And this story will take you straight to Hell.

Knifeman is an upcoming horror short that dares to jump genres in order to explore the dangers of dwelling exclusively in our own perceptions. As a strange serial killer tears through Los Angeles, a determined FBI Agent and her beleaguered partner sink further and further down a rabbit hole of delusion as they become unwilling participants in the Knifeman's larger-than-life fantasies.

Like many of you, we love classic Tokusatsu and Kaiju films - men in rubber suits fighting throughout miniature cities has been a source of great cinematic joy and catharsis for generations, with films within this genre both serving as excellent metaphors as well as simple, good old fashioned fun. But what if someone let that get to their head? What if someone saw themselves as an unimpeachable hero, a paragon of justice... When they were anything but? What if someone deliberately ignored the shades of grey that color our world in favor of a dangerous black-and-white binary? No complexity, just heroes and monsters.

To us, that's horrifying - and exactly what we're planning to explore. Within Knifeman, you can expect to see a serial killer who believes he's a Power Ranger, living within the confines of a classic 4 by 3 aspect ratio fighting rubber monsters in a miniature city (yes, we're actually building one.) But of course, no work about perspective can be told through a singular point-of-view - and that's where Agent Marianne Saegusa comes in. She sees the world a little bit differently - to her, it's a gritty cruel place reminiscent of Silence of the Lambs or Se7en instead of the technicolor dreamscape our titular killer might see. For these sequences, we'll be filming with top-of-the-line Sony Venice 2 cameras with anamorphic lenses to drive home that highly-detailed 8K nightmare. As Knifeman continues his reign of terror over the city of angels, the line between these two visual styles will begin to blur as reality and fantasy become dangerously intertwined. Filming over the course of four days in January and February of 2025 with the final product coming out the gates in May of that same year, we can promise that whatever you decide to pledge will go to immediate use in preparation for this film. Deadline's coming up! Although this film will premiere at festivals, backers will be able to see it before it's official debut via link sent in an email from Missile Range Productions. If we surpass our initial asking budget, we will be using that extra money to put into more advanced visual effects and more detailed production design, including looking at bigger and better production houses to prepare our monsters and our heroes.

Agents on the Case

Missile Range Productions is the product of two old friends who got back together with the idea of making great horror cinema. Originally conceived as just a thesis film to complete Loyola Marymount University's Graduate Program, Knifeman has since spiraled into an ambitious proof of concept for what the two of us know we can achieve. This is our chance to prove ourselves - and given the opportunity - we know we can succeed. But who the hell are we anyway?

Originally hailing from Pleasanton, California, Executive Producer & co-writer Brett Da Silveira Cornwell spent much of his childhood glued to the TV. Born with a birth defect that required staying inside much of his formative years, he found solace in the works of Steven Spielberg, Ishiro Honda, and Guillermo Del Toro. The grandson of a sheriff assigned to the case of the notorious Zodiac Killer, he always lived in the shadow of a man he never got to meet, whose troubled past and familial legacy left complicated shades over his own life and the nature of justice. Ironically, Brett's entire existence can be owed to the Zodiac's terror, as a planned family move to Benicia was thrown out in the fear of possible reprisals by the masked killer, eventually allowing his father and mother to meet. Nothing is black-and-white, not family, nor love, and certainly not justice.

Realizing that he couldn't do much outside, Brett's father took it upon himself to show him a wide berth of horror films and Creature Features after noticing his adoration of famed Tokyo-stomping legend, Godzilla. With a weekly Creature Feature every Saturday night and a wide selection of Westerns added in thanks to his immigrant grandfather on his mother's side, cinema was always something Brett adored, not just as escapism but as a grounding force in forming deep personal connections. Early on, Brett always dreamed of being a filmmaker, even telling his Kindergarten class that one day he would be a director, only to put his dreams on hold across much of his adolescence, believing that film as a profession was unattainable. Low and behold, here we are today - ready to turn Knifeman into the project young Brett always dreamed he would make.

