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[Sundance ’12]: ‘The Pact’ Helps Spark Multi-Year Production Deal
Nicolas McCarthy’s The Pact, which debuted at Sundance as a short some time ago, will have its feature length premiere at this year’s Sundance tonight.
The film, along with movies like The Divide has helped spark a new production deal between Content and Preferred Content. The two companies already have basically the same name, so it should be easy for them to decide upon a shingle banner.
Per Deadline, “Content Film has made a multi-year production deal with Preferred Content partners Ross Dinerstein and Kevin Iwashina. Essentially, Content will finance as many as six elevated genre films over the next two years. The latest collaboration between Content and Preferred Content is ‘The Pact’, the genre film that premieres tonight at midnight… Dinerstein would raise the under $2 million budgets, Content would sell international and Iwashina would sell North American rights. The new deal allows Dinerstein to focus on producing and not have to raise the funds.”
Agnes Bruckner (Venom, Vacancy 2, The Woods, Kill Theory), Sam Ball (“The Event”), Haley Hudson (“Ghost Whisperer”, Killer Pad) and Kathleen Rose Perkins (“Lie to Me,” “Trust Me”) and Casper Van Dien also star in the ghost story said to be in the tradition of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho, Dario Argento’s Suspiria and Hideo Nakata’s Ringu, “as a woman struggles to come to grips with her past in the wake of her mother’s death, an unsettling presence emerges in her childhood home.”
We have an exclusive first look at A Man in the Woods With an Axe, a blood-soaked, genre-twisting homage to 1980s slasher films.
Spanning four decades, A Man in the Woods With an Axe begins in the summer of 1987 before pushing into the modern era, weaving together timelines and perspectives in a way that builds both dread and intrigue.
Drawing inspiration from genre standouts like Tucker and Dale vs. Evil, Hatchet, and The Cabin in the Woods, the film blends visceral horror with moments of dark humor, creating a uniquely balanced experience that honors tradition while carving its own identity.
Writer-director Dillon Brown (Primal Darkness) aims to deliver everything fans crave from a slasher while boldly subverting expectations with a mid-film twist that redefines the story.
“This is an unapologetic love letter to the films that made me fall in love with horror,” Brown tells Bloody Disgusting. “But I didn’t just want to recreate that feeling; I wanted to challenge it. About halfway through, the film takes a turn that completely changes how you view not only this story, but the genre itself.”
Brown describes the vintage-inspired production as “far and away the bloodiest film I’ve ever made,” with practical effects helmed by Cody Ruch (The Mill, Pig Hill), an instructor at Tom Savini’s Special Make-Up Effects Program.
From Horror Dadz Productions, A Man in the Woods With an Axe is currently in production and targeting an early 2027 release.
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