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Hi there,

We’re Berrow Bay Productions, the newly formed production company from Alex Secker and Marcus Starr. After the successful reception of our first feature, Follow the Crows, which is currently deep in the festival circuit with a release hopefully planned in the not to distant future, as well as several short films (which you can check out here), we’re embarking upon our next big adventure, this time, a folk horror...

Folk horror most commonly refers to three films from the late 60s and early 70s known as the 'Unholy Trinity'. These films are Michael Reeves' 1968 cult classic Witchfinder General, Piers Haggard's 1971 horror The Blood on Satan's Claw and, perhaps most famously, Robin Hardy's infamous The Wicker Man. The term was first popularised after it appears in the BBC documentary series A History of Horror with Mark Gatiss. Since then debate has raged over what folk horror really is, with films as varied as Ben Wheatley's 2013 thriller A Field in England being considered alongside classic cinema such as Kaneto Shindo's 1964 art-house drama Onibaba.

So, when we say that our film is a folk horror what we really mean is that we'll be capturing a feel and a spirit consistent with other films of the genre. Our film is called ONUS, and it takes a lot of inspiration from various different sources, most notably psychological horror film from the late 60s and early 70s. But, of course you want to know more than that, below you can find out all the information on it. So, read on, and thank you so much for taking the time to be here.

ONUS is an independent and wholly original folk-horror feature film from writer/director Alex Secker and producer Marcus Starr, the guys behind the award-winning post-apocalyptic thriller Follow the Crows.

Inspired by folk-horror classic The Wicker Man, as well as psychological horror masterpieces such as Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining and Roman Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby, ONUS is a film more interested in keep you up at night than it is making you jolt every five minutes with an easy jump scare.

Horror is always a popular genre, but we’re planning to add something a little new to the pot with the film that tells an interesting, relevant and contemporary story through the prism of the folk-horror lens, ensuring that not only is it a terrifying addition to the genre but also a smart, memorable and thought-provoking movie. Check out our visual treatment to find out even more.

When we made Follow the Crows we approached the film as though it were several shorts that, when put together, created a feature. We wrote the story in such a way that it meant we were able to shoot it over a series of evenings and weekends, approaching each segment as though it were a short film with its own beginning, middle and end.

With ONUS we’ve decided to treat it more like a traditional 90-minute film. We’re block shooting a big majority of the film over the course of seven days in a location near Wales, while the remainder of the shooting will take place in Wiltshire on the two following weekends. We have cast the film with a wealth of brilliant local actors, all of whom are professionals and have a host of experience under the belts, some of whom we’ve worked with before and some of whom this will be the first project we make with them.

The film is incredibly ambitious, not only in terms of the block shooting and the single location nature of the story, but in terms of the narrative and the effects required within the story.

Bethany ‘Beats’ Smith, the incredibly talented and wonderful make-up artist who we worked with on Follow the Crows has agreed to come back and join us on this project, and she will be delivering some incredible and exciting practical effects that will be one of the key part of of the film and we are incredibly happy to have her on board once more.

The awesome composer Graeme Osborne is joining again as well, coming back after Follow the Crows to provide the score for this picture, and the very talented James Willmott, who has shot and directed some of his own shorts in recent years, is joining our crew as DoP.

ONUS has some big themes and some incredibly complex moments, but it is a project we are very excited to see finished and we can’t wait to see what people think. We believe it’s a story that needs telling, one that has something to say about the world today, but also has a lot of entertaining and frightening moments that will stick in an audience’s memory long after the credits have rolled.

We can’t tell you all the details about the plot because then why would you bother watching the film? But we can give a general overview of the story.

When trainee nurse Anna (Daniella Faircloth – Follow the Crows, The Unbinding) agrees to accompany her partner for the weekend to visit her family at their manor house in the country she worries she’ll struggle to fit in with the wealthy and upper-class Redfernes. But once she arrives she begins to suspect that her problems have less to do with societal differences and more to do with ritual sacrifice, as it becomes increasingly clear that the Redfernes are not who they say they are and aren’t all that interested in getting to know Anna beyond how she fits into their sinister and terrifying plan.

Alex Secker (writer/director) –

Marcus Starr (producer) –

Marcus Starr is an award-winning film producer, having produced several short films, including Headlights, winner of the Best Micro-Short at the Swindon Film Festival. Along with Secker he co-wrote and produced the award-winning Follow the Crows, and has also appeared, as an actor, on television shows such as Crime Watch and Britain’s Deadliest Lovers.

Daniella Faircloth (Anna) –

Daniella Faircloth is a professional actress working out of Swindon. She has toured the UK in productions of That Face and DNA, as well as the critically acclaimed horror The Unbinding for Wrongshoes Theatre Company. She also appears in the award winning Follow the Crows and has recently been accepted by the London National Youth Film Academy.

