DevilCraft

After her mother is executed for witchcraft, Mercy, a grief-stricken young woman makes a forbidden pact with the Devil to save her mother's soul, knowing the pact could cost her her own.

She is led into a cursed forest alongside three other desperate souls: Peter, a starving farmer; Gilbert, a cunning businessman; and Ann, a woman determined to claim freedom at any cost.

The covenant is simple. For thirteen days, they must survive without any food. Only one of them will receive what they seek.

As isolation takes hold, faith unravels, guilt festers, and paranoia ignites. What begins as a pact for salvation twists into a harrowing battle of morality, jealousy, and survival.

Devilcraft is a haunting tale of exploration of faith, morality, and human nature asking…

A message from Dylan Lozano, Writer & Director

I’m Dylan Lozano, and HOLY $*%& do I have something to tell!

I grew up watching horror films from the 70s, 80s, and 90s such as Jaws, Alien, and A Nightmare on Elm Street. Even though they were made long before I was born, they were simply better. These were films that did not just scare you for two hours. They stayed with you.

I have been dreaming of making an indie horror film since I was 13 years old. Ever since then, I have been writing and rewriting scripts, recording videos with my phone and whatever cameras I could get my hands on. I have made short film after short film, experimenting with latex, fake blood, and practical effects, and binge watching the behind the scenes of the movies that inspired me.

But somewhere along the way, something happened to horror.

Many modern horror films still have their moments, and every once in a while one reminds me why I fell in love with the genre in the first place. But it’s becoming harder and harder to find a contemporary film that captures the feeling those classics from the 70s, 80s, and 90s gave us.

If you’ve ever sat in a movie theater wishing you were watching one of those timeless classics instead…

If you remember the magic of the drive-in theater as a kid…

If you miss practical effects, the texture of REAL 35mm film, and stories that take their time to build characters rather than rush toward predictable formulas, then this film is for you.

This movie is meant to remind you of a time when storytelling came first before franchise formulas and box office calculations.

A time when films like Rosemary's Baby, The Exorcist, Jaws, Alien, The Thing and The Shining weren't just entertainment…

They were experiences.

And that’s the kind of horror film I want to make.

DEVILCRAFT is built around a question I kept returning to: what does a person become when every social structure… faith, community, family,… collapses at once? What's left? The Salem Witch Trials are the most documented case of that kind of collective collapse in American history. I wanted to put four people at the center of it and watch what happened.

I believe horror, unlike any other genre, truly allows us to explore the human condition at its core. After all, it is only when life is at stake that our rawest selves and our deepest moral choices come to light.

The film will be shot on real 35mm analog film. Every effect will be achieved practically, on set. The costumes are being built from primary historical sources.

This story has been in development for years. It carries everything I have learned about grief, faith, guilt, and the choices we make when we think no one is watching.

I am asking you to be a part of it and help me make it:

— Dylan Lozano

Shot on 35mm Analog Film

DEVILCRAFT will be photographed on real 35mm celluloid, the same format used in the films that defined classical horror cinema. The grain, the warmth, the physical imperfection of analog creates an immersion that digital cannot replicate. It also creates a permanence: this film will exist on a physical medium. That matters to the story we are telling.

Our cinematographer, Giray Izcan is a Los Angeles-based cinematographer and Steadicam operator with over 15 years of industry experience across narrative film, commercials, and music videos. His extensive hands-on work with 16mm and 35mm film stock makes him uniquely suited to DEVILCRAFT's visual language. He is not approximating the analog aesthetic, he has been working in it throughout his career.

Every effect in DEVILCRAFT will be achieved practically and in-camera.

Don’t get me wrong. We don't think CGI is inherently bad. It’s an art form in its own right, but we believe the horror genre, by its very nature, should remain the most attached to practical effects. Creature effects and corpses always look superior when done practically.

Think of The Thing (1982) compared to its 2011 remake. Rob Bottin’s in-camera practical creatures are far more believable than their digital counterparts. The same can be said when comparing A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) to A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010), or Alien (1979) to Alien: Covenant (2017).

In Devilcraft, the characters’ dark introspections are explored visually through dream and hallucination sequences, in a style similar to A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), It (2017), Black Swan (2010), and Perfect Blue (1997). A perfect opportunity to showcase those 80s practical effects we love!

The Salem Witch Trials of 1692–1693 are among the most extensively documented events in early American history. DEVILCRAFT takes that record seriously. Period-accurate costuming, language, social hierarchy, and religious practice are built from primary sources, not approximated from other films. No polyester! No iPhone faces!

I've made every effort to capture the speech of the era as faithfully as possible, drawing on court records, real life excerpts, and examination transcripts to shape the dialogue.

Costume Designer Mason Stanley is designing each character's wardrobe not just for period accuracy but as a semiotic system, every garment communicating the character's faith, their fracture, and their psychological state as the thirteen days progress.

Mason's work spans the Santa Fe Opera, Williamstown Theatre Festival, the Little Theatre of the Rockies, and Universal Studios Hollywood Horror Nights. He approaches historical costume not as recreation but as character psychology, each garment designed to communicate who a person is and what they are becoming.

DEVILCRAFT

A Faustian horror film. Shot on 35mm analog.

DEVILCRAFT

A Faustian horror film. Shot on 35mm analog.

STORY

WHY THIS FILM EXISTS

What happened to CLASSIC horror movies?

Here's DEVILCRAFT!

WHAT MAKES DEVILCRAFT DIFFERENT

100% Practical Effects

Historically Grounded

A Chamber Piece — Built to Be Made