HAPPY BIRTHDAY: Superfreak Media
Happy Birthday to you! Happy Birthday to you! Happy Birthday SuperfreakMediaaaaaa! Happy Birthday to you!
They grow up so fast! This month marks SuperfreakMedia’s 15th birthday! Can you believe it?! So grab yourself a glass of bucks fizz (we’re not old enough… yet!) and a slice of cake and indulge with us as we take you through some of our greatest moments over the last 15 years of SuperfreakMedia history (heads up it’s a lengthy post).
*An evolution of our Logos and Branding since 2009 - right up to now in 2024.
WHERE IT ALL BEGAN:
15 years ago, in 2009, an ambitious (baby) filmmaker by the name of Liam Banks had a vision: To form a creative collective of like-minded ghouls to create short horror films with that packed a nostalgic punch and always had a sting in the tail! Growing up loving the genre, Horror has always been at the heart of what we do with an occasional dash of sci-fi and comedy thrown in through the years for good measure.
LIAM - One of the first things people ask me about is the name SuperfreakMedia, and where that comes from…Believe it or not I had not yet heard the incredible Rick James Banger before I came up with the name. I think, like most creative minded people, I didn’t always have the best time at school and was bullied quite a bit. ‘Freak’ was often a word I would come to hear in the corridors and the classrooms and if anything it only spurred me on more to pursue a career I had such an interest in. So the name was really birthed from all those people I grew up with that tried to tear me down because I was different and I loved acting, I loved drawing and painting, and I loved to be creative. So now everytime I make something with the team and I have that name associated with it, I have that same fire I had back then - to keep doing what I love!
*Film Posters for early releases (left to right) WOODLAND, FALLEN, BLOODY MARY, CONTAGION & WHO’S THERE?
Our first film to be released was a rather (overly) ambitious creation called WOODLAND which birthed the fictional town in which all of our terrifying tales still take place - Woodland Heights. Assembling a rag-tag team of friends fresh out of Secondary School our first creation was a slasher, set in the woods (aptly named) featuring many characters being played by the same person. We had to work with what we had! The film was so long in fact, Liam ended up splitting it into a 3 part series that eventually debuted on Halloween Night. Since then SuperfreakMedia has been releasing a short every Halloween and you might’ve noticed they are always dedicated to Grace Mary Williams. She was Liam’s grandma and although only in his life for a short time, she had a huge impact on him and his developing love for film as a youngster. So next Halloween came around and SuperfreakMedia released a Sci Fi/Alien Invasion series called FALLEN, then the next - our own take on the urban legend of BLOODY MARY (definitely need to revisit that one day), after that a zombie apocalypse set action/drama called CONTAGION (yeah we got there first with that title!) and one finally of our personal favourites WHO’S THERE? - our very own spin on a Creepshow Style Short Story. In these first few years, we learnt so much and it’s amazing to look back on these films now and see how far we have come. The production quality might’ve changed (in our opinion) but the fun we have on set has always been the same, even at the beginning!
2011-2014:
After leaving college (where he was taught by some absolutely incredible lecturers who really cemented his passion for filmmaking) Liam went on to study Film & Video Production at the University of Derby, and whilst there met some of the fellow ghouls he’d always wanted to find. Through his 3 years of study, he became close friends with Jonathan Butler (Jonno), who introduced him to his good friend Richard Parker (Rich), and even started to collaborate with his then partner Charlie Clarke (whom he met on the set of another short film called OVERTIME). Working a part-time job at his local cinema he also met fellow film aficionado Theo Vann-Leeds. The team was starting to come together!
*HAUNTED Character Posters made in promotion of the premiere of the film at SCREEN 22, Nottingham on Halloween Night 2012 - We’ve always loved a chance to get a good poster (or two) together!
For Halloween of 2012 SuperfreakMedia decided to cook up one of their most twisted tales yet and released HAUNTED - even premiering with its own private cinema screening at Screen 22 in Nottingham. This was an incredible night as finally the team was getting to see their work on the big screen and boy did it feel good! The following year SuperfreakMedia celebrated its fifth year online so it was only natural that this Halloween’s project had to be bigger and better than anything that had come before. ALL HALLOW’S EVIL was born, a terrifying anthology of Halloween Horror featuring Killer Clowns, Demonic Possession, a Home Invasion gone wrong (more on that later), and much more! This was by far the biggest project the team had taken on and again the film was premiered to an audience of cast and crew at Screen 22 on Halloween Night. Things were really starting to come together!