Also from Pleasanton, California, Director & co-writer Mykelpatrick (MP) Hayes spent many of his formative years outside. Running around the hills at night and playing games of make-believe in the fields, the anxious child always feared what might lurk in the dark. MP shied away from horror cinema for much of his adolescence, instead favoring the realms of Science-Fiction and cerebral dramas like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. After a series of family tragedies brought mortality home, MP discovered a newfound love for horror as a way to cope with the darker nature of life he had been exposed to. Since then, he's been absolutely ravenous in his pursuit of all things morbid and twisted, particularly the works of Junji Ito, Shirley Jackson, and David Lynch.

At the age of 8, MP pointed a go-pro at his TV and recorded a video of Halo 3 - from then on, making little films was the way that MP got through a world that scared him. From stop-motion Lego animation to short films and directing his high school's newscast, MP never imagined a life outside of cinema, always intertwined with the artform. Naturally, he went to film school to study screenwriting, but the path wasn't as straightforward as initially presumed. Various health problems, from the physical to the mental, resulted in a four-year college education ballooning into a six-year ordeal, with years skipped and many a semester taken off amidst the chaos of the Covid-19 pandemic. Fully back on his feet, with a chip on his shoulder, and something to prove, Knifeman is his chance to show off the skills he's been honing.

Reunited in the halls of Loyola Marymount University, these two friends from adolescence have come together to make something great with the production company to back that up. Fusing their respective loves of kaiju/Creature Features with the dark morbidity of serial killer dramas, Knifeman is not only a fusion of styles but the product of a full-fledged collaboration between friends, hopefully springboarding a mutual career and partnership for years to come - investing in Knifeman is not only an investment into a singular project but an investment into new experimental voices in the horror scene willing to take the risks others won't.

Notes on a Corkboard, Tied Together with Red String

Pre-Production (January 2023 - January 2025)

An idea first concocted over a year ago on a late night Ultraman tear, Knifeman has undergone significant development and multiple drafts to become a finely-tuned product we know will satisfy. While certainly ambitious, we fully believe that we have the people and resources in place to get everything done - after all, we've had plenty of time to prepare, now it's time to get things moving. With suit designers lined up, concept art drawn, and state of the art 8K cameras acquired, everyone signed on knows how big of a project this is, and they're more than willing to give it their all.

Production (Late January 2025 - Early February 2025)

Split across two weekends in late January and early February, we're dedicating one whole weekend to shooting the cityscape of our dreams - and then tearing it all down. The rest will be entirely dedicated to that serial killer goodness, with a Production Design team split between preparing a miniature city and decorating our sets. Our incredible team is composed of both working professionals and talented students with pretty stacked resumes, including employees at Warner Bros, Disney, and Sony. With your help, we can only add to this great foundation by acquiring an excellent cast, including the possibility of bringing in a former Power Ranger to make a return to the screen.

Post-Production (February 2025 - May 2025)

With a talented editor already lined up who has a number of stunning award-winning horror short films under their belt, as well as a Director and EP with substantial editing experience, we're simply stoked to get Knifeman into post. Bringing in a visionary DJ and electronic music producer to compose the score as well as talented animators to provide us with 1960's-style visuals to match our masked killer's dreamscape, we're excited to see what other elements we can bake into this already gruesome pie.

Film Festival Distribution (May 2025 - June 2026)

Knifeman will be sure to delight and terrify audiences in equal measure and we are extremely confident that it will excel on the festival circuit. However, submission fees do rack up, so we have included it as a part of a budget to make sure that your investment pays dividends in laurels. We wouldn't be asking for your help if we did not believe that we could make something truly remarkable.

Until The Next Episode...

This film really can't happen without your support - at least, not to the standard we want to hold ourselves to. We see this as our shot and we're putting everything we have into this. Every cent counts and propels our dreams forward by a mile. We are aware of what we are asking for and that financial contributions can be difficult so word of mouth and spreading this to anyone who might listen or simply enjoys cinema helps us just as much. The more eyes on Knifeman's crimes, the better. Thank you to everyone who has taken the time out of their day to look at this and thank you so much to everybody who has helped us out along the way - we're only here because of you and we deeply love you. If you want to see this project succeed, please share this link with your friends and family and shout it from the rooftops if you feel so inclined - let the world know about Knifeman's crimes. How else will we catch him? If we do...

See you at the bottom, your pal Knifeman.