Crackling fires and production lights illuminated a dark sky over the Everglades on a recent evening.
It may seem like an ancient ritual, but it is actually work being done on a film called "Rum and Hot Peppers."
"These two con artists from Miami came over here, created this cult, and they started by sacrificing animals, and got further along by sacrificing the homeless," said Executive Producer Chuck Ardezzone.
Ardrezzone is also an actor in the movie, which he says created 40 to 50 local jobs.
"We hired a lot of local actors, a lot of local crew, a lot of my own crew is on the movie now."
While not known as a mecca for movie making, Ardezzone says Naples has a lot of natural backdrops for making movies, especially Rum and Hot Peppers, which is a drama-horror flick.
"It's better than traveling to New York and LA, we have great actors here, we have great writers, good crew here, so why not do it here?"
Ardenzzone opened his studio almost a decade ago, and has been cranking out low budget films ever since, he shows no signs of slowing down.
"After rum and hot peppers is finished, it wraps on Saturday, we'll have about two months of editing, we're already on pre-production on our next movie, Miami Lies."
Ardezzone says he has several distribution companies interested in bringing rum and hot peppers to the big screen, he will know in a few months whether it will be in theaters.
