Creative Scotland Crowdmatch provided £760 of match funding
The Bothy: A Psychological Horror Feature Film
Ayr, South Ayrshire, United Kingdom
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Aim
Help us bring The Bothy to life: A psychological horror film set in the Scottish Highlands, exploring our modern obsession with true crime.
This project is match funded by Creative Scotland meaning all contributions up to £250 per individual will be doubled.
The film combines two of the biggest genres right now: Horror & True Crime.
A woman obsessed with true crime finds herself in the victim’s shoes when a romantic weekend with her boyfriend slowly twists into a disturbing game of control and survival.
The Bothy explores our cultural obsession with true crime through a psychological, survival horror lens.
The film asks viewers to reflect on their own role in treating violence as entertainment, making them feel what it is to be a victim themselves. It exposes how easily we turn victims into sellable stories, forgetting their humanity in the process.
True crime isn’t just popular. It’s an obsession.
In the last five years, weekly true crime podcast listeners have nearly tripled, soaring from 6.7 million to 19 million. In 2024, 15 of the 20 most-watched documentaries worldwide were true crime. Globally, the genre dominates.
But the lines are blurring. We don’t just watch and listen to these stories. We binge them. We dissect them. We even dress up as real serial killers for Halloween. We turn real life horror into entertainment.
This is where The Bothy enters. It blends the mass appeal of true crime with the proven profitability of contained psychological horror. Two genres that consistently outperform their budget, whilst also being a film made for audiences to enjoy and get immersed into. By using familiar tropes - the relatable protagonist, the red herring, the “too good to be true” boyfriend - it will feel familiar but terrifying.
It’s not just a timely story. It’s the right story, told at the right time, with the potential to capture a worldwide market.
The film will also be made in Scotland, using local crew and talent wherever possible. As an independent production, we want to work with the filmmaking community around our location rather than bringing an entire crew in from elsewhere. It also allows us to make the most of the landscape which is important to the story.
We want to make bold, genre-led stories that connect with audiences. Films that give people something to talk about, something to question and, most importantly, something they genuinely want to watch.
We believe The Bothy can do that and, with your support, you can help us make the film to the standard we believe the story deserves. Every contribution, no matter the size, helps move The Bothy one step closer to the screen: from the cast and crew to the location, production design, sound and everything that goes into creating a contained micro-budget feature.
But your support means more than helping us reach a production budget.
Something we’ve seen proven recently is that audiences will get behind original stories, and that independent filmmakers can build a community around a film before it is even made. That’s something we want to bring into The Bothy right from the beginning.
If you back us, you can be there from day one, following the journey from development, through production and into the festival and distribution stage. We want to be as transparent and honest as possible, sharing how a small crew and a low-budget feature film can find and connect with audiences all around the world.
The horror in The Bothy is less about monsters and more about the terrifying realisation that the person you love isn’t who you thought they were.
It is rooted in human fear of misplaced trust, isolation, using psychological tension and survival as its driving force.
The Bothy offers genre fans the suspense, dread, and emotional payoff they crave, while delivering a socially resonant story that lingers with you.
Garry Lawrence - Writer
As a long-time consumer of true crime entertainment myself, I’m as guilty as anybody of viewing the victims of horrific crimes as characters in a story rather than real people suffering through terrible tragedies. In the pursuit of entertainment, we sometimes forget that violent crime has a lasting impact not just on the victims, but on their families and loved ones as well.
I wrote The Bothy as a way to explore my own feelings on the genre, after I started questioning what our collective obsession with dark stories really says about our modern culture. The Bothy is not trying to preach to audiences about how they should view and feel about their true crime favourites, but instead seeks to take audiences on a relentless thrill ride that subverts expectations.
My hope is that while The Bothy delivers the suspense and twists that horror fans crave, it also gently nudges us to shift our focus away from the myth of the killer, and back to the humanity of the victims.
Jordan Rivers - Director
Jordan is an emerging horror filmmaker whose work blends psychological tension with impactful storytelling. A New Zealand–born director, he has worked alongside leading Kiwi creatives including Jemaine Clement, Jonathan King, Taika Waititi, and Peter Jackson, bringing a high level of craft and discipline to his projects.
The Bothy marks his feature debut, building on a body of short films and the interactive series Shadow Peak, which he directs across both seasons.
Jordan and Sarah (producer) have an established and successful working relationship through Shadow Peak, giving them a clear creative alignment and proven production chemistry. Together, they bring a secure, efficient, and focused approach to delivering The Bothy.
Sarah Dawes - Producer
Sarah is a UK-based producer and founder of Trail 3 Films, where she is building a slate of commercially focused horror projects that spark conversation.
Her work includes Shadow Peak, the interactive horror webseries, which the second season released in August 2026 and Text Me When You’re Home, which won the IMDb Script to Screen Award.
She was recently part of the Creative Enterprise: Foundations Programme which supports ambitious early-stage screen businesses and ScreenSkills: First Time Feature Producer Lab.
The Bothy is being produced through Trail 3 Films, a new UK-based independent production company founded by Sarah Dawes.
Trail 3 Films is being built as a long-term production company, with The Bothy as the first feature on its slate. Alongside the feature, they have an active slate of projects and are building a sustainable, repeatable framework for their films.
The company is Bristol-based, but has built an international network of collaborators, with The Bothy bringing together talent from the UK and New Zealand and working closely with local writers and crews - in this case, Scotland.
With the aim of making films that 'Aren't just watched, but talked about', The Bothy is the perfect first feature.
The Bothy has a total production budget of £90,000.
We’re setting our crowdfunding target at £20,000. We think this is a realistic and achievable target for our campaign, while still making a meaningful contribution towards getting the film into production.
Crowdfunding is one part of our wider financing plan. The rest of the production budget will come through UK Film Tax Relief and Private Investment, which we’ll be actively pursuing alongside the crowdfunding campaign.
If we’re lucky enough to go beyond our £20k target, even better! The campaign isn't about raising the full £90k, it's also about showing there is genuine support for the film and building an audience around The Bothy right from the beginning. For us, that’s incredibly valuable.
The people who back this campaign won’t just be helping us fund the film. They’ll be the first people to get behind The Bothy and follow it from development, through production and into festivals and distribution.
We want to build that audience from the start so this campaign is the first step.
Follow along from the beginning as we share how we got to this point, the crowdfund campaign and going into production:
Instagram: @thebothy.film
TikTok: @the.bothy.film
Funding method
All or nothing – this project will only receive pledges if it reaches its target of £20,000 by 4th December 2026 at 8:00pm