There is a horror lurking in the vast expanse of the New Jersey Pine Barrens, a terrible creature of legend. Bloodthirsty. A demonic presence, born of a 19th Century mother tired of having children, frustrated at her ever-growing brood. She cursed the child, wished for a devil. And got her wish.

That child is the Jersey Devil, the unseen fear behind Dante Tomaselli’s latest horror film, Satan’s Playground.

The premise is simple – and chilling. When their car breaks down, a family on their way to a campground find themselves stuck in New Jersey’s sprawling Pine Barrens region. Seeking help, they come across a battered old home in the woods. There lives Mrs. Leeds (a name those familiar with New Jersey lore should know well) andher twisted, demented family. Over the Leeds family hangs a cloud of darkness. And yet over the Pine Barrens in which they dwell lies an even deeper darkness, a terror the stranded family is doomed to face.

The legend of the Jersey Devil dates back over 260 years. According to the best-known version of the tale, Mrs. Leeds, when about to have her 13th child, wished it to be a devil, so angry was she at having another child. And indeed it was a devil. The devil child flew from the home in which it was birthed at Leeds Point (in some versions devouring its mother first), terrorizing the Pine Barrens ever since.

After two critically successful horror films - 1999’s Desecration and 2002’s Horror - Tomaselli, a Paterson, New Jersey native, tapped the state’s famous local legend for his third film.

Tomaselli and members of the Satan’s Playground cast recently dropped in at Fangoria’s Weekend of Horrors in Secaucus, New Jersey, where convention-goers were treated to a sneak peek at portions of the film. The first thing to jump off the screen – to a New Jersey native chillingly familiar – was the deep, ominous gloom of the forest settings. That’s because Satan’s Playground was filmed on location in the Pine Barrens, an expanse of tens of thousands of near untouched acres dominating the middle portion of the state. It's a natural habitat unique in the world with an ecology all its own.

Working on location in the actual forests where the Jersey Devil is said to dwell was an absolute must for Tomaselli. The reason is simple: the Pine Barrens is unlike any other forest in the world. Once you’ve seen the Pine Barrens, populated by the instantly recognizable scrub pines, you know them forever.

“The Pine Barrens is absolutely pivotal to the setting,” Tomaselli said. “The Pine Barrens have a texture that is very unique.”

It's a texture that comes across in the preview shown at Fango. The trailer offers fleeting images, each more chilling than the last. The hint of shadow flying above a family vehicle. A twisted man holding a broad knife in front of a girl tied up in a cellar. The wide-eyed grimace of a blood-splattered face. A cruel-looking old woman. Another woman lost in a dark forest, fleeing, fleeing, fleeing … something.

For Christie Sanford, who has been in all of Tomaselli’s films to date, filming on location was difficult. It was cold, she told . Very cold. And the forest was grim. And trees. And shadows. And did we mention the cold? Sanford said her filming experience was a good one. Having worked with Tomaselli before, she was entirely comfortable on the “set”, sinking into her (dialogue free) role.

Shot for $500,000 over the course of 25 days in Whitesbog, a preserve in the Pine Barrens that boasts being the birthplace of the cultivated blueberry, the film is not likely to draw comparisons to the work of Michael Bay. If the trailer is any indication, it’s lean, sparse, barren, and moody. The horror comes not from severed limbs, but from the stuff of nightmares.

You see, Dante Tomaselli doesn’t go for the cheap reaction. The splatter of blood, the sudden attack of a grotesque monster or the cheap thrill of gore. His is a Lovecraftian brand of horror, steeped not in the gore, but in the unknown. It’s something he said is a “manifestation of my psyche” and something he's always been fascinated with.

“I’ve always been interested in the darkness, in the unknown, from since I was a little boy … This has been a love of mine forever,” Tomaselli said. “I’m trying to capture that.”

Fear. And pushing the limits of fear. That’s the goal. His goal is not – and he makes this point firmly; there is no question that he’s sincere – to build up a following so he can go into making mainstream films.

“I know for sure I’d never make a romantic comedy about lawyers in love or something. I’m here for horror … I’m an unapologetic horror fan,” Tomaselli said. “People sometimes ask me when I’m going to ‘break out’ of horror. There’s so much to explore in the genre, it’s almost insulting to hear that, as if horror is some dirty secret.”

Yet some of his influences aren’t very horrific. Unless you find Paul Newman and Steve McQueen horrific, that is.

“I’m really influenced by the early 70s disaster films, like Earthquake and The Towering Inferno, so I think I’d like to do one of those – without the CGI effects. I’m really anti-computer generated effects. I think it’s ruining horror films these days.”

But don’t expect Tomaselli to be directing The Day After Tomorrow 2: Now Without Effects! any time soon. Ellen Sandweiss, best known to horror fans as Cheryl from The Evil Dead and one of the stars of Satan's Playground, said Tomaselli is first and foremost a horror director.“Dante is not one of those directors who is making a horror film just to make money to make his other films,” Sandweiss said. “He wants to make horror films.”

Tomaselli’s first two films, Horror and Desecration, were nonlinear forays into madness and the terrifying. His newest film switches from that almost dreamlike style. Now, he said, he wants to tell a coherent story in a more traditional, linear fashion. A monster story ... or maybe not. In this story the monster may be the hook, but for the director (who also writes his films), the monster is not the full story.

While the Jersey Devil is the terrible beast waiting somewhere in the dark, according to the director, Satan’s Playground is a film about family dynamics more than anything else. What brings together and breaks apart loved ones. The movie tells the tale of two disintegrating families, one “good” and other decidedly “bad”.

That’s not atypical.

“I think all of my films so far have been about family dysfunction, and I really took it to the extreme with Satan’s Playground,” Tomaselli said.

Fans can already see how that family dysfunction plays out – the film premiered in New York on October 1 – and will get a chance to enjoy the chills at home thanks to Anchor Bay, which will soon be releasing an extras-laden DVD of Satan's Playground.

Meanwhile, Tomaselli is already at work on his next film, a project that sounds as if it will give beachgoers pause before entering the ocean in a way that hasn’t happened since 1975’s Jaws. It is called, simply enough, The Ocean. Tomaselli said he plans to “explore the Italian horror feel” with this next film. In The Ocean, deadly and supernatural riptides terrorize a coastal town. The sea taking revenge for man’s intrusion into its waters? We'll find out next year.

In the meantime, Tomaselli and Anchor Bay will be taking viewers on a journey into Satan's Playground. Keep your eyes locked onto for news on the release date.

There is something lurking in the forest. Are you ready to face it?