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Born in the early 1970s and raised in Jersey City, Ryan studied media art for two years at New Jersey City University, then known as Jersey City State College. He had drawn a slasher comic series called “Midnight” and even tried shooting movies with his VHS camera. With a handful of childhood friends who shared in his love of terrifying stories, Ryan founded Theatre of Terror, an independent production company.

“Around 2010, a friend of mine sent me a link to a web series called ‘Dead Road.’ Friends of mine were involved in the web series, and I said I would love to help them with special effects. So I started to do that, and then I started acting on the series,” said Ryan. “My interest was piqued into making films. I met Pat Devaney on the set of ‘Dead Road’ and he gave me copies of two series he had worked on, including ‘Zombie Hunters: City of the Dead.’ When I saw what they were doing … I was blown away. I saw you could edit from your computer at home. I wrote my first story, which was ‘Day 9,’ an apocalypse story.”

Ryan then wrote, produced, directed and starred in his first feature film, “Faces.” Filming began in late 2013 and the production wrapped in August 2014. The film premiered on Oct. 10, 2014, at the Loews Jersey Theatre in Jersey City to an audience of more than 350 people. A successful festival run resulted in Audience Choice Best Feature, Best Soundtrack and Best Actor for Ryan awards at the eighth Macabre Faire Film Festival.

As for the name of his company, there’s a story behind that.

“The Theatre of Terror was our version of ‘Masterpiece Theatre’ (now called ‘Masterpiece’) and we would basically sit there and discuss, like Siskel and Ebert, these films we saw,” Ryan said. “We wouldn’t cover anything like ‘Jaws’ or ‘Friday the 13th.’ We would talk about things we would make ourselves. When I started making my own films, I called the production company Theatre of Terror. I wanted to hold on to that memory.”

Ryan decided that, if he was going to make movies, it would be a family affair.

“My first film, ‘Day 9,’ had my entire family in it,” he said. “My daughter and wife were in ‘Splinter’ briefly, and my son stars in ‘Robot’ and he is in the wraparound.”

This momentum inspired him to officially create Theatre of Terror LLC. He made a website and a social media page to focus his marketing strategy. The production company successfully completed the four-film anthology “The Theatre of Terror,” featuring the award-winning shorts “The Gift,” “The Bookworm,” “Abducted” and “Endangered.” The anthology received distribution through BayView Entertainment and led to the develop-