By Renee Cordes

While it's a turbulent time for small cinemas, some Maine venues are getting an unexpected off-season boost from screenings of a new, independent feature film set on the midcoast and shot at several locations in the state.

“The Ghost Trap" is a drama based the eponymous novel by K. Stephens, about a young lobsterman forced to choose between right and wrong when his girlfriend suffers a traumatic head injury and a rival lobstering family sabotages his gear.  

The film, released Nov. 1 on streaming platforms and select theaters, is doing well in small cinemas across the state where the story takes place.

“Early November, before Thanksgiving weekend, is always a deficit month to operate a movie theater,” Kyle Walton, executive director of the Hawthorne Theatre and Arts Collaborative, told Mainebiz.

The nonprofit was formed in 2023 to rescue Belfast's Colonial Theatre, which dates back to 1912 and was forced to go dark in September 2022 due to financial difficulties. It reopened in November 2023.

While the Colonial is still operating in the red, Walton is encouraged by the fact that after nine shows there, 450 cinephiles had come to see "The Ghost Trap."

“'The Ghost Trap' has been a lone bright spot on the balance sheet,” Walton said. "There have been operating days where it accounted for 80% to 90% of daily box office receipts.”

The movie made its New England premiere in July at the Maine International Film Festival in Waterville, and was the opening-night show of the inaugural Vacationland Film Festival, in August at Biddeford's City Theater.

The film later returned to Waterville's Maine Film Center, which is housed inside the Paul J. Schupf Art Center.

Mike Perreault, executive director of the center, told Mainebiz about screening "The Ghost Trap" — via email, as he was returning to Maine from a film festival in Rwanda.
“It was a thrilling experience to screen ‘The Ghost Trap’ as the centerpiece film during the 27th Maine International Film Festival, and audiences returned to see it again at the Maine Film Center in October, ahead of its regular run release, with the filmmakers in attendance for a discussion,” Perreault said.

“We're honored to showcase filmmaking that's produced in Maine, especially when the communities and neighbors that support these projects can proudly see themselves on the big screen."

Steve Lyons, director of the Maine Film Office, sees the film as a success on multiple fronts.
"The film's reception indicates that seeing Maine on the big screen instills a sense of pride, particularly because lobstering is such an important part of the state's identity," he told Mainebiz. "Strong box office sales for films like 'The Ghost Trap' are an encouraging sign for film production in Maine, and great news for the theaters that screen them.”

'Not a Marvel film'

James Khanlarian, the film’s director, told Mainebiz that the production crew had a good experience filming in Maine.

"We were very fortunate to befriend and get the support of the local lobstermen early on, and we filmed along the Penobscot Bay from Port Clyde to Northport," he told Mainebiz.

"It makes a big difference when you show people that you're here to tell a meaningful story instead of exploiting them, so we had a ton of working lobstermen take time off and donate their boats ... The best way to pay them back is to show their profession and their way of life in an accurate and honorable fashion. By the reactions, I think we've achieved that."

He's equally pleased at the support from small Maine cinemas screening the film.

“It would be wonderful for the film to play in a thousand theaters across the country, but we’re not a Marvel film. We’re not even a studio film,” he said. “So it’s really wonderful to get support from theaters like the Colonial in Belfast, the Strand in Rockland and others," he said. 
“It’s a film about real people in real situations, and so these intimate theaters are a better fit for us. We’d love for the film to run yearly during lobster season, but there are hurdles.”
The support is especially welcome given that the independent filmmakers didn’t have a distribution deal in place beforehand, as a bigger production would have.

“We raised the money from private investors and made the movie and had to show distributors that it was a good film,” Khanlarian said. His team is still looking for a good international distribution deal, and he said he's confident of landing one soon.
While "The Ghost Trap" was the first film Khanlarian has shot in Maine, he said, “I can’t wait to do more.”

And in Belfast, the Colonial hopes to screen more films with a Maine connection or identity, according to Walton.

"As independent movie theaters continue to gravitate toward independent or enterprise content," he said, "the production of commercial-level films that reflect the locale they were shot in is extremely vital to theatrical exhibition within the state of Maine."

K. Stephens on bringing her new Midcoast movie, 'The Ghost Trap,' to the Colonial Theatre
as told to Kyle Laurita, reporter for Midcoast Villager

If you have a subscription to Midcoast Villager, you can read it online here or pick up a physical copy of the newspaper this week, starting November 7.

