Movies
‘Perkins’ 14′ Hits Theaters in January With Horrorfest
We learned this morning that After Dark Films’ Perkins’ 14 is currently in post productionin NYC. The film is the first feature film to be developed entirely over the Internet. Produced by After Dark Films, and Massify in association with FanLib, PERKINS’ 14 will be distributed in theatres nationwide (January 2009) as part of the third After Dark Horrorfest. Singer’s film “Dark Ride” was one of the more successful features released theatrically during year one of Horrorfest. Read on for more details.
Directed by award winning filmmaker Craig Singer (Dark Ride, Dead Dogs Lie, A Good Night to Die), with a screenplay by Lane Shadgett (Luna Park, All Lost Souls), PERKINS’ 14 was developed online at Ma ssify.com. Writers were invited to upload story pitches, and actors submitted audition videos. The site’s community members then voted on their favorite story and on which actors they thought deserved to be cast in the four main roles.
The winning idea, submitted by Jeremy Donaldson, follows Robert Perkins, who at age six, becomes mentally unstable when his parents are brutally murdered inside their home. His psychosis has him living the rest of his life convinced that the killers will return in the future to kill him as well. At age 34, Perkins kidnaps 14 people from his hometown of Stone Cove and brainwashes them, creating a unified team of psycho killers.
Shot on location in Romania, PERKINS’ 14 features Shayla Beesley, Katherine Pawlak (“Lonelygirl15”), Josh Davidson, and Trey Farley (Bend It Like Beckham). Former Misfits frontman Michale Graves’ song “Blackbird,” is featured in the film. Graves also acts in it, playing the love interest of lead actress Shayla Beesley’s character.
The film joins BUTTERFLY: REVELATION, FAITHLESS and THE BROKEN
Judging from the unprecedented box office success of Kane Parsons’ Backrooms adaptation, you’ve likely already seen the liminal horror hit that managed to make audiences afraid of empty hallways and bad wallpaper. And now that so many of us have already entered the yellow labyrinth (some of us more than once), the time has come to discuss the spoiler-filled details that make the movie so fascinating in the first place.
And if there’s one element here that makes the Backrooms movie stand out from any previous lore/mythology, it has to be the genius addition of the Still Life entities. Warped recreations of real people that somehow wandered into the Complex, these misremembered creatures are responsible for some of the most disturbing imagery of 2026 – as well as laugh-out-loud memes created by one of the film’s very own concept artists.
However, true to Parsons’ word that the movie would rely heavily on practical effects, each of these distorted monsters was brought to life by real actors under heavy layers of makeup and prosthetics (with the occasional splash of CGI enhancements). While Anora and If I Had Legs I’d Kick You actress Ivy Wolk wasn’t among these performers, despite what Letterboxd might have you believe, the creature cast did benefit from veteran players with plenty of genre experience.
For starters, Alien: Romulus alumni Robert Bobroczkyi (who previously brought that film’s horrific Offspring to life during its most memorable sequence) plays the flick’s main antagonist, the Still Life version of Captain Clark. And though there was some obvious CGI involved in making the character’s peg-leg and nightmarish face more believable, Bobroczkyi’s monstrous performance and his natural 7’7″ frame helped to make that final chase sequence a clear highlight among this year’s genre offerings.
The film’s Texas-Chain-Saw-inspired “dinner” scene also features a freaky collection of less-aggressive Still Life creatures in the form of the Bearded Man, the Red-Headed Woman and, strangest of them all, the cheekily named “Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life” (who earned this title among fans and crewmembers as a reference to his apparent affinity for lamps).
While this was the first major horror outing for both Patrick Baynham (The Bearded Man) and Dana Mahmood (Archibald), Rhiannon Roberts has worked as a stunt performer in everything from Yellowjackets to HBO’s The Last of Us adaptation – which is probably why The Red-Headed Woman is the most active out of Clark’s impromptu “family.” That being said, the Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life is my personal favorite of the bunch simply because his anachronistic outfit suggests that the Backrooms phenomenon might be a lot older than the Async Foundation. I also love how hard he tries to be helpful with that little light of his!
That might be it for the Still Life entities, but I think horror fans will also be pleased to hear that the film’s Found Footage prologue stars none other than Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City star Avan Jogia as Naren Warne – and American Mary herself Katharine Isabelle also shows up in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo at Mary’s house party towards the middle of the story (though I have a feeling that she originally had a bigger part that was likely cut for time).
At the end of the day, Parsons’ Backrooms may have been an auteur-driven project motivated by the young director’s unique take on the classic creepypasta, but film has always been a collective artform, so it’s fun to see just how many talented performers it takes to bring this kind of supernatural nightmare to life in a way that connects with so many people.
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