*BEHIND THE SCENES from ALL HALLOW’S EVIL in 2013 - Featuring Liam Banks, Steven Galloway, Joe Thomas, Charlie Clarke, Sarah Astill, Jessica Bailey, Abi Webb, Liam Valentine & Jonathan Butler.
*BEHIND THE SCENES from THE COPY-WRITER - Featuring Tony Gibbons, Liam Banks, Jonathan Butler, Harry Crow, Stephanie Cole, Kieran Simpson & Sam Powell
During Liam & Jonno’s final year of study, SuperfreakMedia produced THE COPY-WRITER - a short Lovecraftian tale of madness that marked a number of milestones for the team. Made in collaboration with fellow students on the course this film was the first of our films to be crowd-funded, cast using professional actors from all over the country, involved full set builds, and would even go on to screen around the world winning a whole host of awards for the team! This really was a special moment for SuperfreakMedia with the film picking up the Audience Choice Award, Best Director, Best Editor, Best Sound Design, Best Cinematography, and Best Art Direction at the Degree Show Screening in 2014! Soon after this, we were fortunate enough to have the film premiere in the States at the Hollywood TCL Chinese Theatre in LA, screened in Portland Oregan (Best of Fest - The H.P.Lovecraft Film Festival), New York City (Macabre Horror Film Fest) and a whole host of other screenings all across the globe - all whilst winning awards and recognition along the way. Liam even got interviewed by BBC Radio Derby to discuss the film and it’s journey across the States! Things were really starting to blossom for SuperfreakMedia, and now that Liam and Jonno were set to leave University it was time to think about what would come next…
2015 - 2020:
Fresh out of University, Liam, Jonno & the team knew they wanted to keep up the momentum whilst THE COPY-WRITER was still touring on the festival circuit. This is where the #1MINUTENIGHTMARE SERIES was born. Noticing that people’s attention spans were depleting with content online and the growing popularity of apps like Vine (yes we are that old) and Facebook Watch, the team decided to set themselves the challenge of creating and releasing 1-minute short horror films every month for an entire year - and we pulled it off!
The series covered everything from Body Horror to Ghosts, to Cannibal Families and Man Eating Monsters. This series was an absolute blast to create and was incredibly well received, reuniting the team every month to create something different to release online. NIGHT LIGHT the first in the series even went on to win First Prize at the Ilkeston Spookfest Event for Best Short. All episodes are still available to stream over on our YouTube Channel, with one episode even getting featured on Eli Roth’s CRYPT TV!
*Never before seen BEHIND THE SCENES from MR CREAK (taken by Lucy Young) - featuring Julia Damassa, Johann Chipol, Jonathan Butler, Liam Banks, Lucy Young, Stephanie Cole & Patrick Doherty.
Now one of the shorts made for this series was very special indeed and even ended up having an extended 3-minute+ cut that we released online. That film was MR CREAK. Even when we were making the film it felt like this production was a massive step up for the team. Liam spent an entire day transforming the bedroom set into a dark and twisted playroom of terror from the 1970’s, our lead actor Julia Damassa was absolutely incredible and really nailed the role of Penelope with Johann Chipol playing the titular role of Mr Creak himself. Liam always knew the film had legs and decided to take a gamble and entered it for consideration into a new contest being run by the BBC - looking for new and upcoming filmmakers from the UK. A couple of weeks after we had submitted the film we got the call and were told that MR CREAK would be featured in the lineup of a brand new BBC Show - THE FEAR. This was a landmark moment for SuperfreakMedia, our work was finally going to be shown to the masses and we were in the running to win £20,000 worth of funding to develop our next project, not only that the film would be watched by the esteemed director of The Blair Witch Project - Eduardo Sanchez.
