Diabolical Tales: Part III

Diabolical Tales: Part III - Betrayal of the Men From Within The Earth is a 2007 short sci-fi/comedy film and the third entry in the Diabolical Tales series.

Diabolical Tales: Part III had it's first public screening was at the It Came From Lake Michigan! Film Festival in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in October 2007 as a double-feature with Diabolical Tales: Part II. It later played ShockerFest 2008 in Riverside California, marking the third subsequent year a Diabolical Tales movie played the festival.

It is the follow-up to Diabolical Tales: Part I, completed in 2005, and Diabolical Tales: Part II, completed in August 2007.

Synopsis
July 1955. When the evil men from within the Earth kidnap his wife Kate, FBI Agent Cooper is pitted in a race to find the Sapphire of Agartha and save the entire world. Meanwhile, the maniacal Zerrath has started his own evil plan to conquer the surface of the Earth.

The Seduction of Kate Cooper
The film opens in July 1955, six months following the death of Operative-132 and Agent Cooper's ascension to the Head of Project AGARTHA. At Agent Cooper's apartment, he's having a ferocious argument with his drunk wife Kate Cooper, who suspects his frequent absences are to be with another woman, a "kind, woman in black" that she overheard him talking about. As usual, Agent Cooper just barely starts to tell her the truth about his work defending the United States against the evil Men from within the Earth but stops, citing the usual "ears only" deference.

After he leaves the apartment to head to work, Kate starts packing her bags. But Zerrath and his henchman Zenab suddenly walk into the room, forcing Kate into the corner. Zerrath makes it clear that he is not interested in hurting her, only her husband, Agent Cooper. He then plays on her weaknesses, indicating that he "knows that he doesn't trust you, Kate. He never tells you anything." Zerrath promises that if Kate comes with them, she will be able to hurt Agent Cooper. Kate picks up her suitcase and says "I'm all packed. Let's go." Zerrath smiles diabolically in response.

The New Proteges
At FBI Headquarters, FBI Agent Cooper is meeting with his new Project AGARTHA recruits, NSA Operative-1138 and CIA Agent White. After reviewing their files, Agent Cooper asks Agent White about his work as an undercover operative in the Soviet Union. Agent White responds that he worked on a top-secret Communist project called Sputnik, which involved putting an artificial satellite into orbit around the Earth in 1957. Agent Cooper scoffed at this idea, insisting that the United States would easily beat them to it.

Agent Cooper then questioned Operative-1138 about his history, which made O-1138 slightly uneasy. After some prodding, O-1138 revealed that he'd been involved in some Above Top Secret projects involving mind control, which involved the injection of "radioactive milk into children at an orphanage in Maryland". Agent Cooper seems to ignore this and moves on.

He introduces the two recruits to the Men from within the Earth, and gives an abbreviated version of his history with Project AGARTHA. He references how his previous mentor, Operative-132, was killed "like an animal" by these sinister beings. And he indicates that the threat is so severe that it's unlikely either one of them will survive the night. Against these odds, both Operative-1138 and Agent White indicate that they're in, so Agent Cooper leads them off for a bite to eat.

Kate Kidnapped!
Agent Cooper, Operative-1138 and Agent White return to Agent Cooper's apartment to find it ransacked, Kate missing, and a note on the kitchen table from Zerrath with demands to bring the Sapphire of Agartha to the apartment at midnight, otherwise Kate will die. As Operative-1138 and Agent White start making coffee, Agent Cooper places a call to General Burton, who has news of a second incident occurring near tobacco plantations in Virginia. Burton orders Agent Cooper to send one of his new recruits to Virginia to investigate.

Agent Cooper selects Agent White for the Virginia detail, which seems to greatly annoy and distress both White and Operative-1138. O-1138 is to remain behind and support Agent Cooper.

As Agent White leaves, Agent Cooper starts pacing the apartment, trying to remember where Operative-132 told him where the Sapphire of Agartha was. He is still suffering from memory loss due to Zerg's "memory-eraser" device. He worries that he's losing his mind. Finally, he declares to an otherwise silent Operative-1138 that he's going to get some fresh air and steps away.

The Ghost of Operative-132
Agent Cooper steps out onto his front porch. After pleading with himself to remember, he is startled by the sudden appearance of a ghostly apparition of Operative-132. After getting over the initial shock, Agent Cooper tells O-132 about his memory loss issues and the kidnapping of Kate. Operative-132's Ghost gives several cryptic hints about the Sapphire's hidden location, to which Agent Cooper correctly deduces is in a forest near the gorge where he killed Zerg and most of his team six months earlier. O-132 also warns him that he's being tricked, and that Kate has left him...not been kidnapped. Mysteriously, as Agent Cooper races away to retrieve the Sapphire, the Ghost of O-132 says that he'll be seeing him soon.

