A READING actor has produced and starred in a new musical horror film which will see its world debut at FrightFest on Monday, August 29.
Charlie Bond, of Reading, will be among those in the cast and crew attending the international film festival for the premier screening of Powertool Cheerleaders VS the Boyband of the Screeching Dead.
The film was launched as a group-funded project on Kickstarter in October 2020, and became the most popular horror-based projects within three days.
The project was funded in under a month, exceeding its goal of £25,000 by November 11, 2020.
Ms Bond, who has performed as an actor for more than 15 years, said that her previous work with the film’s writer and director Pat Higgins meant she was keen to collaborate on the project.
“Versus movies have been around for a long time,” She said, “and I did a movie eleven years ago, now, called Strippers vs Werewolves.
“So I’d worked on this film with the writer, Pat Higgins, and the script writing that this he produces is phenomenal– he’s ingenious.”
Ms Bond co-runs a production company, Deadlocked Entertainment, and was looking to take on a project when she saw that Mr Higgins had reached out on social media.
“He popped out a tweet saying ‘I’m floating some of my my stupid script ideas from the past ten years, and one of them which I don’t think is going to make the cut is Powertool Cheerleaders VS the Boyband of the Screeching Dead.’
“I saw that and it was right place, right time for me– something fired up in my head and I said ‘Pat, you have to let me produce that.’
“I’ve been an actress for 15 years professionally, working in production, in film logistics, I love project management, and I decided I wanted to produce.
“And stupidly,” she joked, “he agreed.”
The film follows a troupe of cheerleaders who, on the eve of a TV talent show appearance, come face-to-face with a newly-zombified rival boyband and must save the show.
As well as producing the feature, Ms Bond plays the lead role of Emily, who she describes as “gutsy and endearing.”
“We took on this absolute mammoth, and we leaned in fully to all the silliness of this mad script that was also full of character, and real people instead of typical tropes.
“Suddenly the idea of what if we made a musical– Pat had some fantastic songs already, which he passed over to the wonderful composer Phil Sheldon and musical director James Hamer-Morton.
“They then produced some of the most catchy horror musical songs anyone’s heard since that Buffy episode.”
She said also that the film’s title was a particularly deliberate choice: “It’s designed to be provocative, it’s designed to make you go ‘oh it’s one of those movies’ and to appeal to a certain genre,
“We want people to be surprised by how much they fall in love with the characters and the music, and we wanted to make a film that defied expectations.
“It’s got the shlock and the gore– it has to– but it’s gleeful in a way that this genre can offer.”
Representation of female characters within the genre was also an important aspect of the feature’s production.
“I’ve seen a lot of films, especially as a younger woman, where I think ‘that’s not a real woman, that’s not a character I vibe with.
“So we wanted to create that representation for women, where we are an absolute underdog crew of cheerleaders, all from different backgrounds, all different ages, all walks of life.
“It was really important to show that.”
The film is set to premier at FrightFest film festival taking place in Leicester Square, London, which will see five days of screenings and celebration of horror cinema.
Powertool Cheerleaders VS the Boyband of the Screeching Dead will debut at 101 Films Discovery Screen 2, taking the headline screening slot at 6.30pm on the final day of the festival, Monday, August 9.
Written and directed by Pat Higgins, the film stars James Hamer-Morton, Megan Rose, Carrie Thompson, Elizabeth Soutar, Faith Elizabeth, and Justin Chinyere alongside producer Charlie Bond.
Tickets to the screening can be purchased via: frightfest.nuwebgroup.com
