Photographer Visits Hell's Half Acre To Find, Shoot ‘Starship Troopers’ Location

Steve Dallman didn’t think he was the type to go to hell and back for his hobby, yet that’s exactly what he did during a recent visit to Casper.

Dallman has traveled across the nation, visiting and photographing famous film locations. He called his recent adventure to Hell’s Half Acre, the setting for the 1997 film “Starship Troopers,” one of his favorites and most difficult.

“It’s a heck of a hike,” he told Cowboy State Daily. “It was a long, muddy climb down, and I almost lost a shoe a few times. The 45-degree climb up was even worse. It’s the furthest I’ve ever gone for one of these.”

I’m Doing My Part

Dallman is still a full-time employee with the Transportation Safety Institute, traveling the nation as an instructor. But he’s made the most of his frequent travels by indulging in his “hobby” of visiting film locations in the cities and towns he travels to.

“I’m constantly traveling,” he said. “About 40 to 42 weeks a year. Before I go, I find the filming locations in a city I’m going to, find the address, take a screenshot from the film, and take a picture of myself in the same place.”

Dallman is now one of the “group experts” in the Facebook group Historic Film Locations and regularly posts in other groups where people share photos of film locations from major productions in their communities.

“I post one picture a day, every day, 365 days a year,” he said. “I might get 60 pictures in cities like Los Angeles or Tampa, and that tides me over when I’m not traveling.”

Having already visited the locations of famous productions like “RoboCop,” “Barbie,” “True Lies,” and “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre,” Dallman is expanding his portfolio to include more obscure films that nonetheless have real places as their backdrops.

“My wife said to get a hobby, so this is what I do,” he said.

Never Pass Up A Good Thing

When Dallman traveled to Casper, it was the perfect opportunity to visit another famous film location: Hell’s Half Acre.

“Starship Troopers” started production with a six-week principal photography shoot in Hell’s Half Acre in April 1996. The unique geologic landscape would serve as the alien planet Klendathu, home planet of the Arachnids.

It was, by all accounts, a hellish shoot in Hell’s Half Acre. Director Paul Verhoeven and actors Casper Van Dien, Denise Richards, and Neil Patrick Harris had real battles with extreme weather and 80 mph winds while pantomiming battles with computer-generated aliens.

Dallman planned his own expedition to the surface of the alien world. He had tried to reach Hell’s Half Acre during a previous trip to Casper, but the weather made a descent too dangerous.

“I taught in Casper about five years ago, and drove out to Hell’s Half Acre, but it had just snowed and there was no way for me to get down there or do anything,” he said. “Since I can choose my schedule, I chose to come to Casper this year, as opposed to Boston or New York, to see Hell’s Half Acre.”

Everybody Fights, Nobody Quits

When Dallman got to Hell’s Half Acre, he saw the barbed wire fence surrounding the scarp. What he didn’t see were any signs explicitly saying he couldn’t venture down onto the surface of Klendathu.

“I try to never trespass,” he said. “I don't go up to houses or onto people's property. I looked very carefully, and even though there was barbed wire, there were no signs that said, ‘Do Not Enter.’ So that's why I made a moral decision and said, ‘Okay, there are no signs that say private property, it’s my second time here, and I think I'm OK going down there.”

The 320 acres of Hell’s Half Acre are part of a 960-acre tract of land owned by Natrona County. It’s been closed to the public since 2005, but that hasn’t stopped people from hiking in the area, and groups like the Natrona County Outdoor Recreation Collaborative have advocated for reopening the site to outdoor recreation.

Dallman found a section of fence that had been torn down and followed a stream that safely guided him to the bottom of Hell’s Half Acre. He chose his steps carefully, both for his safety and for the benefit of the landscape.

“I made sure my handholds weren’t anything that was going to break apart or damage the environment in any way,” he said. “I found large piles of feces, and didn’t know if that was cattle or bison, but I didn’t want to meet anything while I was out there.”

After a brief hike, Dallman landed on Klendathu. He immediately started searching for signs of intelligent life.

It’s An Ugly Planet. A Bug Planet!

At many film locations Dallman visits, the area has changed dramatically since the scenes were shot. Others look almost the same as they did, which makes a potential visit even more difficult.

“Sometimes you'll go to an address where something was filmed and everything's gone,” he said. “Other times, people don’t want people to stay away and stop taking pictures of their homes. The former owners of the house from ‘The Goonies’ were not fans of the fans, so they would hang up signs that said, ‘Goonies fans, stay away. You are not welcome here.”