LIAM - I can remember watching BBC Three most evenings because that was usually the place to watch Family Guy or American Dad before bed. There was this one night just before I drifted off and a trailer came on. A trailer for THE FEAR and front and centre was our creation MR CREAK. Julia (Damassa) our lead star was heavily featured in the promo and it just felt so surreal. The countdown was on for the release of the series and me and the fellow filmmakers would have no idea how we’d done until the series started to screen to the public. The week before the show was about to start we got another phone call, telling us we were in the first episode, but not only that we were opening the entire series! A 30-second promo appeared online and once again it was all about MR CREAK and the reactions were incredible! I can remember sitting down with family and friends the night that the show started and it was one of the most special memories I will ever have - as finally something we had made was being screened to the masses on one of the nation’s biggest platforms! I will forever be grateful for the doors this show opened for us!
Now with that being said - unfortunately we placed 5th overall in the competition, missing out on the top spot and final - and if we recall correctly only the Top 4 Entries were eligible for the Grand Prize. Nevertheless, people started to reach out from all over the country (and the world) to congratulate us on the film and tell us how impressed they were with what we were able to pull off. A slightly bittersweet moment came with the fact that MR CREAK had also made the official selection for Mayhem Film Festival that same year - a film festival we always attended as a team (and continue to do so)- this achievement really was a bucket-list moment for us (more on that in a little bit). Unfortunately due to being on the show we had to pull the film from all festival screenings for a year and we were only allowed to reupload it a year later to YouTube. Once uploaded, the audience for the film and indeed our channel exploded, we were seeing hundreds of thousands of views on one of our shorts for the first time and the response was overwhelmingly positive. Initially, the plan was to try and go for funding and expand the short into a feature-length horror. Whilst in development and upon completing the script our lead actor Julia unfortunately passed away. It was a huge blow for the team and Julia is still so dearly missed and loved by all those involved with MR CREAK - the feature film idea was eventually abandoned as it just didn’t seem right to continue on with it without our Penelope.
For Halloween of 2015, Liam assembled another willing team of masochists to head into the woods and film for several nights in the bitter cold for our uber 80’s Meta-Take on the Slasher Genre THE FINAL GIRL. This was an absolutely incredible shoot, guerilla-style filmmaking at its finest, and introduced fellow filmmakers Drew Taylour-Davis and Robert Dawes into the fold through a connection with Theo. The film featured veteran Indie Scream Queen Jessica Messenger in the lead role of Olivia going head to head with Baghead (Phil Martin - Prometheus, The Northman, Jack the Giant Slayer) and Babyface (Ben Jones). Olivia wasn’t on her own though as she had backup from a gaggle of ghoul friends marking our first collaboration with Esemee Matthews (The Confession, Sandman, Wreckage) Chlöe Crump (Do You See it Too?, Home Invasion) Tonia Toseland (Take a Look, It Followed Me Here) and Rachel Richmond.
*Behind the Scenes from THE FINAL GIRL (taken by Patrick Doherty) - Starring Jessica Messenger, Phill Martin, Ben Jones, Esmee Matthews, Chlöe Crump, Tonia Toseland & Rachel Richmond.
Next year in 2016, we continued to make as many short films as we could and we finally reached our goal of having our first premiere at the Mayhem Film Festival in Nottingham with our short film SANDMAN. Esmee (Matthews) returned and took on the lead role of Sandy (we love a good pun) alongside Matthew Barker (All Hallows Evil, Sandman, Chasing Time, Wreckage, Hide & Seek, Alone, Blood Money & Home Invasion). Liam had the opportunity to be interviewed by Left Lion magazine regarding how the film came about and his career with SuperfreakMedia so far. YOU CAN READ IT HERE.
LIAM - Shooting SANDMAN was a dream (get it!) - we shot the whole thing in a day, in the exact same spot/room we shot MR CREAK so you should be able to see just how much we bloody transformed that room for MR CREAK! As we had gotten into Mayhem the year before and had to pull out this was really our stab at trying to create the scariest little short we could with what we had available - to try and get in once again. The idea of nightmares and what your mind can do to you when you are trying to get to sleep or are struggling with insomnia has always fascinated me, it’s a concept I have revisited a few times already in the likes of DO YOU SEE IT TOO? and I am sure I will revisit it again further down the line. For me this is still one of our scariest and most successful short films that we’ve ever made and I can remember just how much bloody fun we had shooting it! Nothing says horror more than a man in tightie whities running across the street in the middle of the night - Thanks Matt!