Zerrath's Plan
Meanwhile, Zerrath, Zenab, and Kate Cooper meet up with Zella in the hidden, underground evil lair. They establish communications with their Supreme Leader Master Zun, and update him on their current plan: to use Kate to lure Agent Cooper into turning over the Sapphire of Agartha and then murder him. Master Zun advises them that the Second-In-Command, Zorak, is about to mount an operation on the surface towards their Plan 1 effort against the surface-dwellers. He orders them to link up with Zorak and his team once they have recovered the Sapphire and killed Agent Cooper. He then signs off.

Then Zerrath pulls Zella turn away from the others and reveals that he has secretly tipped off the surface-dwellers of Zorak's upcoming activities involving Plan 1. When Zella asks why he would endanger their plan, he reveals that he has a personal grudge against Zorak ("when we were little he used to beat me and pull my hair!") and that he plans to capture and use the Sapphire to seize power from Master Zun. While literally crossing her fingers behind her back, Zella pledges to aid Zerrath in his betrayal scheme.

Zerrath then announces that they must move to the surface to take their positions. When he asks Kate, who has been watching along silently, to come with him, she asks for something to drink. Zerrath then exclaims "when the Sapphire of Agartha is in our hands, when Agent Cooper has been vanquished, you can have all the alcohol you want." To which Kate replies, "Let's go get him." Zerrath laughs an evil laugh.

Recovering the Sapphire
Meanwhile, Agent Cooper and Operative-1138 explore the forest gorge area that previously saw the ending confrontation between Agent Cooper and the Men from within the Earth six month earlier. After a short investigation, Agent Cooper locates a box, which he slowly opens to reveal a bright, glowing object - the Sapphire of Agartha. After proclaiming to O-1138 that he "will stop these sinister agents once and for all!", Agent Cooper leads the NSA agent away.

Betrayal
Agent Cooper and Operative-1138 return to Agent Cooper's apartment to find Zella holding a powered-up electro-incinerator at their heads. Kate enters the room, held hostage by Zerrath and Zenab. Zerrath taunts Agent Cooper with his wife's life, demanding that the G-Men drop their weapons. Reluctantly, Agent Cooper convinces Operative-1138 to do so.

Zerrath then demands that Agent Cooper surrender the Sapphire of Agartha to him. With the box in his hands, Agent Cooper refuses to do so until Zerrath releases Kate.

Escape
Agent Cooper and Agent White, with a belligerent Kate Cooper, then escape to the exterior of the apartment. Taking refuge under cover of the front bushes, Agent Cooper asks Agent White what happened in Virginia. Agent White confirms they were there, and that he saw several of them escape. He also mentioned their leader, who had a very distinctive laugh, took out four G-Men on his own with his "fancy, New Wave compass thing".

Zorak
Meanwhile, in the Cooper apartment, Zerrath, Zella and FBI Assistant Director Smith/Zagim are alerted by a strange beeping noise. Zerrath pulls a communications device from his pocket and announces that it's "a message from that swine Zorak!"

Zerrath tosses the small coin-shaped device down onto the ground, where it projects a hologram of Zorak, Master Zun's Second-in-Command and heir apparent. He sneers at Zerrath before revealing that his team had been attacked at a tobacco plantation by "a bunch of stupid surface-dwellers", and that they captured one who said they'd been tipped off in advance that they'd be there. Zorak accuses Zerrath of setting his team up intentonally, which Zerrath denies. Then Zorak says he's going to reveal Zerrath's betrayal to Master Zun and signs off.

Enraged that Zorak survived the G-Man attack, Zerrath proclaims that once he gets the Sapphire he'll destroy both Zorak and Master Zun.

The Sapphire
Back outside the apartment, Agent Cooper and Agent White hide in the bushes, waiting for their pursuers with their guns drawn. Kate notices something weighing down Agent Cooper's coat pocket. She carefully reaches inside and finds her flask of booze and a strange, glowing orb: the Sapphire of Agartha. She hides the flask inside her bra and starts to back away when Agent Cooper realizes and turns to her, begging for her to give it back. Kate compares the Sapphire to a paperweight, and considers the Men from within the Earth to be as stupid as Agent Cooper and the G-Men are. She then turns and runs away. Agent Cooper and Agent White turn to follow when FBI agents acting on FBI Assistant Director Smith's orders ambush and capture them, calling them "Red Commie traitors." Kate runs back into the house, and the agents lead their prisoners back inside to Assistant Director Smith.