By Dennis Perkins, Portland Press Herald

Mainers may already be familiar with the story of “The Ghost Trap,” Maine novelist K. Stephens’ 2009 tale of love, loss and danger among Maine’s lobstermen.
A young, third-generation lobsterman named Jamie finds his already shaky personal and professional life upended by a near-tragedy that begins to feel more and more like an actual tragedy with each passing year. Already fighting with his stern father and the encroachment of environmental regulations that have turned each day’s catch into a high-stakes gamble, Jamie’s one happiness is tossed overboard along with his beloved girlfriend, Anja, on a seemingly ordinary day on the Maine ocean.
What follows is part wrenching drama, as Jamie attempts to care for the now-disabled Anja while succumbing to the temptation represented by a free-spirited sailor named Happy who sails tourists back and forth from the Florida Keys. A thriller element creeps in as well, when Jamie finds his traps cut and himself embroiled in a simmering, violent feud among the town’s lobstermen, a rival lobstering family of roughnecks, and a from-away rich fisherman with plans to buy out everyone’s livelihood.
Now a feature film written and directed by James Khanlarian, the film version of “The Ghost Trap” hits video on demand and DVD on Friday, with the film getting one of its few big-screen premieres at Belfast’s Colonial Theatre. It’s a fitting homecoming for the film, which was shot in Maine and California, with a focus on the Midcoast. Here are five reasons it’s worth seeing.

“The Ghost Trap” does Maine justice.

As someone who’s never set foot on a lobster boat and who has only lived in Maine for a measly 37 years or so, I can’t speak to how accurately Khanlarian and company get the details of Maine lobstering. But everything just feels right, as star Zak Steiner, all lanky muscle and scruffy beard, hauls his traps with deft weariness, and the interactions all around the Maine fishing village setting come off as lived-in and authentic.

The film credits the Maine lobstermen who loaned out their actual boats (and presumably kept the production honest), and while there are the requisite sequences set at a picturesque lighthouse and the Maine Lobster Festival in Rockland, “The Ghost Trap” (unlike another recent Maine-adjacent movie) never seems like a tourist here itself.

“Hey, it’s that guy/gal!”

The film is dotted with very good actors you probably recognize but maybe aren’t sure from where. Star Steiner did six episodes of “Euphoria” and was in the unnecessary “White Men Can’t Jump” remake. Greer Grammer (apart from being Kelsey’s daughter) was the star of “Awkward” and has been in the biz since childhood.

As Jamie’s callous father, Stephen Ogg, with his somehow threatening eyebrows, will be familiar as a bad guy in everything from “Better Call Saul” to “The Walking Dead” to TV’s “Snowpiercer.” (Gamers will likely recognize his voice, since he played fan favorite “Grand Theft Auto V” character Trevor.) You likely won’t recognize “The Fall Guy” 1980s series star Heather Thomas as the tough old broad running both the town’s saloon and general store for how naturally she fits right in. There’s even one of “The Lost Boys,” as Billy Wirth shows up as the menacing patriarch of Jamie’s rival Fogerty family in a pivotal scene.
And now Maine-based character actors Whip Hubley (“Top Gun”) and Xander Berkeley (everything, including “Terminator 2,” the original “Candyman” and “Apollo 13”) fill out the cast with their in-demand talents.

The Maine accent report.

The Maine accent presents a degree of difficulty for actors that generally ensnares even the best from-away thespians. With Hollywood rushing to adapt the next Stephen King story so regularly, that means Mainers are often taken out of things with each effortful “ayuh.”

“The Ghost Trap” is largely successful, thankfully, if not in capturing the Maine way of talking 100% correctly, at least allowing its Mainers to sound like they’re from this planet. Steiner carries much of the load as Jamie, and the star couches the quiet fisherman’s increasingly coiled and explosive pain in a confidently believable cadence. The cast of pros all adopt a strategy of not doing too much, a trap that so many non-Mainers fall into when either not doing their research, or maybe doing too much by watching other bad Maine accents in other media. Like the film’s fishing town setting, I never got distracted by the artifice, which is a pretty impressive achievement, considering the way these “just visiting” Maine productions go.

The movie’s positive effects on the Maine film scene are everywhere in the credits.

As long as I’ve been writing about movies in Maine, I’ve banged the drum about how attracting movie and TV production would only benefit Maine’s hard-working film professionals. And scanning the credits for both in-front-of- (actor Thomas Ian Campbell) and behind-the-scenes (Mazie Bartels-Biswell, Rebecca Myshrall, Karlina Lyons, Kyle Walton) Maine talent is an added delight.
Seriously, Maine legislators, we need to pass tax incentives for film and TV production in the state. Like, yesterday.

“The Ghost Trap” is just a good film.

My quibbles are relatively minor. (But quibbling being my business, here goes.) Some of the fishermen’s griping about governmental regulation feels perfunctory for a story like this, at several points appearing to come from offscreen as if producers forgot to assign the thankless lines to particular actors. A climactic visitation (?) feels as hokey as it is out of place in such a down-to-the-water tale. And the film’s quest for a villain settles on some lazy stereotyping in lieu of the more grounded conflicts its characters act out as just part of their daily lives.