*Stills taken from Night of the Deranged Virgins: From Hell - starring Charlie Clarke, Melvyn Rawlinson, Sarah Wynne Kordas, Lindsay Foster, Cohen Day, Katie McMillan, Jonathan Butler, Liam Valentine & Liam Banks.
To wrap things up for 2016 the team decided to enter the Grindhouse Planet 48 Hour Film Contest and created a Faux Horror Trailer for NIGHT OF THE DERANGED VIRGINS: FROM HELL - the title should really speak for itself! Inspired by the trashy trailers of the 70’s and 80’s our entry went on to win the Grand Prize at the festival and is still one of our favourite projects we’ve thrown together. We definitely need to make another one of these someday - High School Teen Slasher anyone?
LIAM - This is a memory I thought I’d take to the grave but why not share?! I will start by saying, this shoot was an absolute blast. Probably the most fun I have had shooting anything…ever, Because it was just so bloody silly! I got to cameo as a porn star for godsake! We were getting to shoot some of the craziest shit and we knew, like the trailers we were trying to emulate, it didn’t need to make any sense and it could be as bizarre and as weird as we wanted it to be! Huge shoutout to Tab’s Productions for providing a lot of the props and costumes we used as well by the way! Anyway back to my point, for some strange reason, there is an exorcism half way through the trailer (spoilers) and I really wanted to get an overly serious moment in there where our lead is talking to a priest about her sister’s demonic take-over. I had filmed at a local church many times before for other various projects so thought I would get in touch and see if we could dip in and get the shots we needed. Of course, I didn’t think they would go for the idea of us establishing an exorcism in the scene so I was ‘vague’ about the truth and said it was for a drama project. Anyway cut to the day of us filming, the reverend was present THE WHOLE TIME we were shooting and casually asked us partway through - “this isn’t for some kind of horror film is it?!” Me and the crew fell silent. I immediately blurted out “No of course not!” We quickly got the shots we needed and hot-footed it out of there, knowing full well we were just about to shoot an exorcism with a leaf blower right after. I don’t know what the punishment is for lying to a reverend but we got the shot! Maybe I should go to confession or something. Speaking of…
Esmee then returned a year later, playing the lead in THE CONFESSION. By far one of our biggest success stories through our 15 years of being a collective. The production was not without its problems though (oh boy!). The film was made to enter into an international contest run by Warner Bros. to celebrate the release of the latest Conjuring/Annabelle Film at the time. Once again looking for up-and-coming filmmakers, the brief was that the short had to fit within The Conjuring Universe and be no longer than 2 minutes in length. We had just 2 weeks to make our entry, submit it, and hope for the best. The script was written after a quick team meeting, locations were locked in and actors were cast. The film was set to be shot in one weekend, allowing a week for editing and then submission. Day One went by swimmingly, we nailed it and got exactly what we were after! The second day however was an absolute nightmare, one we hope we never have to repeat. A confession booth set was built by Rich and his family and we just had the pivotal scenes of the film left to shoot on our final day. Everything was shot, the footage was uploading, the set torn down. The team even tweeted to Filmmaker and Judge David F. Sandberg about their progress. It was only when the team came to review the footage however that the problems arose…
LIAM - We had recorded the second day of the shoot on a slightly different camera than the first - and with a new piece of gear, an external recorder. This was to improve the quality and fidelity of the footage I would have to work with in the edit. It was only upon reviewing the takes as we offloaded the footage that we realised the recorder had baked in all of the camera display information, cross hairs, histograms, even the bloody flashing record button were all captured and were obscuring our footage. There was no work around. The footage couldn’t be used and to top things off we had now lost the set as it was torn down and a whole day’s worth of shooting (in an already tight schedule). The clock was ticking and we now only had another week to submit our film. I was so bloody proud of how everyone pulled together as we quickly rescheduled to film again a few days later, rebuilt the set, reordered any makeup supplies we needed, and focused on getting this thing bloody made. It’s weird because I can remember exactly where I was when I found out about the contest, and I had this strange feeling come over me, like I just knew we needed to enter. Even when we were hit with this devastating blow after shooting for 2 days, I just felt things would work out, and boy did they?!
