John Vella

John Vella was born in Grosse Pointe, Michigan. Growing up in Detroit, John found a passion for sports, especially baseball. By the time he was 15 the passion for sports was still there but a new passion started.... Creative writing! John began writing short stories, poems & lyrics & was encouraged by several of his teachers to continue to pursue his passion. After high school he continued to casually write but spent several years working in the furniture business before spending over 20 years as a maintenance man for a church in metro Detroit. During that time he married & became a father to his son John. John taught his son to play sports and became manager of his son's little league baseball team for 7 years. After getting divorced in 2014 and his son was almost out of high school, John began writing more seriously. He attended a horror film convention and connected well with a number of the actors. Yes, horror films were also his passion. A few months later John saw a casting call for The Dark Below & submitted. He was cast the next day and had his first acting experience as an extra working side by side the 3 lead actors, including actress Veronica Cartwright. John never looked back & started doing more background work eventually auditioning & getting cast in supporting roles on indie films. Over the next 2 years John started getting lead roles on indie films while also doing background work on several major productions including Little Evil, My Friend Dahmer, and more. In 2016 John finally put his writing skills to work co-writing the horror/comedy films Snuff and Simon Slays. John continued to progress in the film industry and by 2017 he was establishing himself as an actor, writer, producer, & director. Cemetery Stories is his first film as a director and John plans to continue writing, directing, and producing, mostly horror films, while continuing his career as an actor. John's goal is to continue to steadily progress in the film industry and become more and more established.