No film is scarier than the things that can happen in real life.  It seems that every day, somewhere in the world, horror movies become reality and we’re reminded just how fragile life can be.  After all, art imitates life and life imitates art – true horror fans know this.  But filmmaker and documentarian, Edward Payson, allegedly stumbled upon something that may be too frightening to pass up.  While Payson’s first documentary, “Unsigned,” dove into the life of several bands trying to make it big in Los Angeles, his second documentary, “The Cohasset Snuff Film,” is much more controversial and nasty.

In 2009, a 17-year-old boy named Colin Mason allegedly murdered three of his classmates in a small town in Massachusetts.  Mason, an amateur filmmaker himself, videotaped each murder and broadcast them onto the internet for his own sick pleasure.  While nearly all of the footage has been destroyed and the murders covered up, Payson and fellow documentarian, Kevin McCarthy, went on a search for the tapes and claim to have found them.  While LAHorror.com hasn’t been able to personally verify the footage’s authenticity, Payson and McCarthy plan on proving it to the world in their new movie, “The Cohasset Snuff Film.”

“[Mason] plans and videotapes the murders of three classmates.  He blogs about it and it really makes you kind of see inside his head—as a serial killer—and what he’s thinking and why he does what he does…why serial killers do what they do,” Payson told LAHorror.com of the footage.  And while the footage itself has eluded us, we did stumble on a video blog entry of Jacyln Mccoy, one of the victim’s friends reacting to the murders.

What Payson has done is interview the people who supposedly were there, get professional opinions on the murders and simply show the public exactly what was going on in the mind of this madman.  This film could be an important piece of an already mysterious puzzle, and while the film does include the Colin Mason murder tapes, don’t expect “Blair Witch” type handicam.  “This will…make you throw up.  It’s not shaky cam all the time or anything like that,” Payson said. And from what we’ve seen, every gory detail is caught.

The High School Killer, Colin Mason

“The killer in the movie actually explains how everyday normal people become psychopaths and how it’s so easy when people say, ‘How could that happen here?’  And he explains, ‘This is how it happens here.  Everybody in high school…has this mentality that if you’re not in my click, then you don’t exist to me,” Payson said of Mason’s motives and thought-process.  And truer words have never been spoken.  While there will undoubtedly be efforts to ban or debunk the film’s release, the filmmakers still intend on getting a limited theatrical run come Halloween.  (We’ll tell you how you can help that happen in a future story on LAHorror.com).

Now, whether or not you agree or disagree with Payson sharing this footage, he’s more than just a documentarian.  Payson also has several other horror projects in the works that are worth a look.  His action/horror/thriller, “Fury:  The Tales of Ronan Pierce,” is currently in post-production and certainly sounds badass. Payson describes it as “really fast cars, really fast girls and lots of blood and gore.”  Throw Kane Hodder and R.A. Mihailoff in the mix too?  Yeah, sign me up bro.

Payson is also in production for his new web series, “Edward Pason’s Sunday Night Slaughters,” a 12-episode horror series that promises a little bit for everyone.  “There’s werewolves, there’s cannibals, there’s demonic possession, there’s crazy Christians…each one’s completely different with a different cast of people,” Payson said.  The series plans on utilizing a variety of different make-up artists, several DPs and guest directors.  If you have a love for the disgusting as much as we do, help this project take off by checking out the link above and hearing from Edward Payson himself.  Check it out horror lovers!

Be sure to check out “The Cohasset Snuff Film,” “Fury:  The Tales of Ronan Pierce” and “Edward Payson’s Sunday Night Slaughters” on Facebook.