As a huge film fan and horror girlie, I can't tell you how many times I've been let down by a low-budget film that promises to be the "next Blair Witch Project". Spoiler alert, they never are. I was pleasantly surprised to have thoroughly enjoyed a recent horror film produced and shot on a shoestring, right here in Wales. The Mill Killers (originally titled Scopophobia) is a 100-minute horror feature inspired by the director's experience of lockdown in Wales. Welsh Director and writer Aled Owen, told BBC Radio Wales Breakfast that his low-budget film, The Mill Killers, was a "thriller disguised as a horror," inspired by the emptiness of his hometown, Carmarthen , during lockdown. Co-producer Tom Rawding from Portsmouth also worked on the film with Aled under the banner of their local production company, Melyn Pictures Ltd. The film features a talented all-Welsh cast, including Bethany Williams-Potter from Carmarthen, Emma Stacey from Bridgend , and Ellen Jane-Thomas from Tenby, alongside Ioan Hefin, Christine Kempell, and Lisa Marged. BBC reports that The Mill Killers was shot in just 15 days across a range of locations in and around Carmarthen, Swansea , and Middlesbrough during periods in 2022 and 2023. Welsh viewers may recognise spots like the streets of Johnstown and Carmarthenshire's National Botanical Garden. For the latest TV and showbiz gossip sign up to our newsletter What's even more impressive is that the horror flick was financed primarily through crowdfunding, with even the cast and crew contributing to make the Welsh film project a reality. Everyone's faith in the homegrown movie paid off, as the film's world premiere took place earlier in the year at FrightFest in London in August 2024, to rave reviews. It's now available to watch on major streaming services like Apple TV and Amazon Prime, and is the perfect Halloween watch if you want to scare yourself silly. Amazon lists the synopsis as: "Four girls return home to a ghost town but find themselves being followed. By someone who knows what they did? Or just their guilty conscience? There's more to each girl than meets the eye." On my first viewing of The Mill Killers (which was the Welsh premiere at the Lyric Theatre in Carmarthen), I honestly expected a chill evening of fun with my husband (who is absolutely not a horror fan). A low-budget Welsh horror about a group of old schoolmates revisiting their grim-looking hometown? I thought I was in for a touch of melodrama and a few fake blood splatters. Instead, I found myself nervously eyeing my own streetlights on the way home after a superbly unsettling watch. Which is saying something, considering I’ve sat through The Silence of the Lambs and The Exorcist without so much as a nervous twitch. But The Mill Killers hits differently. Maybe it’s because it’s set in my home country of Wales, not some shadowy American basement, more like, “Oh, this could absolutely happen down the road by the old factory down by me.” Writer-director Aled Owen doesn’t reinvent horror, but he definitely toys with it as the cast races around the creepiest-looking abandoned mill you've ever seen, hunted in the dark by someone who might know what they did all those years ago. What starts off looking like a sad look at Welsh industry (with monochrome black and white scenes to boot) quickly becomes something much stranger and arguably more tragic. It’s not just about who’s lurking in the dark, but what’s festering in the past. The story follows Rhiannon (Catrin Jones) and her friends, who, as teens, did something particularly naughty, triggering a tragedy that has haunted them ever since. Now they’re back home for a reunion that spirals into an absolute nightmare with devastating consequences, friendship-ruining betrayals, and backstabbing. (Welsh girls, eh?) The film has that rare small-budget confidence, a low-key horror that obviously can’t outspend Hollywood, so it outsmarts it instead. The Welsh cast is superb, full of sharp, natural performances and a healthy dose of realism, along with a toxic dynamic that anyone who has been in a high school clique will recognise. These aren’t glossy final girls; they’re messy, flawed and occasionally utterly awful, which makes what happens to them all the more gripping. There’s a raw authenticity to the setting too; the abandoned industrial Welsh backdrops feel like they’ve seen both ghosts and redundancy notices, and it's always surreal to see locations that you recognise on the big screen. And the scares? They will make you jump and drop your popcorn. Not just the splashes of blood splattering gore (though there are a few scenes where you’ll wish you hadn’t been eating), but creeping, slow-burning dread that hums beneath the synth-heavy 80s soundtrack from talented Welsh singer-songwriter GG Fearn . It’s the sort of horror that makes your shoulders tense rather than your lungs scream (apart from the shocking jump scares that is). By the time the credits rolled, I was equal parts rattled and impressed. The Mill Killers* might not have the flashy budget and marketing plan of The Conjuring, but it’s got something much more unnerving familiarity. It’s Welsh, it’s weirdly funny, it’s heartbreakingly tragic at times, and it might just make you think twice about your next hometown reunion with friends who might just be frenemies. Watch The Mill Killers on Amazon Prime now and prepare to hide behind the sofa.