*Pictures from the Trip with New Line Cinema & Warner Bros. (from left to right) - Jonno & Liam outside the New Line Cinema Offices and with the other international winners of the #myannabellecreation contest.
THE CONFESSION went on to become another huge landmark in SuperfreakMedia’s history, winning the My Annabelle Creation Competition and becoming an official part of The Conjuring Universe (if it’s on Wikipedia it’s real right?!). As the UK regional victors, Liam and Jonathan were flown out to LA to meet executives, producers, and directors alike including Walter Hamada and YouTube’s Ponysmasher - David F. Sandberg (Shazam 1&2, Lights Out, Annabelle: Creation & the upcoming Until Dawn Movie Adaptation). Connections were made with Warner Bros. and fellow filmmakers who also won the contest for their region. SuperfreakMedia was finally being recognised by the bigwigs in Hollywood! The world was our oyster.
Never being a filmmaker to miss an opportunity, whilst in the crazy heights of LA, Liam decided to make another short, reuniting with Tony Gibbons (The Copy-Writer) to create IT FOLLOWED ME HERE. We only mention this film as it stands out for a number of reasons. It is probably one of the most dialogue-driven short films we’ve released to date and possibly one of the only films we’ve made that takes place outside of Woodland Heights (although it does feature a character who has fled his home in England - was it Woodland Heights? Who knows?!). The film was shot in one evening on location in Hollywood and premiered Halloween Night 2017.
More success followed for the team in early 2018. ALONE won the Five Lamps 24-hour Film Contest. This was a local contest SuperfreakMedia had been entering for years with CHARLIE, WRECKAGE, and eventually ALONE. From the inception of the idea to rendering the final cut, we had just 24 hours! Starring Michael Muyunda as Percy in the lead role, this film was our twisted take on a post-apocalyptic world and what might be waiting for us in the afterlife…
LIAM - The Five Lamps Film Contest was another bucket-list item for us as a team. I think when we made CHARLIE at University it was the first time anything I had had a hand in making was shown in a cinema and on a big screen for people to watch (and judge). We knew we wanted to win one year and I am finally glad it happened in 2018. We had come very close with WRECKAGE but ALONE was the film that let us take the trophy home!
*BEHIND THE SCENES on BEST FRIENDS FOREVER - featuring Charlie Clarke, Jessica Messenger, Esmee Matthews, Liam Banks, Jonathan Butler, Richard Parker, Monica Montalvo and Dave Hastings.
After that, SuperfreakMedia began having more success online with Best Friends Forever being released and hitting over 400k views on YouTube - our second film to do so. The film itself was shot over the summer and released - you guessed it - Halloween Night 2018. Reuniting Charlie Clarke and Jessica Messenger in the 2 lead roles, this film also marked SuperfreakMedia’s first collaboration with award-winning makeup artist Monica Montalvo in bringing our ghoulish spectre Rachel to (after)life. Aside from an amazing reception with viewers on YouTube, the film would go on to win a whole host of awards for cast and crew alike. The film won Best Horror Film, Best Editing, and Best Sound Design at the 2019 Nexus Film Awards. It also took home the prize of Best Film and Best Actress at the 2019 Bloody Flicks Awards. We were also lucky enough to be nominated at the Midland’s Movie Awards for Best Sound Editing or Mixing and Best Makeup, Costume/Hair Styling (for Monica).
LIAM - I was fortunate enough to be in Orlando, Florida when the film went live and I can remember me and Charlie (Clarke) were in Disney Land grabbing a bite to eat as I hit the PUBLISH Button on YouTube. It was such a relief to finally have that film out there as there had been a lot of tireless and gruelling night shoots over the summer. The film itself is still one of my favourites, I think Jonno and Rich really knocked it out of the park with the cinematography on that short. It felt like we had taken a leap forward again in the quality of what we were able to produce. I was so proud of the performances Charlie and Jess put in, they really made that film what it is, and thinking of the shoot brings back so many fond memories. Also here’s a tip - don’t kill your best friends! It’s not worth the hassle!
