Epic Pictures’ Dread has a nostalgia trip lined up for you. The trailer and release date for The Boy From Below have been revealed, teasing a blood-soaked love letter to the late-90s slashers.
Halloween 1997: Scream Queens and Video Clerks
Tory Jones directed a film he co-wrote with Jerron Spencer and Cheyenne Gordon. The cast list reads like a convention VIP lineup. It stars genre legends Dee Wallace ( Cujo), Felissa Rose (Sleepaway Camp), and Tommy Lee Wallace (1990 IT miniseries), alongside Jack Norman, Spooky Madison, and Chaney Morrow.
The plot brings us straight back to the era of dial-up internet and chunky plastic tapes. It is Halloween night in 1997 in the small town of Carpenter Falls. Video store clerk Quinn Curtis is settling in for a cozy night of local festivities and movie marathons. Unfortunately, a figure from the town’s dark past has returned in the form of a masked killer dubbed “The Boy from Below.”
Obsessed with cinema, this masked psycho begins meticulously recreating his own twisted, hyper-violent versions of classic slasher scenarios. He’s hunting Quinn and her inner circle. As the bodies stack up, Quinn has to weaponize her encyclopedic knowledge of horror tropes. She must outthink a relentless predator and survive until tomorrow’s shift.
A Slasher Born from Video Store Nostalgia
For filmmaker Tory Jones, directing the icons he grew up watching was a total dream scenario.
“The Boy from Below is inspired by and pays homage to the mid-90s and the era of the video store that I grew up enamored with. I consumed so many of the genre classics and especially slasher films… This is in many ways a love letter to those movies.” — Director Tory Jones
Epic Pictures CEO Patrick Ewald had this to say: “A killer with real iconography, a filmmaker who understands the genre from the inside out… We’re dropping this one in August to ride straight into Halloween season.”
Certified Festival Pedigree
While the film hits digital platforms next month, it has already been tearing up the specialized horror circuit. It walked away from Scarefest Weekend with trophies for Best Feature Film and Best Kill Scene. Then, it is scored at the Days of the Dead, Crimson Screen, and New Jersey Horror Con film festivals.
Check out the glorious, neon-soaked trailer below. Get ready to rent or own The Boy From Below on August 11 on VOD and Digital.