The Ultimate Battle
Captive Agent Cooper and Agent White are returned to the Cooper apartment,

Agent Cooper's Destiny
Awakening on the street in front of his apartment, Agent Cooper slowly climbed to his feet but dropped again when a strange residual electrical burst ran through his chest. After realizing what has happened in the last few minutes, he broke down and openly blamed himself for Kate's death. He once again pulled himself to his feet and slowly raised his standard-issue sidearm to his own head. After coming to the edge, he realizes he can't do it, he has a mission to accomplish, and a United States of America to save. He pledges to avenge his wife Kate's death, and to never stop hunting the Men from within the Earth until they are all destroyed. Defiantly, he declares "It's a measure of national defense!" before running off into the night in pursuit of his arch-enemies.

Zerrath and Master Zun
Back in the evil lair, Zerrath and Zella contact Master Zun, who demanded to know what has happened. Reluctantly, Zerrath admitted that Agent Cooper destroyed the Sapphire of Agartha, but attempted to blame the whole failure on Zella. Master Zun cuts him off and confronts him over his meddling in Zorak's Plan 1 effort by tipping off the FBI about their presence in the tobacco fields of Virginia. He brands Zerrath a traitor and orders Zella to exterminate him. Zella raises her electro-incinerator behind Zerrath, who knocks it out of her hand and catches it, turning it on the hologram of Master Zun. He then goes into a tirade about how they are all doomed under Master Zun's leadership and how he is the only one fit to rule them. With a final "you will die!" declaration, Zerrath activated the electro-incinerator which he accidentally had pointed the wrong way: at himself.

As she watched him die, Zella seemed to notice something strange: instead of the standard vaporization that occurs when a being is hit with an electro-incinerator blast, Zerrath seemed to disintegrate into a single ball of light. Before she could consider it any further, Master Zun declared that all was not lost. Despite Zerrath's betrayal and the loss of the Sapphire of Agartha, the seeds to Plan 1 had been planted. After a short time, Zorak would be joining her on the surface to oversee it's implementation. Zella drops to her knees, gives the salute and pledges "Master Zun!" He laughs an evil laugh in response.

Cast

 * Brian Bedell as Agent Cooper
 * Brian Van Kay as Zerrath
 * Rachel Knutton as Kate Cooper
 * Juliette Rose as Zella
 * Ted Cunningham as FBI Assistant Director Smith/Zagim
 * Don Gerron as Master Zun / Zorak
 * Tom Weaver as Operative-1138
 * Steve Lopresti as Agent White
 * Matt Knutton as Zenab / G-Man #1
 * Brandon Kane as G-Man #2
 * Ken Svehla as G-Man #3
 * Christian Wheeler as G-Man #4
 * Mike Larose as The Ghost of Operative-132

Behind The Scenes
The first three of the six Diabolical Tales movies were shot simultaneously in Rhode Island and southern Massachusetts in 2001-02. As a result, many of the scenes were filmed on days that also had filming on Diabolical Tales: Part I and Part II.

The crew was:
 * Brandon Kane - Writer, Director, Producer, Editor, Photographer
 * Don Gerron - Producer, Visual Effects Artist, Animator
 * Troy Sterling Nies - Original Score
 * James T. Rieder - Sound Design
 * The Brothers Brooks - Mixing
 * Erika L. McCauley - Makeup
 * Brian Bedell - Stunts Coordinator

Development
The script for Diabolical Tales: Part III was written in late 2000. It was originally intended to be the third part to a prequel trilogy to another series called The Man From Within The Earth trilogy, which Kane and Gerron had created in 1995-96 in Bloomington, Illinois. Only after production wrapped on "the prequels" in February 2002 was it determined to reboot the series starting with Diabolical Tales: Part I, Part II and Part III. There would be no connecting with the 1990s trilogy, and instead those three sequels - Part IV, Part V, and Part VI - were completely rewritten to adhere to the continuity established Parts I-III. These sequels remain un-produced.

Pre-Production
The original three Man From Within the Earth movies had been shot with no budget with only 5-7 shooting sessions each. The Diabolical Tales trilogy would have actors cast instead of friends filling the roles, and while there was still no budget to pay the cast and crew, there was a small allotment to feed them during production. Including the purchase of a small amount of costumes and props, the total budget for the entire Diabolical Tales trilogy was $1200: for an estimated 30-day shooting schedule spread out from October 22, 2001 until January 2002. Each movie cost roughly $400 each to produce.

Starting in August 2001, casting notices went up on various New England-based websites and location scouting began. The first auditions were held on September 8, 2001 at AS220 in Providence, Rhode Island. During this session Mike Larose, S. Matthew Aod, Rachel Knutton, Ted Cunningham, Tom Weaver, Steve Lopresti, Kris Williams and Juliette Rose auditioned and were ultimately cast. Later casting meetings were held throughout September and into early October, from which Sparky Schneider, Lara Schneider, and Brian Bedell auditioned. Two other actors auditioned and won key roles: Agent Cooper and Zerrath, the villain of Diabolical Tales: Part III. Mr. Bedell was initially cast as a henchman for Part II as well as a number of other supporting roles.

