Slasher for $800 became a free sensation on Youtube: what is known about Milk & Serial

Where do you expect to see a good new movie? At a film festival, if you are a true movie maniac, or in a movie theater or on streaming, if you are an enthusiastic movie fan. And in any case, you're willing to shell out money to reward the team for their work.

It's all the more surprising that one of the most exciting genre premieres of the year was published on YouTube for free. Variety writes about the Milk & Serial slasher directed by Curry Barker. The most amazing thing about this film is that it cost the author a sensational $800 to create.

Barker worked on the project with his partner Cooper Tomlison, who produced the film. They also played the main roles in the movie. The description of the film reads as follows: "An unexpected birthday prank takes a terrifying turn when a popular social media duo are forced to face the terrifying reality of the consequences." The title of the film plays on the consonance of the English words cereal and serial.

Barker and Tomlison are known as a comedy duo who post sketches on TikTok and YouTube channels under the same name, that's a bad idea. From time to time, they also resort to other genres. This is how the 2023 short horror film The Armchair got 5.5 million views.

Having made the 62-minute slasher-horror, the director considered releasing it through a distributor but eventually posted it on YouTube on August 8. Since then, at the time of writing, it has been viewed more than 370 thousand times, leaving 19 thousand likes for the film. In addition, the film has sparked a lot of discussion on horror movie gathering points such as Reddit, YouTube, and #HorrorTok.

Barker was not only the director, lead actor, and producer of the film. He also wrote the screenplay and music for the film, co-directed it, and edited it.

According to Barker, the project was born from a few scenes he wrote for his channel. But later he realized that he could put them together into a full-fledged story, enlisted the support of his partner, and together they went to the set, which lasted four months.

Their friends helped them work on the film, playing other roles and helping out on the set on their free days. And almost everyone worked for free. The bulk of the $800 budget went to pay for one actor who was not part of Barker and Tomlison's group of friends. They also had to spend money to buy a Sony camcorder.

Regarding the decision to release the film for free on YouTube, Barker says he found a distributor who was willing to help with the project. However, they were unable to agree on a deal that would suit both parties. In particular, the author did not want viewers to pay for the opportunity to watch his work.

This form of distribution also allowed Barker to develop the film exclusively on his own terms. In particular, to work on the editing exactly as he saw fit.

Surprisingly, the project received favorable reviews from critics. And this has already inspired Barker to create his next work. He is currently working on the feature film Obsession and is looking for actors for it. James Harris, who has produced such horror hits as Fall and 47 Meters Down, is helping the director with this. He is involved through the company Tea Shop Productions.

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