Unwelcome is a 2014 short film written and directed by Nathan Erdel, the guy who’s writing the script for Headless (based on the movie-within-a-movie in Found, which just got a DVD release date). The basic premise is this: “A young couple move into a new home, only to realize that they are not alone.”

Things start happening in the house that each character assumes the other is responsible for, and ultimately create tension in the couple’s relationship. At first, you might suspect that it’s going to be some kind of generic haunted house or Paranormal Activity-like story (don’t worry, it’s not presented as found footage), but as it progresses, it shoots down that notion entirely in a genuinely and refreshingly creepy way.

It’s a very small indie production, but the actors hold their own, making for a believable ordinary couple still trying to figure out if they really belong together.

Oh, and did I mention it has Victor Miller in it? Yes, the man who wrote the original Friday the 13th. He appears as Uncle Ghastly, a cheesy local TV horror host in the style of all those documented in American Scary.

Unwelcome also serves as a nice introduction (for me at least) to Chicago horror punk band The Necroholics, who provided a song called Unwelcome specifically for the project.

Erdel tells me he’s currently trying to get Unwelcome into some festivals.

His wife Kara Erdel produced the film, and is a producer on Headless as well (she also makes a brief on-screen appearance in Unwelcome). She tells me about how they scored the legendary Victor Miller for the film:

That was a really lucky coincidence. I’m a member of the steering committee for the Diabolique International Film Festival (formerly the Dark Carnival Film Festival). Last year – our last year as Dark Carnival – we showed a gorgeous 35mm print of the original Friday, and we had Victor in to do a Q&A, which Nathan moderated. In talking to Victor, Nate mentioned that he had a screenplay (Unwelcome), and Victor graciously offered to read it. The next day, we put him on a plane back to California, and that night, Nate had an email in his inbox from Victor, saying that he had really loved the script and that he would love to play Uncle Ghastly, which was a small but featured role. All of his work on Unwelcome was done through the magic of green screen, which was awesome, although it would have been cool to have him on set. Victor will be judging our screenplay competition this year at Diabolique, and we’re super stoked to have him back – he’s just a really cool cat.

I can attest to that. I met him briefly at a horror convention a couple of years ago. Really friendly guy.

Kara also recalled the help they got from the Forbidden Films crew – the folks behind Headless and Found – in making Unwelcome.

Leya Taylor [Found DP] was actually our Director of Photography, Shane Beasley [Headless killer] and Arthur Cullipher [Headless director] did our makeups – in fact, the bulk of that short was shot in Shane’s house. He basically re-modeled his apartment for us and let us tromp in and out of there for eight weeks – that dude is true blue. I would pretty much do anything those guys asked me to do – and it’s really cool to be a part of Bloomington’s little filmmaking community. We’re sort of a skeleton crew – which is really a pretty fitting descriptor, when you think about it – but we’re starting to make things happen! It’s really exciting.

There’s no question that Headless will be much darker than Unwelcome (Nathan recently talked about August Underground: Mordum in a video posted to the Headless Facebook page if that’s any indication – not to mention the footage that already exists). But Unwelcome is a nice introduction to the creative mind that’s been tapped to flesh out an entire story from the small sample that’s already in existence.