Going into 2019, we celebrated our 10th Birthday. To mark the occasion Liam had the (bright) idea of bringing back some of the creatures and creations of the last decade in one celebratory short film. February 16th, 2019 - we released X MARKS THE SPOT. The shoot for this short was nothing short of magical, at one point the team even braved -4 degree weather at night to get the film finished in time! Although a bit of a scheduling nightmare trying to assemble a cast of characters from 10 years worth of work, the final product is something we are so proud of as a team. Going back to the roots of what we love to make, this 80’s - Stranger Things-esque Vignette was a whole lot of fun to create and made us all quite emotional getting to say goodbye, one last time, to all these characters we had put out into the world in our first 10 years online. If you want to see just how fun this film was to make - check out the Behind the Scenes HERE.
*BEHIND THE SCENES from DO YOU SEE IT TOO? - Featuring Chlöe Crump, James Podmore, Jack Davies, Liam Banks, Charlie Clarke, Jonathan Butler and Dave Hastings.
Later that year we really wanted to shoot a whole lot more content, not having any idea what was just around the corner in 2020. Luckily over the summer, we scheduled a couple of projects to shoot back to back. We started with DO YOU SEE IT TOO? To film this we invaded Jonno’s home and bedroom to bring this eerie tale of terror to life. Again going back to Liam’s obsession with the horrors that lurk at the end of your bed when you’re trying to sleep, DO YOU SEE IT TOO? has been one of our most successful short films to date! Reuniting with Chlöe Crump and bringing on board James Podmore (upcoming short UNCANNY) in the lead roles this film really marked another step forward for us as a team. Again the film was more performance and dialogue-driven than some of our other offerings and allowed Liam to really step up his game as a Director. This film was the first of our films to reach over Half a Million Views online and in a rather short space of time too! The response was fantastic online and became a motivational turning point for SuperfreakMedia.
LIAM - DO YOU SEE IT TOO? felt very similar to SANDMAN to me in a lot of ways. It was a contained shoot in a bedroom (mainly) with an entity stalking our protagonist(s) while they are trying to get to sleep - all shot in one day (we’ve heard that before). The film itself I think is very different though in how we approach the story as we really tried to hint at some lore there with the antagonist. We even discussed in pre-production meetings that this creature could have stalked our protagonists from a foreign land that they maybe visited on a holiday. Now it was getting closer each night, every time they tried to go to sleep - that idea scares the shit out of me to be honest! There are a lot of details in the film that I think the audience might not always pick up on, for example, the objects on the nightstands switch sides when the twist is revealed and we find out David is indeed the victim of this creature, not Sophie. When David steps into the Hallway to confront ‘whatever is in his house’ he is surrounded by dream-catchers on the artwork on the walls, ultimately leading to him waking from a nightmare. There was a lot of thought that went into this one and I think that informed the incredible performances of Chlöe and Jay(James) which we have received countless compliments on since the film was released. Huge credit to them as they both smashed it! It was also Chlöe’s Birthday on the day that we filmed so it was nice to have a break, sing Happy Birthday, eat some cake, and then get back to the scares! - CHECK OUT THE BEHIND THE SCENES HERE
*BEHIND THE SCENES from BLOOD MONEY - Featuring Cohen Day, Matthew Barker, Jessica Messenger, Charlie Clarke, Richard Parker, Monica Montalvo & Liam Banks
So we mentioned that we scheduled a couple of film projects alongside the shooting of DO YOU SEE IT TOO? and those were the unreleased INERTIA (Jonno tore his achilles in between shooting dates so we had to abandon the project) and BLOOD MONEY. Treading similar beats in terms of style to our Grindhouse Trailer in 2016, BLOOD MONEY is probably the closest we have come to creating a thriller as opposed to a straight-up horror film. We filmed for a day in the summer of 2019 and planned to do pick-ups at a later date. Due to personal circumstances, our lead Jessica Messenger decided to take a step away from acting and our main focus for the following months was getting DO YOU SEE IT TOO? ready for release - you guessed again - on Halloween of that year. Closing 2019 and going into the new year word was starting to spread about the Corona Virus Pandemic and pretty early on into the next year, we found ourselves in Lockdown, unable to get together and film anything new. Not wanting to break tradition, Liam decided to cut together BLOOD MONEY as best as he could with the footage we had and try and get it together to be released on Halloween 2020 - a worldwide pandemic wouldn’t stop us! The year as a whole felt pretty slow and the release, compared to our previous releases went a bit under the radar. However, the film gained great reviews and reactions online, and although not one of our more popular creations it sure was a lot of fun to make!
