Buckets of Blood, Big Hair, and the Dark Side of The Moon: Reston Still Has More Creativity Than You Can Shake an Earth-Toned Stick At

Take one look at the rad '80s art planned for the Wiehle Metro station and the nekkid legitimate theatre, and you know that Reston is a cultural mecca. But do you know what contributions to the arts and letters your fellow Restonians have been making of late? If you said, "a horror movie, a play about New Jersey, and the truth about secret messages in classic rock albums," you're absolutely right!

First, Reston couple Kathryn O’Sullivan and Paul Awad spent $15,000 to make "The Fugue," a horror movie that had its sorta-big-screen debut in Alexandria in late July.

Awad, a film professor at the Art Institute of Washington, began writing the script for "The Fugue" in early 2008, and he and his wife, an acting professor at the Manassas campus of Northern Virginia Community College and the movie’s producer, finished the project last spring. The feature-length film about a graphic designer living in Chinatown who is haunted by the ghost of a childhood friend debuted with a free screening at the Old Town Theater in Alexandria on Thursday, July 30.

THE MOVIE is available on the IndieFlix Web site, and the couple hopes to soon have it for sale through iTunes, NetFlix, Amazon and Amazon on Demand.

Until then, you can just check out the movie's Facebook page. So what unique parts of Reston were showcased in the movie? A recently deforested streambed, perhaps? Well, no -- nothing quite THAT scary:

A restaurant scene was shot in the private dining area of Paolo’s Ristorante in Reston Town Center, and Awad and O’Sullivan also turned their bathroom in the Market Street at Town Center condominiums into a set. Because that particular scene called for a lot of screaming, O’Sullivan said, "We just put a note on the door saying we were filming so nobody would call the police."

We bet the neighbors loved that. So long as the fake blood was one of three DRB-approved tones, though, there's nothing they could have done about it.

Meanwhile, Reston attorney Lou Ann K. Behan looked elsewhere for inspiration for her new musical -- her native Jersey shore.

Lou Ann K. Behan may be a successful lawyer living in Reston, Va. these days, but her Jersey Shore roots are as salty and strong as dune grass.

As a child growing up in the Cliffwood Beach section of Old Bridge a block away from the Raritan Bay, she spent her teenage years surfing in Long Branch, going on dates to the Asbury Park boardwalk and hitting Seaside Heights for prom weekend.

One of her favorite beaches is Belmar, which is why she is thrilled her musical "Over the Boardwalk" is having its New Jersey premiere at the Belmar Elementary School's theater.

No, we don't know what exits any of those locales are near, so let's move on.

Finally, you may not have known George Taylor Morris by name. But you've probably heard of the theory propagated by the Reston resident and veteran DJ, who died Aug 1.

As the midday disc jockey at WZLX-FM in Boston in 1997, Mr. Morris got caught up in an Internet music phenomenon that purported to find a strange and mystical synchronicity between "The Wizard of Oz," the 1939 film, and Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon," the 1973 rock album. Someone brought him a printout of a page from the Pink Floyd Web site listing more than 80 coincidences between the album and the movie when they are played simultaneously. "Brain Damage," for example, plays as the Scarecrow sings "If I Only Had a Brain"; "Eclipse" ends with a heartbeat as Dorothy tries to hear a heartbeat in the Tin Man, and so on.

Mr. Morris went home and played the two. "The first four or five minutes were kind of interesting, but then, just before Dorothy goes into the house and the tornado comes, it becomes an amazing series of cosmic coincidences," he told the Los Angeles Times in 2000.

And from there, countless late-night movie sessions in freshmen dorms were born. And we simply won't comment on the rumors that if you play Abbey Road backwards while reading this blog, you'll hear the words "Paul is dead" every time you get to an entry on the rec center.