Hellbilly Hollow

THE SCARES AREN’T FAKE ANYMORE

The cameras are running.

The attraction is closed.

And somebody inside isn’t pretending.

In Kevin Wayne’s Hellbilly Hollow, a team of paranormal YouTubers travels into the Alabama backwoods to investigate a haunted attraction on the night before Halloween.

They expect ghosts.

They expect staged scares.

They expect content.

What they find instead are Tickles and Bull. 

Tickles is a disfigured, childlike clown.

Bull is his caretaker brother.

Together, they turn the attraction into something considerably worse than a haunted-house experience.

One by one, the investigators and local thrill-seekers become part of the show. 

The setting isn’t a soundstage built to resemble a Halloween attraction.

It is the real thing.

Hellbilly Hollow was filmed at the actual Hellbilly Hollow haunted attraction in Vincent, Alabama, where its barns, hayride routes and scare zones were incorporated into the production. Release materials specifically identify attractions and practical set pieces including Wack-a-Troll, High Striker, Acid Darts and a Car Dunk sequence. 

That real location is the reason the movie exists at all.

Wayne has explained that the idea took shape while he was directing a commercial at the attraction. Standing inside the property, he began imagining a sinister figure hunting people through the backwoods setting.

That image eventually became the movie. 

The approach was deliberate.

Wayne said he wanted to make a Southern horror story that felt sinister, atmospheric and character-driven rather than relying only on gore and jump scares. 

That regional identity matters.

A haunted attraction already depends on the audience agreeing to enter a controlled nightmare.

You buy a ticket.

You walk into darkness.

Somebody jumps out.

You scream.

Then everybody resets for the next group.

Hellbilly Hollow removes the reset.

The people inside aren't employees waiting for the next cue.

And the people being hunted can't simply walk out through the emergency exit.

Kevin Wayne doesn't only direct the film.

He also plays Tickles, the clown at the center of the killings. 

Kurt Deimer plays Bull, Tickles' brother and caretaker. The principal cast also includes Danny Vinson, Sandra Ellis Lafferty, Megan Alexandrea Weaver, Hallie Shepherd, Trey Miller and Keller Fornes. 

The screenplay was written by Bernadette Chapman, with Kurt Deimer and Todd Slater producing. 

And the movie leans heavily into practical horror-show texture.

The production used the real attraction's physical environments and incorporated working carnival-style pieces into its kills and set pieces. That gives Hellbilly Hollow something a digitally constructed location couldn't replicate quite as easily:

A place already designed to frighten people.

The movie simply changes the rules.

There’s also a heavy-metal element built into the production.

The original score was composed by Roy Mayorga of Ministry, while Deimer contributed original songs. Cinematographer David Brower shot the film. 

Long before the 2026 theatrical rollout, Hellbilly Hollow had already appeared on the genre-festival circuit. The New York City Horror Film Festival screened an 83-minute version and described it as a supernatural horror film centered on Bull protecting his younger brother Tickles from the outside world—and the outside world needing protection from Tickles. 

For the finished theatrical release, Atlas Distribution is opening the film in select U.S. theaters on September 25, 2026. 

So as of September 12, this one is firmly COMING SOON.

And unlike plenty of haunted-attraction movies, the geography here is real.

The hayride exists.

The barn exists.

The woods exist.

The scares were built for paying customers.

All Wayne had to do was imagine what would happen if one of the people hiding in the dark stopped following the rules.

The attraction is fake.

The killers aren’t.