Haddonfield Turns Hollywood

It was lights, camera, action in Haddonfield this weekend as a borough family hosted a movie crew to shoot a trailer at a Kings Highway West home.

The Hunt family’s stately home transformed into a movie set, complete with backyard sets, miles of wire, lighting and cameras, and up to 70 people scurrying about to create the trailer. ( for a photo gallery of the shoot.)

The cast and crew of The Underground didn’t come to town to shoot the movie itself—the trailer is just the attempt to get full funding for the filming.

“This is the new successful way to get a movie produced,” explained David Hunt, who turned over access to his home and yard for the shoot. “Before you would pitch with a treatment or a rough script, but now you need an actual trailer to be more effective at getting funding.”

Hunt and wife Janice fell into the movie business accidentally. Traffic scofflaws hoping to avoid the light at Kings Highway and Warwick Road frequently use their driveway as a cut-through. And David reprimands them every time. This time, though, it wasn’t scofflaws, but a sibling pair scoping out his house several weeks ago.

“We were drawn to it and pulled in,” said producer Tierney Boorboor. She and brother David Boorboor, The Underground’s director, run Eye in the Sky Entertainment, a Cherry Hill-based production studio that seeks to “bring Hollywood to South Jersey.”

“This area is just so beautiful and quaint,” Tierney Boorboor said of selecting the Haddonfield home for the filming. “The look of the house itself was exactly what we wanted for The Underground.”

Abolition Meets the Sixth Sense

The Underground is a cross between supernatural thriller and historical drama. A group of slaves escapes the South, using the Underground Railroad to flee to safety. But at one stop, a supposed abolitionist chains the slaves in a basement tunnel, enticed by the reward money for their capture. The group dies there.

In modern times, a young woman (Megan Elizabeth Gaber) returns to the same home to care for her recently orphaned brother, Mattie (Sebastian Banes). Elizabeth tries to move Mattie away, but the ghosts of the slaves who died there have a connection with him she can’t understand.

Screenwriter Holly Zuelle, from Mt. Laurel, drew inspiration from a friend who lives in Moorestown, and whose home is said to be part of the Underground Railroad. The film itself is set in Moorestown.

Over a two-year process, Zuelle’s original script went from more teen thriller to its current iteration. Her co-writers on the later scripts were Craig Robbins and David Boorboor.

“This is the one time in life you can be a little cocky and look around and say, ‘People are here because of something I did,’” said Zuelle as she observed filming Saturday.

Cecile Parker, who plays Frederick, the patriarch of the slave group, said he and fellow actors support the project because of its subject matter.

“To the best of my and our knowledge, there hasn’t been a film done on this area’s involvement with the Underground Railroad,” Parker, a Philadelphia actor, said. “That history just isn’t widely known.”

Owing in part to its Quaker roots, many residents of Haddonfield and what is now Lawnside took part in the Underground Railroad—although almost certainly most didn’t turn in the slaves they sheltered, as happens in The Underground.

Lights, Camera … Wait Around

The trailer shoot started early Saturday morning and was expected to go well into Saturday night before starting up again Sunday morning through the early hours of Monday.

“They’ll shoot 30 hours of footage for a 120-second trailer,” Janice Hunt said.

Movie filming occurs in spurts of action, with long lulls in between. A call for “quiet on the set!” could be followed by a take, or could peter out into more waiting.

When the action heated up, filming took place in a basement set, built over the Hunts’ backyard basketball hoop. Actors also filmed in front of a green screen, used to easily impose a background during the editing.

While it was clearly something was happening from the street, passersby often looked perplexed. In addition to a large equipment truck and requisite port-o-potty, the Hunts’ front porch was outfitted to look like an attic. Their side yard became a break area and spot for craft services tables. Actors and the crew lounged on the wraparound porch between filming, sometimes playing with the family’s dog. People in headsets scurried about.

The Hunt family also gave up a lot of their indoor space, with bedrooms becoming costume and makeup areas and the family’s furniture, photos and even front doors giving way to props.

For all of this, the Hunts will receive $200 in compensation, which Janice Hunt said will go directly into refurbishing ’s auditorium.

That’s a Wrap, Time to Find a Studio

After the huge weekend undertaking, it’s not clear if The Underground will ever become a full feature film. David Boorboor will begin shopping around the trailer to studios when it’s finished.

Given that the movie takes place in Moorestown and filmed the trailer in Haddonfield, could Haddonfield or another nearby town play host to the full filming? No one is sure yet. New Jersey isn’t as generous with its filming credits as other states—Pennsylvania, for example—so the Garden State may not win even though the movie takes place here.

For now, the Hunts are busy soaking in their first movie experience. And some locals are getting a chance to see the behind-the-scenes reality of filmmaking.

“You never see the grind on-screen,” said actor Cole. “This is what it’s really like to make a movie.”

Visit for a photo gallery of The Underground trailer filming Saturday.

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