The Okanagan is typically known for Hallmark holiday movies, but a few local writers wrote a horror movie and its shooting in Kelowna and Silver Lake near Peachland.

Andrew Buckley and George Michail wrote the horror comedy Knight Terror and it’s starring Katherine Isabelle from Hannibal, Daniel Doheny from Alex Strangelove, Colin Mocherie from Whose Line Is It Anyway?.

Buckley and Michail wrote a comic book together, and the process convinced Buckley to return to the film industry after an extended hiatus.

“He had this wonderful idea for this particular script and asked if I’d be interested in co-writing it with him. It was such a good idea and we jammed really well together,” Buckley told iNFOnews.ca.

He said the Okanagan is a good place to shoot for independent filmmakers.

“We have such a wonderful diverse set of landscapes from South Okanagan to North Okanagan that creative projects like this can have legs if you put the time and effort in,” Buckley said.

Horror is increasingly working it’s way into the mainstream and audiences are growing a bigger appetite for the genre with critical and box office successes like Sinners, Weapons, Nosferatu and others, he said, adding there’s more opportunity for independent movies to put their own spin on horror.

“We kind of get to have our own little twist on the whole horror genre and we do have a lot of ’80s slasher kind of elements built into this script. So it’s some fun nostalgia. It’s some good funny jokes. Our makeup and special-effects department are amazing,” Buckley said.

Actors from bigger productions were drawn to the film because it’s something a bit different, he said.

“It’s a horror comedy. So I mean there’s this funny stuff in it. There’s a lot of very dramatic deaths and kills in it, but the characters all have a lot of heart when we wrote it. We really wanted people to care about when these characters did die or celebrate when these characters die because they’re deplorable,” he said.

Knight Terror has also given locals, both on screen and behind the scenes, a chance to work alongside more internationally recognizable faces.

The movie is on a tight budget of $200,000 which came from Michail’s production company, tax credits and some other private investments. Buckley said whether it will have a theatrical release, streaming release or physical release is still up in the air since the production is barely a week into shooting.

Movies shot in B.C. get a basic tax credit of 35 per cent and an additional 12.5 per cent for productions outside of the Vancouver area.

Kate Kroll and Alex Soldatov are producing the film. Cinematographer Nate Bower is lensing the project, with Nathan Peacock on sound, Eric Phillips coordinating effects and Lanny Brown bringing practical makeup effects to the screen.