Full Moon Cineplex on Lebanon Pike in Hermitage offers dinner and a movie for just $22.

The theater is the brainchild of Stacey and Ben Dixon, who also make low-budget horror flicks themselves.

Patrons walk by an 8-foot-tall gnarly skull-headed monster statue and bloody-slasher movie posters before being greeted — often by name — at the concessions stand.

“Hey Melissa!” Stacey Dixon sings out from behind the counter. “How are ya doin?”

Dixon is half of the husband-wife team that owns Full Moon Cineplex in Hermitage, arguably the friendliest house of horrors in Middle Tennessee.

She and her husband, Ben, have built a small, loyal crowd for horror films like “Return of the Blind Dead” and “Nuke ‘Em High” (Volumes 1 and 2) or tough-guy classics like “Death Wish” and “Walking Tall.”

And they’ve done that with mom-and-pop service, serving and refilling food and drinks themselves while taking time to chat with each customer.

“A lot of us have gotten to know Ben and Stacey very well, and they treat us nicely,” said Melissa Holt, 60, a legal assistant from Hendersonville.

Holt is part of an online horror film Meetup group that gathers at Full Moon Cineplex.

And the Dixons do what they can to accommodate those Meetup group members and other regulars.

The Dixons have taken suggestions for movies from the group, but it gets more personal than that. They allowed one customer to bring and use his father’s office chair in the theater after the customer’s father died.

And Ben Dixon, several times, has announced the screening would be delayed for a few minutes because so-and-so called to say they were running late.

In addition to the friendly service, the prices are right — $7 for the movie, or $22 for movie and dinner, which also includes endless popcorn and soda. More than half of the theater’s 90 seats include a table or counter space.

Not every one of the B horror films is a hit — “I’ve seen some things here I wouldn’t bring my dog to,” Holt said, laughing — but the theater’s comfort and friendliness brings regulars back.

Scared the crap out of him

Stacey and Ben Dixon, horror filmmakers themselves, created Full Moon Cineplex in 2014 as part of a compound now in the long-abandoned Courtyard Cinemas off Lebanon Pike in Hermitage.

That building now also houses the city’s longest-running haunted house, Slaughterhouse, and one of the longest-operating tattoo parlors, Lone Wolf Body Art.

That trifecta of businesses lets the Dixons make a living out of their childhood horror hobbies.

Ben Dixon’s parents took him to the original "Amityville Horror" movie when the boy was 7.

“It scared the crap out of me, but it was exciting,” said Dixon, 46, a 1990 graduate of Mt. Juliet High School.

A love for comic books got Ben Dixon into art, and the year after he graduated high school, he started doing tattoos.

Stacey Tarpey Dixon, 41, a 1995 McGavock High School grad, grew up acting and doing makeup for small films and videos.

Among her post-high school jobs, she played the exorcist at Slaughterhouse, then on Sixth Avenue South.

“I would run people out of their shoes and it was fun,” she said. “My mom said, ‘I thought you’d grow out of that, but you just keep getting weirder.’”

She and Ben Dixon met when he hired her for an indie movie he was making in 2005, but he didn’t leave her with a great first impression.

“I thought he was kind of shady because he was a tattoo artist,” Stacey Dixon said, smiling.

The two worked through that quickly, and they started working together, making movies and making a family soon thereafter. The two have an 11-year-old son, Phoenix. Each has an older child from previous relationships.

The couple first asked about the abandoned Courtyard Cinemas in 2008, but the price tag was too high.

Several years later, Ben started looking for a new place for his tattoo shop as Nashville rents skyrocketed. Around the same time, the Slaughterhouse owner asked Stacey if she wanted to buy the haunted house.

That’s when the couple went back to see if the Hermitage property was still for sale, and it was, at a lower price.

“We bought it and closed the deal Aug. 14, 2014, and had to be open with the haunt by mid-September,” Ben Dixon said. “We made it.”

Since the building was an old theater, the couple decided to start showing movies — mostly horror films since they were such big fans themselves.

They use old mainstream movies to try to draw in new customers for the horror flicks, so "Superman," "Planet of the Apes," "Rocky" and other classics have been part of the mix.

Meantime, the two are having fun together, making movies — their next one, "Death Breed: A Horror Anthology," debuts April 12 at their theater — and hosting horror fans.

“Stacey, we had similar childhoods, watching horror movies, growing up around here and we both went to makeup school,” Ben Dixon said smiling.

“We inspire each other so much.”

Reach Brad Schmitt at brad@tennessean.com or 615-259-8384 or on Twitter @bradschmitt.

Debut of Dixons' 'Death Breed'

What: "Death Breed: A Horror Anthology," three short suspense/horror stories directed by Ben Dixon and starring his wife Stacey Dixon, Kane Hodder (Jason Voorhees in several "Friday the 13th" movies) and Gunnar Hansen (Leatherface from the original "Texas Chainsaw Massacre").

When: Red carpet at 6 p.m. April 12, with screening at 7 p.m. A second showing happens at 9 p.m. April 13.

Where: Full Moon Cineplex, 3445 Lebanon Pike, Hermitage

Cost: $7

Tickets: www.FullMoonCineplex.com



