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Many directors have filmed scenes at the Millennium Center in Winston-Salem, including George Clooney for his film "Leatherheads."

But Richard Clabaugh is the first to blow it up, courtesy of some rather impressive special effects.

The explosion takes place during a war between mankind and evil robots in "Eyeborgs," Clabaugh's sci-fi action film starring Adrian Paul of TV's "Highlander" and prolific character actor Danny Trejo.

Filmed within five square blocks of Winston-Salem, Clabaugh of Lewisville started working on "Eyeborgs" in 2005. Now the movie is finished and ready to shop around to film distributors. Clabaugh is certain the movie will sell well on DVD and to various TV networks across the world, but he's aiming for a theatrical release of the film as well.

"We think we can get a limited theatrical on this," Clabaugh says. "And that's really good for us and our investors on this particular project."

Combining the sci-fi political satire of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" with the man-versus-machine mayhem of Paul Verhoeven's "Robocop," Clabaugh intended the film to be a reaction piece to post 9/11 America and the Patriot Act.

In the film, the Department of Homeland Security has created an army of robots with surveillance cameras for eyes. These robots are trusted to monitor the security and safety of all U.S. citizens. However, like all movie robots that achieve sentience, the eyeborgs begin to murder people.

"As in all science fiction, you take it to its illogical extreme," says Clabaugh, who grew up on a steady diet of sci-fi and horror films as well as DC Comics.

Another reason he decided to make a genre film is because of his background as a cinematographer on such films as "The Prophecy," "Phantoms" and "The Prophecy II." He also completed his first feature as a director in 2000 with the giant snake thriller "Python," a movie that was later sold to 20th Century Fox and the Sci-Fi Channel and spawned two sequels.

He says production on "Eyeborgs" had its challenges, especially with funding the local film's considerable budget, but adds that his cast was not one of them. Clabaugh has worked with Adrian Paul on other projects and says the actor and costar Danny Trejo had a blast in Winston-Salem and especially enjoyed the food available to them on the set and in the city.

"We were really smart in having really good catering," says John Rushton, executive producer on the film. "Danny Trejo mentioned that it was the best catering he had ever had on a movie, and he's been in a lot of really big movies.

"They loved it here. Especially the Thai restaurant downtown."

If "Eyeborgs" does well in the film market, Clabaugh hopes to not only make many more films in the area, but also that his success might also inspire other filmmakers to consider Triad-based productions.

"We've got as good a crew set here as anywhere," Clabaugh says. "The biggest problem is keeping people here because we don't get sometimes as much support for local filmmaking as we should, and unfortunately some of the more talented people want to move on to places where it's bigger.

"But thanks to (UNC) School of the Arts and Piedmont Community College's film program, there's a lot of very well-trained, very capable people who are ready to work."

Contact Joe Scott at movieshowjoe@gmail.com.

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