Bad Frequencies is about a group of kids who meet every week via walkie-talkie to share bone-chilling "true" stories. The kid with the scariest true story is king of the hill, but as each tall tale grows darker and wackier, the kids realize they might just scare themselves to death! With four individual stories and a simple, but succinct wrap-around, our film aims to recreate the slew of 1980s anthology horror movies that came before it. Movies like Creepshow, Tales from the Darkside, and others. Our movie aims to showcase the possibility of collaboration while remaining autonomous in one's own ideas. Each writer/director has the final say on their segment, which is how we ended up with four incredibly different and terrifying stories.

As it becomes each child's turn to tell their story, the screen will melt away to reveal each segment as summarized below. Some of the segments have been filmed already, and funding would go to paying off the money spent on those shoots.

SHELL SPELL - Segment 1 of 4

Written and directed by Kailin Rojas-Echeverria, Shell Spell is a nautical horror story about a friendly group game gone wrong while on a beach trip. This story is an ethereal slow burn that is as moody as it is frightening. Many of the props and prosthetics in the film are hand-made, and the entirety of it was shot on a JVC camcorder. With themes of co-dependency and aging out of friendships, Shell Spell is for anyone who liked playing mermaids in the pool but always wondered what would happen if the game got out of hand.

BLOCK PARTY - Segment 2 of 4

Written and directed by Connor Smith, Block Party is a violent anecdote about a neighborhood block party being upended by a family of rageful demons. Taking inspiration from Demons (1985), Smith uses trick light, papier-mache, and corn syrup to fill his segment with bloody unease.

WEST OF MARS - Segment 3 of 4

Written and directed by Carter Hall, West of Mars is a sci-fi western about a group of outlaws who run into a gun-slinging alien life form. Set in 1899, the costumes and locations are essential aspects of this production. Not to mention that Hall is his own DP and shot the film entirely on 16mm. West of Mars is full of limbs being ripped off and alien blood galore. It is currently still in production.

GRAND SLAM - Segment 4 of 4

Written and directed by Grayce Anne Mosier, Grand Slam is about a collegiate baseball team whose meddling in the occult leads them to play a game against the undead. Mosier takes inspiration from films such as Fright Night and Bull Durham. Mosier wants a makeup team for this set as the undead team will be filled with iconic monsters and ghouls from pop culture and folklore. It will begin filming August 2026.

THE WRAP AROUND

A wrap-around is the term for the thing that links the stories together in an anthology. In Bad Frequencies, our wrap-around is the children telling and ending each story. For this aspect of the film, we are currently considering various forms of mixed animation and stop motion animation. Much like the kind used in the Creepshow film or Coraline.

BUDGET$

Each writer/director is in charge of a portion of the budget. Whether they decide to use volunteers or pay their actors a rate, your money is specifically geared towards making sure everyone on set is, first and foremost, comfortable. We’ll use the first of our funds towards proper meals that adhere to everyone’s allergies, proper room and board, and this gives us the ability to take scenes slowly and safely. After that is paid off, purchases quickly turn to practical effects and technical uses such as blood rigs, fake heads, gallons of fake blood, film, camera batteries, older camera equipment necessities, and just about anything else gory. Lastly, we pull costumes, makeup, and location. Either asking directors to pull from their closets or making period-accurate cowboy vests.

We believe that everyone can make a film regardless of the budget. If your friends are down to play small bits in exchange for good food, well then, let’s make sure the food is good! 

NOT OUR FIRST RODEO

We've done a feature before. In fact, it was a campy 80s slasher film shot on a Sony Handycam and 8mm film, called Hell Squad 2: Fresh Meat. We made this film for a little over $2,000 so imagine what we could achieve on the budget we're asking for now.

Why this movie now?

Why our project now? Truthfully, we feel as though AI is negatively infiltrating the film industry. It's creating a loophole for production houses and directors to cut through hiring real artists. Our movie is here to show the importance of hands-on, human craftsmanship. We want to show that our low-budget movie has more heart and soul than anything an algorithm could copy and paste together. We're doing this by using a major chunk of our funding for practical effects, craft supplies, make-up, and costuming. We want everything to feel tangible, raw, and homegrown.