Special Report: Hellbilly Hollow (2026)

After getting killed off in John Carpenter's 2018 Halloween and walking that film's red carpet, musician-actor Kurt Deimer called his friend Kevin Wayne with a pitch: let's start our own horror franchise, the way Halloween launched Michael Myers. Wayne had already heard about a haunted attraction in Vincent, Alabama — Hellbilly Hollow — and the two built their new killers, hulking Bull (Deimer) and childlike, disfigured Tickles (Wayne, who also directs), around the real attraction's actual layout, shooting the whole film on-site and living in campers on the property.

Wayne and Deimer tell Mike White about the three-week shoot, the freedom Wayne gave his co-star to improvise Bull's "deep inner soul of craziness," the pandemic slowdown that gave Deimer time to finish producing the original songs (mixed with mentor Chris Lord-Alge) that score the carnage, and the slate of horror-franchise sequels and other genre roles already lined up behind Hellbilly Hollow, including a new killer for producer Andy Gould (House of 1000 Corpses, The Devil's Rejects).