uncle Fester on TV’s The Addams Family.

Jackie Coogan was also famously married to Betty Grable. “He was her first husband,” says his grandson. “And when they separated and she left him for Harry James, my grandfather never listened to a jazz record again.”

Both Nemec and Florio refer to the “found footage” technique used in 1999’s The Blair Witch Project as an element in the Chicken Head production saga.

“Basically,” Florio explains, “we’re taking elements of Blair Witch – cameras in the woods, it feels like it’s real – but we’re putting The Office in it. So now we have all these goofballs, and they all have their own personalities, and they’re all running for their lives in the woods.

“The cameras that are used throughout this entire movie are all practical cameras that exist within the movie. We’ve already established that these cameras exist in the world.

“With the camera angles, our cinematographer is peeking around the trees and stuff – it makes it feel like you’re literally going through the movie with these characters.”

Cast and crew work through a late afternoon rain shower to finish the daylight scenes on this day’s schedule (nearly all of Chicken Head is being shot in the seven days the County has allowed them use of Heritage Village). The rest of the cast trickles in. Tonight, they’ll most likely be here until 3 or 4 a.m., shooting in the woods and inside several of the old-Florida buildings on the property.

It has to be dark as pitch for the Chicken Head to emerge, and wreak havoc.

“When people watch this thing,” says Florio, “they’re going to be like ‘This is so ridiculous! But it’s hilarious.”

From left: Writer, director and actor Corin Nemec, actor Jason London, executive producer Robert Blackmon and actor Keith Coogan.