The Flock: award-winning horror is also a Midlands ‘Western’

A new British horror movie, which has already scooped a string of awards for its script, has now launched a crowdfunding campaign to raise the production budget.

The Flock has won four awards for its script, most recently the 2019 Special Jury Prize at the Barcelona International Film Festival.

With a decade’s film-making experience behind him, The Flock is writer-director Andrew ‘Griff’ Griffin’s (pictured) most ambitious and complex film to date. Although due to run to just 15 minutes, it will involve multiple locations and a sizeable cast.

Among those involved off-screen is me – as associate producer and helping to publicise the project, but there are also many more talented people, including Alex Powell as director of photography, Mike Peel on make-up and SFX, and Amanda Fullwood on production design.

Set in a post-apocalyptic near future, The Flock aims to honour the heightened tensions of the horror genre but with more emphasis on character and theme than blood and gore.

It follows Isabel, played by Francesca Louise White (pictured), a long-time friend of this blog, as mayor of a survivors’ township, who takes off with her adoptive daughter, to search for her missing partner who’s been out in the wasteland scavenging. Following his trail, and avoiding the traps he’s set to evade bandits, the two discover evidence that makes the apocalypse the least of their worries!

As an introduction to the world of The Flock, Griff and the team at SteamWork Film, a Midlands-based film-making hub, shot a ‘prequel’, called Leaving Grateful. Set eight years before The Flock, it introduces some of the key elements and characters, and you can watch it here. 

But this isn’t just a horror. Griff and the team are also fans of the Western, and he sees The Flock as “an industrial Western” as well as a horror film.

“Lacking the sweeping vistas of Wyoming or Arizona,” however, he points out: “we’re using the uniquely British backdrops of old industry and moorland. These elements sit well with the gritty visual style of the film, more akin to Sergio Leone and Sam Peckinpah than the clean, bloodless Westerns of the ’50s and early ’60s.

“Shots of lyrical landscapes and impersonal industrial facades are interspersed with bursts of violence appropriate to the post-apocalyptic setting, and the story takes a measured approach to developing a singular vision of survival, faith and determination in the wasteland that Britain has become.”

During the course of the story, themes of belonging, belief and betrayal are explored, culminating in a revelation that the apocalypse was just the beginning!

So, the award-winning script is written, the cast and crew are more-or-less assembled. Now the fundraising is under way to make the fascinating concept into a film.

The crowdfunder was launched on March 1st with a target of £10,000 (or more, if possible) to go towards production costs.

The team is looking for donations at any level from £1 up, and a huge range of perks includes a digital download of the film, a credit on-screen, appearing in the film, a day’s tuition with one of the crew, a shooting script, a copy of the accompanying limited-edition comic book and much more.

If you can’t contribute financially, sharing the links would be a great help too. I’m excited to be involved in this, and I hope some of you will get on board too.

Look out for updates here soon.