2021 - NOW:
In 2021, we were starting to see the back of lockdowns and when the team managed to finally get back on set again, they returned from the dead with a bang. As things had slowed down dramatically in the world of filmmaking so did our production schedule and for the next few years, we would only release a single short online each year (sad we know). TAKE A LOOK was released in the annual Halloween slot of 2021. Introducing Charlie Brentnall (who had come into the fold of the team during lockdown) in the role of Alison, playing a role from his deepest nightmares - akin to the creepy dark-haired ghost girl from The Ring and other J Horror favourites! This project also marked a reunion with a familiar face Tonia Toseland in the role of Katie. TAKE A LOOK would go on to become SuperfreakMedia’s first film to reach 1 Million Views on YouTube and is still our most popular release out of all of our films! Another massive milestone in our history. This film saw our audience grow and grow, with us gaining thousands of new subscribers now each passing year! We received an overwhelming amount of reaction videos, emails, and fan posts on social media. It really seems you guys dug Alison in the attic!
LIAM - I knew coming back on set I would be a little rusty after having a year locked away and I think Alison was the perfect metaphor for that. Trapped in a box unleashing all the horror she can when she’s finally set free! I never wanted to reinvent the wheel with this short. I admit it is chock full of cliches and familiar moments in the genre - I even wrote the character saying the line ‘Why am I doing this?’ because I know it’s what we have come to expect from these characters in these films - don’t worry I am in on the joke too! It was so freeing though getting to be able to create something again and I was able to shoot something with Jonno (who I’d not seen in person for over a year) - it had been so long! I got to watch one of my closest friends (Tonia) act and dick around between takes, and finally got to meet Charlie in the flesh after having a strictly online friendship either through Skype or Zoom. To say I have been blown away by the response to the film is an understatement. I never make a project with the views it will get in mind, but rather because it’s a story I want to tell. That being said though, a cheeky million views here and there doesn’t go unappreciated. It seems its popularity only continues to grow and grow and it has opened so many doors for us now online. I can remember when I first released WOODLAND all those years ago and I was blown away that even 10 people would click on one of our videos, never mind over a million of you! TAKE A LOOK really raised the bar for us and we knew that what we put out next had to be bigger and better. So naturally I started kayaking…
Our next film, and only release in 2022, was THE RIVER. This film saw huge success both online and in it’s run at festivals winning countless awards, a notable achievement being our win for Best Sound Design at the prestigious 2023 Worcester Film Festival. Liam saw a video on Facebook of actor Sarah Wynne Kordas out on the river kayaking and naturally wanted to join and see how he could make it terrifying! Joining Sarah on the river for many an evening over the summer of 2022 they started talking ideas and Sarah informed him of a local figure of folklore known as Jenny Greenteeth (Find out more about her HERE). Liam took the idea and ran with it, smashing out a script and assembling a crew to shoot this beast on location in the late summer. We won’t go into too much detail of the shoot here as we have a special retro-spective post planned for later this year, but it sure was a fun (and wet) one!
LIAM - I don’t want to say too much about THE RIVER as I know we have plenty of stories to tell in a future post but this film has got to be by far my most proudest achievement as a filmmaker. The team absolutely blew this one out of the water (I will stop with the puns one day) and I still can’t quite believe what we were able to pull off with little to no budget, 2 and a half days of shooting, and a fairly limited crew for the scale and ambition of the project. I had so much fun making this project and it will always be a special one to me as I could see the work we were starting to make was comparable to much higher budget and professional productions out there. Come back to the blog later in the year for a much more in-depth look at the film, you won’t want to miss it!
Although we only released one film in 2022, it wasn’t the only slice of horror we served up! Developed from an idea we discussed during lockdown - in the fall of 2022 we finally released the first series of CAMPFIRE CHRONICLES, an audio horror anthology in the vein of Goosebumps and Are You Afraid of the Dark? Two shows that heavily influenced Liam and his passion for Horror growing up! Liam, Charlie, and Rich produced the series with Charlie narrating as the ‘storyteller.’ We collaborated with 6 writers from across the country to bring these tales to life and the episodes were so much fun to make! Just last month we announced our plans to record and release Season 2 this coming Autumn and if you want a chance to get involved and have your very own short story told by the campfire you can find out more HERE.