Welsh town inspired terrifying horror film that leaves viewers hiding behind the sofa
As a huge film fan and horror girlie, I can't tell you how many times I've been let down by a low-budget film that promises to be the "next Blair Witch Project". Spoiler alert, they never are. I was pleasantly surprised to have thoroughly enjoyed a recent horror film produced and shot on a shoestring, right here in Wales. The Mill Killers (originally titled Scopophobia) is a 100-minute horror feature inspired by the director's experience of lockdown in Wales. Welsh Director and writer Aled Owen, told BBC Radio Wales Breakfast that his low-budget film, The Mill Killers, was a "thriller disguised as a horror," inspired by the emptiness of his hometown, Carmarthen , during lockdown. Co-producer Tom Rawding from Portsmouth also worked on the film with Aled under the banner of their local production company, Melyn Pictures Ltd. The film features a talented all-Welsh cast, including Bethany Williams-Potter from Carmarthen, Emma Stacey from Bridgend , and Ellen Jane-Thomas from Tenby, alongside Ioan Hefin, Christine Kempell, and Lisa Marged. BBC reports that The Mill Killers was shot in just 15 days across a range of locations in and around Carmarthen, Swansea , and Middlesbrough during periods in 2022 and 2023. Welsh viewers may recognise spots like the streets of Johnstown and Carmarthenshire's National Botanical Garden. For the latest TV and showbiz gossip sign up to our newsletter What's even more impressive is that the horror flick was financed primarily through crowdfunding, with even the cast and crew contributing to make the Welsh film project a reality. Everyone's faith in the homegrown movie paid off, as the film's world premiere took place earlier in the year at FrightFest in London in August 2024, to rave reviews. It's now available to watch on major streaming services like Apple TV and Amazon Prime, and is the perfect Halloween watch if you want to scare yourself silly. Amazon lists the synopsis as: "Four girls return home to a ghost town but find themselves being followed. By someone who knows what they did? Or just their guilty conscience? There's more to each girl than meets the eye." On my first viewing of The Mill Killers (which was the Welsh premiere at the Lyric Theatre in Carmarthen), I honestly expected a chill evening of fun with my husband (who is absolutely not a horror fan). A low-budget Welsh horror about a group of old schoolmates revisiting their grim-looking hometown? I thought I was in for a touch of melodrama and a few fake blood splatters. Instead, I found myself nervously eyeing my own streetlights on the way home after a superbly unsettling watch. Which is saying something, considering I’ve sat through The Silence of the Lambs and The Exorcist without so much as a nervous twitch. But The Mill Killers hits differently. Maybe it’s because it’s set in my home country of Wales, not some shadowy American basement, more like, “Oh, this could absolutely happen down the road by the old factory down by me.” Writer-director Aled Owen doesn’t reinvent horror, but he definitely toys with it as the cast races around the creepiest-looking abandoned mill you've ever seen, hunted in the dark by someone who might know what they did all those years ago. What starts off looking like a sad look at Welsh industry (with monochrome black and white scenes to boot) quickly becomes something much stranger and arguably more tragic. It’s not just about who’s lurking in the dark, but what’s festering in the past. The story follows Rhiannon (Catrin Jones) and her friends, who, as teens, did something particularly naughty, triggering a tragedy that has haunted them ever since. Now they’re back home for a reunion that spirals into an absolute nightmare with devastating consequences, friendship-ruining betrayals, and backstabbing. (Welsh girls, eh?) The film has that rare small-budget confidence, a low-key horror that obviously can’t outspend Hollywood, so it outsmarts it instead. The Welsh cast is superb, full of sharp, natural performances and a healthy dose of realism, along with a toxic dynamic that anyone who has been in a high school clique will recognise. These aren’t glossy final girls; they’re messy, flawed and occasionally utterly awful, which makes what happens to them all the more gripping. There’s a raw authenticity to the setting too; the abandoned industrial Welsh backdrops feel like they’ve seen both ghosts and redundancy notices, and it's always surreal to see locations that you recognise on the big screen. And the scares? They will make you jump and drop your popcorn. Not just the splashes of blood splattering gore (though there are a few scenes where you’ll wish you hadn’t been eating), but creeping, slow-burning dread that hums beneath the synth-heavy 80s soundtrack from talented Welsh singer-songwriter GG Fearn . It’s the sort of horror that makes your shoulders tense rather than your lungs scream (apart from the shocking jump scares that is). By the time the credits rolled, I was equal parts rattled and impressed. The Mill Killers* might not have the flashy budget and marketing plan of The Conjuring, but it’s got something much more unnerving familiarity. It’s Welsh, it’s weirdly funny, it’s heartbreakingly tragic at times, and it might just make you think twice about your next hometown reunion with friends who might just be frenemies. Watch The Mill Killers on Amazon Prime now and prepare to hide behind the sofa.
