Bottom Feeders

At the outset of screenwriter and director Shepphird’s promising debut, a sales executive headed for a conference at California’s Lake Arrowhead hits a deer while driving at night on a mountain road. When he gets out of his car, he’s shot with an arrow and bludgeoned to death. Cut to down-on-his-luck director Eddie Lyons, who is considering an offer to direct a made-for-TV movie featuring a has-been actress portraying a pioneering schoolteacher in the Old West. Eddie swallows his pride and accepts the job, even after learning that he wasn’t the producer’s first choice, an ego blow partially softened by his former lover, Sheila, serving as the assistant camerawoman. The low-budget project is scheduled to film in San Bernardino County on a tight schedule, but the pressures of making the deadline are forgotten after members of the cast and crew become the targets of a murderous archer, leaving Eddie and Sheila scrambling to survive. Shepphird maintains suspense right up to the disappointing solution to the murder mystery. Still, thriller fans will be curious to see what he does next. Agent: Peter Rubie, FinePrint Literary Management. (Apr.)