Sarah Catherine Hook’s Happy never quite gels as anything but a conception of the carefree life Jamie longs for away from his generational existence working the lines and his deeply conflicted loyalty to the struggling Anja. (Hook is fine, but she’s essentially the template for what my former A.V. Club colleague Nathan Rabin coined as the “manic pixie dream girl” stereotype.) And the film’s ending, while studiously avoiding easy answers, feels both rushed and perhaps too ambiguously dreamy for its own good.

All that said, “The Ghost Trap” is a creditably compelling drama/crime story that just so happens to be set in a specific Maine community. It’s well drawn, responsibly crafted and brimming with very good actors all filling out the plot’s twists with professionalism and slow-burn intensity. Steiner is especially good, and Grammer, tasked with portraying a specific and challenging form of disability for much of the film, succeeds in making the very changed Anja as tragic as she is deeply human.

“The Ghost Trap” screens at Belfast’s Colonial Theater Friday through Sunday (where K. Stephens and several crew members will be in attendance). Also, look for it on streaming and video-on-demand platforms starting Friday.

An additional date has been added to the lineup. Nickelodeon Cinema in Portland is screening The Ghost Trap on November 6 at 7 p.m.

In a scene from “The Ghost Trap” are Zak Steiner, left, and Sarah Catherine Hook. Maine Film Center photo

“THE GHOST TRAP”
I write not just for a Maine newspaper, but a central Maine newspaper, where most folks love lobster, but with prices soaring, cannot afford it. We know zip about the craft of lobstering, but come to stories about it with open eyes and hearts.

This week, I’ve been assigned  to write about “The Ghost Trap,” a film scheduled to open Wednesday July 17, at the 27th Maine International Film Festival in Waterville. It is based on the novel of the same name, by K. Stephens, and was directed by James Khanlarian, in his directorial debut. To this reviewer, Khanlarian, a young fellow, knows and loves what he’s doing. It always helps.

“The Ghost Trap” is engaging, professional and easy on the eyes. Treat it with respect. His film happens to be is set in the lobster business, about which I know less than space travel. But I used to work in the movie world, which I loved, and I am always happy to see a well-written, well-directed film, like this one.

Khanlarian  is lucky to have one set on the sea and Maine coast that is  splendidly photographed by cinematographer artists Matthias Schubert and Michael P. Tedford. It is well-made, carved by caring and professional hands, and definitely worth your attention.

This is what I learned: A lot of folks go down to the sea each morning to search for a beloved emblem of Maine — the imperial lobster, not often found on the dinner table of Maine workers.

This film is not at all about lobsters, of course, but about the men and women of the sea, who work on dangerous crafts, stand perilously close to falling in and lower wicked-looking baskets, called traps, into the sea to catch … lobsters

I learned this as well: A ghost trap is a working trap that has been lowered into the water that “catches and holds lobsters, but when cut off, with its line severed, is no longer connected to the buoy bobbing at the water’s surface, becoming a ghost trap, unseen, lost and then forgotten.”

Wow! Did I get that right?

Writer/director Khanlarians goes down to his sea each day, not to film a documentary about lobster traps, which would’t last long on Netflix, but about the dilemma of  one lobsterman, Jamie Eugley (Zak Steiner, “White Men Can’t Jump”), who is a serious  film actor with a bright future. Here, he’s a good guy and a young hero battled with enemies, such as wealthy yachters and, sadly, friends who are unhappily misinformed lobstermen and yachters in polo shirts who don’t fancy lobster boats in their blue Maine waters.

Steiner, clearly a talented and tested actor, carves his love for his girl, Anja (Greer Grammer), with gentleness, especially after a rogue wave hits his boat, knocking Anja into the water and putting her into a hospital with a brain injury.

But being folks of the sea, their love holds on.

The title, “The Ghost Trap,” I should rush to say, is a bit misleading. It’s no spook fable, and not even a documentary about lobster fishing, any more than Hemingway’s “To Have and Have Not” is about the boat rental business.

It’s a movie about interesting characters — played by newcomers and veterans — who happen to work in the lobster business and are caught up in a “trap war” with a rival lobstering family.

Like Hemingway’s tale, it’s a well-written story about duplicity, jealousy and trying to get though the day — to make a buck in hard times. Like Hemingway’s Harry Morgan and like you and me.

That always works when written clearly and put together properly by gifted, trained hands, as is James Khanlarian’s wonderful voyage into the choppy seas of Hollywood.

New drama/thriller starring Zak Steiner (Euphoria), Greer Grammer (Deadly Illusions), Sarah Catherine Hook (First Kill, White Lotus) and Steven Ogg (Westworld)

“THE GHOST TRAP” plays Wednesday, July 17, and Saturday, July 20, at the Maine International Film Festival in Waterville.

J.P. Devine of Waterville is a former stage and screen actor.

Review courtesy centralmaine.com