In 2006, a young man named Kyle Huff attended a rave. He didn’t normally go to events like this “Better of Undead” party, and he hung close to the walls. He chatted with a few strangers. He was invited back to a Capitol Hill house for an afterparty. Then at 7 a.m., he went to his car, retrieved several weapons and an extraordinary amount of ammunition, spray-painted “NOW” on the sidewalk and on the steps of several houses, and killed six people on the porch and in the house before killing himself. Some circles in Seattle can still feel the empty holes where their friends should be.
Five years after what is known as the “Capitol Hill Massacre,” award-winning local filmmaker Jagger Gravning announced his plan to make a movie based on the events of that night. Five years after the announcement, the film is a finished indie drama titled Wallflower, and it’s playing this week as one of only two local features highlighted at the Seattle International Film Festival. And some of the people involved, it appears, are not happy with it.