An interesting press release was sent to me on Thursday, and seeing as I’ve been so terribly preoccupied with trying to get up to date with my book reviews, I haven’t been able to look at my emails lately. However, Heretic, looks like something the readers of this here site may enjoy and the news sounds as though a lot of people have taken interest in this film. Check out the press release and the teaser, before heading over to the website at www.hereticmovie.com to check out the gallery and some other neat features.
Low-budget, high-quality Yorkshire horror movie challenges Hollywood ’s big budget bias
Mod Scientists Ltd. today proudly release the first teaser trailer for their horror movie, Heretic. Shot for just £18,000, using locally-sourced cast and crew, Heretic is destined for cinema screens despite its incredibly low budget.
From inception Heretic was created to compete with big-budget Hollywood movies at the box office, and prove that money does not matter in the creation of thrilling, financially successful cinema.
Heretic is the chilling tale of Father James Pallister, a Priest who fails to accept responsibility for the death of a teenage girl in his Parish and is subsequently trapped and tormented by those he should have saved. Rather than relying on the violence and gore present in recent horror films, Heretic modernises the scares and visuals of classic horrors of the 1960s. Using the same technique these films employed, the true horror in Heretic is either masked in shadow or takes place off-screen, making it all the more terrifying for an audience who draw on their own worse fears to fill in the blanks. This allows the film to be low budget, contemporary and stomach-clenchingly tense.
The movie has had significant time and talent invested in the script, cast, locations and production design. Footage was shot on the popular Red One camera (used on The Hobbit and the Alien prequel Prometheus), giving cinema-quality visuals at a fraction of the cost of shooting on film. Mod Scientists recruited a team of young talented crew skilled in the art of achieving the most with very little, in order to create an amazing and terrifying movie with a tiny budget.
Despite the Writer / Director (Peter Handford) and Producer (Bethany Clift) both working full time outside of the production of the movie, they have managed to take Heretic from original concept to first edit in under eighteen months. Bethany also found time to give birth during pre-production for the movie and acted as Production Manager on the shoot even though her son was only twelve weeks old!
Heretic has received no government funding and the entire shoot has been privately financed through shares sold in the finished movie. Despite having a budget more traditionally associated with the catering department of a Hollywood movie, Heretic does not look or feel typically ‘low budget’, is not grainy or documentary style, has an incredible script and an outstanding performance from lead actor Andrew Squires; all ingredients that combine to make the movie feel like a major studio production.
Peter Handford says ‘I am incredibly excited about the release of our teaser trailer. This is our first opportunity to show the quality of the film that we have produced and to prove our missive that money doesn’t matter. The teaser is just a snippet of the thrilling experience that people can expect when they come to see the film at the cinema.’