Production
The first scenes shot for Diabolical Tales: Part III was the first half of the opening scene, where Agent Cooper and a drunken Kate have a heated argument, on November 3, 2001.

Over half of the scenes in Diabolical Tales: Part III are set in the apartment of Agent Cooper and his wife Kate. Throughout November 2001, two shooting sessions where held that formed a bulk of these indoor scenes that featured the original actor cast as Zerrath. Unfortunately, the actor was unavailable for later shoots with the rest of the cast, so a late decision was made to re-cast the role of Zerrath and re-shoot the specific shots of him already filmed to save time.

Brian Van Kay, who had already been cast as Dr. Ernst Schafer for the Diabolical Tales: Part I prologue, offered to play the part and submitted a video audition via email as Zerrath in full costume. He was quickly selected as a replacement and his first scenes were shot in December 2001 as Zerrath.

Post-Production
Because the first three Diabolical Tales movies were filmed simultaneously, Part III had to wait in queue behind the first two movies to be fully-completed before full post-production could commence on it. Once Diabolical Tales: Part II visual effects work was fully completed in late 2006, work began on the considerable visual effects for Diabolical Tales: Part III. The third movie had twice as many effects shots as Part II - over 400.

Diabolical Tales composer Troy Sterling Nies completed the score for Part III in two weeks.

Videos & DVD Release
This is the original full-length cut of Diabolical Tales: Part III. Diabolical Tales: Part III was also released via a two-disc DVD set made especially for cast and crew as well as film festival screeners. These two-disc sets are now out of print, but contained the following special features:

Disc One: The Movie / Special Features Disc Two: Bonus Features
 * 1.85:1 Widescreen presentation
 * 5.1 Dolby Surround and 2.0 Stereo sound options
 * Audio Commentary by Diabolical Tales creators Don Gerron and Brandon Kane
 * Audio Commentary by Diabolical Tales composer Troy Sterling Nies.
 * Diabolical Tales Trailers Gallery
 * 12 Diabolical Tales: Part III Web-Movies
 * The End of the Beginning: The Making of Diabolical Tales Part III 35-minute documentary
 * Score, Schlock-Style: The Music of Diabolical Tales 15-minute featurette
 * Diabolical Unleashed! 15-minute featurette
 * Cosmic Control Productions Trailers Gallery
 * Cast & Crew Filmographies

Music
The original score was written, performed and recorded by Troy Sterling Nies.

Released in October 2007, the Diabolical Tales: Part III Original Motion Picture Score is available for purchase via Mr. Nies' Bandcamp page. Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

The track listing is:
 * 1) Prologue: The Seduction of Kate Cooper
 * 2) Diabolical Tales Main Titles
 * 3) The New Proteges
 * 4) Kate Kidnapped!
 * 5) The Ghost of Operative-132
 * 6) Zerrath's Plan
 * 7) Recovering the Sapphire
 * 8) Betrayal
 * 9) Escape / Zorak / The Sapphire
 * 10) The Ultimate Battle
 * 11) Agent Cooper's Destiny / Finale
 * 12) End Credits

Film Festival Screenings
In August of 2007, the nearly-complete, works-in-progress version of Diabolical Tales: Part III, along with the recently-completed Part II, were submitted to the 2nd Annual It Came From Lake Michigan Film Festival held in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where it debut as part of a double-feature with Part II in October 2007.

Diabolical Tales: Part III later played ShockerFest 2008 in Riverside California, marking the third consecutive year a Diabolical Tales movie had played at the fest.

Distribution
In 2009, the first three Diabolical Tales movies were acquired for worldwide distribution through Toronto, Canada-based Ouat! Media for a four-year term, which expired in 2013.

During the period of their distribution, there was a forty-minute version of Diabolical Tales: Part III which was made that excluded several scenes from the original cut in order to make the film television-friendly.

As of May 2013, the rights to Diabolical Tales: Part III had reverted back to Cosmic Control Productions.

Appearances

 * Agent Cooper
 * Zerrath
 * Zella
 * Kate Cooper
 * FBI Assistant Director Smith/Zagim
 * Zorak
 * Master Zun
 * Operative-132
 * Agent White
 * Operative-1138
 * Zenab
 * General Burton (mentioned only)
 * Sapphire of Agartha
 * FBI Headquarters
 * Agent Cooper's Apartment
 * Evil Lair
 * The Forest
 * The Gorge (mentioned only)
 * Washington DC
 * Tobacco Plantations, Virginia
 * Atlantis (mentioned only)
 * Project AGARTHA
 * FBI
 * NSA
 * CIA
 * Plan 1
 * Electro-incinerator
 * Holograms