Pill Head, a seriocomic feature film produced in Petaluma about an art school student’s trip through pills and the paranormal, comes in at number 8 among the Top 10 films made in the film location made famous by George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola.
According to the city’s paper of record, the Petaluma Argus-Courier, community editor David Templeton and his staff vetted dozens of films shot on location in Petaluma, CA, a scenic small city north of San Francisco in Sonoma County wine country.
At number 8, Pill Head is number 8 is sandwiched between the adaptation of Stephen King’s Cujo (#7) and Inventing the Abbotts (#9). George Lucas’ American Graffiti tops the list at #1 and Francis Ford Coppola’s Peggy Sue Got Married is #6.
As Templeton writes: about Pill Head:
Possibly the most bizarre film ever made in Petaluma, Daedalus Howell’s “Pill Head,” filmed in black-and-white with an aesthetic the director calls “Artsploitation,” is a science-fiction oddity involving an addicted party girl who submits to an experimental drug treatment that leaves her with psychic abilities. Or has she just lost her mind? Elements of time travel and secret societies are part of the fun.
“We’re flattered to be on the record in such good company,” says the cult film’s writer-director and cast member Daedalus Howell. “Growing up in Petaluma and watching many of these films being made downtown and then to have our own work counted among them really brings it full circle. Petaluma is a truly cinematic town.”
In Howell’s campy, no-budget, cult film, an art student OD’s only to wake up in an experimental psych program. When a side effect causes her to see into parallel universes, her suspicions about her weird doctor grow… And so do her powers. Will they help her escape? The author of a quantum travel guide seems to think so.
The complete Top 10 list can be found here.
Pill Head was made almost entirely in Petaluma, Calif., by writer-director Daedalus Howell and producer Kary Hess. The film boasts a stunning debut by actor Emily Ahrens and a soaring original score by Shannon Ferguson of NYC’s Longwave.
Pill Head is available on Amazon Prime.
Howell’s next feature film, Wolftone, a horror-comedy about a werewolf on the faculty of a failing arts college trying to save his job and marriage, is in pre-production.
Pill Head website: https://dhowl.com/pill-head