A found-footage horror filmed near Brecon is gearing up for a Halloween release, but it's looking for a kickstart to raise the final funds.

Dagr, filmed in a mansion in Abercynrig, about 10 minutes south of the centre of Brecon, follows two YouTubers, who film themselves pulling off heists on the rich and donating the profit. For this heist, they pose as caterers on a commercial shoot in a big house in the middle of nowhere. When they arrive they find the creepy house empty apart from a load of film equipment, including an iPad with all the footage from the advert. They soon see that all did not go well with the shoot and that they are now entangled in a horrific story of their own, until the two worlds collide, along with a vengeful 18th-century druid.

The film is produced by Fizz and Ginger Films, owned by Matthew Butler-Hart and his wife, Tori Butler Hart. Both of them have a background in filmmaking and acting, both training on a BA Acting Course, and both staying active as actors. Their combined acting experience, matched with writing, producing, and directing, has led them to make independent films with high-profile names, such as Sir Ian McKellen.

"I started making short films again, now with Tori, and then a small budget feature, and a slightly bigger one and carried on doing that," Matthew said. "We've now made five feature films of our own, and co-produced for other filmmakers too. We've become known for being able to do a lot with a little, so much so that we were asked to write a book about how we do it, which was fun."

The mythology of the Welsh hills helped inspire the film, from both the story to the filming location. "We live about 2 hours from Brecon and Tori found an old house that had been built in the 1600s and had its own strange stories attached to it if the local farmers are to be believed," Matthew says.

"I remembered that I'd read that during the Druidic revival of the 1700s, which became much more male-led, a man in Wales wrote a book and claimed that it was written by the ancient druids, thousands of years ago, and tried to attract followers and gain power. So we just cranked that story up a hundredfold - which meant we knew it had to be in Wales, and that it had to look remote, but also not actually far from amenities. We like to work backwards when we're writing. We find an interesting location and let that inform what we're going to do with the script."

In 2009, Sir Ian McKellen starred in the company's first short film. Fast-forward to 2023, and Sir Ian is still involved, becoming an executive producer on the found-footage horror. Dagr has also attracted established names, from Ellie Duckles, who starred in The A-List on Netflix, to Matt Barber, from Downton Abbey.

"They say getting the casting right is half the battle in making a good film, and that was certainly true with Dagr. As it was found footage and they had to film it themselves, we let them be pretty liberal with the script and improvise a lot, so that they really owned the characters. So we had to find actors who were not just very comfortable with that approach, but who we could trust with filming at the same time," Matthew said. "Tori had made a film in Belgium with Ellie Duckles and Riz Moritz - they'd become close friends since they filmed and we gambled that that friendship would translate to the screen and were not disappointed! We asked them to send in footage that was roughly what we needed, them improvising comedy, and then the reactions we'd need for the scary parts, and they just seemed to fit perfectly.

"Matt Barber is married to one of Tori's oldest friends, and we'd been trying to find something for us all to work on together for a while. He's playing an actor in the film, and he used his experience of being on those huge sets to create what we all think of as a bit of a tricky actor! Lots of fun to play with, and with the gravitas to pull out some of the bigger stuff when things start to kick off in the film."

Tori is by far the one who is closely associated with Dagr, having sourced the location, but also put it together from the beginning. "Tori has obviously been in a lot of films, but she also wrote and produced Dagr, so that was an easy bit of casting. But not an easy job as she also had to do a lot of the filming, whilst also doing a lot of the heavy lifting acting-wise. But I've worked with her a lot now and know how far I can push her, and to be honest expect a lot! But she always delivers."

As for the area of Brecon, Matthew hopes they can find more opportunities to film in Wales. "A lot gets filmed in Wales, but I do hope there are more properly indie films being made there soon. I've always loved Wales and spent a lot of time there as I was born in Shropshire, and would film there again at the drop of a hat. I think it lends itself really well to fantastical sorts of films, partly because I don't think it ever lost its deeper roots back to its stories of magic, heroes, monsters, dragons and of course Druids (who kept the stories alive). That might sound silly, but I think it's so important to keep these stories going as they were such a massive part of a country's culture for thousands of years. It's also just beautiful to film in. Where we were filming was just a joy - you could point a camera anywhere and it would look great."

He hopes Wales can be a hub for talented and ground-breaking filmmaking. "We need more risky stories, more genre, more horror, more clever sci-fi, not just the dramas that, although important, are, to be honest, quite a safe bet in the eyes of the establishment. We need distributors to be willing to take risks and encourage, and importantly support, filmmakers who think outside the box. There are lots of filmmakers out there with great ideas, and Wales should be the place where filmmakers can explore storytelling, make mistakes, try again, and create special stories that last the ages - just like their druid ancestors did."

The film is hoping for a Halloween release, but they need funds raised via Kickstarter to help with the editing process. "We're hoping for a Halloween release, but not having these finishing funds from Kickstarter will slow things down, sadly. We know we have a lot of distributor interest, but even if they said yes in September, there's an enormous amount of very boring paperwork that needs to be done to enable it to be released. As we decided to do this ourselves and not involve distributors at this stage, we're looking to raise the final £3.9k through a Kickstarter campaign. This is also a way of getting a load of like-minded people involved in the film, which I think is particularly right for this sort of film, where the footage has been 'found' and therefore in the public's hands. Ian McKellen has come on board as an exec producer, so it's a chance for people to donate, see the film before everyone else, and have their name in the credits along with Sir Ian."

The Kickstarter can be found at: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/fizzandgingerfilms/dagr-found-footage-folk-horror?ref=project_email. Matthew hopes that even if people can't donate, just sharing the link with other horror fans helps.