Recap of Connar Frazier on
Without Your Head Horror Radio, 08/10/2017
by Vic Schiavone
Host Nasty Neal welcomed Connar Frazier, director of the upcoming documentary “The Babysitter”, to Without Your Head Horror Radio for a spellbinding hour-long interview.“The Babysitter” tells the story of the real-life tragedy of Nathan Forrest Winters.
Highlights included the following:
WYH: What is the documentary going to be about?
CF: ”The Babysitter” is about Nathan Forrest Winters, who is a former child actor. He was in “Something in the Basement” and “Clownhouse”. Both were directed by Victor Salva, who went on to do “Jeepers Creepers”. Nathan was molested for six years by Victor, and his career kind of went in the toilet afterwards. Victor’s Hollywood people (whatever you want to call them) blacklisted Nathan and he’s coming out now, it’s been thirty years, and he’s ready to talk about it and start raising awareness about pedophilia in the industry as well as everywhere else. So that’s what we’re doing.”
WYH: Was this more than an isolated incident and is this something that’s prevalent in Hollywood?
CF: “Oh, it’s very prevalent…There’s actually a documentary that just came out two years ago called “An Open Secret” which talks about it. It’s happened ever since I guess the dawn of Hollywood, and Nathan; it certainly wasn’t isolated. A lot of people (spread) this misinformation thing (that) it was a one-time inappropriate touching thing, and it really wasn’t. He knew Victor for six years, and this happened for six years. But of course that’s not something that really came up, especially in the trial. Victor really got off pretty easily. On a total of eleven counts…he was only convicted on four, and he ended up serving 18 months out of a three-year sentence in a rehab facility out in Napa Valley; no prison time.”
WYH: Was this more than an isolated incident and is this something that’s prevalent in Hollywood?
WYH: The abuse went on for six years; how old was Nathan when it started?
CF: “Victor became involved with his family when he was six. Victor…most of his jobs before he became an established director were YMCA, day care, stuff like that, and he had met Nathan’s mother and he knew that Nathan’s mother dabbled in crafts and had asked her to design some props for a short film he was doing; I can’t remember the name of it. That’s how he became involved with the Winters family, and soon enough it became ‘Well, let me take Nathan out. I’m a babysitter, I can watch him, you guys need a break.’; stuff like that. And he became a family friend early on.”
CF: “Victor became involved with his family when he was six. Victor…most of his jobs before he became an established director were YMCA, day care, stuff like that, and he had met Nathan’s mother and he knew that Nathan’s mother dabbled in crafts and had asked her to design some props for a short film he was doing; I can’t remember the name of it. That’s how he became involved with the Winters family, and soon enough it became ‘Well, let me take Nathan out. I’m a babysitter, I can watch him, you guys need a break.’; stuff like that. And he became a family friend early on.”
WYH: How did Nathan’s family become aware of what was going on?
CF: “His family did not know until crew members on “Clownhouse” began to say something. They began to say, ‘Oh, doesn’t that seem a little odd. Nathan runs up and sits on Victor’s lap after he yells CUT; isn’t that odd.’ And so Nathan’s mother just started pressing him and pressing him and finally he said, yes, this has been happening, it’s been six years, and she immediately went and filed a police report…They raided Victor’s house, and Victor was completely unaware of it. So they found photo books where he had taken images of young boys from newspaper articles or clothing ads, he had photos and videos of Nathan showering, and there was also another young boy, Brian McHugh, who was in “Clownhouse”, they found video of, but he has never come forward.”
CF: “His family did not know until crew members on “Clownhouse” began to say something. They began to say, ‘Oh, doesn’t that seem a little odd. Nathan runs up and sits on Victor’s lap after he yells CUT; isn’t that odd.’ And so Nathan’s mother just started pressing him and pressing him and finally he said, yes, this has been happening, it’s been six years, and she immediately went and filed a police report…They raided Victor’s house, and Victor was completely unaware of it. So they found photo books where he had taken images of young boys from newspaper articles or clothing ads, he had photos and videos of Nathan showering, and there was also another young boy, Brian McHugh, who was in “Clownhouse”, they found video of, but he has never come forward.”
WYH: How did you meet Nathan?
CF: “I found him on Facebook. I had known about the story and I just came up to him and said, ‘Hey, I’ve got this idea’…I guess he saw something in me; I mean, this isn’t the first time this has come up for him. But I guess something in me he saw different, and he decided to pursue my idea as opposed to others. His biggest thing has always been he doesn’t want to sell out…He didn’t want it to become an exposé; he just wanted to have the story out there because he was never given a voice. Nathan is like this anonymous figure and there’s really nothing said about him online, even if you look up the case. All we really know is he’s this little 12-year-old boy that disappeared. So that’s what he’s really ready for.”
WYH: Whose idea was the documentary?
