Red Waters off and running

Such thrillers do keep Rock Falls native Nathan Waters up at night, although for a very different reason: For him, such films are the stuff of creative inspiration.

Waters, 21, now of Chicago, began making films at age 13. The movie that inspired his love for horror is John Carpenter’s “Halloween,” which he said revealed to him “the power that a horror movie can have.”

Waters’ passion for movie-making led him and some of his colleagues to launch Red Waters Productions. Nathan and his twin, Ethan, came up with the name when they first started making movies. The “red” in the name symbolizes the blood prevalent in horror movies.

“For the most part, we make horror films that span in terms of styles and sub-genres,” Nathan Waters said.

The company is working on a film called “Void,” which he describes as a mix of Dante’s Inferno and “Alice in Wonderland.” It’s “a dark interpretation of a fairy tale classic,” he said.

Waters and his fellow movie-makers conceptualize ideas, write the screenplays, hold auditions in Chicago and rent cameras for their productions, he said.

Through a fundraising website called Indiegogo.com, Waters raised $1,000 to help pay the cost of production. He hopes to start a second round of fundraising later this month.

A passion for horror films runs through Waters’ blood.

“The horror genre, it gets pigeonholed the most, looked at like an ugly stepchild,” he said. “They are extremely universal stories ... with a certain moral aspect to them. You can always learn a lesson.”

Waters, the son of David and Lisa Turner of Rock Falls, is in his second year at Columbia College in Chicago, where he is studying film and video. The 2009 Rock Falls High School graduate went to Sauk Valley Community College for 2 years before transferring.

While at Sauk, he performed in the theater department’s production of “30 Plays in 60 Minutes.” After graduation, he is considering moving to California, where he envisions production as a full-time career.