COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Normally, a film like “Killer Raccoons 2: Dark Christmas in the Dark” would not grab any kind of mainstream attention or movie theater play. But, thanks to disruptions in the film industry caused by the coronavirus pandemic, it has become one of the top-ranked films in the U.S. domestic box office.
According to IMDB records, “Killer Raccoons 2” reached No. 13 on domestic box office charts for the period July 31-Aug. 2. The film continues to hold a spot on the charts even in late August, dropping down to 22nd.
The movie will have a weeklong showing at Chagrin Cinemas, starting on Friday, Aug. 28 and running until Thursday, Sept. 3. Each film screening will take place at 7:40 p.m.
Travis Irvine, the movie’s writer, director and producer, said that in the week it was ranked 13th, “Killer Raccoons 2” was the only comedy on the list -- making it the No. 1 comedy film in the U.S (“with many asterisks next to that,” he said).
“Due to the global pandemic, economic meltdown and studio and theater friction -- that’s the only way these indie movies are getting any play at theaters,” he said. “It’s strange but it’s been a long journey, with a pretty cool outcome at the end - that this silly movie has made its way to be the No. 1 comedy in the summer of 2020.”
The film’s plot follows a protagonist who takes a train on Christmas Eve that is hijacked by a group of raccoons. A battle ensues.
“Killer Raccoons 2” is the sequel to 2005 film “Coons: Night of the Bandits of the Night,” which Irvine first started working on while he was a student at Ohio University. He was initially inspired by “Dawn of the Dead” and an experience with raccoons while on a camping trip with friends, he said.
“We had raccoons that were coordinating stealing the campground’s food,” Irvine said. “It was just all kind of surreal and I remember looking at my comedy friends and asking if anyone made a movie about killer raccoons, because I also had the zombie movie in my head.”
Irvine and his team created “Coons” with a budget of $5,000, and the film later got picked up by a cult film distributor, which released the movie in 2008 after Irvine graduated from Ohio University.
Irvine and his friends immediately had plans to make a sequel.
“We had this idea that if we ever made a sequel, it would have to be, like any sequel, a parody of ‘Under Siege 2: Dark Territory,’” Irvine said. “All we did was take the Steven Seagal characters out, put the characters from the first movie in, and take out the terrorists and put in raccoons.”
The group finally got to writing the new movie and raising money in 2014 and 2015, eventually settling on $50,000 budget. They filmed in 2017 at the Hocking Valley Scenic Railway in Nelsonville, Ohio -- near Ohio University, Irvine’s old stomping grounds. The film’s production team included interns from the college, Irvine said.
One of those interns was a student named Max Baron, a Cleveland native who currently lives in Los Angeles and works in film production. He worked as an assistant camera operator on the shoot. At the time, he took on “Killer Raccoons 2” because he had enjoyed the first film, he said.
The two-week filming schedule took him to Nelsonville with the rest of the cast and crew.
“When you’re in school, Athens is your worldview and Nelsonville is just that town in the woods 15 minutes away that does this kick-ass music festival,” Baron said. “I think that first day on set everyone got a sense of what they were getting into when Travis addressed the crew adorned in a raccoon hat and American flag sunglasses.”
The filming experience, Baron said, helped land him with an internship in Los Angeles and various documentary, commercial, shorts and photoshoot gigs once he moved there.
“I have no doubt that I would not be where I am today without having worked on ‘Killer Raccoons 2,’” he said.
In 2018, Irvine worked on the film while also running as the Libertarian Party nominee for Ohio governor.
“While I was not campaigning, I’d come back and edit ‘Killer Raccoons 2.’ It was a very strange, silly year for politics and movies for me,” Irvine said.
“Killer Raccoons 2” was finished in late 2019, and picked up another indie film distributor, Indican Pictures. The film toured for about a month in December 2019.
It was officially released in 2020, just as the film industry was upended by the coronavirus pandemic. The old way of doing business, and the relationship between production companies and movie theaters, changed, highlighted by the contentious release of “Trolls World Tour” this spring -- a release which involved direct streaming online and breaks in studio theater contracts.
“‘Trolls 2′ broke the studio theater system,” Irvine said. “At least we’re up there with another controversial sequel.”
He continued: “All the movies in theaters right now are old classics, like ‘Goonies,’ ‘Star Wars,’ ‘Jaws’ -- and these little indie movies, like ours… These are indie movies that would never be top movies in the US. We’re just kind of lucky to be there with them at the time. We’re also lucky to be the only comedy.”
Irvine and Baron both warned that viewers should know what kind of movie they’re watching to manage expectations.
“Overall I think people need to go into this with a realistic set of expectations that one must have walking into a movie called ‘Killer Raccoons 2: Dark Christmas in the Dark,’” Baron said. “It jabs fun at everyone and is your-well-above-standard-kitschy-low-budget parody.”
“We try to make the titles as silly as possible to make sure people know what they’re getting into,” Irvine said. “People either love it or hate it… It’s a specific kind of movie that will appeal to a specific kind of person.”
“Killer Raccoons 2: Dark Christmas in the Dark” will continue to roll out its distribution plan; initially its release celebrated Christmas in July, but it will go on to a DVD release in October to follow Halloween, and then be pushed to streaming services in December as a holiday movie.
You can find more information about “Killer Raccoons 2” at its IMDB page.