Lorain can boast many things, including it’s now home to the 108-year-old star of the film "Beneath the Light."
The city’s lighthouse, built in 1917, is the setting for John Baumgartner's new film. He’s directed everything from a documentary about auto racing to a Funny or Die short with Will Ferrell and Fred Willard. Now, he’s crafted a psychological thriller premiering September 6 at the Lorain Palace Theatre.
“It’s about a young man who returns to town after his mom dies,” Baumgartner said. “He takes this job at an abandoned lighthouse to help fix it up.”
From there, repressed memories blossom into a ghost story. Baumgartner wrote the screenplay with his co-producer Cindy Davis Seng. Her day job – at the Cleveland Clinic – led to a side hustle working on screenplays a decade ago. This is her first produced feature.
“As a psychiatrist, I wondered if there might be a place for me to consult with screenwriters and filmmakers regarding character studies,” she said. “And how to evolve that character through the arc of a story of self-discovery.”
Davis Seng mentioned the idea to a family member, who also happened to have been the Cub Scout leader for a young man working in the film industry: Baumgartner. The doctor and the director stayed in touch, and eventually he asked her about the psychological plausibility of the story that became “Beneath the Light.” After a year of work, they started shooting in 2023, turning part of Lorain into a mini-Hollywood.
“I grew up in Lorain and knew I wanted to direct from the age of eight,” Baumgartner said. “I would ride my bike around town like I was a ‘Stranger Things’ kid. I always had this passion and this catalog of places … that I would love to film in someday. Then I went off to L.A., but I always had the passion and the longing to come back and make films here, because it's so cinematic.”
A call to the caretakers of the Lorain West Breakwater Light – a historic lighthouse that was decommissioned in 1965 - secured a haunting backdrop for the shoot. The location was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1978. Baumgartner, Davis Seng and their crew had to get permission to temporarily undo the lighthouse’s restoration.
“They let us come in like a wrecking ball with paint and detritus … [we painted in] mold and mildew and grime and dirt,” he said. "It is wildly beloved, and in any home there will be at least one of a dozen miniature icons of this lighthouse."
The team set up offices and interior sets inside Downtown buildings, got permission to use decommissioned emergency vehicles and even scoured local social media for set pieces.
"We drove all over Northern Ohio to get things like vintage generators, a huge refrigerator and I-don't-know-how-many-hundred-pound ceramic sink,” Davis Seng said. “In addition … we were attempting to film during the Screen Actors Guild strike.”
Her trial-by-fire included getting SAG waivers and planning shoots around unpredictable weather.
“This isn't a traditional horror movie in terms of slash and gore,” she said. “There are a couple of moments in there that are quite tense. People will be scared, but there is a very warm and redemptive ending, which is the most important part to me.”
When the first trailer was released, Baumgartner knew their hard work had paid off.
“I was walking from the coffee shop to our offices, and it was like I was in Mayberry,” he said. “I was stopped every 15 feet ... with a pat on the back or a handshake. I thought, ‘This is this is something you can't get in L.A. unless you're Steven Spielberg.’”
Baumgartner is excited for the premiere as it comes two years after they wrapped principal photography. It’s also at the same theater where, as a “theater-geek kid,” he premiered his first film in 1987, “Pains of a Broken Window.”
And there’s still one major L.A. connection for “Beneath the Light”: The star is Emmy-nominated actor Zach Tinker of "The Young and the Restless." He’s from the Tinker dynasty of writers and producers that began with his grandfather, Grant Tinker, president of NBC and co-founder of MTM Productions with his then-wife, Mary Tyler Moore.
“Beneath the Light” premieres on streaming platforms on Oct. 14.
