A Chat With Director and Indie Filmmaker Tom Ryan

Tom Ryan is a writer, director, and producer who was born and raised in Jersey City, New Jersey. He studied the media arts for two years at New Jersey City University (formally Jersey City State College).Since his early childhood Tom has had a great passion for genre films, particularly horror. He nurtured that passion by shooting movies on a VHS camera, drawing a slasher-comic series titled “Midnight”, and taking every opportunity he could to escape to the movies.With a handful of childhood friends that share in his love of terrifying stories, Tom founded an independent production company called “Theatre of Terror”. With a mission to make high-quality, low-budget independent horror, they launched their first short film “Day 9” in January of 2013.Tom then wrote, produced, directed and starred in his first feature film, “FACES”. Filming began in late 2013 and the production wrapped in August of 2014. The film premiered on October 10th at the Landmark Loews theater in Jersey City to an audience of over 350 people. A successful festival run resulted in an Audience Choice Best Feature, Best Soundtrack, and a Best Actor Award for Tom.This momentum inspired him to officially create Theatre of Terror LLC. He created a website and social media page to focus his marketing strategy. The production company successfully completed the four- film anthology “The Theatre of Terror” featuring the award-winning shorts: The Gift, The Bookworm, Abducted, and Endangered. The feature received distribution through Bayview Entertainment and led to the development and production of the sequel anthology, “Return to The Theatre of Terror”.Tom has worked as a director and actor on other productions outside of his own as well. He helmed the 2015 short film “RAPT” and the 2022 feature film “Ramsey”. In 2020 he launched T.O.T Videography, a subsidiary of Theatre of Terror LLC, to support local small businesses with engaging commercial ads. He also created the YouTube series, “The Chilling Childhood Adventures of Jack & Cody” to distract his children from the pandemic still while making movies. The series has proven to be a favorite among parents wanting to introduce their children to the horror genre.https://www.theatreofterror.netJoin Luz and Desiree for this inspiring conversation!