Creeping Death

Creeping Death is a feature-length Halloween horror film written and directed by Matt Sampere. The film follows Tim Garner, whose quiet Halloween night with his mother is interrupted by friends and a prank that breaks a sacred tradition between humans and the Aos Si, an otherworldly Celtic entity tied to Halloween mythology. The film’s official synopsis describes it as “a call back to terrors birthed in the mythology, lore and atmospheric dread behind the Halloween traditions based in an ancient Celtic past.”

I was hired by Matt Sampere as the production sound mixer for the shoot. Production wrapped in October 2021 and took place across several locations in Central New York, including barns, pumpkin patches, cornfields, and various homes. The production ran for 19 shoot days, with each location presenting its own challenges for capturing clean, usable audio in practical environments.

My role focused on capturing the film’s dialogue, room tone, environmental texture, and on-set production audio. Working with boom microphones, wireless lavaliers, and a professional field recorder, I helped provide the post-production team with clean source material that could support the film’s dialogue edit, sound design, foley, ADR, and final mix.

Because Creeping Death is rooted in horror, the production sound had to support more than basic intelligibility. Horror depends heavily on silence, tension, breath, movement, distant ambience, and the contrast between quiet moments and sudden impact. Capturing clean production audio in real locations gave the film a stronger foundation for building atmosphere and suspense in post.