Moving on to 2023 we saw the release of two short films: HOME INVASION and WHISTLE - a double feature of terror. This marked the first time in a while that SuperfreakMedia had released more than one film in a year. 2023 was also the year that we saw the channel reach over 30k Subscribers on YouTube. We have already posted a detailed Blog Post on the creation and release of HOME INVASION - which you can read HERE - so won’t dive into too much detail on that one. But going back to an earlier point with ALL HALLOW’S EVIL - there is a segment of that film that ultimately inspired the story told in HOME INVASION. They both even star Matthew Barker. WHISTLE however very nearly didn’t happen, but in an effort to not break tradition with our annual Halloween releases, it came together in the week leading up to the big day.
LIAM - I was feeling pretty down about the idea of us not having anything to release for Halloween last year. We had always done it, right back to our start in 2009. Hell, even a global pandemic didn’t stop us putting something out with BLOOD MONEY - so I dropped Charlie a message on the off chance he would be free the weekend before Halloween. I used what I had available and wrote a script I could shoot in a location I knew well - the woods. The very same woods we started this whole journey in with WOODLAND, the woods we took on Baghead and Babyface in THE FINAL GIRL, the woods where we played HIDE & SEEK in, and the woods where we celebrated 10 years online together in X MARKS THE SPOT. It seemed only fitting we would return once more to discover together, the legend of the WHISTLE.
We reflected a lot on our challenges in 2023 in our Retro-Spective Blog Post at the start of the year - which you can read HERE. Although it wasn’t as fast-paced as we’d have liked the last year has been a fun one and it allowed us plenty of time to gear up for this year, and plot what the future of SuperfreakMedia looks like! We have honestly been taken aback by all the love being shown to our channel and encourage you to share your favourite films with people who you think would appreciate them. We love reading your comments and love to watch your reaction videos. We recently set up an OFFICIAL MERCH STORE where you can also help support the channel by purchasing your very own SuperfreakMedia Goodies!
Now we reach 2024. We are so excited to see what the future holds. Already we are in post-production on our latest short UNCANNY which is set to release very soon and have a ton of shorts already written that we hope to finally see the light of day this coming year! Check out an EXCLUSIVE first look at UNCANNY below - the film stars James Podmore (returning from Do You See It Too?) and newcomer Rachael Caulton. Whilst we are keeping our cards pretty close to our chest on this one until we are closer to release we can divulge a little about what the film is about - In his quest for love, introverted Jordan (James Podmore) is captivated by the realm of online dating and soon finds himself entangled in a web of terrors when he meets Amanda (Rachael Caulton) - Ooooh Spooky!
*PROMOTIONAL STILL for UNCANNY - Set for release and in Post Production - starring James Podmore and Rachael Caulton, photography by Richard Parker.
*Demonic Birthday Photo Shoot - Photography by Liam Banks, Makeup FX by Monica Montalvo, Demon played by Charlie Brentnall.
So there you have it! There is an in-depth look at our last decade and a half online, there are plenty of other projects that we’ve made that we didn’t feature. Spooktacular Collaborations and Terrifying Partnerships with incredible fellow filmmakers and creatives, but this Blog Post has been long enough as it is don’t you think?! Thank you to each and every one of you for being on this journey with us, whether you’ve clicked on one of our videos at home, or you’ve even been involved in one of our shoots. We wouldn’t be where we are now without your generosity and support! To celebrate an absolutely Terrifying 15 years online we thought we’d celebrate the only way we know how. With a Demonic Birthday Bash of course! This photoshoot was a lot of fun to pull together and a huge thank you to Monica Montalvo (makeup artist on - Champion, Father Brown) for blowing us away with her incredible artistry and skill once again. Charlie had an absolute blast letting his inner demon on while stuffing his face with birthday cake. The outcome really is something to behold! Happy Birthday SuperfreakMedia! You old sod! Here’s to the next 15 years!