Hell’s Half Acre hasn’t been used in any film productions since “Starship Troopers” finished shooting there in June 1996. Dallman described the area as “pristine.”

“It’s 100% absolutely pristine,” he said. “Things change over time, and the more people who go to an area, the more it changes. And how many die-hard Starship Troopers fans are going to go 40 miles outside of Casper and have the gumption to go down there?”

Some film locations lean into their ubiquity. Dallman said the owner of the house featured in “Edward Scissorhands” spent a lot of money transforming the property, so it looked exactly as it did in the 1990 film.

“A fan bought the house five years ago, had topiaries put on the lawn, changed the interior, and accepted donations for walkthroughs,” he said. “He thought he would flip it and make a lot of money, but I think it's still for sale. Nobody wants that house.”

Dallman spent a half-hour taking in Hell’s Half Acre. It still looked just like it does in the movie, but he found plenty of Hollywood leftovers at the site.

“I found a couple of rounds of ammunition that had been fired off during the filming, and hundreds and hundreds of nails down there,” he said. “I can only assume that they built a set on the flat part and left it all behind when they finished. How else could those nails have gotten down there?

Dallman took nothing but pictures at Hell’s Half Acre. For his scene-to-site comparison photo, Dallman found the spot where the Brain Bug was dragged out of its subterranean tunnel.

Only, there are no tunnels at Hell’s Half Acre. That was a trick of cinematic magic – and an exhaustive on-site effort.

“They must’ve built a set for the front of the tunnel 15 feet away from the rock wall,” he said. “I could see where they’d pounded one-inch rebar into the rock for the set, and that’s where they pulled the Brain Bug out of the tunnel.”

Never Surrender, Never Retreat, Never Give Up

While he was visiting Casper, Dallman visited one more film location, or at least as close as he could get. 

He researched a location and found the landscape and landmarks that appeared in the 1968 movie “Hellfighters,” the only Wyoming production featuring John Wayne.

“‘Hellfighters’ is about American firefighters who put out an oil well fire in Venezuela, was filmed on a private ranch outside of Casper that I can't get to,” he said. “No. 1, I don't know where it is. No. 2, I don’t have time and just trying to avoid calling people to get permission to get on their land.”

Nevertheless, Dallman was able to pull off at Bessemer Bend along the North Platte River, where he found the ridge that was in the backdrop of a scene featuring The Duke himself.

“It still looks almost exactly like it looked back in 1968,” he said. “There were a couple of people who said it looks nothing like that, and in my defense, I know the angle of the photo is off, but it’s as close as I could get.”

Funny how they always want to be friends after they rip your guts out.

Dallman said he generally avoids traveling to Western film locations. Even if he can access the private ranches where a majority of those films were filmed, matching a scene onsite can be a nightmare.

“‘Dances with Wolves’ was filmed on a lot of flat prairie in South Dakota, and a lot of that prairie is on private property,” he said. “It’s a lot easier in the big cities because you can get a physical address from people who’ve visited the same spot.”

Would You Like To Know More?

Dallman said his brief trip to Hell’s Half Acre has reached the top of his list of personal favorite film location visits. The only trip that could top it was visiting the “El Rancho Motel,” featured in 1987’s “Planes, Trains and Automobiles.”

“It’s the crappy little motel where they get drunk and turn into friends,” he said. “The only way to get to that one is to fly into Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and drive 45 minutes south to Gurnee, Illinois.”

Hell’s Half Acre has also become one of Dallman’s most popular posts in Historic Film Locations. Since posting the photos on April 17, his post has received over 4,000 reactions.

“That’s second only to a location I visited from The Fast And Furious,” he said. “That has over 10,000 reactions.”

Dallman said he and the other members of the film location community don’t consider themselves historians but “documentarians.”

“We document,” he said. “We’re just a community of people that help each other find filming locations and track other people’s footsteps to see what’s changed. This is what it looked like back then, and this is what it looks like now.”  

Dallman doesn’t see himself returning to Wyoming anytime soon. There haven’t been many productions filmed in Wyoming, and his trip to Hell’s Half Acre was probably one of the easier places to reach.

As far as he’s concerned, he expects the best and gives the best. Here’s the photo. Here’s the entertainment documentation. Now, have fun. It’s not an order, just a hobby.

“Hell’s Half Acre was the hardest location visit I’ve done, just because of what it took to get down there and back up,” he said. “I'm 63 and could have retired a couple of years ago, but I love what I do so much that I continue to do it. But I'll probably be retired before I go to Wyoming again.”

Andrew Rossi can be reached at arossi@cowboystatedaily.com.