Erin Leighton (Isobel) –

Erin Leighton is an award-winning actress and dancer. Beginning her career after graduating in 2013 she was hired by Cardiff based director Sean Tuan John for a role in his production Happiness Repeats Itself. After a tour of Wales with the sinister, group devised theatre piece Leighton began working in television and film, appearing in projects as varied as Sherlock, The Infiltrator, Mission: Impossible, Keeping Faith, Midsomer Murders and Sharknado.

Alex Pitcher (Vincent) –

Alex Pitcher is an Actor and Voice Artist based in London. A graduate from the highly respected "Poor School" in King's Cross, Pitcher appeared in the award-winning Follow the Crows and appeared in one of Wiltshire's largest outdoor theatre performances, playing a disciple in the incredibly popular Wroughton Passion Play.  He is currently working on various projects.

Karen Payne (Elizabeth) –

Karen Payne began acting professionally after 20 years with the Ministry of Defence, including a tour of Afghanistan. She has appeared in countless stage productions, including The Vagina Monogologues, Dario Fo's A Woman Alone, and, most recently, a successful run playing Boxer in Animal Farm. She also appears in various televisions programmes, including Sherlock, Casualty, and most recently the BAFTA award winning drama Three Girls.

Shaniece Williams (Lucy) –

Shaniece Williams is a critically acclaimed singer, song writer, actress and dancer, performing in numerous productions around the world. She has received praise for her performances, most notably as Oda Mae in Ghost The Musical and Tituba in The Crucible.

Tony Manders (David) –

During a 32-year military career and an 11-year civil-service career Tony appeared in over 40 stage productions in the UK, Germany and Belgium. In 2013, Tony became a full-time actor. Since then he’s had featured roles in over 120 films (including 16 full-length feature films as well as music videos, student films, independent shorts and web-series). He’s now added producer, director and SFX provider to his repertoire.

So, we’re asking for contributions. Much like with Follow the Crows it’s important to remember that no matter what happens the film is going to get made. We’ve managed to raise enough money to be able to get the location and go a film this thing, but this is just the bare minimum, and more cash in the pot means a better product in the end.

We’re asking for contributions to help fund several things. First and foremost is for us to be able to hire a 4K camera (specifically a Black Magic URSA Mini Pro) which means the films will be more appealing to distributors and stand more of a chance of a wide release. Many streamlining platforms accept HD content, but the big ones, like Netflix, require 4K as a minimum before they even consider your product.

Secondly, as we already mentioned we’ve got some great effects sequences in ONUS, and Bethany ‘Beats’ Smith is talented enough to make them work. But more money means we can splash out on better equipment for her, which will help the practical effects be even better than they already will be, which of course will help us sell the film.

Finally, it would be swell if we could pay everyone for all the hard work, time and effort they put into this project. When we made Follow the Crows no one got paid, but this time around we’d love to be able to give everyone a bit of cash for their troubles. They deserve it, trust us, we’re asking them to do some pretty horrific things.

But we’re not expecting you to do all this for nothing. Of course, there’s our love, adoration and appreciation, but we’ve also got some great perks on offer that you can get your hands on if you contribute. Even as little as a tenner helps us on our way.

So you can get a shout out on our social media pages and our website (where we’ll be setting up a special contributors page with a list of names on it), we’ve got DVDs (including copies of our previous film, Follow the Crows), some T-shirts, some posters and some tickets to the cast and crew screening.

There’s also access to some behind the scenes goodness, including photos from the set, cast and crew interviews, behind the scenes footage and general coverage of what we’re up to and where we’re at while we’re making the film.

We’ll also be releasing in-depth reviews of our biggest influences, a blog following our progress throughout the entire process, and we’ll be producing a short film with some thematic connective tissue to ONUS that you’ll be able to get a copy if you help us out on our journey.

Of course, the more you contribute the more you get in return, but we can’t stress how much even the smallest contribution helps us on our way to meet our goal. Every single one of you who helps us out in anyway, whatever you do, is an amazing person worthy of our praise. In the words of Wayne Campbell, “We’re not worthy! We’re not worthy!”

Plus, we won't have to make any sacrifices to the Gods.

But fear not! If you can’t afford to chuck us a tenner, then that’s not the only thing you can do to help us out. You can share this campaign to all your friends and family. You can keep sharing it. You can spam their inboxes with it to the point where they block and defriend you. We don’t mind!

You can also follow us on social media, our twitter and Facebook are both up and running and active, we’ve got an Instagram account where we share pictures of what’s going on, and of course you can check out our website.

You could grab some stuff for you friends. What’s flowers and a box of chocolates when you compare it to two tickets to an exclusive cast and crew screening of a brand new, never before seen movie, eh? And T-shirts always make great birthday gifts… hint, hint.