{"id":215286,"date":"2026-06-10T06:35:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-10T06:35:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/215286\/"},"modified":"2026-06-10T06:35:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-10T06:35:10","slug":"cardinal-flix-to-film-psychological-thriller-arachnophilia-in-scranton-area-this-fall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/215286\/","title":{"rendered":"Cardinal Flix to film psychological thriller Arachnophilia in Scranton area this fall"},"content":{"rendered":"

SCRANTON, LACKAWANNA CO. (WOLF) \u2014 New York-based film company Cardinal Flix<\/a> announced Tuesday that its next feature film, Arachnophilia, will be filmed in and around the Scranton area later this year.<\/p>\n

Cardinal Flix leaders, partners and Scranton officials gathered at A\u2019Tera 519, one of the planned filming locations, to announce the psychological thriller, which is expected to begin filming Sept. 21 and run through Oct. 23.<\/p>\n

Arachnophilia is the first of four proposed film projects Cardinal Flix plans to produce in Northeastern Pennsylvania over the next four to five years. The film has a $2.8 million budget and is expected to generate an estimated $1.3 million local economic impact through hotel stays, restaurant partnerships, catering, locations, transportation, equipment rentals, crew hiring and other regional services.<\/p>\n

Sarah T. Schwab, president and co-founder of Cardinal Flix and writer-director of Arachnophilia, said the idea for the film traced back about 10 years, when a planned trip to Southeast Asia with her best friend pushed her to confront her fear of spiders.<\/p>\n

\u201cArachnophilia came out of a personal fear of spiders. I decided to watch the movie Arachnophobia several times, repeat, repeat, repeat, trying to self-cure myself through exposure therapy. It kind of worked. Not 100%, but that\u2019s what gave me the idea for this film,\u201d said Schwab.<\/p>\n

Schwab described Arachnophilia as centering on a high school orchestra teacher with severe arachnophobia tied to something that happened during childhood. After something happens to her as an adult, the character seeks help through exposure therapy, but her fear eventually turns into an admiration for spiders and becomes part of a revenge story.<\/p>\n

Schwab further explained that the film is a character study, with the protagonist\u2019s role as an orchestra teacher tying into the film\u2019s music themes and the way spiders can pluck the webs of other spiders like strings.<\/p>\n

Brian Long, producer for Arachnophilia and co-founder of Cardinal Flix, said the company has spent time in the region over the past year and a half. He added that Scranton made sense for the production because it offers urban, suburban and rural locations close together, while also being within reach of New York City, where much of the company\u2019s cast and crew is based.<\/p>\n

Other planned filming locations include Keystone College in La Plume, Lackawanna College, the Pet Zone in Pittston, a pig farm in Waymart and private residences in and around Scranton. Long said Keystone College is expected to be one of the production\u2019s largest locations, with seven or eight shoot days planned there.<\/p>\n

Cardinal Flix plans to use regional crew members, production assistants, vendors, local extras and local instrumentalists and orchestra members. Anyone interested in available roles or working on set can submit their information<\/a> through an interest form on Cardinal Flix\u2019s Facebook page<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SCRANTON, LACKAWANNA CO. (WOLF) \u2014 New York-based film company Cardinal Flix announced Tuesday that its next feature film,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":215287,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[178,180,179],"class_list":["post-215286","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-scranton","tag-scranton","tag-scranton-headlines","tag-scranton-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215286","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=215286"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215286\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/215287"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=215286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=215286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=215286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}