She Watched 12 Seasons of Vanderpump Rules to Prepare for a Horror Movie | Dark Hollow is in select theaters and on demand September 4.
This show is about what the edit does to real people. So this week I stepped outside reality TV to talk to someone who builds the same thing from the opposite end.
Daniel Byers grew up in West Virginia coal country, watching companies buy his neighbors out one family at a time — because whoever sold first got a decent price and everyone who held out got nothing. He wrote, directed, and produced Dark Hollow out of that history: a folk horror creature feature about a young mother who goes looking for her husband in a coal mine and lets something out. Shot in a real mine. Practical effects. An original cryptid called the Coal Man.
His star June Schreiner plays KC Scarbro — and she came to the role as a devoted reality TV fan who studied Vanderpump Rules like a text.
We got into how you build dread when you already know the ending versus when you don't, why the best moment in his film is one nobody scripted, and what June carried onto that set that changed her performance in ways she can still see on screen.
WHERE TO FIND DARK HOLLOW
darkhollowmovie.com · Instagram @darkhollowfilm · TikTok @dark.hollow.film
In select theaters and on demand September 4, 2026. LA opening night at the Lumiere in Beverly Hills with a Q&A.
WHERE TO FIND ME
thegoodeditunfiltered.com · YouTube and Instagram @TGE_TheGoodEditUnfiltered
[chapters]
#DarkHollow #FolkHorror #IndieFilm #R
","author_name":"Elle Schwartz Bravo Love Island & MAFS Recap Expert"}