CF: “It was my idea, and we brainstormed. I told him from the beginning ‘I want this to be yours’, and I think the first thing I said was ‘I want this to be almost like a therapy session; I want you to be able to get everything out and…make it very personal so the audience feels like they’re in the room with you.’ And I think he liked that, and we just moved from there. We talked how we would go about it, what we would do, what we would discuss, and at the end of the day it’s not even about…it’s not like let’s all demonize Victor, let’s go, pitchforks and everything like that, it’s really just getting the story out there and doing something positive with it.”
WYH: Why was Nathan’s story so important to you?
CF: “I think it’s something that runs through Hollywood. I’ve always been a movie guy; I got into movies when I was four and it runs in my veins. I know about different stories. One of my idols is Charlie Chaplin, (and) Charlie Chaplin had sex with 15-year-olds. The weird balance between the artist and their personal life; Roman Polanski, people like that…With Victor…I came to a point about a year or two ago where originally it was ‘I’m going to go to Hollywood; I’m gonna go do this, I’m gonna go do that.’ Then it became, ‘Why don’t I just do stuff on my own?’ I fell in love with “The Blair Witch Project”, and that movie cemented it in my brain that the way for me that felt most fulfilling is very hands-on. And Victor is one of those guys; he’s one of those heroes who all of his stuff is relatively independent. I think that’s where it came from for me; this is a hero and he did this terrible thing, and I wanted to explore that, and I wanted to explore it in Nathan’s own words because that’s never been a thing for him.”
CF: “It was my idea, and we brainstormed. I told him from the beginning ‘I want this to be yours’, and I think the first thing I said was ‘I want this to be almost like a therapy session; I want you to be able to get everything out and…make it very personal so the audience feels like they’re in the room with you.’ And I think he liked that, and we just moved from there. We talked how we would go about it, what we would do, what we would discuss, and at the end of the day it’s not even about…it’s not like let’s all demonize Victor, let’s go, pitchforks and everything like that, it’s really just getting the story out there and doing something positive with it.”
WYH: Why was Nathan’s story so important to you?
CF: “I think it’s something that runs through Hollywood. I’ve always been a movie guy; I got into movies when I was four and it runs in my veins. I know about different stories. One of my idols is Charlie Chaplin, (and) Charlie Chaplin had sex with 15-year-olds. The weird balance between the artist and their personal life; Roman Polanski, people like that…With Victor…I came to a point about a year or two ago where originally it was ‘I’m going to go to Hollywood; I’m gonna go do this, I’m gonna go do that.’ Then it became, ‘Why don’t I just do stuff on my own?’ I fell in love with “The Blair Witch Project”, and that movie cemented it in my brain that the way for me that felt most fulfilling is very hands-on. And Victor is one of those guys; he’s one of those heroes who all of his stuff is relatively independent. I think that’s where it came from for me; this is a hero and he did this terrible thing, and I wanted to explore that, and I wanted to explore it in Nathan’s own words because that’s never been a thing for him.”
CF: “I think it’s something that runs through Hollywood. I’ve always been a movie guy; I got into movies when I was four and it runs in my veins. I know about different stories. One of my idols is Charlie Chaplin, (and) Charlie Chaplin had sex with 15-year-olds. The weird balance between the artist and their personal life; Roman Polanski, people like that…With Victor…I came to a point about a year or two ago where originally it was ‘I’m going to go to Hollywood; I’m gonna go do this, I’m gonna go do that.’ Then it became, ‘Why don’t I just do stuff on my own?’ I fell in love with “The Blair Witch Project”, and that movie cemented it in my brain that the way for me that felt most fulfilling is very hands-on. And Victor is one of those guys; he’s one of those heroes who all of his stuff is relatively independent. I think that’s where it came from for me; this is a hero and he did this terrible thing, and I wanted to explore that, and I wanted to explore it in Nathan’s own words because that’s never been a thing for him.”
WYH: You are using Go Fund Me to raise money to make the documentary. What will the money raised be used for?
CF: “My plan, my hope, is to shoot the film in Fort Lee, New Jersey. So we’re all trying to set up. Nathan lives on the West Coast, I live on the East, and so we’re trying to get everyone together. That’s really the biggest thing, is getting everyone together in a room. That’s where the money comes in…It’s for locations, for lodging, for airfare, for whatever we need. None of it goes toward us. None of us so far have made a dime off of it, and no plans have been made to make a dime off of it unless we find a distributor. All of this goes strictly toward the funds, and we have set up precautions. We really had to make sure that we were doing this correctly because we did not want there to be an issue. We do not want people to think that this is going toward us…This is all very clear, very concise; we had it planned out before we dropped it. We made sure that everything made sense.”
Other topics discussed included: - Has Nathan or his family been offered money to keep quiet?
- How has all that has happened affected his view on Victor’s movies?
- His opinion on the petition to boycott “Jeepers Creepers 3”.
- Nathan’s umbrella organization, ‘We R Their Voice’, and his plans going forward to help other victims of child abuse.
To keep up with the progress of “The Babysitter” online, visit their Facebook page at
www.facebook.com/thebabysittermovie .
If you are interested in making a donation to support the making of this documentary, go to
www..gofundme.com/we-r-their-voice .
This interview is available for listening at
withoutyourhead.com
or
youtube