If you live on LI, you have heard the stories before. They have been told ad nauseam, including in this newspaper. Although Halloween always seems to shine a ghastly light on the haunted attractions of our fair island, the spookiness that surrounds them is a year-round affair. Ghosts are a busy lot, and their transcendental  stirrings do not hibernate.

There is no shortage of creepy locations, with Montauk’s Camp Hero, the Amityville Horror House and a slew of graveyards that date back hundreds of years. But there are four stories that seem to stand out among the rest. And with decades of retellings, it would seem impossible to put a new spin on these urban tales of terror that have chilled the minds of LI’s youth—impossible, that is, unless you’re filmmaker Pete Bune.

“This was a labor of love for three years,” says Bune over a cup of coffee and a bottle of water at an outdoor table in the courtyard of Huntington’s Cinema Arts Centre. “We lived this project.”

Bune and his friend and producer, Chris Russoniello, are here talking about their film Lost Suburbia—which screened to a standing-room-only crowd this past summer at this very theater.

The film puts a fresh spin on old stories, and is told in four specific segments, written, constructed and shot by five different directors. One viewing will reveal to the viewer the deep love of film—and of each other’s work—that the directors have.

Lost Suburbia, released in July, is the product of Bune and his colleagues, who were also writers, directors and producers on the project: Paul Natale, Sean King and Terrence and Elizabeth Smith. Russoniello and associate producer John Robert Mariani rounded out the team. Some of them have known each other for years, since meeting in a locally popular cable-access comedy show, The Slack Pack. As Bune tells it, the group had planned to do a project like Lost Suburbia for some time. As native Long Islanders, they had grown up with these tales, which had never before been told on-screen.

“Finally, we decided to do it. We all chose a specific LI legend and told our own story,” he says.

Lost Suburbia cleverly weaves together documentary and drama, telling the tales of the reportedly haunted Sweet Hollow Road and Mount Misery, Kings Park Psychiatric Hospital, Mary’s Grave in Head of the Harbor, and the Lady of the Lake.

Each of these four short films within a film is preceded by a documentary about the legend before the fictional footage begins. LI paranormal expert Joe Giaquinto, joined by Weird  New York authors Mark Moran and Mark Sceurman, and Ghosts of Long Island: Stories of the Paranormal author Kerriann Flanagan Brosky, explain the folklore behind each tale; meanwhile, interviews with Long Islanders give the work the homespun feel that these legendary ghost stories have held for years.

“The [viewers] will always know at least one of these stories,” says Russoniello. “The documentaries really help frame them out and give credibility to the stories.”

The legend of Huntington’s Sleepy Hollow Road and Mount Misery is an old one, and difficult to trace. But the most popular story is that of a suicide pact between several local youths that ended in the woods near Mount Misery. Pop culture would have you believe that the area was given that moniker due to the haunting. But historical accounts suggest it was a hilly, overrun area that early settlers had to work hard to navigate with horses and carriages, so it was given the name Mount Misery. Still, on the wrong night, people driving down the road may see the young men hanging from a tree, a woman in white walking along the side of the road, an evil, red-eyed dog-like creature stalking victims, or even be pulled over by a policeman who, when he spins around to return to his patrol car, is missing the back of his skull.

In his segment, Misery Loves, Natale tells the story of four young men who have similar designs on ending their lives in the trees of Mount Misery. Standout acting by Cody Lightning and Elizabeth Grissenden bring the sad tale of young angst to life.

The segment Institute for Mental Hygiene, shot at the abandoned Kings Park Psychiatric Center, tells how Bill (Nick Myers) and his girlfriend Lucy (Christine Barrows) do battle with the lost spirits of the many patients who died lonely deaths in the cavernous halls years before.

In truth, the campus of Kings Park is shrouded in secrecy and security. It has long been the focus of a community battle, with private developers and politicians arguing over its future. During the shoot, in fact, the Smiths even had to beg a policeman not to erase a tape completely, as it had key documentary footage that could not be recreated.

“I had a run-in there once myself,” remembers Russionello, who tells the story of an over-zealous security guard who chased him from the property.

In Mary’s Grave, directed by King, several friends go to the haunted grave of Mary in Head of the Harbor near St. James. But on the anniversary of her actual death, the spirits are strong, and it becomes a night that cannot be forgotten by Mary’s visitors. The scenes are solid, creating tension and strong reveals that can shock the viewer.

Lastly, Bune’s project, Lady of the Lake, tells us of the curse of Lake Ronkonkoma. As legend has it, hundreds of years ago, the Native Americans roamed a Long Island that was a paradise. Lush hills and woods dotted the landscape, sea life flourished to overabundance in the waters off the island’s shores, rivers flowed fresh and clear. In the center of the land sat a pristine lake, with clear waters and beautiful flora surrounding its shores. As the story goes, a young Indian princess faced her own or her lover’s death in these waters. Her curse was the taking of one male life every year to even the score. For many years, it seemed too real to be discounted. Many have drowned in the lake, which is around 70 feet deep. Urban legend says it is bottomless, and has passageways that go all the way to Connecticut. This has never been proven.

Bune’s actor, Michael Koscik, goes to the lake to mourn his brother, who drowned there. He meets a young woman, played by Kat Sarfas, who is grieving the loss of her boyfriend, who also died under the lake’s surface. Here they come face to face with the Lady of the Lake and have to deal with the magic of the waters.

“We all worked all day every day,” says Bune, who remembers a two-day stretch when he did not get a wink of sleep.

The actors, many of whom came from out of town to audition after answering an ad on Craigslist, worked for free. Their sacrifices were many.

“Michael [Koscik] got an ear infection and the flu from all of the time he spent in the water,” laughs Bune. “The water was disgusting and mosquito-ridden. Much of it was shot on the Nissequogue River in 100-degree heat, and eventually we were warned to get out of the water because of the possibility of contracting encephalitis.”

He adds, “Nobody on the crew complained. We all loved this project.”

At one point, Bune was giving his team a speech about safety in and around the water—and got a fishhook in his foot, perfectly illustrating his point.

Russionello, who met Bune when also producing his own cable-access show years ago, says that some of the shooting was, in fact, quite spooky—especially the nighttime walk down the path to the site where Mary’s Grave was filmed.

“Walking down that path was creepy,” he says. “Even though we were allowed to be there—we got the appropriate permits for all our work—it still felt weird.”

The film has had several extremely successful screenings, and recently won an Audience Award at the Big Fish Film Festival on LI. Bune and Russionello hope that the rest of the brain trust that put together Lost Suburbia can get together again one day and work. But that seems difficult. Real life has taken root and some, like Natale, now studying film in France, have moved to faraway locales. But they hold their hopes high that another project will come along.

“This was an incredible experience,” says Bune. “These locations are nothing without these stories—just part of LI. But the stories put the fear into them, and to those who visit.”
After viewing Lost Suburbia, most will think again before they return.

For more information,
visit www.lostsuburbia.com.