ASHLAND — Local sights and scenery are hitting the big screen.
A free premiere screening of “Blood & Rust” is set for Friday at 7 p.m. at The Ashland Theatre, 216 Center St.
Though it’s not rated by the Motion Picture Association, folks thinking about attending should anticipate PG-13 content.
The independent horror film — shot primarily in Ashland, with other scenes filmed nearby in Mansfield and Norwalk — releases publicly May 19 on Cranked Up TV and TVOD.
The 96-minute film was directed by Jeremy Herbert and produced by Philip R. Garrett and Andrew James Myers. Herbert also wrote the film alongside Wolf Stahl.
Below is a synopsis of the film, provided by Good Deed Entertainment/Cranked Up Films:
“Redpatch, Ohio, doesn’t get many visitors, so burned-out diner owner Lamont Guest can’t help but notice the steely-eyed stranger sneaking into his father’s funeral. His name is Belko, and he knows it wasn’t an animal that did the job — it was a vampire. The good news is Belko hunts vampires. The bad news is he can’t do it alone anymore. They’ll have to turn the undead tide together before the town runs red with more than rust.”
“It all started with a VCR and wearing out tapes of ‘Ghostbusters’ and ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark,'” Herbert said of his passion for filmmaking during an interview Wednesday with Ashland Source.
He began pursuing the passion seriously once in high school and continued to chase his dreams in college while attending Kent State University. Herbert is currently a Central Florida-based writer and filmmaker who has contributed to outlets such as SlashFilm, Bloody Disgusting and the popular YouTube channel Dead Meat.
His film credits include the vacation-horror anthology “Worst Laid Plans” (2022), which is currently streaming on Tubi, and “The Thing About Beecher’s Gate,” which was awarded a Drive-In Academy Award by American film critic and writer Joe Bob Briggs.
Herbert has also written and directed stage plays for the award-winning Bacchus Theatre Collective.
The Olmsted Falls-native has been working on “Blood & Rust” for about the past seven years. He said the film should feel “like it fell off the shelf in 1986.”
“As long as you keep making things, you keep talking to people and you keep holding the like-minded folks close, something will happen,” Herbert said.
‘Blood & Rust’ features familiar faces and places
The cast of “Blood & Rust” includes notable talents such as Mark Kelly, who recurred in the second season of AMC’s “Fear the Walking Dead” as Connor and AMC’s “Mad Men” as Dale, among other roles.
Other names folks may recognize include Ross Partridge — who has appeared in projects ranging from the first season of “Stranger Things” to “Daisy Jones & The Six” and “The Blacklist” — and Morgan McLeod — who is best known for his work in the miniseries “Evenfall” — alongside several Ohio-based supporting cast and crew members.
Several local locations were used during the filming process, including the Ashland Dairy Bar, as well as Star View Drive-In in Norwalk and underground storm tunnels in Mansfield.
“We were very lucky that Ashland was willing (to help) and stocked with everything a horror movie like this could need,” Herbert said.
Garrett, head of production and development at Good Deed Entertainment, said “Blood & Rust” is the kind of movie he has wanted to make since he was a kid.
He grew up in Springfield and wound up in Silicon Valley working for several startups. Living in California allowed Garrett to better pursue his passion for the film industry.
Garrett got his start in film at PDI/DreamWorks in VFX editorial and later, feature animation production management, according to IMDb. He joined Good Deed Entertainment in 2022.
He said one of the primary goals of “Blood & Rust” was to create something entertaining.
“It has a fun spirit about it. There’s humor mixed into it,” Garrett said. “(It’s) entertainment-forward horror that you won’t feel bad after you’ve watched it.”
The Dairy Bar, and other filming locations around Ashland, provided perfect filming opportunities for the film, he said, which was originally written for a Pennsylvanian setting.
He described the city as a studio back lot.
“Ashland looks exactly like that,” Garrett said. “You don’t have to pay to have it built because it’s right here.”
About Good Deed Entertainment/Cranked Up Films
According to the company’s website, Good Deed Entertainment is an Ohio-based independent studio dedicated to producing, financing and distributing quality entertainment for film, television, the worldwide web and tomorrow’s anticipated platforms.
Through its genre division, Cranked Up Films, GDE develops, produces and distributes high concept horror, grounded sci-fi and speculative fiction.
It is located at 141 E. Main St. in Ashland.
