Kay Brandt Launches Crowdfunding Campaign for Horror Flick

LOS ANGELES—Director Kay Brandt has launched a crowdfunding campaign to produce a mainstream horror movie featuring adult stars based on her new novel Cutters coming out this summer. According to the movie’s AdultXFunding page, the (18) R-rated feature will include a mix of porn stars and mainstream actors in the ensemble cast. The synopsis reads: ”Seven gorgeous women involved in a week-long overnight clinical trial discover a terrifying secret. The dirty doctor in charge of the clinic has bodies stowed away in the basement, and some are still alive. The benign clinical trial turns into a nightmare when the doctor refuses to release the ladies at the end of their week after realizing they've learned about the nasty things that happen in the basement. Escaping the clinic becomes a race of life or death for the women with a diabolical doctor and her team of ‘cutters’ in control of their survival.” The cast is set to include adult performers: AJ Applegate, Sara Luvv, August Ames, India Summer, Kendra Lust, Amber Ivy, Cristi Ann, Leya Falcon, Dana DeArmond, Sinn Sage, Mercedes Carrera, Alison Rey, Sadie Santana, Edyn Blair, Xander Corvus, Marcus London, Ricky Johnson, Brad Knight and Brock Doom. There will be an X-rated “director's cut” made for DVD released alongside the mainstream feature film which will include the explicit version of the (18) R-rated sex scenes in the production, plus extended footage, behind-the-scenes, and other bonus features. With plans for two weeks pre-production, three weeks film production and six weeks of post-production, Brandt said pledges will be used to pay for the cast and crew, screenwriter, locations, PR, marketing, licensing, distribution, DVD authoring and replication.  While Brandt is best known for her twisted romances, she told AVN this is not her first foray into the horror genre.  “In early 2016 my first horror novella Soles was published, which was based on a strange ghost story idea I had in my head for the past decade about a family curse and a very haunted shoe store,” Brandt said. “The story started out as a screenplay that ended up in development hell, so I began the process of changing the format into a book rather than for screen. Once the manuscript was finished, I realized that it would take a much bigger budget than originally imagined to turn the book into a film due to the large amount of VFX even though it's a totally contained story. “With Cutters, I was able to tell a story that comes to life with more traditional horror gore (physical rather than computer generated), therefore the book can be made into a feature less expensively than Soles could have. My projected budget is minimum $250K but ideally I'd like to raise $500K to maximize the FX budget.” Brandt, who has produced and directed more than 40 movies since 2009 and is also a bestselling author on Amazon.com with 17 erotic novels, said she had been in discussions with Jason Maskell’s AdultXFunding (AXF) for 11 months before they were able to put the campaign forward. “Jason Maskell wanted his crowdfunding site to be as polished and bug-free as possible before all of the initial campaigns went live for funding purposes,” she continued. “As far as I know, there hasn't been a mainstream horror movie featuring a cast primarily comprised of adult stars. Cutters will be the first one if my campaign goal is achieved. One of the rewards for the highest level of contributions will be to receive the X-rated Director's cut version of the movie, which will not be available to the public until a year after the R-rated movie's release. I've always wanted to make horror movies and I think Cutters is a very cool and entertaining concept worthy of making into a mainstream feature.” Cutters (the book) will be released this summer, published via Fido, which is the non-erotic sister company of Selena Kitt's eXcessica, which published the Babysitting the Baumgartners series of books that inspired two porn features produced by Adam & Eve and directed by Brandt. The second Baumgartners feature is due out in the spring.