From Brighton to Budapest for ‘Sparrow Street’

Little did Brighton filmmakers Billy Jack and Justin Cole know in 2021 that their COVID-era nightmare film “Sparrow Street” would find an audience in Budapest.

“To have a truly original film come along for first-timers is pretty amazing,” said Sparrow Street Films Director and Executive Producer Billy Jack.

Brighton-based Sparrow Street Films‘ first feature “Sparrow Street” has now won awards on three continents, a showing at a film festival and is moving towards distribution deals.

The small-budget independent horror film told the tale of a typical suburban neighborhood plunged into a nightmare as an invisible, monstrous force picks off the neighbors one by one.

“The terror outside the house is no match to the terror that forms inside the house where survival, isolation, and hunger all play tricks of the mind on a man, an expectant wife, and their unborn child,” Jack said.

The film ask the big question and the great reveal, he said; What happened on Sparrow Street and what is eating the neighbors?

Crews filmed ‘Sparrow Street’ in Brighton over ten days in June 2021 during the COVID pandemic. Justin Cole is Sparrow Street Films executive producer, a writer and an actor in the film.

“It took place in summer and winter, and we had to wait until November to pick up more shoots. We also did some pickup shoots in January 2022 involving a snow day in one of our shoots,” Cole said.

 “We wanted to make sure it was a perfect snowstorm to get the shots we wanted, with snow on the ground. The weather worked for us that day,” Cole said. “It was one of the coldest days on record. I won’t forget that day as an actor in the film. My costume was not weather-appropriate.”

Cole said tracking the weather and planning was a long process, filming 11 days in June, spreading about ten months of the shooting schedule.

“We wrapped the film in the heart of the pandemic in 2022. With the snow days, a few months after that, we started the post-production. We wanted to maintain the momentum,” Cole said. “It was our first film working together as a company. It was Billy Jack’s first film as a director. We learned so much from this first film.”

Before post-production on Sparrow Street had wrapped, Jack and Cole had started pre-production for their second feature, called “What We Don’t See.”

“We were back up and running, and we were filming once again one year later, in June of 2023, in Denver, this time at Billy’s house,” Cole said.

Jack said “What We Don’t See” comes in the wake of a domestic assault charge against a man and his ensuing self-isolation. He’s bothered by an otherworldly force, however, trying to creep into his mind and into his house.

Names and Easter Eggs

Filming in “What We Don’t See” is continuing, but the next step for distribution of “Sparrow Street” was in the screen testing phase, gathering audience feedback and making some subtle changes.

One not-so-subtle change was the film’s name. The production was originally titled “Locust Rising,” but was given a working title of “Green Grass” during the test screenings.

“With the unanimous feedback, they did not like the name ‘Green Grass’,” Cole said. “Someone floated the idea of using the name Sparrow Street, the name of our company, as a better way to tell the story, so we changed it,” Cole said.

As fans of the horror genre, Jack and Cole said they hid many Easter Eggs and in-jokes in their film. Some of those didn’t land on the first viewing, Jack said, but they fared better on subsequent viewings.

“They could bring a friend along to enjoy that journey with them,” Jack said. “So, it’s fun. Now, people are going back to seeing it again, with a different mindset, trying to piece together this puzzle and figure out what this meta-cognitive piece that Justin was talking about.”

Cole said it’s an environmental horror film, and they feel they are testing the boundaries of horror and genre in their attempt to create a fun experience for the audience as they try to figure out what is eating the neighbors.

“How is everything unified and tied together behind this? What do you want to see, environmental or natural, as a piece?” Cole said. “But it’s not natural horror; it’s something entirely different, something new, original, innovative, and has not been told before, it is outside-the-box thinking.”

Feedback showed that almost 80% of the audience enjoyed the film.

“It was pretty impressive for the first film, not bad for the micro-budget,” Jack said.

 Jack said after the test screening, they went back into the editing room, took the notes from the test screen, and made some more tweaks based on the audience feedback. 

“All the great feedback was good to get a perspective because you get so focused and set in your ways to expand to let others tell you what they’re seeing versus what you were focused on at the time,” Jack said.

Going international

Jack said once they had wrapped up, they hosted two private screenings at north Denver’s Bug Theater for their friends, family and colleagues to showcase what they had done. Afterward, they had a Q&A session with a panel. The next step was getting the word out.

“We submitted our film to different festivals and won awards in three continents. It’s doing well internationally, which I always thought the film had that type of feel to it,” Jack said.

“Sparrow Street” has won the Hollywood Indie Film Award for best Indie. It was also a semi-finalist at the Art Giraffe Film Festival in Nice, France; the best feature film at the Tuesday of Horror in Unna, Germany; and the best feature film at the Horror Underground Film and Screenplay Festival, Montreal, Quebec.

The film also won an exceptional merit award and a best actress award at the Nature without Borders International Festival in Lewes, Delaware and picked up six awards at the Depth of Field International Festival in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware.

The film was shown at the Budapest Movie Award Festival in Hungary, and the Kosice International Film Festival, in Kosice, Slovakia.

“There is a lot of saturation here in the States, so we wanted to play the international card, not that we are missing out on what’s going on the stateside, but it speaks for itself starting to develop our grassroots here locally.”

Cole said that a low-budget film, unique and different, will get its legs with a grassroots effort.

“We are seeking a distribution deal and a sales agent. So, we are currently dipping our toes into the market and, hopefully, before too long, within weeks, if not months. We will have our distribution deal and want to get a grassroots effort built,” Cole said.

Jack said,” We are starting the social media presence on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube.