Filmed Locally - Niagaravation

HOWES CAVE — Niagaravation is a 1995 independent sci-fi comedy directed by Joe Romano, starring and written by Romano and Maria Cristina Newsom. The film centers around Norm and Luann Weiner as they head off for the honeymoon of their dreams in Niagara Falls. The newlyweds unwittingly arrive at the falls just in time for an alien invasion, where they meet a band of ghosts living under the falls who implore the couple to save the Earth from the intergalactic takeover. Thirty years later, Niagaravation has become a bit of a hard-to-find relic. It doesn’t exist on any streaming platform, and DVDs, while seemingly available somewhere, aren’t necessarily easy to find. However, a YouTube page dedicated to the making of the film, created for its twentieth anniversary in 2015, offers a glimpse into the intentionally campy, low-budget film, including a featurette on shooting locations, one of which was our very own Howe Caverns. 

The featurette “NIAGARAVATION - 20th Anniversary DVD excerpt” plays like a travelogue of sorts, covering four locations used in the film. As there was essentially no budget to pay for any location, the filmmakers had to select from free options for their shoot. Niagaravation is essentially a period piece set in 1961, and two of its primary locations, Coney Island and Niagara Falls, had retained so much of their mid-century vibe that Romano needed little more to do than to point his camera in the right direction to have a ready-made set. That did not mean there were not challenges of course. “A lot of work went to living in the past,” said Maria Christina Newsome in a 1996 The Yale Daily News interview. Newsome had scavenged New York City thrift stores to create the right look for the films “earthlings.” A connection at Lehman College opened up another free opportunity for the interior of a spaceship. Howe Caverns was used as a secret underground hideaway for ghosts beneath Niagara Falls. “They were so great to us there,” remembers Romano in the featurette. “You know, we probably overshot it because it was so much fun to be in there.” Some of the Howe Caverns scenes can be seen in the featurette. 

The filmmakers also traveled to Canada, the Eiffel Tower, and the famous Hollywood sign. They recruited legendary horror television personality John Zacherle (aka Zacherley) to play the “Cool Ghost”— a play on “The Cool Ghoul” moniker bestowed upon Zacherle by American Bandstand host Dick Clark. Niagaravation won the Theatrical Feature Film award at the 1996 Wordfest Houston International Film Festival and screened at several others. The project was a labor of love for Newsom and Romano, who turned a 16-mm home movie of a trip to Niagara Falls into a globe-hopping intentionally schlocky sci-fi feature film; from script to final cut, they spent seven years making Niagaravation and many more promoting it. But where is it now? Who will unearth this relic? Until then, visit the “Niagaravation Movie” page on YouTube for some fun featurettes, including scenes from the film and entertaining interviews with the filmmakers.