Julia Barnett is an actress, author, director and producer whose firm with co-founder Mindy Raymond —Rolling Reels Productions — just lately accomplished the vacation movie Christmas in New Hope and the horror movie Texas Cult Home. Within the piece under, she explains how one led to the opposite.—M.M.

I by no means supposed for my first movie as a writer-director to be a Christmas film. The purpose was to promote the script and make somewhat cash for the subsequent mission. 

However when the manufacturing firm that provided to buy it ghosted me, I received aggravated and determined that in the event that they weren’t going to make it, I might discover a manner.

That’s when my now-producing accomplice, Mindy Raymond, jumped on board. Mindy is a fierce advocate for Texas manufacturing by her work with the Texas Media Manufacturing Alliance. Collectively, we produced, for beneath $500,000, the movie A Christmas In New Hope, a heartwarming vacation movie starring Katrina Bowden, Ryan Cooper, and little one actor Mia Armstrong, who lives with Down syndrome. My pricey good friend Adrianne Palicki (Friday Evening Lights) popped in for a supporting function. 

We beloved the expertise, however the very last thing we wished was to be pigeonholed into the Christmas style house. So in our final week of principal images, I pitched an thought to Mindy: a micro-budget horror movie we might shoot completely on my six-acre property.

I’d been creating a horror script with my cousin, co-writer Zachary Raber, loosely primarily based on true occasions that occurred throughout our childhood. The consequence was Texas Cult Home, a terrifying story a few group of youngsters whose rebellious night time in an deserted residence of a former cult chief spirals right into a lethal struggle for survival. This film was our probability to show we had been extra than simply vacation cheer. 

We wrapped A Christmas In New Hope in March of 2023 and filmed Texas Cult Home 4 months afterward a $50,000 price range. We wished to show what we might do with a micro-budget. Our purpose was to maximise the potential for a excessive return on funding. With Mindy on the helm as producer, I knew we might make it successful.

A Christmas Crew for a Horror Movie

The core of our technique was to re-engage the crew from our Christmas film. That is how we started to construct our “village.” We had nice working chemistry, and that was our most useful asset. Unable to pay full-day charges, we provided decrease pay with backend factors to entice manufacturing heads to hitch the mission. Everybody purchased in, and the rapport we had constructed in the course of the Christmas movie gave us an enormous head begin, as we had been all already in sync.

With a skeleton crew and a decent price range, we needed to get artistic. My husband, Van Tracy, dealt with the sensible results out of our residence. As an on-camera performing trainer, I had entry to teen actors, so we solid a few of my former college students. This mission additionally allowed us to reunite with key expertise. 

Adrianne Palicki was desirous to get in on the grassroots mission, so I wrote a task for her within the script. We additionally reunited with Ryan Cooper, who had performed the hunky neighbor in our Christmas film. This time, he was something however hunky, reworking into the terrifying cult chief and becoming a member of us as a producer on the movie. Identical to the crew, we needed to be scrappy with each facet of manufacturing. Curtis Heath (Peter Pan & Wendy) had created the upbeat rating for our Christmas film, and I wished to rent him once more — however our price range didn’t permit us to make use of him in the identical capability. 

He kindly provided to offer unlicensed stems from his work, which I sewed collectively to create our haunting rating for Texas Cult Home, together with a few of his authentic melodies for key moments within the movie.

Texas Cult Home and a Truck Filled with Meat

We leaned on our native Austin neighborhood in an enormous manner. Native eating places and occasional retailers donated meals and day-old pastries to maintain our solid and crew fueled.

Then got here a type of wild, serendipitous moments. Whereas Mindy was touring to a gathering, a big cooler crammed with frozen meat, together with ribs, sausages, and extra, fell off a truck proper in entrance of her colleagues. When the query was requested, “Does anybody want 60 kilos of meat?” Mindy’s hand shot up. The meat was delivered to set, and an area restaurant volunteered to prepare dinner the bounty for our crew. It was the right, wild instance of how our whole neighborhood, our village, rallied to make this film occur.

What began as an experiment to maintain our careers from getting caught in a snow globe became sudden success. “Texas Cult Home” premiered on opening night time on the Austin Movie Pageant, the place it caught the eye of The Coven Gross sales Company, recognized for hits like Terrifier 2 and 3.

This success is validating, however for us it’s in regards to the enterprise mannequin. Folks can look down on lower-budget tasks, however we’re centered on creating the best doable ROI. A Christmas In New Hope, is already worthwhile, sending dividends to traders and paying actor residuals. We utilized that very same lean, strategic method to Texas Cult Home, proving {that a} $50,000 movie can have premium manufacturing worth and safe worldwide distribution. 

Our confirmed observe document is what’s fueling our subsequent function. Whereas our subsequent mission is a considerably greater price range, we’re nonetheless keen to maintain the ROI in thoughts for traders. Texas Cult Home led to an unimaginable partnership with The Coven for our subsequent function, 1989, a thriller-horror I wrote that’s set in a Texas commune. It tells a sister-wife story of ladies coming collectively to take management from a male-dominated cult. 

We couldn’t be extra thrilled to proceed our journey and show that we’re way over one-genre filmmakers. We’re producers who construct sustainable careers for our neighborhood proper right here in Texas.

Texas Cult Home is now on Amazon Prime Video and is coming quickly to Tubi. 

Predominant picture: Rolling Reels co-founders Julia Barnett, left, and Mindy Raymond.