Move over Longlegs and Cuckoo, one of the most disturbing movies of the year is actually on YouTube. For free.
You don’t need several million dollars to make an effective horror movie. Historically horror movies with low budgets have become some of the genre’s most iconic and has made stars of their directors. But can a film released for free on YouTube be the springboard for an up-and-coming prolific horror director? The short answer is, yes. Let us introduce you to Curry Barker who could be the next David Fincher or Osgood Perkins.
His found footage slasher Milk & Serial (which you can view below) premiered for free on YouTube on August 8 and has since garnered over 341K views.
With a budget of only $800, the film manages to do two things: be believable and unsettling. The plot follows two social media influencers who orchestrate a surprise birthday prank that goes terribly wrong, and they must face the devastating consequences that come after.
Director and star Barker is a part-time comedian and his talent for improv is on display in Milk & Serial.
Curry’s previous work was another successful horror short called The Chair which has millions of views.
But it is his Milk & Serial that has captured the attention of the entertainment industry. Variety featured an entire article on the filmmaker and this latest work.
“On ‘The Chair,’ there was a lot of comments like ‘Hollywood needs to give this guy a budget,’” Barker told the trade. “But when you put a feature out there, it feels different in a way I didn’t expect. The people who review feature films for a living are reviewing this movie, something they wouldn’t do for a short film. But all of a sudden you’re seeing videos that discuss both “Alien: Romulus’ and ‘Milk & Serial.’”
The idea for the script arose from a segment Curry wrote for his acting reel. Often times actors will create videos of themselves in different situations and genres to send to casting agents in hopes of booking a role.
“I wrote a comedy scene, I wrote a cowboy scene,” he says about his reel. “I wrote all these different scenes, and I wrote one serial killer scene because I thought I could pull off this creepy serial killer vibe. This guy’s telling this girl ‘It’s not a prank’ and that he’s gonna kill her at the end of the night. It was just for my reel but I thought, whoa, I could make this into a whole found footage movie. Cooper was in Tennessee shooting a movie, but I was like, ‘Dude, when you get back, we’re gonna make this.’”
Although Milk & Serial isn’t filled with over-the-top special effects or scenic locations it’s an effective thriller about an unhinged killer using social media to document his brand of insanity.
Curry did secure a distributor for Milk & Serial but he decided to make it available for free on YouTube so his fans didn’t have to use a paywall or subscription service to view it.
“I feel like our fans deserve to have the opportunity to watch this. They’ve seen the poster on my IMDb for a year and wondered, ‘What is this?’ So even though we worked really hard for a year trying to get distribution for this thing, we said screw it and threw it on YouTube. Before, I always felt to be respected as a real movie it has to be on Netflix or Shudder or Hulu or whatever. But people do respect it and respect that it’s for free, too.”
So what’s next for this talented, budding filmmaker? A new movie and a bigger budget. Curry is beginning work on a new film called Obsession with producer James Harris (Fall, 47 Meters Down).
“I’ve never had a budget in my life,” Barker says. “I worked on this script for over eight months back and forth with this production company and it’s been absolutely amazing.”
He says shooting will begin in October.
“It’s horror — completely horror,” he says. “It’s terrifying. It’s going to be insane. This movie is unlike anything I think anyone’s ever seen. It’s so different from ‘Milk & Serial’ … I’m not in it and it will not be a found footage movie. It’ll be shot more like ‘The Chair.’”
You can watch Curry’s Milk & Serial below:
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